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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!
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.
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
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.
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?
you must rent / buy your uniform and rent our phone / pda at $50 a week to work for us.
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
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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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.
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 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!
Actually, skilled construction trades are one of the few blue-collar jobs that are still viable, and will likely continue to be. It's impossible to outsource, and the situations are so dissimilar it's hard to automate. They tend to make good money (over 50k a yaer).
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
Soon the clothes will be colorless and featureless. Unless you pay to have the colors, branding and features of the class you feel like belonging to. Total transparency for the lowest.
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.
Yet another reason why they're just like taxis and taxi drivers.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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.
And they have 99% of the new ideas, provide 99% of the funding to develop new stuff, own/run most of the private infrastructure, oh they also include almost every doctor and lawyer, execs of most medium to large business, hell even a lot of the more senior IT/engineering positions especially in dual income households
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. The list changes a little because you dump some of the young (35) high income types but pick up many more people nearing retirement, along with a bunch of small business owners and farmers.
I like to wander around private colleges where liberal arts majors are spouting off about the 1% and point out that their parents probably qualify for the club.
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!
Don't know if that's intended as a joke, but years ago when I clerked an Allsup's, they did in fact make us rent our aprons. They paid a few cents over minimum wage, but fell below that bar if you deducted the cost of apron rental. They gave us the option of buying an apron, but they were fairly expensive and the laundering requirements were absurd compared to the laundry schedule the store managed.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
And they have 99% of the new ideas, .
No, actually they don't. Some of the 1% did get there by work, but most of them got there by inheriting money. They don't have any ideas; they don't need to have any ideas. They can buy ideas. The world is full of people with ideas, but most of them don't have the resources to do anything with them.
provide 99% of the funding to develop new stuff, own/run most of the private infrastructure,
Yeah, that's the thing. They control all the funding, so if you have an idea you want to commercialize, you are pretty much guaranteed that you'll have to sell it to somebody with cash. And they own the infrastructure. One way or the other, you end up paying them.
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...
Norwegian here, you don't think socialists have simple answers? Some people have a [something] problem, let's regulate [something]. Which means that right now at 8:30 PM on a Monday I can't buy a damn beer at the store. We need more money for [good cause]? Increase taxes. I could work harder, but I don't. Why? Because on my marginal dollar I pay 25% + 8.7% + 8.2% = 40% taxes and 25% VAT on most things mean I lose another 15%. Sorry for 45 cents to the dollar I'll just get an easy job (37.5 hours/week, paid overtime, flexible hours) and be lower middle class. If was in the US I'd probably work 50-60 hours/week and make $200k.
Getting kickback from creating value is not a socialist virtue, if you got lots of money you can pay lots of money is their thinking. The day we run out of oil all hell will break loose because we're lazy and think everybody deserves good pay just for showing up at work or doing meaningless paper pusher jobs. And since I can't change the public opinion and tax system to reward hard work, I've decided if you can't beat them then join them. Even on cruise control I seem to get praise for good work, which is both cushy and a bit creepy at the same time. Maybe it's just that I can't stand all the stupid and make actual working solutions from time to time.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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 wasn't his best option. He left his job for a lie and hope that this fraud would be better.
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.
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.
You should look into how Taxi companies work. People work the first 8 hours or so of the day just to break even.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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?
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If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
Because such an education costs nothing, and magically pays all your bills. And people don't need things like "food" or "shelter" while getting an education. Also, if you make the "right" choice and get a STEM education, there aren't more STEM graduates than entry-level job openings. (This site claims 1.55 graduates per job opening)
Oh wait, absolutely none of that is true. Huh. Almost like reality doesn't quite fit your model.
A business is not obligated to subsidize your choice to work a low paying job.
Of course they are, because otherwise the taxpayer ends up doing it.
Uber is for college students who want to make extra money running people around.
To drive for Uber in the UK you need to be a) 21 or over, which rules out anyone who isn't in their final year or hasn't already graduated and b) own a car registered in 2008 or later. Not many cash-strapped students drive at all much less in a new(ish) car.
If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.
No, it's society's problem. Some people are never going to get anything better than a minimum wage job, not out of idleness or other moral failing, just because that's the limit of what they can do. Don't pretend that there's always a choice involved on their part. Either we as a society make employers pay a wage that people in that situation can live on or we accept having vast numbers of people on state aid. Whichever one we opt for, the public end up paying for it.
If a person is genuinely learning/training for most of their day then the odds are that they're already on state aid or they aren't a breadwinner.
To pre-empt your likely rebuttal, let me ask you a rhetorical question: do you really think anyone would do the sort of work that pays the minimum wage by choice? They're usually very shitty jobs, sometimes literally so.
This is why Uber is very interested in autonomous vehicles.
A company wants to automate its workforce. I'll try to contain my amazement.
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.
Why? The only reason to have twice as many drivers working half the time (that I can think of) is to reduce the average wait time for each fare and to increase the number of short journeys you can cover in a given time, but you lose some of that extra profit by doubling your per-driver overhead. Smaller (i.e. barely profitable) companies sometimes have to reduce their workforce when minimum wages are increased, but something tells me that Uber isn't one of them.
Your pay is based on productivity per hour. Not simply showing up per hour.
Being paid piecemeal is the exception, not the rule. In cases where it is done the pay per unit is calculated so that an average worker will usually end up receiving at least the minimum wage anyway. No-one is advocating that people be paid for simply turning up for work; if a salaried or hourly paid employee doesn't pull their weight you warn them, give them a reasonable chance to improve and then sack them if they don't.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
There are about 1.5 STEM graduates for every entry-level STEM job opening in the US.
Even making the "right" choice and getting an education is no guarantee of a successful future. No matter how much parents push it as a magic bullet.
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.
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.
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
There being so few people rich enough to do anything with their ideas and so many poor people consequently beholden to those rich people is bad.
If the money actually flowed from the idle rich to the hardworking poor then the problem would solve itself, but it seems somehow (*coughrentandinterestcough*) the money always ends up flowing right back into the hands of the rich to spend over and over again ad infinitum, and never actually accrues in the hands of the poor who are nominally being paid it.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
So. Can you show me a nation system that has more wealth mobility than the one we have in the US now?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Not lying - This was ~1996 in Carlsbad, NM. On Church Street next door to the Tia Maria apartments - Store was closed last time I was in town. Don't remember the exact minimum wage or apron rental cost. We got paid about a nickel over minimum and were docked about a dime.
It's just a guess but maybe the reason they offered the opportunity to purchase instead of rent got them around that law? Or the law's been updated since '96?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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!
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.
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We know that half the population is not intelligent and we know that modern marketing techniques can subvert intelligent, aware and thoughtful people. Ergo half the population is very vulnerable to exploitation by malicious people and companies that have resources.
You may consider those victims a cash cow. I personally feel that it's appropriate that society provides them with a level of protection, including preventing cunts like Uber from building a massively valuable company by breaking the law and exploiting people that were unfortunate enough to trust them.
Conning people out of money is illegal in most countries. It's fraud or comes under other legislation. Why do you think that conning people out of their labour is perfectly just fine?
I'd say it's worse than having a system where the poor person with the $1B idea could act on it.
Learn to love Alaska
If they're smart they'll actually use color, lots of color, but only a few colors each year and change them every year. They'll also mildly cut the fabric patterns differently every year and use thinner and thinner material, forcing people to pay for more and more clothing each year as they try to stay current year by year...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Intentional on their part.
People talk about "the new economy" but it's just piecework right out of the 19th century, only with an app.
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.
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.
Yes.
Easily.
Among OECD countries, the US has the 5th lowest economic mobility.
More economic mobility than the US:
Denmark
Norway
Finland
Canada
Australia
Sweden
New Zealand
Germany
japan
Spain
France
Switzerland
Less economic mobility that the US:
UK
Italy
chile
Slovenia
http://www.epi.org/publication...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.