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.

Comments

Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

enjoy the frosty, m'ladies

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[cayenne8]

I guess it beats flippin' burgers.....

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

When you post these gayass advertisements and get like 3rd or 4th post, I lol at what a loser you must be to even attempt it - then to fail anyway! It's a double lol. I guess I'm glad you sometimes don't fuck it up, that would be way too sad.
This is plenty sad.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[rmdingler]

Depends.

$15 an hour in Omaha, NE would be a good deal more attractive than $25 an hour in the SF Bay area.

Downside? Once folks are mandated a living wage for holding a job, automation and robotic replacement become incrementally more attractive.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[mark-t]

More attractive, certainly.... but not not necessarily practical on account of limitations on technology and potentially very high up-front costs, at least for the time being.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[sarren1901]

Pretty sure the only reason any of us have a job can be tied to the fact that we just can't automate it yet. Once something can be automated with reliable on par or nearly on par with a person, means it will be soon enough. Especially if a cheap manager hears about it.

In the mean time I'll just keep on doing things that still require people to be involved whenever possible. A good example is getting my driver's license renewed. California wants to charge me $35 for this. I can renew by mail, phone or online. If I go online I'm fairly certain no person will have anything to do with me getting my license. Be shocked if it wasn't totally automated.

If that's even close to true, why the heck does it have to cost $35? Powering and keep the server maintained doesn't cost that much so clearly it's just fleecing the taxpayers that drive. Not very progressive of them, unless there is some kind of waiver for low-income. I couldn't find one with a quick search.

My little protest will being sending a paper check in the mail with the form filled out. I'm hoping someone will have to actually read and input that information. At least then I can say the $35 went to actually processing my renewal.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[rmdingler]

Depends.

Where I live, it's a four to eight hour time expenditure to physically attend a driver's license renewal... every other 6 yr renewal, they allow me to renew online. For my last visit to the DMV, I arrived 90 minutes early (last year) and was 65th in line, so in addition to the $35ish fee, the time cost was still a half day.

Your argument is identical to the one that says we should stop ordering everything online and shop brick and mortar stores where we can to keep humans employed in jobs they're eventually going to lose, anyway.

Humans are unlikely to shed the selfish gene.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[tsqr]

Your argument is identical to the one that says we should stop ordering everything online and shop brick and mortar stores where we can to keep humans employed in jobs they're eventually going to lose, anyway.

I suspect that his motivation was more along the lines of wanting to feel as though he was getting his money's worth.

Anyway, I like to shop locally when I can. When I find something I want on Amazon, I look to see if Best Buy has it, because BB has a policy of price-matching Amazon. Too many people use brick and mortar stores as Amazon showrooms -- I wonder what they plan on doing when Amazon finally puts the brick and mortar stores out of business.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

And not long after companies realize that there is nobody able to buy their products.

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[LostMyBeaver]

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

Re: Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a single worker in an unskilled job need a two bedroom apartment in a nice suburb, plus a fancy car?

If your hypothetical person shared that flat, they're instantly $500 a month better off, and that takes them from living below the breadline to being able to save a little a month.

You suggest a 6 year finance deal on a fancy car, but $300 a month is ridiculous. An older car will need more maintenance and fuel, but not $3600 a year worth. In the UK, I'd suggest buying an old VW Polo, which gets comparable fuel economy to an i3 but can be bought outright for less than 4 months of your lease. Even if it needs replacing in a year, it's still cheaper by over $1000 a year! I know small cars aren't popular in the US so they might not be so available.

You have a ridiculous sense of entitlement. The financial problems of your hypothetical minimum wage worker are entirely caused by setting unreasonable expectations of living space and having a luxury car.

Yes, I have an 1800 sq. ft. house now with a BMW 5 series on the drive, but 15 years ago I drove a beater and shared a house with 3 people to get by. I worked my way up to what I have, I didn't just expect it.

Re: Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not entitlement to expect some basic human decency when working full-time for a minimum wage. I agree with you that one can get by with a lot less than a newish BMW and a 2br apartment for oneself. However, 7.25/hr makes it damn near impossible to beat the cycle of poverty and qualifies one for living assistance. Not to mention that BMW and spare bedroom is a tremendous advantage in this day and age. Supplementing income is as easy as signing up for Uber and AirBnB

Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[lgw]

Yup, you've never been poor. Amazon is a dystopian nightmare, but $30k is solid for unskilled labor.

Roomate. Apartment not in the good part of town. 5-year-old Honda Fit or Civic for under $10k, lasts forever. $300 is plenty for food. That's doing OK.

Roomates. Apartment where you hear gunshots every night. 15-year-old shitbox. $150 is plenty for food if you cook. That's gettin by.

Good times. Any time you make a payment. Good times. Any time you meet a friend. Not getting hassled. Not gettin hustled. Keepin your head above water. Makin a wave when you can.

Re: Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Honda Civic approaches that $1,000 a year to maintain under various conditions.

1. Live in a neighborhood or community where second hand vehicles were rarely if ever maintained. Resulting in cars that do not last long. (My last Nissan was like that, ten thousand usd at the dealership, and four years before the maintenance skyrocketed and still couldn't keep it from keeling over before it hit 200k miles.)

2. Grow up in the city where it is practically illegal to work on your own vehicle. (Changing the oil in your driveway would get you evicted.) Then have higher upkeep costs because you couldn't learn to tinker.

3. Incur more than one unexpected expense. Survival at $15 an hour or less is a gamble. Either the gamble pays off and you get out of poverty, or the gamble fails and you wind up on the streets.

4. Operate without a support network. Say everybody around you is making less than $15 an hour. You're the one who is wealthy. Those unexpected expenses at #3 get worse when you can't lean on somebody else until you get your costs under control.

5. Not have maximum cost saving measures in place. These days there are energy efficient homes and appliances, and vehicles, and double-pane windows, etc. If you're setup then you have a much lower cost of living than the guy in the converted once was a trailer with no insulation and dry rotting window frames that are not air tight, and are probably being held together by duct tape. Running window units and space heaters. And ancient appliances and vehicles that just increase in their costs. It costs more money to be poor than to be wealthy.

Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Drones.

Re:Not Americans

[cayenne8]

Drones.

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..."

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the world has replaced ditch diggers with the operators of trenching equipment who laugh at the poor victims of Amazon's exploitative labor policies and lament the collapse of the American system of public schools that resulted when the right-wing had to choose between education for the underclass or betraying their values voters.

They picked the latter, and Reagan succeeded with his plans.

Sorry, but you are blaming the wrong culture, as usual it hits too close to home.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Boohoo. Minimal skills demand minimum wage. Want to make more? Learn a valuable skill.

Re:Not Americans

[sjames]

Or if you didn't have the opportunities...

Re:Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?" - The Tea Party, we know. That's sad enough but it's hardly the point.

People making this wage cannot afford higher education, $15/hr is a step up from 7.25 *(because that was RIDICULOUS) but it's still not going to pay their basic living expenses and then allow them to save much if anything.

Factor in a single accident, health care incident, breakup, tragedy, fire/theft, disaster... that person goes from viable to invalid in one step. Meanwhile Amazon has driven up the cost of housing and killed the mom & pop retails.

And they get a massive tax subsidy gifted to them for doing so. I guess that's the kind of "bootstraps" you expect everyone to be pulling themselves up by, into higher learning, on $15 an hour minus 32% taxes.

Maybe someday you'll take a college level economics course and stop voting to cheat the working class for the corporate owners, finally. Maybe you'll win the lottery and donate it all to a school district. Sure you will.

Just bite down on those bootstraps harder, you'll be the next Dean at Trump University. Only $45,000 tuition, a bargain. Enroll today.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Boohoo, you don't want to fund teaching them, you want to complain about immigrants coming here to do the jobs that there aren't enough skilled workers to do. Want to be retard President? Learn a valuable talking point.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid my way through school. Why do your hypothetical people need gibs to get educated?

Re:Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should have learned a useful skill instead of depending everybody else to support you.

Re: Not Americans

[registrations_suck]

The US spends billions an billions and billions of dollars every year to provide its youth with an education.

Many of the spit on it.
Others you just cannot reach.
Still others do nothing with it once they have it.
A whole collection of them refuse to work, believing everything should be free.

Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops. What the fuck is that? It is bitchy parents and fear of lawsuits.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Wage-slave paying for his own slave training? AAaaaahaha stay cucked working class scum.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

Boohoo, you don't want to fund teaching them

Americans receive 13 years of free K-12 education funded by taxpayers.

If they come away from that with zero useful skills, they are likely untrainable.

Things I learned in high school:
1. Woodworking
2. Metalworking
3. Basic electronics
4. Programming
5. Touch typing
6. Calculus

All but #6 are useful for getting a job. #5 turned out to be the most useful.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Vermont routinely gets that cold and they do not close their schools for 10 degrees or even -10 degrees. Flyover country should get its act together.

Re: Not Americans

[HornWumpus]

Sorry about all the horrible bean counting jobs you've been stuck with.

If you used an occasional float, you might have found calcuseless, useful.

I actually had an employer (after discovering someone with a pure BS resume) who walked the office asking for the first derivative of 1/x and making a list. If you couldn't answer, he had HR go back and check your refs and education.

Re:Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Being part of a society means that nobody does anything without the support of others. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you still got there on the backs of others. People before you built roads, people around you keep you safe, still others make sure fires don't engulf entire city blocks. There are literally thousands of ways in which you were helped and that's even before you try to start your own business like I did at 16. I also had the fortune to be afforded several opportunities which I took advantage of. A great many people aren't handed even one shot much less trying and failing at several shots.

The libertarian idea of the self made man hasn't existed since before the founding of this country. It doesn't matter how talented you are if you are never given an opportunity to succeed. People like Trump couldn't fail because they were constantly handed both cash infusions and people who could open other doors.

Re: Not Americans

[rmdingler]

Actually, the world has replaced ditch diggers with the operators of trenching equipment...

Technology and innovation have reduced the need for ditch diggers, but there are still advantages in many circumstances to hand-digging, not the least of which is careful locating of existing subterranean water, gas, data, electrical, and sewer lines. The time cost saved by mechanical excavation is often quickly undone by necessitating additional repairs to buried utilities.

...and lament the collapse of the American system of public schools that resulted when the right-wing had to choose between education for the underclass or betraying their values voters.

One of the wonderful remnants of our formerly cutting edge system of democracy in the US is that an individual is still not restricted by a social class assignment. Here, you can still get out from under.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

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.

Re:Not Americans

[cayenne8]

Or if you didn't have the opportunities...

Well, that's life..it always has been.

There's no guarantee where you are on the starting line....behind, at the line or advantage of being in front when the start gun goes off.

You have to do the best with what you're dealt.

It can be done, there are PLENTY of people that have succeeded despite starting at the back, there's a lot of folks that started out with life handed to them and lost everything and die drug addicts on the streets.

There are no guarantees, but YOU can do your best to try to get ahead.

I still believe the US gives some of the best opportunities in the world, if you just take them....and often that requires hard work and busting your ass, especially when young and you can stand to do so.

Land of equal opportunities available does not mean equal outcomes.

Its life. You shouldn't have time to whine about it, or play victim...you could better use that time to better your lot in life.

There are lots of good paying jobs out there that don't require a college diploma. Hell, I know plumbers that make 6 figures a year, AC repairmen....etc. Hard work sure, but you can make good $$, enough to save, invest and live a good life with a family on.

Everyone has a different path, but when young, if you start off valuing the education you get for free 1-12....you can start off on the right foot and NOT have to be a $15/hr drone or burger flipper.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still stupid.

Re:Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that people like you exist and will always vote against your own interests.
I rent out property, mostly to students and young hustling types who haven't learned that the system is 100% rigged against them.

I have NEVER had a job in my life and I never will. Just try and hate me. You literally can't because it's against your basic programming. You've been conditioned your whole life to put wealth on a pedestal.

Working and taxes are for white-trash. Please never stop blaming people on welfare.

Re: Not Americans

[turbidostato]

"I paid my way through school"

You didn't.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly why schools don't teach them, take away the opportunity and educate robots who wait for their mechanical replacements to put them on the chopping block.

Thanks for noticing the point? Wait, no, you didn't.

Re: Not Americans

[Riceballsan]

How long ago? There indeed was a point in time where one could work a minimum wage job part time, and afford housing, food, school books and tuition costs. We aren't in those days anymore. Now minimum wage alone barely covers housing and food... so a spare 15k a year for a public college, or 30k+ for private college, is a tad harder to come by.

Re:Not Americans

[turbidostato]

"It can be done, there are PLENTY of people that have succeeded despite starting at the back"

Define PLENTY. How much is "PLENTY"? 50%? 10%? 1%? 0.001%?

"I still believe the US gives some of the best opportunities in the world"

Keyword "believe".

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

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

Most minimum wage earners are 2nd or 3rd earners for their household. So the amount they "need" to live is $0.

Most minimum wage earners live in households above the median income level, while relatively fewer poor people earn the minimum wage. So raising the minimum wage actually helps the better off more than it helps the poor.

The problem with the poor is not LOW wages, but NO wages. 60% of households in the bottom income quintile have zero full time workers. Even fewer have more than one person earning income.

If you want to help the poor, minimum wage increases are a bad way to do that. Far better are policies like EITC that specifically target the working poor.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice you enjoyed a market that still bought labor. But that boat is shipping, so you're an idiot to suggest it's a solution.

Only half of us will be able to sell our bodies for school. The other half have, as you insist, nothing "valuable" to sell.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops.

10F is not too cold. But 10F with 40mph winds is too cold. School can wait till Monday.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

Only if by minimum wage you mean the exact legislated amount that is the minimum you can pay a worker, where I was meaning it more to mean any wage that is less than what a person can fairly live on. Perhaps "minimal" wage could be more accurate term.

If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place. Do it yourself if you can't afford to pay anyone else that amount.

Re: Not Americans

[Dragonslicer]

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.

Re: Not Americans

[reanjr]

You can make that argument, but I personally would find it ridiculous if McDonald's paid enough to rent an apartment in San Francisco for a single mother of two.

At some point, we have to decide what really constitutes necessity.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology and innovation have reduced the need for ditch diggers, but there are still advantages in many circumstances to hand-digging, not the least of which is careful locating of existing subterranean water, gas, data, electrical, and sewer lines. The time cost saved by mechanical excavation is often quickly undone by necessitating additional repairs to buried utilities.

Sorry, but we're not going to need those ditch diggers for that, we have ground penetration systems for those tasks. Not that the buried infrastructure is going to be fixed, it will just left to fall to be ruined. Drive the unwanted away, outcast! Unworthy!

One of the wonderful remnants of our formerly cutting edge system of democracy in the US is that an individual is still not restricted by a social class assignment. Here, you can still get out from under.

Yes, yes, that is the myth taught in schools.

Check out the actual sociological studies. The class system in America has cut mobility.

Of course, you do have to be part of the upper crust to have a chance to see those studies and even then, most people on the lower end won't care because they've been indoctrinated too deeply.

This has been known since the 1800s.

Don't worry, there's a solution from the right-wing, close schools and just make prisons.

Re: Not Americans

[Obfuscant]

Only if by minimum wage you mean the exact legislated amount that is the minimum you can pay a worker,

That's what the phrase means, and is what Amazon means when they say it.

If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place.

Your entire argument eliminates every part-time job open to high school and college students, along with a lot of others. And every entry level job that would cost more to automate than it returns in production.

Are you trying to increase unemployment and poverty?

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every kid has parents that will wait at the stop in a car with them. Or has a coat. Or someone to drive them at all to school.

Stop being a douche, just because people were stupid 30 years ago doesn't make you tough... it just makes you stupid.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I used government money to pay for my entire college education.
This changed my life and produced one of these mythical tech workers that apparently we're not making enough of.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

I was meaning it more to mean any wage that is less than what a person can fairly live on.

Some people have 10 kids. Should they be paid more than someone with none?

If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place.

So if a high school student wants to flip burgers part time for some extra spending money, that should be banned, since they can't live on it?

By raising the bottom rung of the economic ladder, you are just making it harder for people to reach that bottom rung. Getting a job, any job, is the first step out of poverty. The actual wage doesn't matter so much, because anyone willing to work hard is going to quickly move up.

Key facts about the minimum wage:
1. The average household income of a minimum wage earner is $53,000 per year.
2. Only 2 percent of full-time workers earn the minimum wage.
3. Two-thirds of minimum wage earners receive a raise within a year if they stick with the job.
4. Only 9 percent of adults living below the poverty line work full time.

Most of the benefits from a hike in minimum wages goes to people that are not poor. Efforts to help the poor should focus on getting more people into employment, and focus less on wages that jobless people don't earn.

Re: Not Americans

[dryeo]

America has one of the lowest economic mobility ratings compared to most western countries with peoples incomes usually quite predictable based on their parents incomes, though you are ahead of the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

The US spends billions an billions and billions of dollars every year to provide its youth with an education.

Does it? Then why for all that money, report after report indicates something is wrong with the system?

Many of the spit on it.
Others you just cannot reach.
Still others do nothing with it once they have it.
A whole collection of them refuse to work, believing everything should be free.

So not one expression of a problem with the system, just railing about supposed failings with the students. Your bias is showing.

Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops. What the fuck is that? It is bitchy parents and fear of lawsuits.

Or it is intelligence to recognize how conditions of extreme weather merit accommodations besides just screaming at the children again.

Your myopic focus is remarkable.

Re:Not Americans

[dryeo]

Statistics disagree with your believe relative to the other western democracies. Odds are very good on being in the same income class as your parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

I would want to eliminate people being paid less, per hour, than what a human being fairly needs to live on if they were doing that job full time.

To pay anything less is, as I said, dehumanizing. If a business depends on doing this to make a profit, then its business model is broken.

And, yes.... in fact, I *am* quite in favor of automation - because I do not think that a human being should ever be put in situation where they must perform an automatable task just to survive. Human beings should be treated as being worth more than that, and paid accordingly.

And in fact, I am skeptical it would eliminate as many jobs as what you suggest... if society actually has a need for the job, then it will be created. All I am suggesting is that no human being should be treated as less than that by not paying them enough to live on, if they were, as I said, doing the job full time. If they are not doing the job full time, they could reasonably make less than a person needs to live on doing that job, but their effective hourly wage should still never be less than the minimal living wage that I am advocating.

Re: Not Americans

[omnichad]

They said getting a job, not doing the job

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

No, I'm saying that if flipping burgers is somehow an essential task that society needs workers for, and they cannot otherwise use machines to do it, then any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.

What is wrong with treating human beings like actual people instead of just replaceable cogs that are only being used to make other people rich?

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

I agree completely that we need to decide what constitutes necessity. But if McDonald's deems it essential that they have a restaurant in SF, then it follows that they should be paying the workers in SF enough to actually live there. Anything less is, as I said, treating workers as less than human, and not worthy of being able to live.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

If they are not doing the job full time, they could reasonably make less

The obvious result of your policy is that millions of full-time jobs would be converted into part-time jobs. Wages would likely decline, since part-time workers would have less time and incentive to develop skills. Poor people would spend more time, unpaid, commuting between jobs.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

The obvious result of your policy is that millions of full-time jobs would be converted into part-time jobs.

Where did I suggest that the part-timer could be paid any less, per hour, than the minimal living wage for a full time worker?

I am suggesting that a part time worker only might make less than what they need to live because they are working less hours in the day to actually earn that income, not because their hourly wage was any lower than what it otherwise would have needed to be to live on *IF* the job had been full time.

Re:Not Americans

[sjames]

This is what tells me you're in the weeds (possibly due to not wanting to think about it):

if you start off valuing the education you get for free 1-12

You realize grade 1 is six years old, right? Are you ACTUALLY claiming that a six year old should have the ability to know the education they're being provided is sub-standard, have the foresight and worldly knowledge that this is a problem for the future, and the ability to demand better, be heard, and have his demands acted upon?

Of course, before that whopper, you outlined the unequal nature of opportunity and then claimed this to be "Land of equal opportunities". You might have been using that phrase ironically, but it didn't read that way.

As funny as it would be to watch you yelling at a baby that he needs to man up and change his own damned diaper, please don't have kids until you at least take a few child development classes.

Re: Not Americans

[Obfuscant]

I would want to eliminate people being paid less, per hour, than what a human being fairly needs to live on if they were doing that job full time.

Then yes, you would eliminate all jobs that don't produce enough return to justify paying that much.

Maybe you don't realize that not every job is intended to be done by the breadwinner of a family of four?

If they are not doing the job full time, they could reasonably make less than a person needs to live on doing that job, but their effective hourly wage should still never be less than the minimal living wage that I am advocating.

So every job that doesn't return the investment in the wage will simply go away, or the increased costs of doing that job will be passed on to the consumer. A burger flipper who works where he can produce a value of $10/hour but has to be paid $15 because of your "minimal wage" law will be subsidized by the consumer until it does return $15/hour.

Or the job is automated and nobody is paid to do it.

This is Good, you think?

Re: Not Americans

[sarren1901]

And we disagree with you mark-t. Go read Bill's post again and maybe it will sink in. Minimum wage jobs are not meant to live on. They are what you do when you are living with your parents and going to school. If you work hard enough at most of those jobs, you can get a raise.

More importantly is the job experience for actually working at a job. Any job. Then when you have some education and apply for a career style job, you will actually have some real world experience dealing with coworkers and customers. It goes nicely with a degree and it's how you are suppose to move up.

Re: Not Americans

[grep -v '.*' *]

10F is not too cold. But 10F with 40mph winds is too cold. School can wait till Monday.

It's called snow days. You miss a day in winter, fine; you MAKE IT UP in summer. You don't skip it, do half-days, whatever to administratively cheat -- everything is simply pushed back a day. In particular, the start of summer vacation is as well. Oops.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.

So every burger flipper needs to be able to afford a house, a car, and send their kids to college on a single income?

I live in San Jose. You can't do that here on $200,000 salary.

Maybe the burger flippers shouldn't move out of Mom's basement until they learn a better skill.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

How many children someone has is irrelevant... What I am suggesting as a minimal living wage should be based entirely on what a single adult needs to live in that municipality. If they have dependants, then they might still require additional social assistance at that level of income.

And yes, it is good... because nobody should be forced to do an automatable task just to continue to live. Humans are not robots, and should not be treated as such.

And I am actually very skeptical that the economic apocalypse you describe would happen... if society needs the job, then it will be created.

The only jobs that would disappear are those that are not important enough to society to justify paying them a living wage would disappear. How is paying somebody less than what they need to live for a job that society doesn't even need getting done treating that person with any respect?

Re: Not Americans

[Obfuscant]

then any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.

So, if anyone in the "municipality" is a breadwinner with a family of four, ALL your employees make enough per hour to provide for a family of four, no matter what they do or how many people it feeds? Do you realize that some people have, or claim to have, really high "minimal living wage", like the guy who claimed that he makes $10k/month and needs every penny of that just to live? You're minimal wage is now $120k/year. Yes, please, sign me up for that.

Do you realize the havoc that would create when one of your "burger flippers" realizes he's getting just $10/hour while the guy doing the same job standing next to him is getting $40/hour, just because he's married and has kids and the cheap labor guy doesn't? Do you realize the problems this creates in hiring "expensive" employees? Why hire a guy with a family when you can cut your costs by hiring a single guy?

Re: Not Americans

[Obfuscant]

Sorry, I realize I've been feeding the troll.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

Assuming they are working full time, they need to be able to afford an average amount of rent being approximately one third of their gross income. How many dependants they have is irrelevant.

Re:Not Americans

[sarren1901]

Every person, illegal or citizen, gets to go K-12 for free. That right there is a great opportunity. You go to school and work hard at it. You can then take out loans or if you are lucky enough get some scholarships or a combination.

That's available to nearly everyone, including those that aren't even legally here.

So spare me the dribble that there are people in USA that are given zero opportunities. That's just simply not true.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to live on.

That being the case, humans shouldn't be doing such jobs, because guess what? Humans are living creatures, and there are only so many hours in a day or week. Paying someone less than a minimal living wage is, as I said, dehumanizing... it treats people as expendable cogs that one is only using to further their own efforts to succeed. If one cannot afford to pay someone a minimal living wage, they should just do the job themselves.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

As I have said, how many dependants a person has is irrelevant. A minimal living wage would be based only on what a single adult needs to live in the municipality. If they have dependants, and there are no other earners in the household, then additional social assistance might still be required.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

You also claimed to grow acres of weed for a living. You literally commended yourself on your ability to life as if a valid life skill worth bragging about, and you suck at it. It's hilarious that you think nobody knows you by now.

Re:Not Americans

[Cederic]

I rent out property

I have NEVER had a job in my life and I never will

You're too stupid to even realise that 'landlord' is a job.

Working and taxes are for white-trash.

There was me thinking that working and taxes are for productive members of society.

I guess you despise productive people. Makes me wonder who the fuck paid for the property you rent out though.

Just try and hate me. You literally can't

This is true. Pity, sure, bit not hate.

because it's against your basic programming

Nah, it's because you're so obviously a total twat and if I went through life hating idiotic fuckwits I'd have no time for anything else.

You're not worth such strong emotions.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans receive 13 years of free K-12 education funded by taxpayers.

Americans are getting less and less education every year. Or worse and worse, and more of it.

Depends on how you think of it.

If they come away from that with zero useful skills, they are likely untrainable.

If millions of students are bereft of skills after graduating, your schools are likely failing.

If they do have skills, but suffer from a lack of opportunity, your society is likely failing.

If you aren't choosing to look at the problem beyond just blaming the students, your vision is likely failing.

Things I learned in high school:

Now check how many schools aren't offering appropriate classes in those subjects even as they pour money into testing regimes and privatization.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

Assuming they are working full time, they need to be able to afford an average amount of rent being approximately one third of their gross income.

That is more reasonable. In SJ, they should be able to get by on $120k if they are renting with no dependents. That is only $60 per hour.

This will be a nice windfall for the 98% of minimum wage earners who aren't single salary head-of-household.

How many dependants they have is irrelevant.

So you don't care if kids starve?

Re: Not Americans

[sexconker]

How's life at Starbucks?

Re: Not Americans

[sexconker]

Does it? Then why for all that money, report after report indicates something is wrong with the system?

Yes, it does. Does it shock you to learn that throwing endless amounts of (MY) money at things doesn't magically fix them?
Are you starting to see how once you determine something must be fixed with loads of someone else's money, the problem is only incentivized to grow?

Re: Not Americans

[sexconker]

And my public education only gave me #6 from that list. We didn't even have real driver's ed.

Re: Not Americans

[Obfuscant]

How is paying somebody less than what they need to live for a job that society doesn't even need getting done treating that person with any respect?

Paying a person for the work they've done is not treating them with respect, according to you. If a job can be automated but isn't because it would be cheaper to pay someone, and even if it is not cheaper it is a way of paying back to the community that the business is in, it is disrespectful to the employee to pay him to do it. What malarky.

High school students who are holding part-time jobs to save money for college are being paid money that they don't need AT ALL to live, because they're still living at home supported by their parents. Thus I can pay that person ZERO dollars per hour because they need ZERO dollars per hour to live, in your utopian workplace.

That job serves society because it is an education in how to work for that employee, which he will use for the rest of his life no matter where he works eventually. It serves the employee because it gives him money (and the education). It serves the company who provides the job because it creates something of value for the company. It's just ridiculous to claim that someone should be paid with no regard to the value that the person brings to the job, and that any job that cannot pay as much as a full-time employee providing for a living needs should be eliminated.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

No... paying them less than what they should fairly be paid is not treating them with respect, and the minimal amount that is fair is what a person needs to live if they were doing that job full time. Anything less is treating them as if they don't deserve to be alive.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

Of course I care that kids don't starve... but what I was talking about is simply a minimal living wage, which should not factor in whether someone has dependants or not.

If a person has dependants, then they may reasonably qualify for additional social assistance over and above their income... depending on the jurisdiction. Also, they could likely further be able to claim deductions on their taxes so that they have more take-home pay than they otherwise would.

And if a minimal full-time wage ends up being $50 per hour just because the cost of living in the area is so high, then so be it. Employers might not want to pay that much, so it may drive employers out of the area, forcing people out of the area, thereby creating a surplus in available housing and driving down rental prices. An equilibrium would eventually be reached.

Re: Not Americans

[ShanghaiBill]

It's called snow days. You miss a day in winter, fine; you MAKE IT UP in summer.

Or they could download their assignments, complete them at home, and submit them through the school website. Which is exactly the same way they do many of their assignments on non-snow days.

Re: Not Americans

[registrations_suck]

On my case...it gets cold here EVERY FUCKING YEAR. It is a surprise to no one that there will be cold weather and snow. Exactly zero excuses not to be prepared for it.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Your an asshole who sounds every day on Slashdot pretending to be a big man with hiring decisions.
You misquote statistics and confound issues by stirring up mud. Your biggest thrill in life each day is pouncing on a trivial error of others and ignoring their points. Today, seeing me type your instead of you're at the start of this post was your peak and now your high is gone because I called you out on it by doing it deliberately.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is to decide if we want to subsidize the poor or execute them.

I'm a fan of paying five grand in cash to people who accept reversible (for five grand or more) vasectomies, while they are young enough that is actually matters. Death penalty, if equally applied to rich and poor alike, for minors crimes works too, but seems less efficient.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

People who fail a grade or two can't make it to grade 12 before being kicked out of the system.

So right there, you are wrong or a liar.

Re: Not Americans

[thegarbz]

On my case...it gets cold here

Define cold with an exact number including the humidity figure and compare the weather that causes the schools to close with the yearly averages and series of peaks.

Re: Not Americans

[thegarbz]

Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops. What the fuck is that?

A realisation that people plan for normal conditions and not extreme weather that happens rarely?
If I were forced to wait at a bus stop in the mid-west right now, I would literally die. I do not own the cloths required to keep me alive in the temperatures just experienced. I guess if wore all my cloths at the same time I have a fighting chance, but really I'd just call in sick.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

So, he fired everyone from accounting, legal, marketing and PR? Yeah, I thought you were lying.

Re:Not Americans

[smi.james.th]

I think you'll find the word is "drivel". Though "dribble" is also moderately accurate in this case.

Re: Not Americans

[swillden]

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.

If the minimum wage were set that high, teenagers wouldn't be able to get jobs.

More importantly, it seems likely that we're only a decade or two away from massive automation-driven unemployment. The more we can slow and delay that shift, the less socially painful it will be. A high minimum wage will accelerate it just when we want to slow it down.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe SJ needs to build more affordable housing. Hooray the compounding of social problems!

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that federal law states that it is legal to pay teenagers less than minimum wage? But seriously, teenagers only work like ten hours a week, paying teenagers any less than adults would only save the company twenty bucks a week

Re: Not Americans

[zidium]

I have never met any good coder who learned how to code in an American university.

Not one. In 20 years.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Still doing the cow troll as AC, conker?

Re: Not Americans

[tippen]

bingo!

Re: Not Americans

[Ogive17]

My son is reading, doing basic addition and subtraction half way through kindergarten. When I was that age most kids didn't even know their letters.

I believe the kids have better opportunity to learn now, it's the parents who are to busy getting high on meth to reinforce the education at home.

Re: Not Americans

[mark-t]

If the minimum wage were set that high, teenagers wouldn't be able to get jobs.

Why should it be okay to treat teenagers as any less valuable than adult workers?

Even if the employer is paying above minimum wage, when they aren't actually paying someone enough money to live on it forces a person who might depend on that job to need a second or sometimes even a third job, and this is quite simply unfair. Minimum wage should be set high enough that *nobody* should need to have a second or third job just to be able to survive if they are putting in full time hours. That amount should reasonably be based on what it costs for a single adult to live within reasonable transit or cycling commuting distance for a given place of employment.

There can certainly be jobs that aren't meant to be lived on, but they should still not pay any less than a fair living wage... the amount of gross pay one gets from such jobs would only be low because they are part time positions, not because the hourly pay was any less than a fair living wage. If they *had* been getting paid just as much to do that work full time, then they *would* be making enough to live on.

I maintain my position - if one wants to dehumanize their workers by not paying them enough to live as a human being normally would in society, then by all means, they should use robots to do the job.

Massive automation-driven unemployment will not ever happen... at least not in the apocalypse manner that self-proclaimed prognosticators of such a future attempt to convince people of. This is fear-mongering, plain and simple. What will happen as automation gets more advanced and less expensive is that demand for human workers in other areas will also go up, and demand for human workers will be created in entirely new areas that hadn't even been imagined previously. I can't tell you what those jobs will be because I'm not from the future, but we shouldn't be trying to delay a future just because we don't know what it's going to be and are afraid of something that is, in the end, only in our own imagination.

Increased demand for human workers in other or new areas has repeatedly happened in every technological advancement since the industrial revolution. As disruptive technology enters practical use, there is perhaps an initial period of disruption, but in the long run it invariably ends up working out, and society carries on. At the very least, with a minimum wage that is high enough that people who might need to depend on it full time can actually live on it, people who might be pushed aside in one industry would not be put in a position of working somewhere else that doesn't even pay them enough to live.

If they need multiple jobs because they can't get full time hours at any one place, that's okay too.... but they still wouldn't have to work any harder than anyone else who was working full time at a single job just in order to stay alive.

The fact that minimum wage jobs aren't "meant to be lived on" is irrelevant. The fact is that many people *do* have to live on wages that are still far less than a minimum living wage, often by taking second or third jobs, and often working *FAR* more than someone who is making a living wage would, all the while not even getting as much money.

That is unfair, and IMO needs to change. We live in the 21st century, and life should *NOT* be a struggle to simply survive in a so-called first world country. Nobody is *entitled* to a job, but if one has earned a job, then they deserve to be paid respectably for it, and that amount should never be less than what a person might otherwise need to be able to continue to live.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it does. Does it shock you to learn that throwing endless amounts of (MY) money at things doesn't magically fix them?

What doesn't shock me is how you are stuck with useless rhetorical rejoinders rather than meaningful answers to the question of "why" which is important.

Are you starting to see how once you determine something must be fixed with loads of someone else's money, the problem is only incentivized to grow?

I'm long past your mistaken beliefs as to the causes of the failures of the American system of education, and looking towards why the public is complicit in allowing the current regime to inflict it upon them, and the truth is, they seem to have been taught to believe in the myth of resentment and selfishness over a realization that somebody benefits from the failure to teach decent reasoning skills.

Note your own myopia as if you even had significant amounts wasted on schools.

Re: Not Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

If a thing or service is funded, it's not free.

Re: Not Americans

[TimMD909]

40 degrees in Fahrenheit only requires pants and maybe a hoodie. Seeing southerners in huge winter coats when it's not even cold enough to freeze water is infinitely amusing to me.

Re: Not Americans

[angel'o'sphere]

Most minimum wage earners are 2nd or 3rd earners for their household. So the amount they "need" to live is $0.
In your country perhaps (I doubt that), not in mine.

Re: Not Americans

[angel'o'sphere]

Your entire argument eliminates every part-time job open to high school and college students, along with a lot of others.
No it does not. He obviously aims on the wage per hour not "all earnings to be able to live from if done full time or even overtime". Obviously a college student either has a second income, aka parents, or has a job above minimum wage. When I was at college I earned as part time computer scientist/sysadmin/programmer more than any full time worker in a bakery or a random store.

Re: Not Americans

[angel'o'sphere]

Strange, there are countries where the majourity of workers are part time workers, Netherlands, Denmark come to mind. In Germany a good deal of high payed office jobs are part time, 4 days or even only 3 days a week ... or every day but only 6h per day ... bottom line those people have a higher wage per hour - after taxes - because of tax brackets.

Re: Not Americans

[angel'o'sphere]

Getting a job, any job, is the first step out of poverty.
No it is not. Obviously there are countries where you can pay such a person so less that it is still poor ...

Re: Not Americans

[angel'o'sphere]

The problem with McDonald's is: it is a franchise. The particular shop is not owned by McDonald's. It is owned a another person or limited liability company who has a contract with McDonald's to only sell their products and only buy raw material from the "McDonald's mother company".

But in principle you are right.

Re: Not Americans

[TheRaven64]

Minimum wage jobs are not meant to live on.

Why do you think that? In the USA, in 2016, 42% of workers made $15/hour or less (quick search, didn't find more recent statistics). Are all of those people busy studying so they can get a better job? If they do all study, who does the jobs that they're doing now? Do you expect to sustain a population where 42% are aged 16-21?

Re: Not Americans

[WolfgangVL]

That, or agree to pay what the burger actually costs to make in order to provide a livable wage to the flipper. We don't, but that's not saying we won't.

Re: Not Americans

[HornWumpus]

Liar. I have never grown weed, for a living.

I grow six plants/year. About six pounds. Personal use.

Re: Not Americans

[HornWumpus]

He wasn't a moron.

Didn't trigger firing. Just a ref check that HR was too lazy to do routinely.

"gig" economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these full time jobs or ways to make ends meet?

Why?

[110010001000]

They should just learn to code.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a manager at Amazon - I'll hire them for 120-160k in the first year if they know how to code (and pass the interview).

Re:Why?

[110010001000]

Would you hire me? I know how to code and I earn $50,000 a year in Silicon Valley.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah of course. Just apply online. One phonescreen, 5 on-site interviews later you'll have the job. Just make sure you know all your fundamentals of CS and are good with the problem solving.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you should get a programming job instead of a job at McDonalds.

Or, you're being exploited and should switch jobs.

Or, you're not working full time.

Or, you're not a competent programmer.

Or, you're unwilling to learn new tech.

Or, you're not really "programming" in the sense the phrase is used among software developers.

Or, you're so insufferable that people won't work with you.

Re:Why?

[110010001000]

I am not sure what "CS" is. You mean CounterStrike?

Re:Why?

[110010001000]

I'm guessing the last one?

Re:Why?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,
as a cost free hint:
o knowing how to code
o passing the interview

Have nothing to do with each other. (See below) Even getting an interview might be a hurdle.

In your country are training schools helping people who have no clues to pass an interview.
Plenty of people who can code don't easy pass interviews.

And then comes HR.

I have an anecdote about a HR department (I'm freelancer, HR should not be involved ...) where they sent a letter back: don't bother to sent this review again, he was 2 times rejected already. Well, freelancer and contractor is basically a company versus company contract, CEO versus CEO ... and HR rejected a letter of application where I basically was the only person in question in range of 250km who could do it.

Re:Why?

[angel'o'sphere]

I liked it, but I mostly played DoD. (Besides WoW and Decent, ofc)

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a high minimum wage will never work because living wages aren't capitalist and this is literally white genocide and minimum wages literally killed the Lindbergh baby and a living wage is exactly the same thing as burning a flag and worse than 23 Benghazis and *pant pant pant*

*mops forehead with fedora*

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha... I actually laughed out loud at this. Made my Friday afternoon.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Spider-Man smells a samefag.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Venezuelans have a living wage.

Re:Nope

[mjwx]

Such a high minimum wage will never work because living wages aren't capitalist and this is literally white genocide and minimum wages literally killed the Lindbergh baby and a living wage is exactly the same thing as burning a flag and worse than 23 Benghazis and *pant pant pant*

*mops forehead with fedora*

You forgot to mention HER EMAILS.

Imagine that

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember all those times people said "americans aren't willing to do this work".
Yeah they are, if you pay them enough that is.
Yeah, your slave labor from mexico who has no choice or be deported will work for cents on the dollar.

Re:Imagine that

[Anonymous Coward]

nope

It should be half that

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not willing to learn a valuable trade, you don't deserve anything like a living wage. Sorry not sorry, but any jackass can put things in boxes for a living. Leave the money for people who actually contribute to society.

Re:It should be half that

[Anonymous Coward]

So start up your own distribution center and pay people half that, you bootstrappy captain of industry who clearly understands the great and subtle machinations of the economic machine we call America, and knows the commoners better than the commoners themselves. You'll dominate the market in no time with that kind of acumen.

Re:It should be half that

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been doing trade work for 20 years and make damn near 30 dollars an hour. I work for a small company 6 people counting the owner.. Said owner would love to expand and hire more people and is willing to pay 18 to 20 an hour if the people are willing to show up everyday and prove they can do the work but most people one can't do the work two don't show up everyday then bitch about not getting enough hours. So the truth is there is plenty of well paying trade work its just now days people expect to be paid to do next to nothing so let them do nothing for nothing. and this isn't just my trade. I deal with people from all kinds of trades in my job and its the same with them. At least half the people that apply for a job don't show up their first day and the half that do don't last 2 weeks because you actually want them to work. Btw I do concrete work. When I started my trade there were 15 to 20 people in there 20 starting to do this kind of work now most people are in their late 30s or older. Trade workers are a dying breed and in another 10 to 20 years most of us will be gone and who will build your houses and roads then. . im also not really and anonymous coward I just forgot my password and am too lazy to reset it.

Re:It should be half that

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but that's just not true. The general consensus on Slashdot, one of which I happen to share, is In the future all we'll need is white-collar STEM work. Blue collar labor isn't necessary or valuable. It doesn't matter that you won't be around to build our houses because it'll all be automated and we'll be a country of 90% coders. That's just how it is.

Re:It should be half that

[110010001000]

Coders and Buzzfeed reporters. Plus we will all have Teslas.

Re:It should be half that

[turbidostato]

"At least half the people that apply for a job don't show up their first day"

Quite aligned with the fact that you don't answer to at least half of the resumes you get.

How is it that when "they" do it is "damn lazies" but when you do it is "bussiness as usual"?

But wait, there's more...

[atouk]

Don't forget day 1 benefits. Full disclosure, I work for Amazon. And I haven't regretted it for a minute. Yes, the packers/pickers/stowers/etc do work hard, but as for as my FC is concerned, I haven't seen anything at all resembling the urban legend horror stories.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen anything at all resembling the urban legend horror stories.

Urban legend? You can literally read horror stories written by ex-Amazon employs all over the place. Here's some. Now, I agree, you can't always trust these people, but it certainly isn't an urban legend.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[110010001000]

Wait, I just read below from a poster that "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."

Are you telling me it isn't true?

Re:But wait, there's more...

[atouk]

Not at my FC. Employees are encouraged to hydrate (signs everywhere), bathrooms spread across the building, multiple break rooms, Free coffee/hot choc/etc machines. I can't honestly speak for other locations since I haven't been there, but also I can say that there are people that are never happy doing what they are paid to do.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[110010001000]

Well that's odd. Real odd. It is almost as if they guy who posted that was lying or something. I mean he said he had "repeated documentation" of Amazon employees working in truly terrible, dehumanizing working conditions.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[fbobraga]

a Mac-employee?

Re:But wait, there's more...

[SuperKendall]

And THAT's why you don't believe Haters without firm proof, because when they can't find what they want, they will make things up or vastly exaggerate.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[Anonymous Coward]

nice PR you got there. anyway so sad it's still true that people who own nothing must sell themselves (by the hour) to those few who do.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[Guybrush_T]

Don't underestimate local manager's capacity to put inhuman pressure on their team because they can't meet the objective or just want to impress the upper management.

This kind of issue can be extremely local (depends on the manager), so it doesn't mean it's an Amazon-wide issue and all Amazon employees suffer the same fate.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[imidan]

Well, here. There are plenty more from plenty of various sources. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/2...
https://www.recode.net/2019/1/...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine...
https://www.newsweek.com/amazo...
https://www.kare11.com/article...
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/...
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.businessinsider.co...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a...

Re:But wait, there's more...

[110010001000]

Wow. Thanks for the links. That place looks horrible.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[Attila Dimedici]

Everybody I know who works at Amazon (not many, but more than two) has nothing but positive things to say about working there.

Re: But wait, there's more...

[Anonymous Coward]

I also work there currently and I'll concur that it all depends on your manager. Yes it is hard work and the forced culture is a little weird for a manual labor job. But the stories are greatly exaggerated.

Its good exercise so you can dedicate most of your free time to programming. :)

Re:But wait, there's more...

[ElizabethGreene]

Everybody I know who works at Amazon (not many, but more than two) has nothing but positive things to say about working there.

I live < 5 miles from a distribution center, and the people I know that have worked there (pre-$15) were also generally positive. Two of my family members managed to no-call-no-show their way onto the no-rehire list and they are kicking themselves now.

Their complaint when working there was the amount of walking (>15k steps/day). That's better now that the skeeters bring the shelves to you instead of having to walk to them.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[atouk]

Clicked through most of those articles, and if you read between the lines, they're mostly pro-Union biased political articles. One even starts with an attack on Trump, completely unrelated to the supposed subject of the article. The one line that really made me laugh is "Amazon workers in general have been very vocal lately about their opposition to the companyâ(TM)s lack of diversity " Seriously? Whoever wrote this article has never stepped foot in my building, And I doubt any of the writers of those articles have spent a day in an Amazon facility. My boss two levels up is a woman, I'm the only one in my department with an "anglo American" name, I'm no more than 30 steps away from speakers of at least 5 languages that I can name, plus ASL, I know of at least 14 unique countries co workers were born in, there is a special Amazon group for gay and lesbian employees, Glamazons. And if you close your eyes and walk into the break rooms at meal time when the banks of microwaves are busy, you'd be hard pressed to count the number of different ethnic foods in the air. But hey, why believe what an actual employee says,

Re:But wait, there's more...

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, because after public outcry they've improved somewhat. You know the early warehouses didn't have air conditioning right? Now they all do.

Re:But wait, there's more...

[angel'o'sphere]

Because people did not wash hands, either because of spilled hot choc's or after toilet.

Re: But wait, there's more...

[mapkinase]

Nitpicking

Working is for cucks

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks I'm petite bourgeois. I can just collect rent from skillcucks like you.
People are so fucking stupid (and brainwashed by the right-wing media), that they'll blame the poor instead of me. It's a good time to be born middle class.

Capcha: Commute. That's what you do :D

Wow, great jobs

[imidan]

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.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[110010001000]

Odd isn't it? It is almost as if the "documentation" isn't true or something.

Re: Wow, great jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

If my job is sweet, I don't tell people that. I make it sound like shit so they don't try to take it from me.

Re: Wow, great jobs

[110010001000]

What if you enjoy urinating in bottles and trash cans? Maybe his strategy would backfire.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[drinkypoo]

We're at about 4% unemployment,

It looks like you're using the U-3. Try using the U-6, which is at least closer to reality.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no facts to back up this feeling...

Stopped reading right there.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[imidan]

Yeah, I'm sure it's secretly a utopian worker's paradise in there. How clever Amazon has been to keep it hidden for all this time.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[110010001000]

Wait, is it "truly terrible, dehumanizing working conditions" or not quite a "utopian worker's paradise"? So confusing. I'm sure you have lots of documentation anyway.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[Cederic]

U-6 includes under employed workers, which means they're not unemployed.

I'd argue that U-5 is flawed too. I'm technically U-5 but the reason I haven't looked for work in the past month is because I've been in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean on holiday. It feels inappropriate to class me as 'unemployed'.

U-4 would be a more reasonable measure, but even there I can understand the difficulty of treating someone as unemployed if they haven't even tried to find a job.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[godrik]

Well, it does not really matter which one you use in this kind of analysis. U3 and U6 are very correlated. So the analysis you do using U3 will most likely be still correct using U6.

The media and Department of labor quotes U3 because it is the metric that resembles the most what other countries are measuring when reporting unemployment. The media do not report all metrics because there is such a high correlation between them that the story is the same. It is also the metric that is the closer to a natural understanding of what it means to be unemployed: currently not working and looking for a job.

There is a good case for tracking U6 to do various kind of macro economic analysis. But if you are the kind of person that does detailed analysis you know that they are quoting U3 and not U6; so it is not quite confusing.

I am not too sure if counting U5 and U6 as the real unemployment makes a lot of sense. I knew a lot of people that would count in U6 in the sense that they said they wanted a full time job. And then they found one and quit it within two month because it is too much work.

I know a lot of people that count in U5 that claim they want a job but in practice are very happy that their spouse brings home the bacon: "Honey, I'd love to work, look I edited my resume 3 weeks ago; but you know with the crisis it is hard!"

Re:Wow, great jobs

[dryeo]

Could it depend on location? I'm in Canada, on the wet coast and it is hard to imagine large line ups for a lousy $15 an hour. Employment is low about 5% here IIRC, wages have started raising and it's expensive as fuck to live.
On the east coast, where unemployment is high, the cost of living is low, people would be lining up for one of these jobs.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[Reservoir Penguin]

People get a job at Amazon warehouses because someone they know is already working there and recommends it. Actual Amazon workers say they never heard of the practices described in the press. The click-bait press grabbed onto half-rumors half isolated incidents and made a story out of it.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[elrous0]

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.

Try being working class in "flyover country" sometime and you'll realize that those conditions (and much worse) are quite common. A working class job where employees aren't treated like shit is a rare exception. The conditions at Amazon are par for the course for the working class. What ISN'T par for the course is a $15/hr salary. That's DAMNED GOOD money in most places. Where I'm from people will fight just to get an $8-$10/hr. job that involves hard work in shit conditions. Hell, I used to cut tobacco for $7/hr. and was thrilled to be making that (in MUCH worse conditions than any Amazon plant). $15/hr is enough to actually live on without taking a second job. And most working class people in red state America would be damned glad to have that.

Sure, inside the CA/NYC urban bubble, $15/hr. might sound like a joke. But I can assure you that it's no joke to most Americans.
 

Re:Wow, great jobs

[drinkypoo]

U-6 includes under employed workers, which means they're not unemployed.

ALL of these measurements ignore people, like those who have given up, or even those who were collecting unemployment but are no longer eligible to do so — so they're all below the actual numbers. Also, we SHOULD count the underemployed. If they're not making enough to live on, they need a new job too.

Re:Wow, great jobs

[Cederic]

ALL of these measurements ignore people, like those who have given up

That's the class of people added in U-4.

If they're not making enough to live on, they need a new job too.

You're assuming that they're not making enough to live on. I mean, I'd like to earn $4m/week, so I'm going to keep looking for a job that'll pay that. In the meantime I'm underemployed, as I'm not working in a job that meets my income expectations.

That sure as fuck doesn't make me unemployed.

Like livestock at the milking machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

When people are forced into not being people anymore, but livestock of a monster, it's time to rethink your society. As a whole.

Re:Like livestock at the milking machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't got no 'Tegridy no more - http://wiki.southpark.cc.com/wiki/Bike_Parade

People are lining up for these jobs.....

[WolfgangVL]

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.

Re:People are lining up for these jobs.....

[110010001000]

Wow. Another expert that interviewed all the people applying for the job. He must be exhausted from all his deep research.

Re:People are lining up for these jobs.....

[rmdingler]

Have you ever seen the inside of a meat packing plant? None of those people want to be there.

Well, maybe this one guy.

Re:People are lining up for these jobs.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the hunger-gatherers in the Amazon rain forest. They have no options. Nature is working as designed.
Have you ever seen naked savages run down a pig and beat it to death with sticks? 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 in the first world are complaining about not having as much air conditioning, electricity, money, banks, cars, smart phones, internet etc. as they want when really they don't actually need any of that to survive. Read between the lines: the ones who are angry that others have whatever jobs they can get are the ones who are greedy, entitled, and resentful that they're not rich themselves. That is pretty damned bad.

Look, dude, most people are willing to work for a living rather than the alternative.
Aim your anger and frustration at reality instead of at the evil rich boogeyman-- because you wish you were that rich yourself.
If you care so much about how great life is for the people who are working at Amazon then how about you go actually DO something for them instead of making greedy little remarks about how you think rich people are too rich.
Nobody is exploiting you, and nobody is exploiting the $15/hr workers at Amazon.

Amazon actually went above and beyond by turning up their wages to $15/hr. But that's just not good enough to satisfy you is it? It'll never be good enough will it? That's how I know that people like you are in the wrong.

Re:People are lining up for these jobs.....

[Cederic]

Have you ever seen naked savages run down a pig and beat it to death with sticks? None of those people want to be there.

That's supposition. I've seen video footage of people living like that, and they're damned happy when they carry dead pig back home.

They have to be there because they have no other options.

I've also met people living like that who are clearly keen to improve their standard of living. They also have access to industrialised cities offering jobs that would help them achieve that goal.

Why do you think they haven't moved to those cities?

Look, dude, most people are willing to work for a living rather than the alternative.

Hunting pigs is hard work. I respect the men that do this to feed their families.

Re:People are lining up for these jobs.....

[WolfgangVL]

Slow your roll there Captain sarcastic. I think you're misunderstanding my comment, and maybe getting a little defensive. No need for name calling either. Breath dude. I'm just saying those numbers are alarming. I've got nothing against the rich...I like my own money as much as the next guy.

I think maybe you've spent a while defending your position against the growing number of angry poor people eh? It's almost like there are more and more of them every day right? All those lazy poors greedily eyeing you from the shadows can be pretty scary, so it's not surprising your a little on edge.

Is it me, or did they look extra hungry yesterday?

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how the conversion to the UK is the complete opposite of retail prices.

When Amazon import goods to the UK they try to rip the UK off by heavily increasing the price. When they do the same for pay the price is drasticly reduced.

UK is well known as a place of rip off prices and so many companies try to stock the grey market places.

Duh

[Billly Gates]

When will the bean counters and HR realize years of experience with the same job title does not bring higher quality workers. Higher wages do. You want to know why software developer salaries have gone up more? Easy, if you want something done you gotta pay the market wage.

Or is this socialism because it makes the CEO and Wall Street cry?

Allows them to be more selective

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, just as planned. Now they can be more selective and implement quarterly stack-ranking even for hourly employees. Gotta love that turnover to keep benefits and retirement costs down.

Minimum wage is $16/hour in Seattle

[WillAffleckUW]

A base pay of $15/hour is so last year.

Re:Minimum wage is $16/hour in Seattle

[Anonymous Coward]

A base pay of $15/hour is so last year.

Good for you.

I'll try and stifle my laughter from the irony of no one being able to afford a fucking cup of coffee in the very town Starbucks was founded.

Enjoy your race to the bottom.

One must ask the question:

[Rick Schumann]

How many of the positive comments in this discussion thread about being a warehouse worker for Amazon are paid astroturfers for Amazon Corporate trying to discredit the reports of alleged mistreatment of employess, poor working conditions, and so on? Or are you really going to believe that it's all some Amazon competitor trying to poison public opinion against them?

Far from the first time we've heard a litany of complaints about a big retailer over working conditions, either; Walmart comes to mind.
It'd also be far from the first time some big corporation tried to hush things like this up and whitewash it all by some means or other to protect themselves from liability.

Always question.

Re: One must ask the question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Anybody that has to pee in bottles to make rate is just half assed employee giving no effort. I could literally go to the bathroom every hour for fun without hearing anything from anyone.

All part of Amazon's scheme....

[King_TJ]

I'm not sure a lot of people realize (or want to realize) it, but Amazon was a proponent of the $15/hr. minimum wage laws from early on. That's simply because they know they're big enough and have enough money to handle that on their payroll, while many of their smaller competitors don't. They aren't trying to pay people more money because they're so generous and kind! They're trying to squeeze out their competition.

(And frankly? One of the reasons Amazon isn't hurt by having to pay that high a minimum wage is because it got such lucrative corporate welfare deals from New York and Virginia as they paid out BIG bucks to win the right to get HQ2 located there. (Virginia gave Amazon something like $20,000 for every single employee it was going to hire at that location.)

This idea of setting the lowest bar of what's legal to pay a person to do some work for you at $15/hr. is a bad one. There are a whole lot of jobs that companies only pay human beings to do as long as it's cheaper than automating them. $15/hr. is getting REALLY close to crossing that threshold, and is why you see so many places who pay their people better supplementing them with automated kiosks and checkout lanes. They're going to offset the increased labor expenses by hiring fewer people.

Re:All part of Amazon's scheme....

[110010001000]

I knew it! That is why I only shop at Walmart where they pay $8/hr. Derp.

Re:All part of Amazon's scheme....

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea of setting the lowest bar of what's legal to pay a person to do some work for you at $15/hr. is a bad one.

I take it you haven't been poor in any non -bum-fuck-nowhere part of the country then, since to make ends meet without having to waste a ton of time dealing with the bullshit of government assistance programs to subsidize your wage that should be being paid by your employer ensures that you will end up barely surviving till you take a financial hit that you can't afford at all, like a minor illness or something that costs more than 1-2 cheap ass retreaded tires for your car results in you losing your car or ending up homeless. And yes, that is with budgeting everything to the last penny.

Re:All part of Amazon's scheme....

[King_TJ]

It's quickly shaping up to be Amazon vs. WalMart .... with anyone much smaller than either one squeezed out.

Re:All part of Amazon's scheme....

[Anonymous Coward]

The fuck you talking about? Amazon was absolutely not a "proponent from early on" - they caved basically days after Sanders introduced the "Stop BEZOS" Act.

the rest of your nonsense is not worth my time to respond to.

Re:All part of Amazon's scheme....

[angel'o'sphere]

They're going to offset the increased labor expenses by hiring fewer people.
Or they simply double their business because they have the workers already.

Is this because

[Anonymous Coward]

... had little to do with the usual financial results.

Is this because entry-level jobs are rare, or because jobs paying $15/hour are rare?

Hold up...

[ElizabethGreene]

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?

Inconcievable
-Vizzini

Re:Hold up...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Inconcievable
-Vizzini

Wait a second here... Do you mean to tell me that Americans will be "happy" to pay $9 for a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk, if you let socialists redefine minimum wage as living wage?

Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

Re:Hold up...

[thegarbz]

Yes, but that brings the followup question: Are Americans prepared to pay for products and services that support American companies, the wellbeing of others, and the local economy? *looks at China's manufacturing* Well we answered that question in the last 20 years.

People of Non-Color need not apply

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

And Yet

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mexicans are taking the jobs "americans dont want"

I wonder if that is a lie that assholes tell themselves to justify paying below minimum wage for dangerous landscaping work?

I guess we'll never know! Vote for her!

Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate with

[SocietyoftheFist]

Iâ(TM)ll bet these people rushing to take these $15 per hour jobs probably have no more than a high school education. I canâ(TM)t even fathom settling for a $15 hour job. Iâ(TM)m guessing rates of obesity, alcohol abuse and smoking are prevalent in the group too. They probably believe the man is out to get them.

Re:Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate w

[iggymanz]

Well aren't you a sheltered little houseplant. So you have no idea what the people who work for that kind of money or less are like, so you make up stereotypes.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

I donâ(TM)t make up the stereotypes, they already exist for a reason.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[Anonymous Coward]

I donâ(TM)t make up the stereotypes, they already exist for a reason.

While we're stereotyping, blacks are criminals and people with Spanish accents are illegals. Hey man it exists for a reason, therefore you must support it. QED.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

soo, you're a virgin manlette living in your mom's basement and try not to go outside all week ?

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

LOL. That feeling of superiority you feel, it is fake.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

No, only was trying to point out making and acting on stereotypes with zero knowledge is a bad thing

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

How does the wholly unoriginal basement comment fit with this claim? I understand that an adult with children working hourly retail has probably made many many poor choices that have led to the lure of $15 per hour sounding so good. I couldnâ(TM)t even pay my mortgage payment on that. I came from stock that would think that is good pay, luckily I knew that I could do more.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

I want commenting on racial stereotypes, those are false. Class stereotypes are typically spot on. People confuse classism and racism.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

it's a slashdotter stereotype about basement.

as for saying it had to be poor choices, plenty of places in rural america near town that has the usual wallmart etc. where $15 an hour is just fine and not much else available. Just think, houses there might be $45K and so are cheaper for them than for you in relation to wages.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

LOL $45k house. Even in rural America not even close. I live in a small town of 700 and I commute (50+ miles) to a major metropolitan area several days a week . My house was approximately $400k with a substantial down payment. I came from small towns, I got out. Lots of ignorant people, eating, drinking and smoking away their lives. No matter if they are far left or right, always the same. Take up the vice of choice instead of working to better ones self. They are owed those high paying jobs that a 16 year old could do you know! Society stratifies for a reason.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

LOL $45k house. Even in rural America not even close. I live in a small town of 700 and I commute (50+ miles) to a major metropolitan area several days a week . My house was approximately $400k with a substantial down payment. I came from small towns, I got out. Lots of ignorant people, eating, drinking and smoking away their lives. No matter if they are far left or right, always the same. Take up the vice of choice instead of working to better ones self. They are owed those high paying jobs that a 16 year old could do you know!

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

there are definitely $45K houses in rural Illinois on country roads around areas such as effingham, decatur, bellivile... looking at them in listings right now. I have relatives down there.

So you paid $400K for your house, must be very nice. close to big cities will do that kind of pricing...

but far from those huge cities it's another world, and there are things about that life that are better than what you and I face.... much less pollution, stress, crime, traffic jams etc. People starting to telecommute from those kinds of places, a few people at my work do

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

I know these people applying in numbers like that for hourly jobs. I came from poor trash, I know of what I speak. I crawled up from the mire that hourly retail work is. Feel all the indignation for me you want Ignacio, but it is a sign of the lack of education and drive when so many apply for a meager pay rate. Shit, they could make a lot more working with me, and we have lots of trouble hiring due to competition for jobs and a limited talent pool, but people wonâ(TM)t invest in themselves.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

oh really? and where are these people hundreds of miles from your higher paying jobs supposed to go? are you saying they should sell their $45K house and move near a city with the $450K houses like you have? spend $5000 on training? oh yeah, get the free scholarship that covers room and board for a college hundreds of miles away..right, everyone who applies gets that.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

It is called supply and demand. It is called evolution. Amazon is not placing warehouses in locations with small talent pools. Your arguments are specious at best. The people running to take these jobs have high school educations and live in population centers.

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[iggymanz]

Amazon? I'm talking about people who would take $15 an hour jobs and are NOT low motivation losers but just happen to live where pay and costs are far different than yours

Re: Probably plots nicely on a curve to correlate

[SocietyoftheFist]

So my original comment was about people rushing to get $15 per hour that have little or no abilities and the life choices theyâ(TM)ve made. You get that right?