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Seriously, within a few weeks, you can go from living in a rat infested dilapidated apartment with 3 roommates to living under a bridge if you are fired and don't get unemployment. If you have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck, that is what will happen. I'd be a nervous wreck with that in the back of my mind.
They close their eyes just like you do, and hope tomorrow gets better.
And they (hopefully) are reliable employees that maintain employment while they either get experience and move up in the company, Or use transferable skills and experience to get something different and better paying. When you have no other choice, You can only try your best and weather the storm. The other option is just giving up. Only one logical and best choice here is to press forward, With all you got. Many may work two jobs and not live in a rat infested dump even with one. Also, There are people who over the last ten years lost higher paying positions and had to accept far lower paying jobs, Some not even full time. My point is you never know what jolts life will bring. Be humble, work hard, save some money and do your best.
They would only fail to get unemployment if they caused it.
Not true. I was denied unemployment the one and only time I applied for it (seasonal job ended) and was denied because a year and a half ago I quit a job to take another job. Go figure.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Many long-term minimum wage workers are used to living paycheck to paycheck and have made accommodations for it, such as a second job, roommates, or moving to a lower cost area. The people that can't sleep at night are those that had a middle-class lifestyle but due to a layoff suffered a sudden severe reduction in their income, while their expenses stayed the same. How to pay for that mortgage and car payment and avoid giving up those things they worked so hard for keeps them awake at night.
Many long-term minimum wage workers are used to living paycheck to paycheck and have made accommodations for it, such as a second job, roommates, or moving to a lower cost area. The people that can't sleep at night are those that had a middle-class lifestyle but due to a layoff suffered a sudden severe reduction in their income, while their expenses stayed the same. How to pay for that mortgage and car payment and avoid giving up those things they worked so hard for keeps them awake at night.
I agree for the most part. Those who find sudden unemployment and subsequent lack of income so difficult are generally those who would see their lifestyles significantly altered. For (probably) most minimum-wage earners, losing their jobs would take them from very little money to slightly less little money, assuming they can get unemployment.
This is why "living within one's means" is so wise. Sadly, with the availability of easy credit (for many), this axiom simply isn't taken as seriously anymore.
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