Let me clarify that. I was there for those days, too, and "I" was able to live on minimum wage back in the day.
Yes, I realize that wasn't the point. And I know a low wage job doesn't have to be a life sentence.
But let's look at 2018. The largest job growth has been in service jobs and at the same time, more employers than ever before are asking for a college degree. There's a simple truth here: as the gap between rich and poor widens, there are fewer and fewer people in the middle, what we call the middle class. Many of the people who were middle class are now sliding into poverty, and that poverty comes from low wage jobs. Sure, they can work their way back up the ladder -
if they were thirty years younger,
if getting skills and degrees in new fields didn't have them paying off student loans for the rest of their lives, and
if there were high wage jobs available to all of them. Time and age are a factor here.
There's also something called capitalization. Capitalization is a measure of how many of its citizens a county brings to their full potential. You'd have to admit, the US right now has a pretty sour score on how many citizens are at their full potential. We can debate the reasons if you want, but what I want to say is, I feel our whole society is based on only bringing the best, the brightest, and the richest to their full potential. What about everyone else?
I'd rather see everyone in our society get a fair shake and a chance to make something better for themselves. We all stand around saying that anyone can do this and anyone can do that. But let's face it, for most people, the deck is pretty much stacked against them. Sure,
some people work their way out. But I'd like to see
all people start off with the same odds and that sure isn't happening now.
How many people have been left behind as we cull them out? You can talk about the evils of socialism and the winnowing of the weak all day long, but in the end, as a nation, we're much better off if all our citizens are at the top of their potential. Not just the lucky few. ALL of them.
Maybe it's because tuition has gone through the roof lately while wages have stagnated, making it an unfair comparison. Ya think?
Can anyone actually afford a $900 a month apartment making $10 an hour?
You don't have to introduce me to anyone. Here I am. I was homeless for 6 years, working full time the entire time and attending community college. I was going through a bankruptcy, medical problems, paying off bills and putting a new engine in my truck. I tried to get into the Armed Services - my bad luck to sign up when the Gulf War ended and all the vets were coming home looking for jobs. But I did get out of being homeless then.
Less than 10 years later I owned a house.
I just bought a lot and I'm planning to live in my car on it for a couple years so I can save and have a small house built on it. So I'll be homeless again.
I'm not complaining about it because I know why I'm doing this.
Thing is, many homeless people live on their Social Security. They don't have the opportunity to do what I'm doing. Many of them are too ill or too old. Instead of putting those people down, why don't you talk to them and see what they have to say about wanting to be homeless.
And by the way, I know of many people who like the vagabond lifestyle. They live in RVs and travel north in the summer and south in the winter. We call them snowbirds and the only difference between them and the truly homeless is they chose their lifestyle. They have money and they have magazines and they have a lifestyle. Now, are you going to put them down as well?
Well, pin a rose on you. I went back to school, too, until I couldn't afford it and that was in the early 90s, when college was still somewhat affordable. I applied for all those loans and grants, too, and guess what? Not everyone gets them. I had to have a truck because I
lived in it. I never had cable then either and I haven't even had a TV for the last 10 years. Are we through now with There I Wuz stories?
At that time, I was making $363 every two weeks and now I'm getting a little under $15,000 a year. I'm sorry, but $11,000 a year for tuition, plus books, plus a place to live, plus utilities, plus food is a little more than I can afford now, too.
Well, with this mindset then, let's not hear you complaining about the homeless you have to step over when you walk down the sidewalk.
My idea was each city or county take the average amount a one bedroom apartment costs per month and tie that to the minimum wage of that area so that one month's rent doesn't exceed 30% of the pay of a minimum wage earner. So that in a city where the average one bedroom apartment costs $1000 a month, the minimum wage in that area would be $20.83 an hour.
Short of capping rents, I don't know what else would be fair.
But the plus side to that is that people will have enough to pay for their housing and also be able to have enough money to spend on other things. We're a capitalistic society - if we don't spend, our society stagnates. The excess money that people would have to spend would flow to businesses and support a tax base for the community they live in.
That's the Law of Supply and Demand, as you've pointed out. Maybe it's time to also point out that it's a law that deprives all but a few of a decent lifestyle. Just because it's a law doesn't mean it's workable over time or even right.
I've seen my share of $4 and $5 a gallon gas. I was also around back in the 70s when gas was rising to 69¢ a gallon. What's interesting is that it took from the turn of the century to 80 years later for gas to go to 69¢ a gallon. It only took from 1979 to now, a period of 39 years, to go from 69¢ a gallon to the current $3 a gallon, give or take. And this year it might just go to $4 a gallon again.
I'm complaining now.
Wonderful. So there's a name for what happens when, after a raise of $100 a month in the rental market, homelessness rises by between 15% and 34%.
You can't imagine how much better that makes me feel.
And as I pointed out, it affected many more than those few people during the 50s, 60s and 70s, when we were leaving the farms for the urban life in droves, and it worked pretty good then. What's changed since then?
OK, at this point, if you really believe that, I'm through trying to have a discussion with you because to have a discussion, we both must have a common sense of reality. And by your statement there, you've just told me you're living in a fairy tale.
You must have missed this thread:
Years into the recovery, how permanent was the damage to your career from the Great Recession?
and while you won't get anything out of it, I'll post my response to someone who thought just like you anyway - and congratulations on being one of the lucky ones who's recession proof:
You must be a young bunny. In that case, you have no idea how hard the recession hit some people and how hard it was to climb out of it. Aren't you reading the thread? After 10 years, some people are just now back to where they were in 2008. That's 10 years of lost wages, lost retirement, lost savings, and lost equity in their houses if they managed to hang on to them. Many people lost their homes that were almost paid off and there's no way they can afford to buy anything on the market now. Some people lost everything they owned and some people died as a result of the recession. I hate to break the news to you, but the people who lost someone because of the recession aren't ever going to fully recover from that, even after 50 years.
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