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Americans Are Lining Up To Work For Amazon For $15 an Hour (qz.com)
One of the most important takeaways from Amazon's 2018 fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report, released Jan. 31, had little to do with the usual financial results. Amazon disclosed in the report that it received a record 850,000 work applications for hourly jobs in the US in October 2018 after announcing it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Nov. 1. From a report: The company said that was more than double its previous record for job applications received in a single month. Amazon said the new $15 minimum affects more than 250,000 employees in the US and 17,000 employees in the UK (where the increase was 10.50 pound in the London area and 9.50 pound everywhere else), plus more than 200,000 workers who were hired for the holiday season. As of Dec. 31, Amazon had 647,500 full- and part-time employees, up 14% from the same period a year earlier.
I guess it beats flippin' burgers.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, if you grew up and you or your culture didn't value an education, or make an effort when you had the opportunities....guess where you end up?
Remember the old saying:
"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too..."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Boohoo. Minimal skills demand minimum wage. Want to make more? Learn a valuable skill.
Or if you didn't have the opportunities...
They should just learn to code.
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*
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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.
Just like the immigrants that built the railroads. They have no options. System working as designed.
Have you ever seen the inside of a meat packing plant? None of those people want to be there. They have to be there because they have no other options.
It's pretty sad that this many people are lining up for these jobs. Read between the lines. This is pretty damn bad.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
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.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Coders and Buzzfeed reporters. Plus we will all have Teslas.
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.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
That's fair, but an argument can also be fairly made that minimum wage should never be less than the amount that a person needs to live, without requiring further aid from social assistance programs, and assuming that they work full time hours. Anything less is dehumanizing, and if you want to dehumanize your workers, then use robots. This also means that minimum wage would vary, depending on the cost of living in the municipality where the wage applies.
If the technology doesn't exist to use robots for your business, then too effing bad. Treat human beings like human beings and pay them enough to actually live on.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"I paid my way through school"
You didn't.
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.
"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".
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.
"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"?
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.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Vermont routinely gets that cold and they do not close their schools for 10 degrees or even -10 degrees.
That's why Vermont doesn't have to close schools when it's -10 F - everyone is prepared for it, particularly when it comes to owning adequate winter clothes. When it only goes below freezing once a year, most people, especially people with lower incomes, don't waste money on that kind of winter gear. If you only have clothing that's helpful for 40 F, going outside when it's -10 F can be deadly.
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.
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?
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.
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?
http://saveie6.com/
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.
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/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They said getting a job, not doing the job
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?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
A base pay of $15/hour is so last year.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
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.
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?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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?
Sorry, I realize I've been feeding the troll.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
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?
How's life at Starbucks?
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?
And my public education only gave me #6 from that list. We didn't even have real driver's ed.
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.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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.
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.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
Wait a second here... Do you mean to tell me that Americans will do "jobs that Americans won't do" if you pay them a living wage with benefits?
So, I was curious. I've never worked for minimum wage, I've either been dead broke in poverty and desperate and living in the back of a car which was waiting to be repossessed or I've make 6 figures but never between. I never had the chance to live like a normal person.
So, I just searched Omaha for apartments. It seems that a two bedroom apartment in a nice suburb will cost you $1030 a month. To secure this, it would require a $3090 a month income. That's about $18 an hour or it can be done at $15 an hour at 9.5 hours a day assuming time and a half overtime.
A 2014 BMW i3 with range extender would cost $18000 to $302 a month over 72 months. This is a good car because the resale value shouldn't drop considerably and after paying the car off, you can pay about the same for another year for a battery refurbishment. This car should have a very low cost of ownership (I drive one and it's almost like being paid to drive) and it should be relatively reliable. The only disadvantage is that it would have to be serviced by a BMW shop. But, it's still a far better purchase than a $12500 gas vehicle that has substantially more parts to break and replace... and pay gas for.
Car insurance will run about $125 a month on that for a 30+ man or woman.
I just grocery shopped online at one of the more expensive grocery stores I know of and shopped as if I had to budget. This didn't mean being stingy, but it meant grocery store brand over name. It meant fresh foods over packaged. It meant not paying double for organic. Choosing to shop the sales, etc... I came up with what should be a grocery card for a family of two including a month supply of soaps (bathroom, dish, laundry...), paper towels and toilet paper, tooth brushes, etc... I came up at $223. I suppose that using coupons and time as well as shopping at a non-rich person store would get it to $150, but I also didn't get anything really fun, it looked like what a healthy family would eat... you know, the kind of family where the parent loves the children instead of giving them food from boxes. So, let's choose $600 a month as a relatively round number for essentials (food, etc..) for a family of two.
Then there's clothes. Depending on your needs, you can dress fairly well on a budget of $100 a month for an adult... this will also cover buying new winter coats. And you can dress a child for $150 a month. They grow and require replacement of stuff much faster. So let's calculate $250 a month
The person would need furniture as well, but you can't budget that monthly, you buy that over 20 years and piece by piece. You inherit what you need from other people until you can buy the thing you actually want.
Then there's electricity, water, internet and telephones. I think even someone much better than I am at budgeting would still find this costing about $400 a month.
So, $1030 (rent), $600 (food stuff), $300 (Car), $125 (car insurance), $250 a month (clothes, shoes, etc..), $400 a month for utilities and phone.
We're up to $2900 a month. If the person manages to get 9.5 hours a day, they would earn $3090 a month. I think even if they get almost 100% tax free, they would still have to pay social security which I think is about 10%, so there goes $300 a month.
So, this person, if I don't account for any additional oopsies would be about $100 a month in the whole...at least.
The car is paid off in 6 years, so if they can do 8 years, that's probably an extra $100 a month in the bank. And if the car lasts 25 years... as it should since it's basically all plastic and easy to replace parts, after the loan is paid, the cost of ownership should drop to $100 a month. But that doesn't help earlier on.
There's no room for day car or babysitting... so, being a single parent would be REALLY REALLY difficult.
They could get a cheaper apartment, but the goal isn't survival. For $1000 a month, you get an apartment with a gym, a pool and other things. This is considered living like a human instead of someone who is simp
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.
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.
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.
I think you'll find the word is "drivel". Though "dribble" is also moderately accurate in this case.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
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.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I have never met any good coder who learned how to code in an American university.
Not one. In 20 years.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
bingo!
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.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
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!
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
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.
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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I donâ(TM)t make up the stereotypes, they already exist for a reason.
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.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
soo, you're a virgin manlette living in your mom's basement and try not to go outside all week ?
LOL. That feeling of superiority you feel, it is fake.
No, only was trying to point out making and acting on stereotypes with zero knowledge is a bad thing
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.
I want commenting on racial stereotypes, those are false. Class stereotypes are typically spot on. People confuse classism and racism.
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.
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.
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!
Liar. I have never grown weed, for a living.
I grow six plants/year. About six pounds. Personal use.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He wasn't a moron.
Didn't trigger firing. Just a ref check that HR was too lazy to do routinely.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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?