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Americans Are Lining Up To Work For Amazon For $15 an Hour (qz.com)
One of the most important takeaways from Amazon's 2018 fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report, released Jan. 31, had little to do with the usual financial results. Amazon disclosed in the report that it received a record 850,000 work applications for hourly jobs in the US in October 2018 after announcing it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Nov. 1. From a report: The company said that was more than double its previous record for job applications received in a single month. Amazon said the new $15 minimum affects more than 250,000 employees in the US and 17,000 employees in the UK (where the increase was 10.50 pound in the London area and 9.50 pound everywhere else), plus more than 200,000 workers who were hired for the holiday season. As of Dec. 31, Amazon had 647,500 full- and part-time employees, up 14% from the same period a year earlier.
Well, if you grew up and you or your culture didn't value an education, or make an effort when you had the opportunities....guess where you end up?
Remember the old saying:
"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too..."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Boohoo. Minimal skills demand minimum wage. Want to make more? Learn a valuable skill.
850,000 people lining up for $15/hour despite the repeated documentation of truly terrible, dehumanizing working conditions. Amazon employees urinate in bottles and trash cans in the warehouse because it's faster than going to the bathroom and they might face consequences for wasting that much time. They get various injuries as a result of proper industrial hygiene. They get fired for being ill. They're treated like disposable meat-bots. But I guess that's better than no job.
I have no facts to back up this feeling, but I'm suspicious that something has gone wrong with the way we measure unemployment and underemployment in the US. We're at about 4% unemployment, lowest in ~50 years. Unemployment that low should drive wages up, but they reportedly aren't even rising as fast as inflation. So, congratulations, here's some wage growth, but it comes at the cost of the boss' recognition of your humanity.
From 1965--2015, real median annual household income in the US increased by about 11%. In 2015 dollars, median household income in 1965 was about $50,000 per year... in 2015, it was about $56,500. Meanwhile, real GDP per capita increased by about 150%. Now, it's true that average household size decreased over that time, but not by nearly enough to explain this stagnation. It's also true that employees have had non-monetary benefits like health insurance, but employers have been gradually chipping away at those benefits.
Maybe these things aren't as important as I suspect they are, and maybe my intuition is just not good in this area. Like I say, I can't exactly explain what the core problem is, but the symptoms make me uneasy.
Just like the immigrants that built the railroads. They have no options. System working as designed.
Have you ever seen the inside of a meat packing plant? None of those people want to be there. They have to be there because they have no other options.
It's pretty sad that this many people are lining up for these jobs. Read between the lines. This is pretty damn bad.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
That's fair, but an argument can also be fairly made that minimum wage should never be less than the amount that a person needs to live, without requiring further aid from social assistance programs, and assuming that they work full time hours. Anything less is dehumanizing, and if you want to dehumanize your workers, then use robots. This also means that minimum wage would vary, depending on the cost of living in the municipality where the wage applies.
If the technology doesn't exist to use robots for your business, then too effing bad. Treat human beings like human beings and pay them enough to actually live on.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Vermont routinely gets that cold and they do not close their schools for 10 degrees or even -10 degrees.
That's why Vermont doesn't have to close schools when it's -10 F - everyone is prepared for it, particularly when it comes to owning adequate winter clothes. When it only goes below freezing once a year, most people, especially people with lower incomes, don't waste money on that kind of winter gear. If you only have clothing that's helpful for 40 F, going outside when it's -10 F can be deadly.
Wait a second here... Do you mean to tell me that Americans will do "jobs that Americans won't do" if you pay them a living wage with benefits?
So, I was curious. I've never worked for minimum wage, I've either been dead broke in poverty and desperate and living in the back of a car which was waiting to be repossessed or I've make 6 figures but never between. I never had the chance to live like a normal person.
So, I just searched Omaha for apartments. It seems that a two bedroom apartment in a nice suburb will cost you $1030 a month. To secure this, it would require a $3090 a month income. That's about $18 an hour or it can be done at $15 an hour at 9.5 hours a day assuming time and a half overtime.
A 2014 BMW i3 with range extender would cost $18000 to $302 a month over 72 months. This is a good car because the resale value shouldn't drop considerably and after paying the car off, you can pay about the same for another year for a battery refurbishment. This car should have a very low cost of ownership (I drive one and it's almost like being paid to drive) and it should be relatively reliable. The only disadvantage is that it would have to be serviced by a BMW shop. But, it's still a far better purchase than a $12500 gas vehicle that has substantially more parts to break and replace... and pay gas for.
Car insurance will run about $125 a month on that for a 30+ man or woman.
I just grocery shopped online at one of the more expensive grocery stores I know of and shopped as if I had to budget. This didn't mean being stingy, but it meant grocery store brand over name. It meant fresh foods over packaged. It meant not paying double for organic. Choosing to shop the sales, etc... I came up with what should be a grocery card for a family of two including a month supply of soaps (bathroom, dish, laundry...), paper towels and toilet paper, tooth brushes, etc... I came up at $223. I suppose that using coupons and time as well as shopping at a non-rich person store would get it to $150, but I also didn't get anything really fun, it looked like what a healthy family would eat... you know, the kind of family where the parent loves the children instead of giving them food from boxes. So, let's choose $600 a month as a relatively round number for essentials (food, etc..) for a family of two.
Then there's clothes. Depending on your needs, you can dress fairly well on a budget of $100 a month for an adult... this will also cover buying new winter coats. And you can dress a child for $150 a month. They grow and require replacement of stuff much faster. So let's calculate $250 a month
The person would need furniture as well, but you can't budget that monthly, you buy that over 20 years and piece by piece. You inherit what you need from other people until you can buy the thing you actually want.
Then there's electricity, water, internet and telephones. I think even someone much better than I am at budgeting would still find this costing about $400 a month.
So, $1030 (rent), $600 (food stuff), $300 (Car), $125 (car insurance), $250 a month (clothes, shoes, etc..), $400 a month for utilities and phone.
We're up to $2900 a month. If the person manages to get 9.5 hours a day, they would earn $3090 a month. I think even if they get almost 100% tax free, they would still have to pay social security which I think is about 10%, so there goes $300 a month.
So, this person, if I don't account for any additional oopsies would be about $100 a month in the whole...at least.
The car is paid off in 6 years, so if they can do 8 years, that's probably an extra $100 a month in the bank. And if the car lasts 25 years... as it should since it's basically all plastic and easy to replace parts, after the loan is paid, the cost of ownership should drop to $100 a month. But that doesn't help earlier on.
There's no room for day car or babysitting... so, being a single parent would be REALLY REALLY difficult.
They could get a cheaper apartment, but the goal isn't survival. For $1000 a month, you get an apartment with a gym, a pool and other things. This is considered living like a human instead of someone who is simp