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Old 02-13-2019, 11:14 AM
 
13,507 posts, read 16,963,416 times
Reputation: 9688

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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri View Post
I have personal experience - started a mom and pop shop in Retail and ran it for 20 years.
Paid my employees at least 50% more than the going wages - plus benefits that others didn't pay.

I made MUCH more than my competitors and provided products and services to customers for less than them also. Like Costco.

Higher wages at WalMart might mean:

1. The Waltons, all together, are worth only 70 billion instead of 140.
2. That Door Buster special TV might cost $129 instead of $126.


That wouldn't make a bit of difference in the scheme of things. The Waltons can't buy a single thing more with 140 Billion that 70 Billion wouldn't purchase...and you would still likely buy that Door Buster, especially if you felt better about the place knowing they paid their due.

My manager, in a small retail store, made $70K plus bennies in 1992. More run of the mill employees made 1/2 that. No college required.

Putting that into dollars today, that would be $126K for the manager and 63K for the Retail Floor Employees.

This didn't cost me money. It made me money. The business lasted 40 years (we sold it) until the current owners ran it into the ground by adopting an outlook like you are pushing. It took them almost 20 years to run all the value out of it.
Exactly. How is this good for anyone but the Waltons and a handful of shareholders who earn their income mostly from Walmart stock (very very few)? Yet it's the basis for our economy and if you question it you are a radical Maoist or something. Or, the other response is "tough luck, survival of the fittest".
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:15 AM
 
Location: Forest bathing
3,191 posts, read 2,449,688 times
Reputation: 7244
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroWord View Post
This is a crude way of saying it, but speaking as a liberal I agree with you.

I see this all the time. And I absolutely hate this part of the liberal movement even though I'm al liberal myself. I've had many arguments with my liberal friends on this. They say there is nothing wrong with being a single mom. And I say but single-motherhood is the biggest predictor of poverty! And there is nothing right about that.

I also see a lot of young couples pumping out kids at very young age and then the struggle begins. It is disheartening knowing chances are they are destined to be poor forever.

Look, my husband and I was a single-income family for a long time. We did just fine. In fact, we did more than fine because he was able to go to college and study abroad in Europe. I was the only income earner for years and with the right budgeting we lived a comfortable life. We never skipped a vacation.

But whatever. No one ever listens to me anyway. They will keep pumping out kids without any planning whatsoever.
There is a young woman in my area who has 5 kids and is homeless and disabled. Her FB photos show that she is mobile. She claims she left an abusive situation. Why would you procreate 5 times with an abuser? While I feel the kids deserve help with secure housing, she seems to be gaming the system.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:19 AM
 
13,507 posts, read 16,963,416 times
Reputation: 9688
Quote:
Originally Posted by xPlorer48 View Post
There is a young woman in my area who has 5 kids and is homeless and disabled. Her FB photos show that she is mobile. She claims she left an abusive situation. Why would you procreate 5 times with an abuser? While I feel the kids deserve help with secure housing, she seems to be gaming the system.
Anecdotes are anecdotes. When you are dealing in actual public policy, anecdotes have very little value.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:27 AM
 
Location: Just over the horizon
18,397 posts, read 7,006,538 times
Reputation: 11645
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2mares View Post
If women and men could not hold the same jobs how did it affect the supply and demand significantly.
Working women began entering the job market for the same positions single women already held; elementary level school teachers, secretaries, stewardess, waitress, maid, hair dresser, etc. Jobs that already paid less than a typical mans job.

The competition for good jobs, the same jobs men do, from women and illegals and foreign visa holders has basically been over the last 10-15 years while "wage stagnation" began about 1980. Most of those wages have increased yet purchasing power has not. Legally employers can not pay an employee less due to their gender. Women have been fighting for fair and equal wages for some time. I cant imagine there are multitudes of women who are going to say, hey I'll do that job that man is doing for 3 dollars less on the hour. I don't see a lot of women working construction type jobs. On the other hand illegals and foreign works are willing to accept less pay. Even the lower wages is more than they can earn in their own country and their lifestyle allows them to live more cheaply than US citizens. We have also seen an increase in outsourcing, technology and automation as you stated, more $$ staying in the hands of the top earners and a shift from many smaller employers to fewer large employers.
So simply saying because more women joined the work force in 1960 doesn't really explain anything.


It didn't stay that way for very long though did it?

It wasn't long before women were competing with men for the same jobs.

And with two incomes being the norm, companies scrambled to alter their marketing strategies towards women in an effort to get every dollar they could.


And I never said that women entering the workforce was the only reason.

Obviously, there are multiple factors at play.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:28 AM
 
20,956 posts, read 8,583,472 times
Reputation: 14048
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
Not for those of top academic merit, in our experience. Trustees' scholarships for the highest achievers, etc. etc.
Which proves the point.

If everyone is smart....goes and learns stuff, then only the smartest of the smart get the free money. Or the best linebackers. By definition it CANNOT be the "forgotten man and woman" who the OP is writing about that used to be able to survive on a single income.

We aren't all Rhodes Scholars. That's just the point. Saying that the cream of the crop are shuttled into a special club is NOT a valid response to the question being asked.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:37 AM
 
Location: El paso,tx
4,513 posts, read 2,494,503 times
Reputation: 8199
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
Their lifestyle expectations are way too high to be supported in a one-income family.
This...everyone needs a smartphone, cable, flat screen tvs in every room, 2 cars, x boxes, eating out at restaurants, etc.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:39 AM
 
23,748 posts, read 14,869,306 times
Reputation: 12806
Quote:
Originally Posted by moneill View Post
Where do you live?
What is their background?

I just don't see it.

I know of no parents who have kids living with them in the ages of 25-35 years of age. who aren't working. I'm wondering why there would be such a big difference in what our experience is.


Just as an add on. I have a group of online friends who have known each other for some 22 years. We are from all over the country, different lifestyles, different socio-economic backgrounds...and NONE of their chidlren that are in the millenial category have ever been unemployed very long (if at all). Most would love to have had their kids hang around a little bit longer -- lol.

My youngest is just finishing his fourth year and will graduate. Many of his peers finished in three years (everything from computer science majors to business majors) and got jobs before they left school. I just don't see any of this 'lazy' millenial trend at all.

Could it be that the older millenials were victims of the downturn in the economy and that started that whole mind set?
All my grandkids are liberal arts majors. They are all working and in school. One still lives with a parent to care for the parent. And he pays $1000 a month rent to his dad. All their friends are working students. IDK where this stuff came from.

Must be from people who catered to and pampered their kids. I do see many parents treating their younger kids like some kind of doll instead of a human being who will need to know how to make their way in the world.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:40 AM
 
Location: East Coast of the United States
27,295 posts, read 28,366,245 times
Reputation: 24822
Part of the problem in the United States is that the people who had a strong educational background and work ethic have already moved up into the upper-middle class over the last several decades. Whereas those who didn’t have as much merit got left behind.

This is a big reason for the inequality and income disparity we see today.
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:42 AM
 
Location: Camberville
15,798 posts, read 21,311,780 times
Reputation: 28025
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent View Post
Not for those of top academic merit, in our experience. Trustees' scholarships for the highest achievers, etc. etc.
Depends on whether you wanted a job or not. You deliberately chose... "not."

Sure. But the scope of "top academic merit" is narrower because the scholarship pool is smaller.


I was in the top 10% and had above a 4.0 taking AP/IB classes, including 2 levels of AP Spanish, US government, macroeconomics, English language, US history, and self-study geography. I got full tuition scholarships to some top universities but did not get an academic scholarship to UGA. I was able to graduate from a brand-name college with no student debt where I was on a first name basis with my faculty. Friends who went to UGA talked about how some of their smaller classes had more than 100 students, while half of my classes had less than 10. It was a better environment for developing the communication skills needed in the workforce rather than sitting in a lecture and writing papers.



Whether I wanted a job or not? Do you think people going to top private schools are all unemployed? Sweet pea...


I wanted a job, so I went to a better school with better placement rates and more prestigious (though fewer) alumni that offered me more money. If a prestigious state school had offered me more money, I may have gone there. Should I have taken out loans to go to a less prestigious school because there was a larger alumni population? Where did you go to college?

Last edited by charolastra00; 02-13-2019 at 11:51 AM..
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Old 02-13-2019, 11:50 AM
 
15,363 posts, read 12,559,912 times
Reputation: 7571
Inflation
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