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Yea, I know... it's a great story of dedication. That's not how I took it when I heard the story. Let's get to work:
1) Walking 21 miles to work in America is not "awesome." It's called being poor. It's called being poor in a country that hates the idea of being poor more than the desire to fix poverty. This man is not the only lower-income person that endures a marathon commute to earn a living. There are poor folks in major cities working three jobs on several different bus routes with no time to eat, sleep, or watch their kids. He is not walking because he is a special "hard worker;" he's walking because he is poor.
2) Why is no one criticizing Detroit? The solution is just to "get him a car." Detroit screwed its low-income workers 60 years ago when it told public transportation advocates to go to hell. How does a Metro area with over 5 million residents have such terrible transportation options ?!?!
3) How will a man making $10.50 / hour afford the maintenance, insurance, gas, and other miscellaneous expenses with car ownership on a 42 mile daily commute? Did it ever occur to people that owning a car is just not a sound financial solution for lower income citizens?
4) No, more people don't need to "be like him." The dedication is certainly admirable, but there is nothing appealing about putting "work ethic" on a pedestal when meritocracy is an American myth. No amount of hard work is going to make his life change for the better. He had been living that way for ten years, and only the compassion of others will make his situation marginally better in the short-term. His employer and everyone else praising him today never gave a damn.
Basically its a story about what a American man has done to survive and work in a city that was destroyed by promising to much and ignoring reality. It does not represent your typical poor person is why his story was done in first place.
OP, I can understand why you are livid. Given your past posts, the thought of someone actually showing amazing determination and showing up for work every day in spite of having to walk makes you appreciate just how lazy and useless the vast majority on welfare actually are. All the young, able bodied people, particularly those who's only accomplishment has been to spread their legs and get knocked up, then latch onto welfare for decades have no excuse when this middle aged guy makes this effort.
That part isn't the issue the OP was making. Why does this man have to walk 21 miles each way to get to work everyday? Oh yeah, poor public transportation system. How exactly is this man going to get out of his low income job? When one has that long of a commute, all their time is dedicated to working, commuting, and sleeping. Which right wingers would scold this man for not learning a new trade or something so that he can earn more money. Also it points out that while the employer is aware the commitment his employee I'd making for his job, it doesn't encourage the employer to pay this dedicated employee more so that he wouldn't have to walk that far to work each day.
At 3mph it's a 7 hour walk each way. Something ain't exactly right.
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