|
Rudager posted:So to re-iterate, just because one group gets hosed over, that means another group you deem less worthy should also be hosed over? If anything, they're advocating for EMTs to make more than they currently do, which does not preclude the possibility of current minimum wage workers making more. Or to say it another way, we (as a society) need to have a long and hard think about how we compensate/support all workers because as it stands it's not only minimum wage workers who are unfairly paid. I don't interpret it as saying that minimum wage workers should be held down to be fair to EMTs.
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 12:06 |
|
|
Eeyo posted:If anything, they're advocating for EMTs to make more than they currently do, which does not preclude the possibility of current minimum wage workers making more. Or to say it another way, we (as a society) need to have a long and hard think about how we compensate/support all workers because as it stands it's not only minimum wage workers who are unfairly paid. I don't interpret it as saying that minimum wage workers should be held down to be fair to EMTs. The not-poor on up to the highest seats of power get off on human suffering, so they can have someone who they can feel better than. We need a base level of suffering and sadism brought on by our economy and governmental policy in order for our culture to function. Egalitarian equality is and always was a lie. The weak are meat, and the strong do eat!
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 02:55
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Basically, the business world took a long hard look at how the current worker protections came to be, and went on to spend decades of concentrated effort to destroy anyone who could fight for more. For more information see the Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction program
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 04:49
|
|
|
Rudager posted:So to re-iterate, just because one group gets hosed over, that means another group you deem less worthy should also be hosed over? How in the gently caress do you get that out of my post? Holy poo poo. Eeyo posted:If anything, they're advocating for EMTs to make more than they currently do, which does not preclude the possibility of current minimum wage workers making more. Or to say it another way, we (as a society) need to have a long and hard think about how we compensate/support all workers because as it stands it's not only minimum wage workers who are unfairly paid. I don't interpret it as saying that minimum wage workers should be held down to be fair to EMTs. See, this guy here can actually read English words and not invent ill intent in them where there is none.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 05:13
|
|
|
The Locator posted:How in the gently caress do you get that out of my post? Holy poo poo. To be fair your post he quoted did come off as "EMTs provide a more valuable service to society and therefore are more deserving of higher wages." And for that matter, I'm sure there's someone whose services could be called "more valuable to society" than an EMT, and therefore should get higher wages first, whose services are likewise less valuable than someone else's who is more deserving, etc etc and we're back to the bottom 90% fighting over 5% of the money in circulation because of whataboutism. A rising tide lifts all boats - if an increase in the minimum wage has fast food workers and EMTs making the same hourly rate then the EMT employers will have to raise the wages of the EMTs, otherwise they will end up quitting to work an easier job for the same pay and/or people will stop training to become an EMT because it pays the same as a fast food worker or cashier.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 07:34
|
|
|
signalnoise posted:Why do you think Walmart would buy the product they're not selling? If they lose 2% sales, they will buy 2% less product. You're also not accounting for the increase in value per sale with your weird idea that everything else remains the same. All the shoppers that stay shopping at Walmart will be dropping 46c more per transaction. That's a fuckload of money. Enough, say, to offset the labor cost?? Like the article said it would? So for the sake of reality, throw away your change in labor cost because it's being pushed off on the consumer. You can make the assumption that they lose 2% sales, who cares, they buy 2% less product to sell. You and I are both making a lot of assumptions but the #1 bad assumption here is that Walmart doesn't know about supply chain management. Yes, they will buy 2% less product. That's why I reduced the non-labor portion of cost of goods sold by 2% in my example. The labor portion wasn't decreased because we're explicitly assuming they're raising wages in this example. The fact that each shopper will spend 46 cents more per transaction isn't going to offset anything. The price increase MUST result in an overall decrease in revenue, because if Wal-Mart would make more total revenue by raising prices to collect 46c more per transaction on exactly the same merchandise, they would have already done it. I'm going to make the pretty reasonable assumption that Wal-Mart knows how to maximize its own profits better than anyone else does. quote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family What is your point? Yes, if the company your family personally owns makes $16 billion in profit per year, it means you're going to be pretty rich. The Waltons still own over 50% of the company. This changes nothing about my point that raising wages to the amounts specified in that article would cost them 80% of that profit.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 13:57
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Never happen. Strikes only work when the striking workers have another means of support. People living hand to mouth and without the backing of a union and collective bargaining can't afford to strike. Especially when it is unskilled work that the company can bring in scrubs for easily and just fire the strikers under Right To Work rules. Well, whatever the fast food workers did (protests and strikes) to get that legislation passed, worked. So people who think other low-paying job industries should receive similar wage increases should consider those techniques.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 17:00
|
|
|
Bloody Queef posted:I got really excited when I saw the title thinking that it would be a thread where people on minimum wage shared how they get by (or don't) and maybe an insight into the life of a minim wage worker. I'm currently pulling-down roughly minimum wage, living in a major metropolitan area. In the past, I have had far better jobs, but I chose a job with minimal time commitment and stress, because I'm recovering from a decade+ of intense addiction. My lovely job makes it easy to focus on improving myself, and the lack of disposable income makes it much harder for me do dope. I live in a house with roommates, and rent/utilities cost me $500/month. For food, I rely partly on food stamps, and I work in a restaurant where I eat many of my meals. I rarely eat out. I spend about $150/month on the methadone clinic, thanks to a government subsidy equal to about $210/month. This covers medication and counseling. The clinic is also the backbone of my social scene, since I attend about 5 group therapy sessions a week, and the relationships I'm developing there help keep me on track. For entertainment, I extensively utilize the public library system, and I read a couple books a week. I spend tons of time in places with free wifi, and I'm online a couple hours a day. I play a lot of Scrabble and Words With Friends. I like to write. I meditate daily. I utilize public transportation, and a monthly pass is less than $100. I still use nicotine, but I buy e-cigarette juice in bulk from someone who manufactures it herself. My habit costs about $10/month. I still have a little money left over to buy clothing and household supplies, and I'm in the process of restructuring my student loans, which will eat-up the remainder of my income. I dress fairly well, but I never buy anything that isn't secondhand. If I can maintain this simplified lifestyle, I'll be able to qualify for new student loans, and eventually escape poverty. My family indicates that they will help support me in that effort, but they're waiting until I first prove I can finally function as a sober person for a good stretch of time. I'm fairly comfortable with this lifestyle, and I'm grateful that being strung-out for so many years eliminated most of my desire for material possessions. I'm also happy being single and child-free. It would be nice to have a vehicle and some expensive toys...maybe take a couple trips a year, but I'm not sweating it. I think I'm able to stay positive because I view my circumstances as temporary. I can't imagine trying to live this way forever, with no hope of ever retiring or being secure in being able to absorb an injury or illness. The idea of someone having kids on my budget...christ.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 18:02
|
|
|
Now think for a second what happens if you have a house fire. Or just get evicted. Or have a major medical emergency. Is the lifestyle you'Re living sustainable if anything that isn't desperately minor goes wrong? Hell, could you survive something relatively minor, like a broken ankle that you can't work with for a couple weeks?
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 18:54
|
|
|
The_Book_Of_Harry posted:I'm currently pulling-down roughly minimum wage, living in a major metropolitan area. In the past, I have had far better jobs, but I chose a job with minimal time commitment and stress, because I'm recovering from a decade+ of intense addiction. My lovely job makes it easy to focus on improving myself, and the lack of disposable income makes it much harder for me do dope. yeah and you are one minor incident away from folding up like a tent, hth
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 19:01
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Now think for a second what happens if you have a house fire. Or just get evicted. Or have a major medical emergency. this_is_hard posted:yeah and you are one minor incident away from folding up like a tent, hth Are you reading something I'm not because I'm pretty sure his post wasn't meant to be a "Living on minimum wage is easy!" humblebrag.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
Mak0rz posted:Are you reading something I'm not because I'm pretty sure his post wasn't meant to be a "Living on minimum wage is easy!" humblebrag. The person was relaying their experience on near minimum wage and those two posters thought it was the right time and place to be a dick. Pretty sure the poster knows they're on a knife's edge.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 20:46
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Now think for a second what happens if you have a house fire. Or just get evicted. Or have a major medical emergency. this_is_hard posted:yeah and you are one minor incident away from folding up like a tent, hth The_Book_Of_Harry posted:I think I'm able to stay positive because I view my circumstances as temporary. I can't imagine trying to live this way forever, with no hope of ever retiring or being secure in being able to absorb an injury or illness. The idea of someone having kids on my budget...christ. It's like he already knows that or something!
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 21:14
|
|
|
I've been lucky in that every minimum wage job I've had as an adult was either subsidized by the GI Bill or overseas where the minimum wage is higher in relation to the median wage. That said, I grew up in a family where both parents made minimum wage at best, with my dad making far less most of the time. I'll try to answer any questions you might have about growing that way. From what I can gather most goons grew up in white middle class families so I'll list here a few of the big differences growing up in a poor rural family as far as I'm aware. 1) Education wasn't viewed all that positively by my family. My father quit school in elementary school and could neither read nor write. As far as he and most of my relatives were concerned education was secondary to knowing how to run the family farm. We had perhaps 60 cows on our farm in the 90s so many years we barely broke even. Most of the family's money came from my mother who worked in town as a secretary or clerk for a number of businesses over the years. Milking began at 4:30am and the bus came at 6:00am so I had to get up at 4am to work before going to school. It finished at 11pm at best after I got home from school so there wasn't much time for homework if I wanted to sleep. 2) I was acutely aware of how much money things cost in relation to the family's budget. I learned very early not to ask for things at the store. We didn't have color TV until 1999 and I didn't have Internet until I was in the Army in 2001. I'm pretty sure my mom got most of our clothes from dumpster-diving during my high school years. 3) The class system was obvious. I started working under the table at 13 but when I was 16 and could work legally I understood that the "easy" jobs in retail were for the children of "rich" people (people that I now know are middle class at best) while the poo poo jobs in kitchens and stocking shelves were for poor people. Applying for a job above your station was just a waste of your time. Funnily enough I worked at KFC both in the US and in France and the work in France was both easier and much higher paid. I'm really not sure how things were different for people who didn't grow up the way I did so feel free to ask questions or leave anecdotes. Soviet Commubot fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Aug 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2015 21:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 3, 2024 12:06 |
|
|
Good post, goon. By the time I was in highschool, my parents had moved to a decent neighborhood, put me and my brother in private school (if a thoroughly mid-tier one), and had surrounded the family with church friends in a similar socio-economic stratum. No one had any stories about criminal activity/jail/prison/child support/payday or title loans/repossession. Now it seems like everyone I see on a regular basis is has experience or has close proximity to a number of these. I don't even go on Facebook anymore. I can't even start to relate to the people I used to know. Especially my college friends. It's all pictures of them and their kids taking vacations in far-flung locales. Or posting from some conference. Buying something new with 4 doors. Perhaps accepting that promotion that comes with a move to another city. Sure, the folks I know now have their share of happy internet chatter and Facebook postings. There's no shortage of pics of the kids...at home. A lot of weddings. But they're not showing-out very often. The clothing is noticeably cheaper. You're not going to find a new car that was bought free and clear, I assure you. Playing amateur armchair analyst: I'm not sure if I believe that the comfortable people are really all that happier than the folks I know who are barely scraping by, though. Sure, the poorer folks have more serious anxieties than the richer folks, but I know plenty of rich folks who are constantly stressed the gently caress out. Depression seems rampant in both groups, but it seems to look more like anger when you're poor, while looking more like being listless when you're solvent. Aspirations for the younger people I know now are things like tech school, military, with some traditional university paths. This is the complete opposite distribution of my graduating class. 2 guys joined the army. My friend's brother went to auto-desil school. Literally everyone else went to university. These days, nobody cares or talks about politics, except for a couple extemists at both ends of the spectrum. Almost everyone believes in God, like they did when I was a kid, but once I left for secular, top-tier university, I rarely met a true believer. At least no one who wanted to talk about it. Even when I was strung-out, I kept my friends group to other rich-kid burnouts. Most were richer than my family, but we all came from comfort. Those of us who aren't dead or incarcerated have mostly decided to clean-up. A couple have managed to do it, but a few of us are in situations like me. It helps to keep my past to myself when I'm out in the world, which I probably why I'm so open online. I don't need the drama that always arises when someone is seen as thinking they're "too good" to be working in a lovely job or perceived to think they're "better-than" the coworkers. Even more difficult is shedding my own biases against what I'm doing with my time without becoming overwhelmingly depressed. When I stayed wasted, I didn't spend much time thinking about anything but drugs. Work was an inconvenience that I could only stand while I was somewhat high, and I rushed off immediately to get higher when I'd get off work. Plenty of my coworkers deal with their poverty this way. I'd be lying if I didn't want to utilize that crutch sometimes. One absolutely becomes aware of the necessity of having a social network when economic resources are scarce. A constant sub-economy of sharing thrives in our roommate situation. The drug network was the same way. So and so gets paid on such and such, but he spotted me yesterday...and so on. Too bad we can't extend this natural networking into a class consciousness. The_Book_Of_Harry fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Aug 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2015 17:31
|
|