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When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the US (bloomberg.com)
A feature report on Bloomberg today illustrates the lives of several Uber drivers, who find shelter in car parking at nights when it's too pricey and tiring to go home. An excerpt from the story: In Chicago, Walter Laquian Howard sleeps most nights at the "Uber Terminal." "I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments. Now that it's gotten cold, he wakes up every three hours to turn on the heater. He's rarely alone. Most nights, two to three other ride-hailing drivers sleep in cars parked next to his. It's safe, he said, and the employees let the drivers use the restroom. Howard has gotten to know the convenience store's staff -- Daddy-O and Uncle Mike -- over the past two years while driving for this global ride-hailing gargantuan, valued at $69 billion. "These guys have become my extended family," said Howard, 53. "It's my second home. We have this joke that I'm the resident. I keep asking them: 'Hey, did my mail come in yet?'"
America! Fuck yeah!
The end game is near: the 1% will have everything, and you will have the clothes on your back, if you're lucky.
Sleep at night?
Safe? If I did not put on this costume, after my Uber shift ends, and devote my nighttime hours to fighting crime, there would be no place to stop for them; no place to sleep.
Rest easy.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
"Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments."
Poor kid, our educational system and his parents clearly failed him.
Yeah it's not ubers problem he decided to make it his full-time job. If his old job paid better he should go back to it, or a similar job.
....some of us have decided to make this a full-time career.
Decided or had to?
As a former IT worker and now MR. Mom with a medical practitioner wife, I'd resort to that if I weren't a doctor's husband.
Hmm, it's almost like they encourage people to do this job full time. These people used to be called taxi drivers before marketing got hold of it.
They all seem grateful for the work and only work as much as they want. Also a taxi license plate sells for $125k in my Soviet Canadian city - Uber is a great deal for those needing a bit extra here. I would seriously consider it if I got sick of my business.
put them all out of work, taxis too & city buses, maybe even trucking industry and railroad too
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This is true.
Interesting article, it pretty much explains why regular taxi service employees are so against Uber. When you have a competitor that undercuts the service so much that you need to live out of your car in a parking lot, it's somewhat hard to make a living from it.
leasing a car from Uber sounds like the company store days of the past where they lock you into the job and when the work slows down / something bad happens your on the hook to make the company full and you are not even an W2 worker.
What a crock of shit
ok, so they get to use the restroom. How about showers?
I'd imagine that after awhile, these Ubers probably don't smell so great.
As a society, we have 3 options:
Now which one is it going to be?
Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?
I live in central London and we have a similar situation with food delivery bike riders. A couple have a very organised camp setup at a local church park. Another sleeps every morning at my wife's gym (where I presume he has discovered a membership is far cheaper than rent). I don't think I've ever seen a situation where there were so may people working yet homeless. There was a story in the paper recently about a guy who got a job at a pub that opened till 3am, and would then wonder around until one of the train stations opened at 5am so he could go in and sleep.
I just cannot see how this situation can continue. I don't think I could personally stand visiting the big empty homes of rich people to deliver them overpriced takeaways every night, while knowing that I'll never be able to buy a home of my own anywhere on the wages I'm earning. At some point surely these people will realise they outnumber the rich they are delivering meals for, and something is going to happen?
Yeah, fuck you. ...
Seriously, was that animosity necessary?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Amen...
marketing: our billion dollar business idea is to empower the gig economy with a system that frees them from the shackles of the traditional labour paradigm by allowing drivers to work their own hours on their own terms. the government hates us because we're revolutionary disruptors of traditional capitalism
Reality: live out of a parking lot, subsist on slurpees and hotdogs, work more hours than you ever imagined, get sick, die somewhere conveniently outside any media scrutiny of your employe...er..i mean, app.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard
Yeah, fuck you. The world doesn't owe you anything and even Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
No, fuck you. It doesn't matter if Uber insist that it's supposed to be a side gig. If they're willing to let people work full time then they should be willing to pay full time wages. If someone's working 40 hours per week then they shouldn't be sleeping in their car out of exhaustion because they're struggling to pay their bills. Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
I can't believe that so many people have been conditioned into thinking that poverty is something that's okay to inflict on people for making a non-glamorous career choice. If a business can't afford to pay its workers enough to get by on, it shouldn't be in business.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career."
Who's "they"
Why do "they" have to "understand" (you)?
And by "understand", what do you mean? To give some type of material support to your decision to make it a full-time gig?
That uber taxi cab must smell really wonderful, with the driver sleeping in it and using a 7-11 restroom :/
I swear to Glob, I just can't understand these people. Idiocracy at its finest.
Thank you for letting us know that you don't know anyone in the situation described. Now what, pray tell, does that have to do with the price of rice?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Poor people who believe they can make the same living as their parents and grandparents with the same skillset. Yeah, your grandpappy could afford to buy a house, 2 cars, and raise 3 kids by swinging a hammer all day but that's over. Driving a car is not much of a "skill" anymore. Soon it won't even be a job for people anymore. Computers will do it for much cheaper. That's called progress. 70 years ago people assembled automobiles by hand. Now it's mostly robots. Same for driving.
I was the first in my family to go to college and graduated over 20 years ago. There was no way my parents were going to let me loose without ensuring that I had some form of education or at least some non trivial skills that I could use to make a living. If I hadn't gone to college they would have sent me to a vocational program. I am doing the same thing with my kids.
Idiots who thing they can stand against the tide of progress will be swallowed by it.
I'm always amazed when I hear stuff like this. People really believe that other people will treat them right when a) it's not in their interests and b) they're not being forced.
When I tell people I'm a socialist one of the responses is: "Well, are you gonna force people?". Yes. Yes I am. This is civilization. You don't get to say 'no' to civilization. Just like you don't get to say no to the polio vaccine. That's because your actions do not happen in a vacuum. They don't just hurt you, they hurt me too.
So yeah, I'm gonna force Uber to pay a living wage or go out of business. I'm gonna force everyone to give everyone else health care (aka "single payer"). Because that's civilization. We're all humans. We're all valuable. Yes, everybody gets an ever-loving Gold Star. We all earned the right to a good life simply by being born human.
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Well, there's great news for this guy. In a few years, autonomous cars will eliminate the need for drivers, and this guy won't have a car to sleep in, or an income at all. The moral to this story is if you want to make a good living, get a marketable skill that takes some skill to develop and is in demand. Since virtually every adult in the US can drive, driving services were never going to be a cash cow. Machinist, electrician, elevator repair, commercial equipment service and repair, etc. are the way to go. To a certain degree, this is the sad result of not teaching even one class in high school on basic applied economics (supply and demand, markets etc.)
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Democrats: The party of "wah".
I hear so many people saying what a wonderful thing the gig economy is -- how much freedom they have, how much they love not working a traditional job, etc. All of that may be true, but just wait until all the traditional jobs go away and most people are forced into squeezing out a tiny living doing things like driving for Uber. I highly doubt everyone would be super-happy at that point.
The relative economic stability of the last century was driven by consumers consuming, buying stuff, paying taxes, etc. and that was driven by those consumers having a stable paycheck or other source of income to fall back on. When that gets kicked away in the name of disruption, society needs to have a better answer than "oh, we'll figure something out later." I've been lucky to have stable work, but I know that I cut back on spending when I think something might be afoot at work. I can't imagine never knowing whether I'm going to have a good or bad week coming up.
I think a lot of the gig economy cheerleaders are mistakenly thinking that Uber drivers are in the same league as, say, a flavor-of-the-moment software or IT contractor making $200+ an hour. I know a lot of people like this, who do nothing but travel around the country and get paid obscene amounts of money to implement the new hotness at random businesses. It's not super-stable, but they make enough to survive bad times. Uber drivers are barely breaking even, especially if they're financing their own vehicle purchases, etc. Like them or not, their business model is exploitative at best. Driving a cab is often the last resort job for people.
Kind of agree with this. Uber being generally perceived as the bad guy doesn't make them responsible for every driver's life decisions. Is Uber actively making their wages seem more lucrative than they are? Otherwise this guy just made several poor decisions of his own - quit his old job to work at a new poorly paying job which is a long commute from home.
Not sure why uber drivers stay in these abusive relationships. Use a more decentralized app like Cell 411 instead...it's free and you keep 100% of your fares: http://getcell411.com/
They aren't pulling themselves up by their bootstraps!! Fuck them!! Let them eat cake!
"I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard
Yeah, fuck you. The world doesn't owe you anything and even Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
Hey there, dickhead. A 3-year minimum lease contract, along with monthly payments that making buying the damn car look cheap ($575/month Uber Corolla) is not a fucking "side gig", so you can drop the marketing bullshit.
>Subsidizing shitty life choices
I think Uber is bullshit because doing something on the internet does not absolve you of the responsibilities of a business like, say, taxes.
However, I am not going to lose any sleep (ha!) because this guy continues to fall for the sunk cost fallacy.
I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. Even moreso when the person is trying to support themselves and their family. Delivering the local newspaper was great job when I was 12 and I wanted to buy some hockey cards and music CDs. It's not a job that really requires any skills, and even if you are doing it full time, I couldn't see it being a job that's likely to pay a living wage.
Same with the job I had flipping burgers at McDonald's. I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill and they didn't really expect much from me other than to show up and make some hamburgers. But that's fine because I was in highschool and just wanted some money for CDs, computer games, and going out to the movies.
Theses were great jobs to get me used to working, and if they weren't allowed to pay me such low wages, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work at all. Especially in the year 2016. They will just get a robot to do your job if it becomes too expensive for a person to do it.
If you want to make a living wage, be prepared to get some real skills. You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I purpose we call these people "Uber-Hobos", or "Hubos" if you will.
I use Uber several times a month. I love the service, and I believe that some of the improvements in Uber over Taxis are due to technology and innovation rather than just taking advantage of employees. Especially in smaller cities like mine, where critical mass for traditional taxi service is not there, but being able to track and summon Ubers works pretty well.
That being said, I have noticed that drivers are getting less happy. One problem I see is that people underestimate the wear and tear on their car. This is a real expense - more frequent oil changes, tires, etc.
The other problem is I've noticed less surge pricing. Uber has recruited drivers so aggressively they have effectively gotten the price down. If you think about it, Uber's model is great, because they raise the price until someone picks you up. This ensures you get a ride home. However, their base prices are probably unrealistically low, so if they can flood the market with drivers, they are basically getting them cheap.
Now they will churn through drivers doing this, but I wonder if Uber thinks there are enough drivers out there to churn through to tide them over until they have fully self-driving cars?
In such a wold of automation, you need to wonder about basic income.
This just so exemplifies the scam aka – Gig Economy.
Looking at his numbers
Let say he makes $300/day, that’s $230 after gas and a couple of 711 munchies.
Well, since he’s self employed, he pays full SS & Medicare tas of 13.85% - which goes against GROSS receipts of $300 = $41.55
Secondly, reading through most Uber forms, people who work 55+ hours per week drive © 300 miles a day. A DAY!. The Federal allowance for vehicle maintenance is $.54 / mile. At 300 miles = $162.
The reality is he will have to change his tires, breaks, engine oil, much more often, and that costs Probably not far from the fed estimates.
So, take is net after gas, subtract $41.55 in SS/MC taxes, subtract $162 in maintenance leaves $96.45, which he as to pay Federal Income Tax of 10%.. or $9.65..
This leaves him with a NET of $86.81, for a 10 hour shift – or $8.91 with zero benefits.
You’re WAY better off flipping burgers.
Shit on workers so hard they turn to full-time Uber then demand basic income on their behalf... Aren't you virtuous.
Despite your low-PH response, the OP really has a point.
Economically speaking, automation and increased use of AI(*) will put many people out of work(**), and unlike the previous manufacturing revolutions there won't be enough work remaining to keep everyone employed.
Our economic system has to change, it simply cannot survive the rise in productivity. UBI is one way to accomplish that, I know of at least three other viable solutions.
Being toxic and preaching doom and gloom won't solve this issue, but inspiring people to action and raising their hopes might.
You could try educating yourself and then getting the word out - pick a stance that you like and try to convince others. (Assuming that you can't implement any of the actual solutions, that is.)
The system has to change - why not be part of that change?
(*) In the current industry-used version of that term.
(**) Self-driving vehicles alone are poised to put 5 million out of work in the next 10 years.
Well, not starving is high on people's lists. The fact that they are grateful for the work cuts against the 'they don't need the money' argument you're about to make.
But yes, children in sweatshops were also grateful for the work.
Which may include over 40 hours a week. After all, most people convince themselves they want to do something if they are forced into the situation. And people tend to want to work over starve.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
And that's why I always tip my Uber and Lyft drivers. They aren't making as much as you think, and most people aren't doing it as their first choice of employment.
OTOH, if I were unemployed and since I have a decent car, I'd probably start driving for Uber or Lyft immediately while I looked for another 'real' job.
- Necron69
"Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments."
So you basically sold yourself into slavery just to skip taxi driver laws?
Did anybody force him to sign it? No; Not a problem than. People make bad decisions all the time.
$575 for payment plus commercial insurance isn't unreasonable. Depends on his driving record. If he's totalled a car or two, it is cheap.
If he had any brains he would shift off the car, like cab drivers do. Perhaps share a cheap apartment with the same person(s).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If they're willing to let people work full time then they should be willing to pay full time wages.
Don't worry. Uber will fire them all shortly when self driving cars are perfected.
You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.
But some smug prick deserves a cheap meal, ride or to get rich by screwing thousands of people out of the wealth that those people created?
Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
Uber was just this week fined $20M by the FTC for doing the exact opposite of what you're saying, so pardon me if I don't believe anything you've just said. They were overstating median incomes by as much as $29,000/year, advertising unlimited mileage for leases that didn't actually have unlimited mileage, and advertising that their leases were lower-cost than their competitors (which wasn't true in the least). The FTC found that in some markets, only around 10% of the drivers were making as much as the "median" incomes that Uber was advertising.
So while I do generally agree that the world doesn't owe anyone anything, I'll add the caveat that companies are obligated to not make fraudulent claims, which is exactly what Uber is being fined for having done.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=...
look at India, South America and large parts of China. And that's just the places we pay attention to. This is nothing new and nothing surprising. For most of the world's 6 billion inhabitants this is they way things are and always have been. The best thing you can do it get over the surprise that it's like this while keeping that feeling of disgust. Don't let the fact that these situations are so far outside the norm for you let you turn away from the truth in disbelief. It's like that old quote: The greatest trick the devil ever did was convincing the world he didn't exists.
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As I have said before, Uber is a cab company that avoids the regulation of a cab company. "How many cabs do they own?" None. That's another aspect of how they privatize the profits and socialize the costs of doing business. Do not construe this as my blaming the drivers themselves. They are guys trying to make a living. I get it. But the "ride-sharing" industry is still a scam, pure and simple.
Wish I could mod this up.
So is leasing cars a revenue stream for Uber?
and constant adjustments. Here's what makes it so hard for folks to accept real socialism: It's not a system of beliefs it's a system of government. It's a means, not an end. The practical consequences are that a socialist admits when they're wrong and makes constant adjustments and improvements. It's basically the scientific method applied to politics with a bit of Socrates "I know that I know nothing" philosophy mixed in. The short version of all that is Progresivism. Always making progress (and twirling, twirling towards freedom!).
The trouble with all that is branding. When the right wing start a debate they've got simple answers to complex problems. They're always the wrong answers, because if a problem has a simple answer then, well, by definition it's not complex. But those simple answers feel good, sound good, and just got a Demagogue elected President of the United States...
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Hate to break it to you but most jobs, by the numbers, require "almost no skills." 40% of US workers are unskilled. Should they all starve to death?
THIS
It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence"
My question is "what jobs are those?"
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
Is this a reason why we shouldn't make education easily accessible to all?
It seems to me that "unskilled" workers are necessary in order to provide a quality of life for the workers in "skilled" jobs. So why don't those "unskilled" workers, people who wake up every day and GO TO WORK in a job that they probably HATE, not deserve to be able to live a reasonably comfortable life?
I certainly appreciate the ability to order food that arrives at my doorstep or a cab/uber that can take me to where I want to go.
I am guessing that you appreciate those things too.... but you somehow don't feel that the people doing those jobs deserve a wage that will allow them to live at or above the poverty line....
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
These jobs still need to get done though, ya? So someone needs to get paid to do it. If you can recruit little Timmy to do it on the cheap, good for you, but I don't think that's a viable option for Uber.
This signature is false.
A few years ago, a friend of mine who had been working in a full-time job in the hospitality industry, had signed up to be an Uber driver during his spare time. He claimed to be making an extra thousand dollars a month or so, which he used to finance a used vehicle.
I probed for more details. "What about insurance," I asked. "Have you accounted for wear and tear on the vehicle due to increased mileage? Is this a sustainable income model? What if the pool of drivers increases and you face increased competition for fares?" He was completely nonchalant: at the time, Uber was still growing, there weren't as many drivers as there are now, and since he was still receiving a salary, he had no concerns for wage instability.
Months later, he mentioned that he quit his full time job because he could make more money driving for Uber, and it was lower stress. He seemed happy. Well, we know how that turned out. He ended up essentially destitute, unable to afford food and rent; unable to fix his car when the inevitable breakdown occurred and would cost thousands to repair; and still had payments to make on the loan.
I'm not saying that these kinds of jobs cannot be sustainable as full-time employment, but it is a great deal more difficult to make it viable than the vast, vast majority of people enticed into the idea are led to believe. The fact that these companies make it sound like it's easy (for obvious reasons) is the modern-day equivalent of selling Amway.
Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?
Nothing will happen. Mr Driver will be held responsible just like any Joe Sixpack that fell asleep behind the wheel. If he says anything about being an Uber driver:
1) Uber will bring up their "independent contractor" (not our employee/liability) business plan.
2) His insurance will bring up their "you're not covered under your personal policy if you're acting as a ride sharing/taxi-for-hire service" clause... and more of them have this nowadays.
The loser will be victims in the accident.
So is leasing cars a revenue stream for Uber?
No, they do it out of the goodness of their hearts.....
I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. Even moreso when the person is trying to support themselves and their family. Delivering the local newspaper was great job when I was 12 and I wanted to buy some hockey cards and music CDs. It's not a job that really requires any skills, and even if you are doing it full time, I couldn't see it being a job that's likely to pay a living wage.
Same with the job I had flipping burgers at McDonald's. I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill and they didn't really expect much from me other than to show up and make some hamburgers. But that's fine because I was in highschool and just wanted some money for CDs, computer games, and going out to the movies.
Theses were great jobs to get me used to working, and if they weren't allowed to pay me such low wages, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work at all. Especially in the year 2016. They will just get a robot to do your job if it becomes too expensive for a person to do it.
If you want to make a living wage, be prepared to get some real skills. You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.
Not everyone is privileged enough to just find a better paying job. And you may not know this, but getting real skills costs real money. And you're parents are apparently abysmal failures for raising a little shitbag like you.
Unfortunately not everyone has the means to go out and get those skills required to earn a decent salary.
I agree with the GP, if you're willing to put 40 hours in of work per week, it should earn you a basic living wage in the area you're in. I don't really care what skill level the job is, it's a job and someone's working hard to complete it. Society needs people of all skill levels to function.
Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation. There are thousands of manufacturing jobs open in my area that go unfilled because they cannot find the people who want to work hard, starting at $10/hr without benefits. That's almost $2/hr above minimum wage. Even in this region where living expenses are very low, good luck paying your bills on $20k/yr.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
A business is not obligated to subsidize your choice to work a low paying job.
Uber is for college students who want to make extra money running people around.
If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
This is why Uber is very interested in autonomous vehicles.
Those people working 40 hours a week being silly are going to find Uber force them to work only 20 hours a week or put them out of work completely.
Your pay is based on productivity per hour. Not simply showing up per hour.
Work Safe Porn
I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill
You keep talking about skill as it if was the only thing that mattered. Well, time matters, too. If you spend 1/3 of your life doing something for someone else then you should be able to make a living from it. It's just not a question of how hard it is, it's a question of how much time you spend doing it. If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
And what do you propose should happen to those who don't have the skills, and can't acquire them? What about those who try, but just aren't good enough? There are presently some 3 million or so drivers in the U.S., between taxis, Uber, delivery trucks, and long haul trucks. What should happen to them as demand for their previously valuable skill dwindles to the point they can't support themselves anymore, or wind up unemployed en masse when the vehicles can drive themselves? There are some 3.6 million fast food employees in the U.S. - what about them?
Perhaps you think they should learn to program, or become auto mechanics, or HVAC technicians, or some other job that remains in demand. Some of them may well be able to, but is there really immediate demand for several million more of them? Did it ever occur to you that some of them might like to learn those skills, but lack the time and money it takes to do so? Education isn't cheap, and it's getting significantly more expensive by the year. And worse, you might find after you complete it that you can't get a job in that field, because the competition is high, and others are simply better at it than you are.
So what then? Because I'm going to hazard a guess that you're not suggesting that we fund a robust social safety net with programs to make sure those people don't starve, or some form of universal basic income.
You posted some of the data I was going to look up about this fine. IIRC, Uber was suggesting incomes of $90,000 in some locations. That would be a pretty good income even after expenses. And it doesn't require a degree in computer of software engineering, either, and being basically homeless.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I know all about this. It will be great damage. The best damage. Blood everywhere! But I know it will be fine! We will make the victims pay for the damage.
Silence is a state of mime.
This desperation is what happened when factories left the Midwest. The good jobs are gone for the unskilled. The remaining jobs need training that the unskilled can't afford. This is the guy's best option right now. If he could just stop being poor, he would. His best option is to sleep in a parking lot where he could freeze to death in a Chicago winter. Think about how bad things must be to have that as your best available option. This man isn't the only one making this choice. There is a bigger problem, and telling people to just stop being poor won't solve the bigger problem.
"I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. "
Spoken like a true boss.
Are you saying that people _like_ having 3 jobs, because of the variation?
If someone's working 40 hours per week then they shouldn't be sleeping in their car out of exhaustion because they're struggling to pay their bills. Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
So you're saying if somebody starts a business they have a basic human right that that business should succeed, as long as they're working 40 hours per week?
Uber drivers are self-employed contractors and the drivers are effectively small business owners. This guy had an idea that he could use the Uber ride-sharing app to make a successful business, but his business idea has failed. Blaming Uber for this is like blaming eBay when somebody's eBay business fails.
Demanding that Uber compensate this guy for his poor life decisions is absurd. What should happen now is the guy should think, "This idea hasn't worked out. I'll get a regular job."
Yeah, that $90,000/year income was the one they overstated by $29,000 (i.e. the median in New York was actually $61,000/year, rather than the $90,000/year they claimed). And that's before expenses, I believe, so it goes down from there by quite a bit, given that they misled drivers with regard to the expenses too.
Who's responsibility is your own welfare? Is it a company's? The government's? Or yours?
The responsibility for your life is *yours*, and no one else's. If I decide to leave my full time job with benefits for Uber, I have no one to blame but myself if I can't make enough to get by. Further, it continues to be my responsibility if I don't find another job because my dream of driving for a living isn't working out.
It's not any company's job to assume your position in life, which is what you advocate when you say this: If they're willing to let people work full time then they should be willing to pay full time wages.. They offer the work and pay, it's up to the individual to decide if it works for them.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The problem with this line of thinking is the expectation that there are enough jobs for skilled workers. There are not. The survival of the fittest model you suggest will inevitably leave many skilled workers in poverty or working those "not meant to be full time" jobs.
There is also the issue of skilled jobs being replaced by automation, or simply by companies unwilling to pay for the skill. Every single person can't "get some real skills" without flooding that "skilled" market until it behaves just like the unskilled one.
Engineering is a great example. Wages are stagnating. If every single person suddenly got an engineering degree, it just drives the cost of engineers down-- as all the now "skilled" labor, isn't considered "skilled any more.
You even mention it yourself -- if people are too expensive they will have a robot do it. This is the crux of the problem-- we value people based on work, when that is an outdated idea (though to be honest I think it was never a good one).
The fact that you seem to understand that automation is removing skilled jobs from the market makes me think your whole post must be a troll. Do you really think people who can't get a skilled job don't deserve the ability to live? By condemning them to jobless poverty and by refusing to give them "money for nothing" that's exactly what you are saying, though maybe you just didn't realize it.
I certainly don't want to live in a society where we condemn the useless to poverty or inevitable death?
I'm very confused at the phrase "you don't deserve money for nothing". Do you not believe people have inherent value? Are peoples only worth defined by the work they perform? Who decides what jobs are "worthy" or "skilled" enough to deserve the right to live? What job do you have which is so remarkable that you could not be replaced? And what will you do when you are?
Uber supports a shitty apartment, goodwill clothes, and fast food.
Uber does NOT support a wife, two kids, a dog, and a nice house with a white picket fence.
You can live off Uber, but you can't LIVE off Uber. It is a part time job for desperate people.
Probably couldn't get a job with a taxi firm because of the rise of Uber.
Probably can't afford to start his own taxi firm because Uber has now made him poor.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Problem is that the masses have caught onto the safety net, and everyone is just jumping in.
As I've said before, people work for Uber out of desperation. It's better to be destitute and work for Uber then be destitute and out of work, these are the jobs America is churning out. The problem is why those people are destitute in the first place and businesses like Uber are the circling vultures.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So go work elsewhere with better conditions? I mean you guys act like someone is forcing them to do this. There are lots of jobs for people who want to work. Go find one that treats you like a human being.
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
How is driving a car considered "unskilled" in the first place when you have to demonstrate skill to get a license to do it?
Why do you think the problem is Uber? Why don't you blame ridiculously high rents? If you've ever taken action to 'keep property values up' then you are part of the problem. If you've ever opposed new apartment buildings in your town, then you are a huge part of the problem. If there were enough houses for everyone, then rent would go down and these drivers would be able to afford a place to live.
Irresponsible disclosure is responsible
It's exactly that. Leasing a car from Lyft seems a way better deal - they pro-rate your lease payment based on how much you drive for them, and if you drive the 40 hours a week they want (rush hour, bar closings, etc.) they comp the whole thing.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
And what do you propose should happen to those who don't have the skills, and can't acquire them? What about those who try, but just aren't good enough?
They become computer programmers, like that guy in the cube next to you...
Hence the quotes...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
The 1% (that is about 3.5 million people) means an income of somewhere above $250k-300k after taxes. It goes up if you count households and not people but the effect is close to the same. If you go by net worth, then it is like $2.5M.
Different tools estimate slightly differently, but this site: https://dqydj.com/net-worth-in... says that the 1% level is reached at a household net worth of $7.87 million.
No. But they may not have access to luxuries like single family homes.
The ability to renegotiate the terms or quit your job without being thrown in jail.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Need a new sarcasm detector?
Sarcasm is notoriously difficult to detect on the internet, since it looks exactly like cluelessness, but I can see no indication in that case that the comment had been intended sarcastically.
There are thousands of manufacturing jobs open in my area that go unfilled because they cannot find the people who want to work hard, starting at $10/hr without benefits.
Sounds like those employers are either getting by just fine without those employees or if they do need those employees they better start making better offers to get those positions filled. The other day I drove past a burger king and they had a big banner out front offering $15+/hr to work for them flipping burgers.
That said I agree minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation but worse than that is that college costs have vastly outstripped inflation so people's ability to better themselves is decreased. For example I compared my tuition for the class I took at the local technical college (DCTC) and compared it to what I paid in 2001 with my last year getting my BS in CS (Mankato State University, Go Mavs!) I paid 4x the amount per credit at DCTC. The interesting part about this is that I DCTC like all community and technical colleges in the MNSCU system have a lower tutition than the Universities, like Mankato, do. I looked quickly and saw that inflation was 35% over that time so in 2001 dollars I still paid about 3x per credit today at DCTC than I did at Mankato in 2001. I do feel sympathy for those who can't afford college and actually are trying as I was able to pay for my BS working at a gas station and later u-haul making $13.25 and $15.50 part time back then which was really good pay then.
Time to offend someone
No, nobody should starve to death, or left without healthcare, or without drinking water, or not given the chance to get quality education at an affordable price.
Maybe we should push for things like Universal Basic Income, Single Payer Healthcare System, Free Education, and stop privatizing utilities?
It's a ride sharing business. You're supposed to only accept customers driving from close to your home to a destination close to your work place (and vice versa). Only if you can find such rides on a regular basis does Uber make sense.
Uber doesn't care if you've made a career out of this. All they care about is how much money you can make for them while maximizing how much they FUCK YOU OVER.
In countries like India most middle class software programmers have a maid who cleans the house, makes the bed,washes dishes and clothes,a cook who comes cooks the evening meal, a driver who drives them to work, a gardener who comes and maintains their yard and a laundryman who comes picks up their laundry presses and returns it.
In USA you have to do all of this yourself or go out to a central place to get food made by someone else.
Personal services are only feasible when their is a large gap in income between the middle class and the working class.
If you expect middle class wages for jobs like taxi driver or food delivery than these services will only be avilable to the elite and not to the middle class.
Working class folks need to have an uncomfortable life . This is motivation for their children to work harder in school than their middle class counterparts and clim out of the working class.
In every generation some middle class kids will screw up and fall back to the working class. Hence you will always have your supply of working class people. The fallacy is to believe just because your parents were middle class you will be middle class and not working class. If yu try to prevent downward social mobility you also block upward social mobility
**Life is too short to be serious**
Theses were great jobs to get me used to working, and if they weren't allowed to pay me such low wages, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work at all. Especially in the year 2016. They will just get a robot to do your job if it becomes too expensive for a person to do it.
You really need to watch that movie about Ray Kroc. He was already doing it back when you were working.
we could start by
living wage = minimum wage
If you think it's that easy then why don't you open this mythical 'fair burger' and pay your staff 20 bucks and hour with great benefits and just see how many people flock to eat your 15 dollar hamburgers?
...when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments.
These are the people I don't understand. Isn't the point of Uber that you can use your existing car? Don't you already HAVE a car? If not, why would you specifically LEASE one, especially with payments that are so high that you have to drive 24/7 to afford them? I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that took on risk to make an easy buck without doing some basic math on their investment first.
It wasn't his best option. He left his job for a lie and hope that this fraud would be better.
Americans dont value education enough. In India maids will skip a meal in order to buy a text book for their kids. Instead the poor in the US would much rather buy videogames than spend time studying at the library. Life is not hard enough in the USA. It needs to get harder. The period from 50s to 70s where you could lead a middle class life on working class skills is never coming back. It was an anomaly created by the WW2 where all the other countries had destroyed economies and depended on US manufacturing and US could export its way to wealth. Now all countries are recovered from WW2/colonialism. Its an equal competition and working class skills will not get you a middle class lifestyle.
**Life is too short to be serious**
He likes driving, but, he said, “They need to stop lowering their rates.”
They won't until people like you stop driving. If you are willing to drive at X rate, then they lower it to Y rate and you are STILL willing to drive for them, they have zero incentive to go back to X rate. In fact, next stop will be an even lower Z rate.
Wow, 125k is cheap for a taxi medallion!
Wasn't uber just recently fined for fraudulently inflating income figures to attact drivers with their lies?
Well, time matters, too.
No, not really. You can spend 80 hours per week doing a job that returns $1000 in value to the company you work for, but you can't expect them to just hand you $1500 for your time. You have to do something that results in the money you get paid, it truly does not grow on trees.
If it order to pay flip burgers a living wage they have to raise the price of the burgers then so be it.
And when do you expect to get the raise that will allow you go buy the now more expensive product? Someone making $15/hr already who gets no raise when the minimum goes to $15/hr will be in serious trouble as the prices for everything that come from current minimum wage workers goes up to cover your largesse. I'm glad you have lots of excess cash now that you can spend on the more expensive products, but most people do not.
I'm shocked. These people quit their real jobs, let Uber sell them the car that they supposedly needed, and now they are not getting rich driving other people around, even when they gouge with surge fares? Yea, lets blame America for that, not the stupidity of the people who did this. (Actually we might want to blame the education system that they went through that failed to teach them common sense, but really common sense isn't taught in any school system, much less ones that rely on lottery dollars for part of their funding.)
I'm going to go set up a GoFundMe page now for any of you bleeding heart liberals who want to help these idiots. As far as you know they might actually receive some of the money that you contribute.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Wow, mankind IS getting stupider......
Fuck you and your.. logic..
#MrsObama2020
I think the main problem is that everyone disagrees about who is responsible, whenever someone does that in spite of your advice. If blame needs to be assigned, then how do we figure out at whom to point our fingers?
Who is "inflicting?" The default state is poverty. If nobody does anything, poverty is what you have. Into that dismal situation, something is added: someone makes someone else a low offer. Is accepting the low offer a bad thing, or is extending the low offer a bad thing, or is it a bad thing that this is all happening in a society which doesn't have UBI?
And is poverty really a bad thing at all, or is it merely lack of a good thing?
I lean toward the latter: it's merely lack of a good thing, so no blame exists to be assigned.
Low-income poverty sucks, but it sucks less than no-income poverty. If my attitude is the result of conditioning, the conditioning was called "math class" where I learned to compare numbers. A small number is bigger than zero. Ergo, a shitty employment offer, as long as it's free of coercion or deception, can never be a bad thing.
if you don't pay your taxes you go to jail. If you speed in your car you get a ticket. If I shoot somebody I go to jail. We're just arguing over where to draw the line, not whether it should be drawn.
You're going got get forced to do things one way or another. If you leave a power vacuum by trying to live with a weak central government then somebody will step in and take the reigns. Central Governments are just too valuable. Somebody sooner or later will create one for their own purposes. The question is never, "Will we have a strong Central Government?" but whether _you_ will participate in it?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
whose commodity (oil) just plummeted in price. Ideally what should be happening right now is the rest of the world should help them pick up their slack until oil prices rise. What's instead happening is the rest of the world is using their crisis to take advantage of them. Sorta like how Pay Day Lenders operate but on a national scale. There's things their government could have done to mitigate or prevent the crisis before it happened but, well, like I said, Socialism is hard because we're solving very hard problems.
Remember, anyone can promise to solve all your problems with their 10 step program plus some principles and beliefs. It's actually _doing_ it that's hard. I'd argue that Obama/Hilary were on the right path until Hilary screwed up by not campaigning in the swing states. But, well, here we are.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs?
Not to worry. More than enough educated people will find their skills in low demand and will work unskilled jobs in order to survive. Just as happens today. The danger comes when unskilled jobs are no longer available and the losers of the macabre game of musical chairs no longer have options.
So you basically sold yourself into slavery just to skip taxi driver laws?
No, no, the guy is just a contractor. Uber is the party ignoring taxi regulations. They collect payment from the riders and disburse it to the drivers.
Drivers sell themselves for the illusion of freedom. Illusory freedom is the hottest commodity in America.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
NOBODY IS FORCING THEM TO DO ANYTHING. Get it through your head.
Because you can't just "get a job."
The convenience store is full. Daddy-O and Uncle Mike are already working there. The store doesn't have enough revenue to pay Howard a wage.
Businesses can't afford to pay wages because customers aren't spending money. Customers aren't spending money because they can't find jobs. Haven't you noticed how an economy works, in your vast life experience.
Uber drivers are self-employed contractors and the drivers are effectively small business owners.
Yes and Uber is a ride-sharing company, absolutely nothing like a hackney carriage operator...
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
My question is "what jobs are those?"
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
Yes, that's about the long and short of it.. people need to learn how to have a job, and learn the value of a dollar *before* they have the skills to command a livable wage... it grounds you to reality and teaches the young how the world works.
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence"
This is exactly what he is saying. If everybody could skate by doing low/no-responsibility work without ever picking up any marketable skills, there would be very few people to do things that require responsibility and trade-skills.
These jobs are meant to be worked while you are a student, or living with your folks, or picking up something to do because your setup already and bored. It blows me away that people actually attempt to make a career out of those positions, but there's always "that guy".
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs?
Those people compete for the limited amount of jobs, the lesser applicants compromises and take a step down to a lower position, or less optimal trade and keep training for the next opportunity. They also have children, and pass this life lesson on to them, which hopefully teaches them the importance of a strong work ethic, education, and/or trade-skills.
Nobody grows up wanting to be a plumber, what a shitty job... but its also a marketable skill, and will support you and your family, especially if you couple it with a strong work ethic and the drive to succeed. The job you want may not be available to you right now, but the job you need likely is. Those days may be numbered though, as every time people with no skills or motivation convince the world to pay them more for basically being present, it undervalues all the trades, making that livable wage worth that much less.
What really blows me away is the under-skilled workers complaining about not making a living wage while they blow paychecks on shit they cant afford. Things like tobacco, video-games, subscription entertainment services, and overpriced electronics all come to mind right away. Then there are the real silly things like scratch tickets, drugs, overpriced food, and generally living beyond your means.
If your really in a spot... maybe pregnant, addicted to drugs, mental issues, diseased, or otherwise UNABLE to learn skills or go to work, there are social safety nets in place to help you, otherwise, its YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to learn things. That's not saying you need to accept crushing debt and enroll in higher education, what that means is that instead of spending your off-time hanging out at the bar, or playing games, or generally fucking off complaining about how your always shit on, spend it developing skills on your own. Libraries offer so much more than free internet access, but internet access is also one of those things. If you REALLY have issues learning skills on your own, there is also the armed forces (here in America anyway) not only will you learn a skill, but you will learn how to learn. There really is no excuse for this sort of thing.
TL:DR= Develop some skills and get the job you need, while learning the skills for the trade you want. Every time you get another nickel or doing nothing, it makes that job you WANT less exactly that much.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
To be more effective, it should be:
If employee != student (meaning going to school and still a dependent of their parents/guardians) then living wage == minimum wage Else minimum wage == some lesser amount. Perhaps even combine with some ratio (no more than 3 part-time student employees for each full-time living-wage employee per shift).
Any labor that produces less value than what it costs to pay for someone's subsistence.
How much are you willing to pay for my widget? Maybe you think my widget is somewhat useful, and you figure out it will save you $100 per year in other expenses. You think my widget might last about three years, so maybe it's worth approximately $300, give or take.
Let's say a living wave is $15/hr, and the widget takes 60 hours of labor to make. Therefore, it costs $900 in wages to make, at a living wage. But it's only worth $300 to you. Are you willing to pay an extra $600? (I sure hope you don't choose something so economically destructive, or else you're going to find that your $15/hr is no longer paying your bills, and a living wage starts at around $45/hr.)
Where do we go from here? What's the right thing to do? It sounds like the widget ought not be made. (Sort of the labor equivalent of the energy problem, where it costs more to mine gold from seawater, than the gold is worth. The way to win that game is to not play it.)
Ok, fine, you have talked me into not producing the widget. I will abstain from hiring a laboror to manufacture it. Problem solved. But then how do you diagnose the situation, if we go to the store and see a similar widget for sale for $200? For whatever reason, someone decided that working for shit pay, was better than not-working for no pay. Did that laborer commit a wrongful act? Against whom?
Legally there are no limits to the number of hours a tnc driver can work in a week. I believe that one cuts off drivers after a certain period to ensure the driver is alert.
Thank you for letting us know that you don't know anyone in the situation described. Now what, pray tell, does that have to do with the price of rice?
That analogous evidence is just that.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Yes, freedom means that you can make un-worthwhile, or unwise, or even outright stupid decisions with your life.
Part of being an adult is recognizing that and behaving appropriately.
I'm sorry, but there are certain jobs in society that really aren't meant for a person to fully support themselves. Even moreso when the person is trying to support themselves and their family. Delivering the local newspaper was great job when I was 12 and I wanted to buy some hockey cards and music CDs. It's not a job that really requires any skills, and even if you are doing it full time, I couldn't see it being a job that's likely to pay a living wage.
Same with the job I had flipping burgers at McDonald's. I was making minimum wage and even if I was working full time, there's no way that I really deserved to make a living wage in that job. Again, it required very little skill and they didn't really expect much from me other than to show up and make some hamburgers. But that's fine because I was in highschool and just wanted some money for CDs, computer games, and going out to the movies.
Theses were great jobs to get me used to working, and if they weren't allowed to pay me such low wages, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work at all. Especially in the year 2016. They will just get a robot to do your job if it becomes too expensive for a person to do it.
If you want to make a living wage, be prepared to get some real skills. You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.
Sorry but this is complete and utter bullshit.
A paper round, by definition, only takes a limited amount of time in the morning and could never become full time, so your comparison is irrelevant. As for flipping burgers, some people do this work because they need to support a family. If you spend 40 hours per week flipping burgers then you should not need to work a second and third job just to pay your bills because some other people have made a value judgment about how important your job is.
Flipping burgers is no less skilled than a lot of production line jobs in manufacturing industry, and in the days when the west was a manufacturing economy, workers were paid enough to keep a roof over their heads and raise a family.
Christ. Even in the days of domestic service, rich people ensured that their butlers, maids, and other personal servants had food to eat and a roof over their heads.
I say again that too many people have been conditioned into thinking that it's acceptable to pay starvation wages to the hardest working people in society, and conditioned into demonizing those at the bottom end of the pay scale. If that's not class warfare then I don't know what is.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
When you account for taxes and depreciation, the uber drivers are making a minimum wage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If you have such a low opinion of your workers that you dismiss them all as making "poor lifestyle choices" then you should not be in business. And no. I did not say that someone starting a business has an automatic right to be successful, but someone starting a business should have enough money on hand to pay for what he uses, be it materials or labor.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It IS a company's job to pay a living wage to its workers. We had this discussion during the civil war. Slavery is now illegal. It's a moral issue. In any case there's also the economic argument that impoverishing the middle class (who drive economic growth through consumption) is a bit of a silly idea.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
So go work elsewhere with better conditions? I mean you guys act like someone is forcing them to do this. There are lots of jobs for people who want to work. Go find one that treats you like a human being.
Fine. Bring back slavery then. If employers are under no obligation to pay a living wage, why insist on them paying anything?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Hate to break it to you but most jobs, by the numbers, require "almost no skills." 40% of US workers are unskilled. Should they all starve to death?
Today many of those jobs do pay a living wage, because "unskilled" is a broad category, and some of those jobs are just hard work. But there also need to be "first jobs", and those don't need to pay a living wage. I don't think Uber counts as that, though, but they still sound less sleazy than taxi companies.
When I was poor and working those sorts of jobs, you made a living by working 60+ hours a week. Because overtime kicked in at 40, no job would ever give you close to 40 hours: mid-30s was the most you could hope for. So you worked 2 jobs, and commuted between them, often with very inconvenient gaps between the jobs. I used to hate the idea of overtime pay, as it destroyed what little time might nave been left most days, and still no one in my circumstance got overtime pay.
It sucked, but you find a way to move to something better.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The world doesn't owe you anything and even Uber's own ad campaigns bend over backwards to emphasize that this is supposed to be a side gig to make some extra money.
Side job extra money, or blatant theft? Let's see, the driver has to get paid to drive the passenger. He's also "renting" out his car to a complete stranger. So for both those transactions, he should get double the minimum wage (one for the car and one for driving) for it to be fair. Otherwise, it's typical "gig economy" theft.
You know, like how app developers make $1 (or 70 cents) for apps that pays less than minimum wage, while mobile OS and smartphone makers laugh all the way to the bank because a bunch of fools wrote cheap apps that made their smartphones valuable.
Nobody who works full time should live in poverty. Period.
NOBODY IS FORCING THEM TO DO ANYTHING. Get it through your head.
Oh really? Nobody is forced by circumstances to take any work out of desperation? I hope the world's a bit more understanding when you get laid off and have to dismount from your high horse.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Except Uber advertised that they would be making a living wage ($90k in NYC for example) and leased them the car. They pretty much fell for an offer that was too good to be true and are probably spiraling in the sunk cost fallacy.
I know there is no way in hell I would have quit a job for Uber, even when I was making around $90k. I've been through startups, some good, some not but with this your not even part of it (except as a profit model).
Yeah fuck you too buddy! I hope your marginally poor choices are amplified into extremely negative consequences! I'll be there to capitalize on your destitution! After all, its your fucking fault for being such an idoiot! My large capital reserves, better understanding of financial math, and political access give me the ability and the de-facto permission to scam/fleece/rip you off as I please! Gosh this society we're building together is going to be AWESOME.
Any idea what expenses are? One thing that can mitigate those is they should be deductible from Federal and State income taxes. Nevertheless, they need to be paid. In 2017, the IRS allows 53.5 cents per mile and I would guess the lease payments if that's the choice of the driver, but not sure. Using a paid for, reliable car could be a better choice. If the tax deductions match expenses, it might balance out so expenses are negligible.
NYC, particularly Manhattan, is the high rent district. If your route is in Manhattan then for reasonable rent or home ownership/living expenses, one might need to be fairly far out of town to live on the net Uber income - and put some money in savings and some kind of retirement plan. Its not so expensive to live in some place like Denver or Colorado Springs where I live. One of my wife's cousins drives Friday and/or Saturday night for Uber in Denver using his own car and says he makes $120 per evening. Those days and times are probably prime times to pick up party attendees.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
So the point is that without the crappy Uber job, they are better off? The children should starve? I don't get it. Are you going to hire them instead?
I'm afraid I don't know the expenses off the top of my head. I looked them up around a year ago and realized it'd be untenable to pursue as a career in my town (not that I was planning to; I was just curious about the value proposition), since you'd have to be working crazy hours just to break even on your costs. Other than that, I saw mention in some of the articles I linked of the expenses being far higher than Uber had advertised, which obviously would push the bottom-line down, though I admittedly didn't look into the specifics.
Exactly. Do you know how much I want to work? Zero hours. Do you know how much I have to work? Yeah.
Fine, it requires skill -- the same fucking skill every idiot with a pulse has. Lots of unique value there. Let me guess -- being able to stick my finger in my ass is worthy of a living wage too, right?
Actually I prefer simply exterminating people who are a burden on society. It's a whole lot more cost-effective, and will yield benefits in the gene pool down the road.
Nobody grows up wanting to be a plumber, what a shitty job... but its also a marketable skill, and will support you and your family, especially if you couple it with a strong work ethic and the drive to succeed. The job you want may not be available to you right now, but the job you need likely is. Those days may be numbered though, as every time people with no skills or motivation convince the world to pay them more for basically being present, it undervalues all the trades, making that livable wage worth that much less.
Oh, the old "if you pay people $15/hr to flip burgers, they won't want to be plumbers or EMTs or etc..." The work still needs to be done, salaries will go up proportionally, and in the end you've only really succeeded in deflating the value of your currency. ($15 is the new $7.25) Which is why raising the minimum wage doesn't fix the real problem: job scarcity.
Now, we get to why you're truly going to be fucked being a plumber. What jobs do you think are going to be sought after by all the transportation industry workers when automation gives them the pink slip? If you said "skilled trade/manual labor jobs", you win one great depression, redeemable soon at your hometown in America!
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
It seems like what you are saying is "some jobs aren't meant to pay for someone's subsistence" My question is "what jobs are those?"
No jobs are meant to pay for someone's subsistence. Jobs are meant to fill a need of the employer. The wages are meant to provide the incentive for the need to be filled. The amount of money it takes to live a good life is completely decoupled from this arrangement. When I need a babysitter, I don't care if my wages are enough to feed and house a 15 year old girl. I only care what amount of money it will take to get the more responsible teenagers in the area to consistently disrupt their weekend plans to watch my kids for me instead.
This is why I greatly prefer a universal basic income, because it allows society to decide what quality of life everyone "deserves" regardless of their economic value. If funded in a progressive way, it doesn't lower the purchasing power of the working/middle class as much as minimum wage and doesn't disincentive economic activity which is not worth the minimum wage.
Are they "unskilled" jobs? If so, are you suggesting that there needs to remain a majority of people without proper education in order to have an "unskilled" work force so that you can go to the grocery store on Sunday or out to eat in the evening?
Unskilled really just means less skilled. Just being literate would have been considered skilled labor 200 years ago, so being "unskilled" is always a moving goalpost. Being unskilled generally means you don't have any skills which would take more than a few weeks / months to teach your average high school graduate. Just like with a business, if your skills don't create a barrier to entry for competing workers, you will probably not command a high wage. The higher the barrier to entry, whether through natural ability or training, the higher wage you will command.
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
If for instance the goalpost moves by every person receiving a college-level education, skilled labor will be those who have skills which cannot be quickly taught to your average college graduate (as opposed to an average high school graduate). Someone who did poorly in college and never differentiated themselves would be considered unskilled.
It seems to me that "unskilled" workers are necessary in order to provide a quality of life for the workers in "skilled" jobs.
Yes, we will continue to need many unskilled workers but as I've said there will probably never be a shortage of them since it is a relative term.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Did you really just compare forced labor with the threat of harm and/or death to voluntary employment?
I realize that making outrageous comparisons is exciting, but rarely is it accurate. Willful ignorance in pursuit of the party narrative usually does more harm than good.
These people, much like those fulltime fastfood workers we keep hearing all about, are not owed shit from anyone. If they want a "living wage", then they should be making better life choices and stop relying on others to fix their mistakes.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The only thing that concerned me in the article is that Uber is leasing the car. Uber should not be running a company store. That creates debt slavery.
If the self-employed want to get a jump on their competition by sleeping in their cars, that's their choice. If you don't want the low-skill self-employed life where you work your tail off, work a low-skill 9 to 5 job instead.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
In my experience in the UK, the difference between minimum wage and entry level graduate position is not that great. Not saying that minimum wage is too high, just that the value of a degree seems to have become somewhat devalued and I don't see salaries having moved much in ten years.
Theres a similar thing in trucking. All the big trucking companies try to sucker their new hires into their "lease" plan, where you pay $1000 a month to rent your job... and at the end you get to keep your (worn out & battered) truck!
It keeps the drivers hungry for that money, they gotta make that truck payment... so they'll take all the shittiest loads that nobody wants & fudge the logs to get it there.
Yes. By imposing some limitations on the contractual agreements that can be formed, Uber will have to offer better jobs or go out of business because of a lack of drivers. This will make their employees better off.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The problem of cars not working at night will in some short number of years not exist as all taxi services will be nearly fully automated.
It doesn't take 7 billion people to feed, clothe, shelter, and entertain 7 billion people. So, now what? What is the solution to that fundamental problem caused by our technological advancements and medically enhanced longevity?
Do the people who are unnecessary to societal function deserve a death sentence? Deserve to be tortured to death? Live on the brink of starvation? Live in constant medical/dental/emotional pain?
The real problem with people not "deserving" a living wage is that people are real, actual living humans, and most people do not want to live in a society which treats human beings as disposable.
and Taxi cab driving is a full time job for adults. Always was, always is.
Burger flipping became a 'real' job when globalism eroded the job market for folks who couldn't make it to college. There's millions of 'em, and last I checked neither you or anyone else in this country has the brass balls to put a slug between their eyes and end their misery. Maybe you do. Either do something about their awful lives or admit you don't care. But enough already with the B.S. about how these jobs aren't jobs for adults. You're saying it to make yourself feel better by looking down on the folks doing them. I'm sure that's working for you. For them? Not so much.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How are people supposed to get independent of their parents if they can't get the income they need to be independent of them until they are independent of them?
What about people who are students and don't have parents that they can be dependent on, working their way through school? Do they get the money they need to survive, or the lower student income? Do the first group above (people struggling to get independent of their parents) have to go through a barely-surviving stage like this before you start paying them enough to survive?
What about working people who go back to school to try to get training to get better, higher-paying jobs? Do you cut their pay while they're doing that?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It's a "side gig" and you f'ing know it from the get-go. If you choose to make it your full time job and sole source of income, then that's your choice. Don't come bitching to me or anyone else about your dumb ass poor decisions. It's these sort of idiots thats transformed "RIDE SHARING" ("I'm going across town, who needs a ride?") to an unlicensed taxi service (idiots circling the block waiting for someone to need a ride.)
Or we could just not make people suffer through that out of some vindictive "I did it so you should too" attitude.
If you spend 40 hours per week flipping burgers then you should not need to work a second and third job just to pay your bills because some other people have made a value judgment about how important your job is. You know, every single person who ever decides they want a $7 Big Mac value meal over a $25 hamburger meal in a proper restaurant (made by a 'burger flipper' getting paid a living wage) has made this value judgement you seem to be condemning. So, basically, every single person alive today has made the judgment that some skills are more valuable than others and have made their preferences known through how much they are willing to pay.
The only solution to this is to have a Commission of Goods and Services to set prices and wages because it is painful obvious that every single person can't be trusted to make decisions that are beneficial to the common good.
No, this is retard logic. Also known as the labor theory of value. It is not reflective of how the world actually works. It's reflective of how inefficient institutions (ie, the government and failing private businesses) work. The value of your labor is determined by how much others are willing to pay for it, not by how much you need to live.
Two examples will make it obvious what I mean:
If you spend your time raising horses and manufacturing wooden carriages, you aren't entitled to money because horse-drawn carriages have been obsolete since the time of my great grandparents. No one uses them except the amish. You're stupid if you engage in this activity. The fact that you can't make a living from this activity provides a strong incentive to not engage in it. If we provided a living wage to people who make horse drawn carriages, we'd be encouraging wasteful activity.
Likewise, writing software applications or providing patient care in a hospital is extremely high value because employers are willing to pay generously for anyone who can perform these tasks. This gives a strong incentive for people to take the time to learn these skills and enter those fields. Just as the employer seeks out value and rewards it with high salary, the worker gains the skills that will result in the biggest return to them.
If you can't make a living driving a cab or flipping burgers, you should go do something else.
If you think the only education you can get to lift you out of a low paying job is a college degree then your worldview is the first thing that needs a correction through education.
Poor people like to demand that others walk a mile in their shoe because it'd be too much work to walk a mile in the shoes of those who lifted themselves out of poverty.
A $200 laptop and free wifi at McDonald's will give you all the education you need to work your way up to a livable wage.
Work Safe Porn
Cool! Let's start with you. Please post your physical description, address, and name. We'll be right over to start the cleansing.
I don't think people are looking at it in terms of "there needs to be" someone to do the job cheaply. It's more like: "there is" someone to do the job cheaply.
If we post a help-wanted ad that says "Grocery store cashier job available: starts at $35/hr," and nobody applies, I think most people will say "Try raising to the offer to $40/hr and let's see what happens." But currently, it turns out that if you offer $12/hr, somebody will take it! Some people are saying that's not enough money, but other people are, through their actions, proving they think it is enough money.
Wow, what a great "problem" to have! Ok, let's fantasize that the world's population are all characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In increasing order of fantasty, my predictions are:
Hell no, but most people think it hasn't happened yet. Education is currently considered expensive. Some people even have to take out loans to pay for it!
I don't know. Did you try asking them? My best guess is 1) They might reject your assertion they don't deserve to live a reasonably comfortable life. (Or they'll say they only deserve to be free of interference in their attempt to live a comfortable life, whether you think they "deserve" that life or not.) ) 2) They'll say they're doing it whether you think they "deserve" it or not. Perhaps they don't really hate their job, or at the end of the day they're coming home from their "hated" job to a pretty comfortable life.
He made a mistake and is now stuck. It is presently his best option, as we have not invented time travel yet.
Now that there are multiple people camping out at the 7-11 and they all know each other, they can move into the same car at night to stay warm. However I'm glad they're deciding not to drive tried. Driving tired is worse than driving drunk.
This will become far more common once we have self-driving cars. You won't need a place to live. You can sleep on the highway and wake up in your projected most profitable location. A large section of the workforce will become completely mobile. This will probably destroy the airline industry as they always seem to be struggling even now. Greyhound and Amtrak will take longer to go under as self-driving cars will be too expensive at first. Doctor Who had an 'everyone lives in their car' episode. Anyone know of any related sci-fi books?
Or we could just not make people suffer through that out of some vindictive "I did it so you should too" attitude.
That attitude is in your head, not my post.
I get this bullshit a lot. I explain some situation and how I or others found a way out - real world answers actually done. And people come out of the woodwork to complain in the way you did. WTF? Do you object to any useful advice in life? Not every bit of advice will worth for everyone. We get that. But everything that actually worked for someone will be useful for someone else!
Some people can't be functional adults, and obviously need charity, whether physically or mentally disabled. For the rest, yes, they need to find some path to skilled work. We as a society need to make that path easier, but it's clear there will be no unskilled jobs by the end of the century.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I've known people put their life savings into learning a new skill, only to find that the jobs aren't there, the world's moved on or that even after the training they just aren't able to compete in the labour market.
The effort isn't lacking, the risk taking is there, the desire to learn exists and the outcome still completely sucks.
I don't want people like that dying young and homeless. You were lucky, in your background or genetics or decisions; others aren't. Survival in this century shouldn't be down to luck for anybody.
Hunger has a way of making one develop skills.
So what about the all of the unskilled jobs that are essential for a modern society to operate (garbage men, gas station clerks, waiters/waitresses, cooks, drivers, farm laborers, etc)? Do you imply that people in those jobs should accept the fact that in order to survive they need to devote even more of their time to their job, just because a company is too damn cheap to support them?
It seems this is history repeating itself, and we are going back to the time of the industrial revolution and the gilded age, where workers were expected to work 16 hours, 6 days a week just to survive.
Indeed. Mocking people stupid enough to believe your lies as you exploit them is sociopathic. Employees are stakeholders too and neglecting them tends to be an excellent way to kill a business.
What pisses me off is that the cunts behind Uber will exit with a large windfall before the model collapses.
That is exactly the point though. Working full time should be enough to let you live, especially something like providing personal chauffeur services.
Uber paying their workers a pitiful amount is exactly the fucking issue.
So by voting for Brexit to reduce the flood of immigration I've very clearly done my best to reduce demand for housing.
Uber still don't pay their staff enough. Whatever the cost of living, Uber should be paying enough to cover it. They're clearly not.
Given Uber have lied about the income their drivers can expect to receive I'm not sure how you're expecting him to have avoided that bad decision.
I also think that even if he made a bad decision, Uber at a minimum allowed him to make it, knew he was making it, probably encouraged him to make it, and have a fucking obligation not to fuck him over as a result of it.
People make bad decisions. If the job is shitty, if he hates it, if it doesn't earn as much as he wants, that's a bad decision and sure, he should look for other options.
The job is all of those things and doesn't even pay him enough to go home and sleep in a bed at night. That's not a bad decision, that's a fucking travesty. Yes, Uber are very much accountable.
So you are advocating that proctologists' neither be certified nor get patient's permission?
I'm guessing you voted Trump.
First of all, you obviously have no idea how much some of those jobs pay. I'd wager most garbage men out earn me, for example. Waiters/waitresses can, too. Cooks have more variance, but can still earn a comfortable wage in a lot of instances.
However, what value do gas station clerks really provide? Or, more accurately, what value do they provide that you can't find in any one else who walks through the door? Drivers provide a bit more value, but not much; valid license and clean record. Not that hard. Why should the bare minimum be rewarded with unbalanced compensation?
You want to talk about history repeating itself, how often must we bungle heavy handed attempts at market manipulation before we finally get that it doesn't work. If a job doesn't provide a livable wage worth of value to the company, then how do you expect the company to survive by forcing it to pay one? You can't just wave your hand and it magically happens, nor can you demonize companies for wanting to stay solvent.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
He's a big boy, everybody lies/distorts during job hunts, employees, employers. Everybody.
Like I say, the conventional way is to run the cab 24/7. Splitting it two or three ways while only paying one lease.
But that requires him to have one or two people in the world that he trusts and trust him. I suspect a 53 year old full time 'uber' driver/whiner will get more trust from strangers than people he actually knows.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Just how much would a second driver even earn, if this guy is already driving at peak times just to cover his own costs.
You're also assuming there aren't excess mileage charges on the lease, quite apart from other factors.
But hey, you know where he sleeps. Pop over, give him the benefit of your insight and ideas. Hell, sounds like he'd welcome the company and a decent cup of coffee at least.
What an amazing idea. Quick let's tell the whole world. Minimum wage = western version of 'living wage'.
Because every job in society value adds at what just happens to equal a "living wage". So there will never be unemployment right?
No. Any jobs worth $15 before a minimum wage hike will also increase in pay grade, because otherwise why would people bother when an ostensibly easier job pays the same? Prices go up, wages go up across the spectrum (More for people at the bottom, obviously), and the end result is that the variance in pay scale society-wide is compressed slightly. Some jobs are also likely lost to automation because the cost-reward ratio changes, but those jobs are dying off regardless. Machines are just outright better than people for any labor they can reliably do.
Minimum wage is a shitty solution akin to slapping a bandaid on a gaping wound, but to pretend that the only people whose wages are increased by hiking it are those under the new bar is absurd. That's very clearly and obviously not how economics works, or there wouldn't be any people between minimum wage and $15/h in the first place.
Bullcrap! Fast food jobs were entry-level and staffed by kids living at home, with parents' insurance.
Then, unskilled adults and illegals started taking those jobs and then started complaining that they couldn't live on those wages.
But those jobs weren't created so that you could support a family on; if you don't like the pay, give the jobs back to the kids!
OR if you have the skillset and education only suited for an entry-level job, just be happy that you have a job.
Jobs are meant to fill a need of the employer.
Sounds like slavery. The employer gets 100%, and the employee is valueless, less than human.
I'd say the reality is somewhere in the middle. The job has some "value", but the employers don't pay based solely on value to them, as then we'd see higher wages for things like engineering. Instead, the employer claims "market value" when it benefits them, and "value" when it benefits them. Whatever harms the employee most. If employers weren't unethical evil machines, we wouldn't have (or need) unions.
Learn to love Alaska
What happens if everybody has an education and is competing on the same level for "skilled" jobs and nobody wants to do the "unskilled" jobs? What happens if we don't have anyone to man the register or pick your food from a field? Wouldn't you say those jobs are necessary?
If the job is "necessary" then the employer will pay market rates for that job. In some places, unskilled work is paid higher than skilled work. This is done for some things like construction, where people don't want the job, so to get a person willing to stand for 8 hours in the hot sun directing traffic in a construction zone gets paid about the same as someone 3-years after getting an engineering degree. If you have to have someone there, you pay them more until there is someone willing to take the job. Even if it's unskilled.
It's mainly the US that asserts "unskilled" and "necessary" jobs be paid at slave wages. Outside the US, "trades" are not seen as "unskilled" and unskilled jobs are paid higher (comparatively, even if not absolutely).
Learn to love Alaska
That's how we'll get Great Again. Crash the economies of everyone else, so we are comparatively good again.
Learn to love Alaska
I though Uber was about "sharing" your existing car and free time. If you quot your joband started leasing a car just to do that... seems that's not "sharing economy" any more.
Short answer? Yes. They contribute nothing. Let them die.
It's the height of irony to blame the loss of decent jobs on unions.
Look up the definition of a standard corporation and you'll find nowhere in their charter is to create jobs or make the world a better place. All corporations care about is creating value for their shareholders. If they can outsource, replace employees with robots, poison the air and water (and get away with it) they absolutely will.
Unions are one of the few ways workers can protect themselves from the predatory nature built into every corporation.
lol were you under the impression that I was asking for your advice how to raise myself out of poverty or something? What is the point of your anecdote?
My wife works at an automotive supplier. They hire through a temp agency, those that stick around and do a good job will eventually get hired on, start around $15/hr and get benefits.
When I was a student worker (sort of like a co-op) at my current company back in 2000, I made $11/hr. I lived at home and was able to get my B.S. at a state university in Ohio and only walked away with approximately $6k in debt. 17 years later wages really haven't changed, I think the students only make about $11.50/hr now.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Oh you're just so PRECIOUS! I mean, really, bless your heart, you're just so adorable!
Did you want that safe space and therapy bunny now?
And in 2017 a youngster in a major urban area can't hardly even get a gig tossing papers or flipping burgers, because either some adult "undocumented immigrant" has that job, and lives on that income (plus public assistance) because they're willing to live assess to elbows with fifteen members of their band of questionably legal extended family and anchor babies, or said youngster was born to a family who doesn't sprechen si Spanish, and is therefore unqualified from the start.
Basically your only option to get a leg up in the post economy is to bury yourself in student debt while you're still supported by family, and be lucky enough to have professional first job there waiting for you when you finish your varied and sundry schooling.
Uber isn't a smart career move- it's at best a temporary stop gap till ya find another job. The stupid continue onward despite that and expect everybody else to change. The smart just move on from their stupid decisions. If Uber isn't paying enough end whatever your association is with them. There are alternatives too like Cell 411 where drivers can set their own rates. If that doesn't work maybe you should think about looking for real work. There are thousands of people who start businesses. Almost as many fail. One shouldn’t be protected from stupid at the expense of others (beyond the ability to declare bankruptcy). If you f' up learn from your mistakes and move on. You have no right to a particular job/employer as many people act as though they do, but you do have a right to work unhindered by government interference (taxes, drivers licenses, other sorts of licenses, etc). One has liability- but should not be required to ask permission of the state to do business. Giving the state the power to interfere in ones livelihood is a HUGE mistake and many people figure that out the hard way- upon the state taking violence and coercive action against them. http://www.freestateproject.org
No. Any jobs worth $15 before a minimum wage hike will also increase in pay grade, because otherwise why would people bother when an ostensibly easier job pays the same?
No. Who said the lower wage job was easier? Dug any ditches recently? If the $15/hr job was only worth $15/hr before the minimum wage went up, it will still only be worth $15/hr after.
Prices go up, wages go up across the spectrum
You have a remarkably interesting view of how prices and wages interact. Prices going up does NOT mean wages go up. If only that were true, then the skyrocketing price of gas in the last decades would have meant Nirvana for all the employed folks whose wages went up with it.
Some jobs are also likely lost to automation because the cost-reward ratio changes,
Try "a lot of the entry level jobs" go away.
That's very clearly and obviously not how economics works,
Uhhh, right.
or there wouldn't be any people between minimum wage and $15/h in the first place.
Because clearly there are no jobs that are worth between "minumum wage" and "$15/hr" today, so clearly nobody pays anyone anything in between those two numbers. Except for all those jobs that are $10/hr, $12/hr, etc...
When I lived in Japan is was common to see taxi drivers living in their cabs, and being the 80s' and 90s' there was no Uber.
Ha ha ha
The poor get poorer for the same reason the rich get richer.
They keep doing what they're doing.
Work Safe Porn
The problem is that Uber competes with other workers, namely taxi drivers. Now when you are a Taxi driver whose company can no longer compete with people who made the outright stupid decision to become an Uber driver, you don't have any other choice than try to get an other job or become an Uber driver yourself. That is the problem with 'services' like Uber.
Leasing a car in the hopes that 'successful' destroys the value (ie more miles driven = less value at turn in) is, to me, slightly above payday lender logic.
I mean if you don't understand the false economy of leasing a CAR with the hopes of putting tons of miles on it to get a paycheck to pay for the same car you are destroying... I say let them sleep in the parking lots and suffer their fate.
Are you roleplaying your username "ghoul"?
There's plenty of motivation for social mobility without advocating shit like that.
Instead the poor in the US would much rather buy videogames than spend time studying at the library.
There are 1.5 STEM graduates for every entry-level STEM job opening.
Lazy isn't the problem. The problem is basic math and how many people are unwilling to let basic math trump their ideology.
Someone seriously wrote that on Slashdot - the site for programmers, system admins, R&D and so on who are considered a "cost center"?
A lot of people here do not generate a salable return but without them the systems used to generate a return would fail. Should most of the people here take a pay cut just because an accountant has defined them as a "cost center"? Should the accountants also take a cut since they are also support staff?
Consider that and then think about your example as applied to yourself instead of some other person you consider worthless untermenchen.
You were lucky, in your background or genetics or decisions; others aren't.
DEAD WRONG. I worked my ass off and got shit on over and over and over for it. I've homeless more than a few times, and lost more than one opportunity to my scary background on account of my "lucky" decisions. Eventually I enlisted in the US Army, learned (learnt?) a decent skill, gained real world experience, and refused to quit until I had at least a decent job with a livable wage. None of that is luck, none of it was genetics, and the decisions that led me here have been mostly teaching me what not to do.
I get it though, it's easier to blame unseen forces like gods and luck and shit than accept that the world is a harsh place full of harsh realities and will never be fair. The only way anybody ever gets anywhere is failing over and over again. Yup, even the rich kid that inherits a fortune spends his life failing over and over until he "makes it" Blaming the people signing your paycheck certainly aint gonna move your ass up.
I'm not shitting on those that are trying, but when a jobs got you sleeping in the 7/11 parking lot, its time to re-evaluate your options. Complaining and demonizing the company that has agreed to employ you is wasting the time you could be using to learn a new hustle, or marketable skill.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
It's describing Uber drivers who live in inexpensive areas who travel into expensive cities, drive drunk people around throughout the night, and then decide to sleep in their car at 3am rather than driving back home... alternative title: Long-haul Truckers Sleep in Rest Areas Across the US.
Uber drivers are classed as employees in an increasing number of jurisdictions. And in the places they aren't I'd expect that to change pretty quick once the courts are asked to find liability. Uber can put whatever they like in the contract but that doesn't make it enforceable, and waiving liability is one of those clauses that rarely pass the sniff test.
It's hard to say whether it was a stupid idea or not because the mode of failure was a drop in oil price removing the funds to continue carrying out the idea.
A monoculture fucked over the socialist state of Venezuela just like it's going to fuck over the monarchist state of Saudi Arabia when their oil runs out. It's got nothing to do with whether a monarchist government is better than a socialist one but all to do with bad choices and relying too much on one point of failure.
Hate to break it to you but most jobs, by the numbers, require "almost no skills." 40% of US workers are unskilled. Should they all starve to death?
I can reasonably predict that in time there will be no need for humans to do any jobs. Robots will be able to build copies of themselves as well as to repair each other. Once that happens they can download the training required for any standardized job. Sure it may cost an insane amount of money to create that program, but you only have to do it once.
In short, the parent is 100% correct, but I'll go further. Should the day come when there are almost no jobs, what should those people do? Should we cease to exist as a species? Perhaps the robots can get on without us, but should they?
If the guy making $15/hr wants to keep eating at McDonald's, then why doesn't he pull himself up by his bootstraps and work harder to get a better paycheck, just like he keeps telling the people making minimum wage to do?
You don't deserve money for doing nothing, or for doing a job that requires almost no skills.
This is such a backwards way of thinking. People's time is valuable. Time they spend doing a job that requires almost no skills is time spent that they could be using to become skilled. This is why it's important that employers pay a livable wage; so we don't waste the value of our workforce.
Why the fuck are we always being asked to pay for the unskilled? Jesus christ.. there are so many fucking government run job training programs out there. There are the trades, where you start out as a low paid apprentice and work your way up to better pay.. If you are unskilled beyond the age of 25 or so, you are a lazy fucking cunt. And it's all YOUR FAULT.
You assholes always want your instant gratification. I shouldn't have to train or work hard, no, I should get a living wage for flipping burgers.
FUCK YOU
So if someone is willing to work for less than what you decide is a living wage, you prefer to have the government forcibly prevent them from doing so and not allow them to get a job? How noble of you!
Is that because you hate poor people, or you just prefer to keep people from skills from learning enough to improve their lives, or you have some sort of interest in keeping them dependent on others?
Do you also go around telling people they can't buy stuff 3rd-worlders make so the global poor are forced to live in worse conditions?
BTW, slavery by definition is involuntary, not voluntary.
Forcibly preventing people from improving their lives by voluntarily exchanging their time/labor for income is a moral issue, but you're apparently on the wrong side of it.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
It sounds like you prefer for them all to starve rather than be legally allowed to work. Making it illegal for someone to work in the best situation they can find isn't doing them any favors... quite the opposite.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I drove for Uber for 1 day on a dare (I earn a six-plus figure salary, and had a brand-new Audi A5 - Sydney, Australia) and this is what I learnt.
Driving across about twelve hours on a Saturday, I averaged AUD$30 an hour of take-home pay. Equate that to a full-time salary and that's about AUD$60,000 per annum - a pretty-good salary for a lot of people.
However, why Uber drivers are stupid, is that they only look at what their take-home pay is, and nothing else. They don't factor in petrol/gas (In Sydney ~$1.60 a litre), they don't factor in insurance (although you're covered on your fully-comprehensive insurance for your car, if you crash while driving for Uber and the insurance company finds out, good luck getting any form of payment - not to mention your immediate loss of wages while you wait for your car to be fixed), they don't factor in wear/tear/depreciation on the car, they don't factor in maintenance, they don't factor in cleaning/washing every few hours to maintain a 5-star rating, they don't factor in phone/data plan (calling/sms'ing your customers, data for Google maps). This is assuming they own the car outright from the get-go -- if it's leased / has repayments, they don't factor those elements in either.
All those factors depreciate immensely from your ~$30 an hour take-home pay. They're unavoidable as you need all of the above to successfully drive for Uber (successfully as in, maintain a >4.6 star rating). What full-time "career" Uber drivers realise - such as the person in the article - is that what you earn from Uber needs to be re-invested into driving for Uber - which means you struggle to pay rent / eat / have a house etc.
Short-term Uber drivers who need say, a few hundred dollars on a weekend - that's the way to make money - purely as a side-income. Anything more than that will end in tears.
Im surprised they don't rent out micro apartments too.
Uber is being shitty to these people by upselling it so much, but I spoke to a dozen Uber drivers over the past couple of years. Some complain about rent, some complain about the traffic, some complain their kids are giving them a lot to worry about, but all of them like driving for Uber, because the alternative is just so much worse. And that's the real problem. There are no better alternative for some of these people.
A couple of positive things you get from driving for Uber: flexible hours, take any day off, work anytime you want, even after your regular 9-5 job, no asshole coworkers to deal with, and refuse any customer you don't like. It's a really good deal if you're in an area with high demand.
My mom didn't grasp how bad the situation was for school until we compared tuition. In 1995, she was paying $9/credit. In 2015, going to the same community college she did, I was paying $47/credit. In that time, minimum wage increased by 2x, where tuition increased 5.2x. She has since gotten off the whole "They should just go to college and get a better life, it's easy" rant now.
Unfortunately not everyone has the means to go out and get those skills required to earn a decent salary.
Well, tough shit. If you can't properly contribute to society, it doesn't owe you a thing and society as a whole would be better off without those people in it.
They'll figure it out, or starve.
Slavery is now illegal.
Some would say slavery was better. At least the slave owners had an investment in their workers. Uber gets its workers for free, nobody cares if half of them starve to death.
There's a difference in degree only, not semantics. When people live in a region so poor and uneducated that all jobs and communication with the external world are provided by a single landowner, there isn't much difference between being a free peasant or a slave. This advice coming from someone living in a country which was governed by that model for several centuries.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
On the contrary, allowing people to outcompete each others on who works for less is what causes poor people to run out of options. If you work the whole day for slightly less than a subsistence salary, there's no room for doing something that will improve your life.
Slavery is doesn't appear because "by definition" someone is forced to do something against their will, it happens because some removes all other options from you, so that the other possible voluntary alternative is death.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
wow
No shit, illusion of safety in exchange for basic human rights. America was a fun experiment till the fascists got control of it...
Unskilled labor is harder than skilled labor. It destroys your body and shortens your lifespan. Meanwhile I am sitting here in a comfortable chair, climate controlled office, making 3x as much money. The reward for getting an education is largely that you don't have to work at such a shitty job. If it payed the same amount of money to work at McDonalds as it did for me to do my current job I would still never do it because it would drive me crazy. The least we can do is give people working at those jobs a livable wage, because I know I wouldn't trade places with them.
And when do you expect to get the raise that will allow you go buy the now more expensive product? Someone making $15/hr already who gets no raise when the minimum goes to $15/hr will be in serious trouble as the prices for everything that come from current minimum wage workers goes up to cover your largesse. I'm glad you have lots of excess cash now that you can spend on the more expensive products, but most people do not.
Sorry to interrupt your lecture on crackpot economics 101 (or introduction to economic fallacies) but there are many, many nations throughout the world that demonstrates this is not the case. The UK, Australia, Japan and and many European nations demonstrate that paying a livable minimum wage does not result in mass unemployment. Quite the opposite in fact, paying people a livable wage enables them to buy things like rent and food instead of living in a leased car in a car park and subsisting on whatever they could get from Poundland.
In fact Henry Ford's entire business model depended on his employees being paid enough to buy his own products... And that worked out fantastically for him as compared to Uber... who are haemorrhaging cash.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
read this
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html
and then they will have to cover all the costs of being a landlord.
$47/credit is still pretty good. I paid $167/credit at the local technical college, plus associated fees which brought it closer to $190/credit, for the class I finished last December. That is also the same rate that is charged at the community colleges as well as they are part of the same system. I paid some thing similar to your $47/credit when I got my BS in CS and that was back in '01.
Time to offend someone
No, that's why it's important to make training people something that is provided by the government. The solution isn't to make businesses pay somebody more than the value they bring to the company. We should be using tax dollars to provide better training to citizens. If that requires collecting more tax dollars from businesses and well off individuals, then that's fine. But forcing high wages definitely won't fix the problem because the cost of the items they are producing will go up, or the jobs will become non-existent entirely.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
They keep doing what they're doing.
When your solution involves magically conjuring $200 out of thin air, the problem is your cloistered worldview. Not that the poor are insufficiently creative.
Americans are not as tolerant of being trod upon by others as Indians are. There are plenty of resources in the US, so having to skip meals in the US is an artificial situation directly caused by others for their own personal enrichment. Americans are more likely to rise up and create a better and more fair society (or at least tear down the dystopia that you seem to relish) than quietly starve and suffer through increasing inequality.
You only talk about how noble the poor in India are because you personally benefited from their desperation and low station.
And what do you propose should happen to those who don't have the skills, and can't acquire them?
You already know the answer to that question: Those without skills will starve to death. Hell, even those with skills will starve to death if there is a hiccup in job opportunities.
The world is an absolutely brutal place and fuck you, I've got mine. I don't really want to live in a world like this, but meh. What other choices are there? Eat or be eaten.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
There's a difference in degree only, not semantics.
No, boiling water and an ice cube are the difference of degrees. Your example is completely flawed. In the case of slavery, people can either do what they're told or face physical punishment ( up to and including death ). They have no rights. To family, to property...none of it.
In the other, someone freely enters into an agreement ( which they can leave at anytime mind you ). Their employer can't take away their family. They can't take away their property.
It's honestly a bit offensive to compare the two. It belittles the historic struggles faced by slaves throughout the world, and even today.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
What makes you think I was talking to you? Several people still read Slashdot.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
First a helicopter ride and now a therapy bunny?!?! This sounds too good to be true!
In fact Henry Ford's entire business model depended on his employees being paid enough to buy his own products... And that worked out fantastically for him
He didn't raise the minimum wage, so it's not a good analogy. Actually, it didn't work out so much for everyone else until the labor organized to get themselves a pay rate VERY MUCH ABOVE what he wanted to pay them. Do you think his auto plants would have gone union had he been paying such wonderful wages all along?
He was creating a market by not just paying his workers, but by creating a manufacturing process that meant what he was building would cost less to build anyway. He wasn't doing it for HIS workers because he'd never survive in business that way. It was media hype produced to create an image. "Come buy cars from the guy who really cares about his employees." He was doing it to make money from free advertising.
Doubling the minimum wage so it becomes a "living wage" will INCREASE the costs for everything that involves minimum wage labor. This increase will impact EVERYONE who buys anything from those sources, which is pretty much everyone, even those who are getting by with their current $15/hr jobs. Your local grocery store will have to raise prices on everything, after dealing with the wholesale price increases from their suppliers who have to pay more to their labor. It's not just a one-step increase. And grocery stores are just the first example out of thousands.
Why do your favorite countries get away with paying so much already? Because they are already in a social welfare system that sucks a larger amount of taxes back out of the worker's pockets. It didn't come as a sudden disruption to their system.
So sorry, the crackpot economics is the nonsense that raising minimum wage will be a panacea to the homeless problem. If anything, it will make it worse as prices go up to pay more to people who aren't producing at that level.
And that worked out fantastically for him as compared to Uber... who are haemorrhaging cash.
Your comparison of Ford to Uber is quite interesting. It would appear that you think that Uber should pay their drivers enough so that their drivers could afford to use Uber -- like Ford employees buying Model T cars -- which is patent nonsense. Or that Uber paying their drivers a $15/hr minimum wage (the current "living wage" level being proposed) would mean Uber would be rolling in dough. Yes, surely, if you raise the costs for Uber and thus raise the prices so that fewer people would choose Uber over a regular taxi, Uber will certainly begin profiting like never before. And you call my economics "crackpot".
The cost of living in a dump varies wildly throughout the country, and is constantly changing; so no number can be decided. Besides, we can't pay people to sit around and have sex (a favorite pastime, BTW) - so case closed. ...Unless you're planning on NOT also funding each child they happen to create, intentionally or by accident.
This is probably going to become the new norm. People who work and pay taxes just living hand to mouth on the streets.
And the 1% at the top will still think the mother fuckers get to damned much money.
This was just local Communtiy College, and it seems to be the going rate in Sothern California. When you say Technical College, do you mean like ITT/DeVry (sp?).
The phrase "unskilled job" is one used by rich elitists (or not so rich elitists) who have never worked a job. All of those jobs require skills, such as knowing how to safely lift heavy weights, and "white collar" people do not have those skills. Further more, most of the jobs referred to that way are the ones that will still be there after automation.
On the other hand, jobs that a kid can learn to do don't usually require those skills and make good starter jobs. If you destroy all of the "starter jobs" then how do kids learn about having a job, or get "experiance" so they can get better jobs?
The people complaining about "living wage" are often rich kids who majored in "art history" in school, without any idea of what job that was going to get them. Do you know how many real Art History jobs there even are? Ptht!
Even in this region where living expenses are very low, good luck paying your bills on $20k/yr.
There's a lot of students that live off of less than that.
The issue is that people making minimum wage think they are entitled to things they cannot afford. They believe they should be able to have a place all to themselves, should be able to support dependents and still have money left over for things like their own vehicle, cable tv and smartphones.
So what do you do for the disabled? The elderly? The people who are out of work due to an injury? Exempt them? How do you tell if the exemption is legit? What's the social safety net for them? Do they get paid? How do you ensure employee safety? Do they get health benefits?
Then don't advertise them as such. It's really that simple.
Do you care to explain what makes one occupation more "deserving" of a living wage than another, and how you know we have enough deserving jobs to match deserving people?
If they have to raise the price of the burgers, that sounds like the market correcting itself to me. ...Maybe people really didn't need so many burgers?
ISTR that is was WJ Clinton who was all giddy touting the new "Service Economy" back in the halcyon 90's. I remember this because my thought was that a service job is what I wanted to get OUT of, so I went back to school to learn computers. Oy.
People also forget about insurance costs. Your typical insurance policy does not cover the vehicle being used as a taxi. Commercial liability insurance makes driving for Uber well below minimum wage work when vehicle depreciation is also factored in. This is compounded when there is an accident. When you get into an accident as a passenger in an Uber vehicle, Uber will fight tooth and nail to make sure they don't have to pay anything. So will the insurance company for the driver.
If the entry level positions are now in India why dont your entry level graduates move to India to get the requisite entry level experience. Nothing is preventing them from doing so. Its not even as hard as it was for their grandparents. With modern flight India is only a 20 hr ride away. Go work in India in entry level positions and you will be ideal candidates for senior level positions in the US as companies will not even have to do visas for you while you would have the cultural context to work with entry level folks in India. Fact of the matter is with globalization entry level work is no longer valuable enough to do it in USA.
**Life is too short to be serious**
When you say Technical College, do you mean like ITT/DeVry (sp?).
No not like one of those dodgy operators. In Minnesota as part of one of my state's university systems (MNSCU) we have a number of vocational and technical colleges that offer a number of programs designed to actually educate people in practical skills and trades. In my area the 2 major ones that are part of the MNSCU system are Dakota County Technical College and also Hennepin Technical College. The highest degree offered at either one is an applied associates but they also offer shorter programs for various certifications. We also have another Vo-Tech Dunwoody that is really good even if they are a private institution but unlike the ITT/DeVry they actually educate their students and they do work with Hennepin Tech to share resources. The tuition at Dunwoody is more than at Hennepin but then Dunwoody doesn't get the state aid either. They have to compete for students so it can't be too out of line with what the state schools are charging. All of these are regionally accredited, not nationally, institutions that in most cases have been around for a long time.
MNSCU also operates a large number of community colleges and I think 7 universities that offer bachelors, masters, and PhDs. The community and technical colleges are lumped together tuition wise and the universities are all lumped together. The other nice thing is that credits at any of MNSCU schools will transfer to any other one which is nice as it makes taking classes easier and makes it easier to get your degree. I also know that when I was in high school my school district had a post secondary program and for those who wanted to go learn a trade could go over to Dakota County Tech and get a head start on that program before they graduated high school or if you were planning on going to college you could go and take classes at Inver Hills or Normandale community college. The classes counted towards your high school work but you also got college credit for it and the school district paid for it. I took advantage of it most of my senior year and took a full year of college calculus (no AP test for me), full year of calculus based physics, a world history class, an English composition class, a speech class and a college statistics class (not calculus based). Add in the AP European history, AP biology, and AP chemistry that I had taken my junior year and I started college with sophomore standing at no cost to me. I now wonder if they still have the post secondary program because it really would be a shame if they didn't as it provided a lot of opportunity.
Time to offend someone
Basically you're pointing out that in certain situations a group of newcomers can get in and ruin a good thing that the original group had going on.
...
Well, that's precisely why immigration needs to be controlled.
That's why not everyone needs to learn how to c0d3z.
That's why communism doesn't work.
It's a problem with pretty much every human endeavor.
The best we can do is try to keep people from intentionally screwing up a good thing. But good luck with that.
As for the uber and taxi drivers themselves: look, all careers are, to some extent, ephemeral. Even farming doesn't necessarily last forever.
Nobody can guarantee you a farm that won't experience a dust bowl.
Nobody can guarantee you an engineering job in a city that you like.
Nobody can guarantee you that you won't get cancer at some point.
Nobody can guarantee you that you won't be poor or that you'll be rich.
There are no guarantees.
There can be no guarantees.
But even if there were some way to know the future or to offer some real guarantees nobody owes it to you or anyone else anyway.
Yeah it sucks when you had a good thing going and were making plenty of money but then it goes away.
That's why we need to be adults and save our resources for when times get tough and keep an eye out for how things are going in the world so we can see the tough times coming.
It's why we have brains. It's why we conquered the whole planet while animals are stuck in their various habitats.