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This is a 70% increase in pay for folks who, for the most part, decided not to go to school or pick up a trade, or work their ways up into management roles...
Meanwhile, middle class wages are practically stagnant.
I received a whooping 5% COL raise this year -- still more than most.
It's a sad world when the lazy can go protest and whine against the government and the government gives in.
In many places, fast food workers are now making more than crane operators and medical technicians.
Have you taken COL increases and inflation into account? Also, how do you know fast food workers are "lazy"? I have never been one but I go to fast food places and see people who stand on their feet all day and run back and forth taking orders, prepping and cooking food, running the cash register and drive through, making drinks, fulfilling customer orders and requests, cleaning, keeping up with all the machines that need refilling or cleaning and so on. I don't see people sitting around with their thumbs up their butts. What are YOU seeing?
One woman who was serving me at Burger King told me she's in school for fashion merchandising, so oops there goes your whole "they decided not to go to school or pick up a trade." You also don't know if they're working on management, either. How can you tell these things just from dreaming them up, anyway?
Considering the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation and the COL, and you're actually complaining about receiving a 5% increase which most people DO NOT GET, the minimum wage if it had kept up with COL would be way more than 15 an hour.
Also, the dollar has been losing value, didn't you know that? The dollar in 1985 is not the dollar of 2014/2015. So you actually get angry that workers should dare to want more money considering that the money they make is worth less and buying less than it has in decades past?
Also the area in which we are seeing a decline in performance and results is the CEO's. CEO's are paid not only a salary for what they do, but incentive money for what they haven't done yet. Imagine that!
"With all the public chatter about exorbitant executive compensation and income inequality, it’s useful to look at the relationship between chief executive officer pay and corporate performance. Typically, when the subject of their big pay packages arises, CEOs—usually through their spokespeople—say they are paid for performance. Does data back that up?
An analysis of compensation data publicly released by Equilar shows little correlation between CEO pay and company performance. Equilar ranked the salaries of 200 highly paid CEOs. When compared to metrics such as revenue, profitability, and stock return, the scattering of data looks pretty random, as though performance doesn’t matter. The comparison makes it look as if there is zero relationship between pay and performance."
How can we explain this? Shouldn't CEO's be paid for their performance and not paid despite hurting and sometimes even destroying companies?
And you're going after the very hard working, highly stressed people at the bottom who are trying to juggle families and work along with education when they get a chance in between serving you your fries and burger with a smile?
Not to mention that if you go looking through job sites you will see companies offering $10 an hour to people with Bachelor's degrees, which is UNCONSCIONABLE. It's driven by the CEO's ravenous greed.
so..what do you tell the working mom of five? - "there is nothing you can ever do to make up for you being so irresponsible that you had 5 kids and there is nothing you can do to make up for it?
JM we are not talking about flippin' animal hoarding you can't re-home your children and most mothers wouldn't even consider doing so. I hear this kind of thinking from conservatives quite frequently. Blame people on welfare for having too many kids, and when the poor aren't on welfare, but are working they still get blamed for having too many kids. All of this from the party that wants to criminalize abortion and which has a fairly strong constituency who wants to ban birth control too
I think we should have more birth control , I think the people that want to make it harder have backwards thinking.
There needs to be a stronger message out there that it's not a good thing to have a bunch of kids you can't support.
People like that lady with all those kids should be made an example of. Young girls today should look at her and think ...jeez I don't want to be in my thirties with half a dozen kids..and my best employment option is working part time at Walmart..
You don't find it unfair that someone sees no problem having half a dozen kids they can't support, because they know the stupid tax payers will pony up the money for them...when there are people that would love to have kids but hold off until they are done with college and can afford it?
the woman JM was talking about HAS A JOB geezus...
It was a part time job at Walmart. She was protesting/rallying because she wants Walmart to pay her $15 hr and give her full time work. She feels that if she made $15 an hour she knows she could support herself and her half a dozen children without welfare...
Also keep in mind this is in Los Angeles, one of the cities with the highest cost of living in the nation.
It was a part time job at Walmart. She was protesting/rallying because she wants Walmart to pay her $15 hr and give her full time work. She feels that if she made $15 an hour she knows she could support herself and her half a dozen children without welfare...
Also keep in mind this is in Los Angeles, one of the cities with the highest cost of living in the nation.
I'm going to leave it there. I don't like poor shaming, and I think poor shaming a person who goes out and gets a job is disgusting. I seriously doubt if you even have any idea how damn hard it is to even get out the door to go to work with 5 kids? My grandmother raised 10 kids, 6 kids of her own and 4 of her brothers. She was dirt poor but those kids were fed and had clothes. I'm sure glad that I didn't have to listen to people talk smack about her having more kids than she could afford.
It was a part time job at Walmart. She was protesting/rallying because she wants Walmart to pay her $15 hr and give her full time work. She feels that if she made $15 an hour she knows she could support herself and her half a dozen children without welfare...Also keep in mind this is in Los Angeles, one of the cities with the highest cost of living in the nation.
JM, did you ask her if she was working part time because she wanted to, or if it was because she wasn't offered a full time job? And oh my God she was in Los Angeles, well if you are poor it's pretty darned hard to get the money to move 2000 miles to some place with a lower cost of living, but I think you know that.
I'm going to leave it there. I don't like poor shaming, and I think poor shaming a person who goes out and gets a job is disgusting. I seriously doubt if you even have any idea how damn hard it is to even get out the door to go to work with 5 kids? My grandmother raised 10 kids, 6 kids of her own and 4 of her brothers. She was dirt poor but those kids were fed and had clothes. I'm sure glad that I didn't have to listen to people talk smack about her having more kids than she could afford.
I think the issue is that perhaps a lot of people don't realize how hard it is. You are right it's hard..but life is hard enough taking care of yourself. Why would someone want to make it even harder. Also if tax money is going to support people that make irresponsible decisions..then I think the tax payers have every right to be upset.
I heard someone mention today on a radio show that perhaps the government should give people that DON'T have kids money. After all they aren't using the services like schools,etc that cost tax payers so much.
$15 an hour for cooking a cheap and greasy burger is absurd. There is no prerequisite skill to do this job, hardly any training needed, and almost no customer service skills necessary. Flipping burgers and taking orders in a fast food restaurant is not a $15 an hour job. It is barely a minimum wage job.
Sometimes this coutry makes me facepalm.
CEOs who rake in a ton of $$, won't pay their employees enough to make a sustainable wage, and expect tax payers to foot their assistance bill are absurd.
Sometimes, this country makes me facepalm too
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
No, most people graduating college won't start off with a $100k a year job, but the changes of someone going from a min wage job to 100k a year job are even less likely.
I don't believe anybody had any expectations of making $100K to start off. You can be making less than that, but still be above MW. That's what folks are aiming for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
I also don't agree about trades...where I live I see that the trades are paying well.
Folks here on C-D have said trades aren't forever. It's a young man's occupation, and later on, some of them will require you to transition into management, as a 55yo climbing ladders and telephone poles can be irksome.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
I'm not going post them all..but here is a link https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/lacity
Jobs like mechanics,etc are paying over $70,000. Much much higher than min wage jobs and much better benefits too.
I'm not going to make too many assumptions, but neither should you. I think it's safe to assume that there are such a huge # of folks applying that those who don't make the cut look for other work. There are still a huge # of applicants per openings. The rest will have to turn to FF and MW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
You mentioned people struggling to suport their families on minimum wage ...a question nobody seems to ask is, why are people having children if they KNOW they can't afford them. I read an article about a lady in L.A that was out protesting for a $15 min wage...she had a job at Walmart...but she was in her thirties and she had 5 Kids!...
I doesn't take a mathematician or a genius to run the numbers and realize that you can't support yourself and a bunch of kids on minimum wage.
Why not wait a little to establish yourself and focus on school and/or your career and then have kids?
Life hardly works the way you wanted it to. For one man, he was raised only by his mother b/c his father died in military combat. Were the couple to only have 1 or 0 kids just so they can meet assurances in case he didn't come back instead of 2 kids?
I've met a few folks in college and high school who were abandoned by their dads. No one really plans for that.
[quote=jm1982;40812169]The reality is there are jobs out there...but many of them a higher level of skill. If people decide to have a lot of children and can't focus time on earning those skills , whose fault is that? Sounds harsh but that's the reality.
competition's fierce. If everyone of those people were to get higher education and programming jobs, etc., only a percentage of them would get hired. The rest would be right back to square one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jm1982
Bottom line is that the best solution for people is for people to start taking action and making changes for themselves.
Until you or I know the majority situation, not some accounts of a few dozen people, it's all pie in the sky.
And to not underestimate how starting off poor can be such a huge drawback against you. It's not impossible... there are some "homeless to Harvard" stories out there. But it's not just practical that everyone will be able to do so.
JM, did you ask her if she was working part time because she wanted to, or if it was because she wasn't offered a full time job? And oh my God she was in Los Angeles, well if you are poor it's pretty darned hard to get the money to move 2000 miles to some place with a lower cost of living, but I think you know that.
I didn't ask her..apparently she wanted full time...but even with full time at Walmart...that doesn't support her and her 6 kids.That's the main issue.
Also I've heard this argument before...the poor are too poor to move.
What kinds of possessions do these poor people have to move? Do they have Steinway Pianos and antiques?
Most bigger items like furniture can be sold and then rebought from thrift stores or on craigslist. Oftentimes people even give away furniture too.
I was at a thrift store just today and saw some very nice pieces for a small fraction of what the retail price must of been.
Saying that you don't have the money to move ...if moving could totally change your life is another lame excuse.
There are plenty of places for example where housing is 1/2 the cost of less than L.A
If you are paying $1200 in rent for example and brought it down to $600..that's a savings of $600 month or $7200 a year...that's significant for a lot of people.
I didn't ask her..apparently she wanted full time...but even with full time at Walmart...that doesn't support her and her 6 kids.That's the main issue.
Also I've heard this argument before...the poor are too poor to move.
What kinds of possessions do these poor people have to move? Do they have Steinway Pianos and antiques?
Most bigger items like furniture can be sold and then rebought from thrift stores or on craigslist. Oftentimes people even give away furniture too.
I was at a thrift store just today and saw some very nice pieces for a small fraction of what the retail price must of been.
Saying that you don't have the money to move ...if moving could totally change your life is another lame excuse.
There are plenty of places for example where housing is 1/2 the cost of less than L.A
If you are paying $1200 in rent for example and brought it down to $600..that's a savings of $600 month or $7200 a year...that's significant for a lot of people.
Well to move you need to find a job in that area and a place to live and a new school if you have kids. Moving may be cheaper but your not gonna find a place with a low cost enough to change your life much. This does not even include the fact that low cost areas probably already have a lot of poor people so good luck finding a job or a cheap place to live there.
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