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I had to have roommates for my apartments back in the day to bring down COL. Didn't most of us? Is that concept so unacceptable? Who is paying these kid's way? It's not food stamps, and there isn't enough section 8 to house the millions upon millions out of work.
I would guess that if given the option between living without roommates in a reasonably priced area with jobs nearby or being given the choice between having roommates or commuting long distance for another job that pays only very slightly more, most people will probably go for the former. A lot of the places having trouble hiring are either jobs that already have lower wages than average and tend to be in downtown areas (like many public sector jobs), or jobs at large chains that have stores all over the place. If I can walk to Walgreens and make $20 an hour, why am I going to want to go to a Walgreens downtown that pays $22 an hour and requires me to commute 30 minutes each way and pay $12 a day for transit fees? It doesn’t make sense.
People stepped back, and asked themselves: "If 8 solid hours of work can't pay 24 hours of rent and utilities, food, clothing, healthcare and perhaps even a little bit of those activities that makes us human, what is the point?"
I get the feeling that some people think that we all had it just fantastic back in the day, living good on 40 hours a week. Well, it ain't so. This 'living wage' bulltwaddle is just that- bulltwaddle. Back in 1960, the house my father bought cost $12,000 and he had to work two jobs to pay for it.
'Living wage'. Bulltwaddle. Most of my life I worked multiple jobs and/or lots of overtime to the tune of 80-90-100 hours a week AND had a roommate to share expenses. I worked three jobs to pay my way through college (at a state school) without taking loans.
Seems like some people have the notion that 40 hours a week should buy them three bed/two bath accommodation, a late model car and meals out five days a week, well, it ain't so. 'Living wage'...shove that noise where the sun don't shine. Nobody owes anybody some particular standard of living. A job is worth what the job is worth. If you raise all the wages, then the cost of all the products and services have to go up too, in order to cover the increased labor costs. The money doesn't just appear out of thin air, there is no net gain. TANSTAAFL.
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Originally Posted by NoMansLands
I had to have roommates for my apartments back in the day to bring down COL. Didn't most of us? Is that concept so unacceptable? Who is paying these kid's way? It's not food stamps, and there isn't enough section 8 to house the millions upon millions out of work.
Yep, these 'living wage' people are crazy/fools. The idea that everybody used to live the good life with a house in the 'burbs or a snazzy apartment in the city on a single 40-hour income is an illusion, a pipe dream. In reality, very few saw anything like that, the vast majority of people had to work their tails off for what they got. What you see on a TV show isn't the way it usually works in real life.
Since I left home in the '70s there have been relatively few times when I wasn't sharing quarters with someone, and most of those times I was living in my vehicle (and once in a tent in the woods).
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Originally Posted by margaretBartle
Are you requiring your employees to wear masks and get vaccines?
There are a lot of people who would rather be poor than endanger their health.
I left my job for that reason, I wasn't going to work in an environment where it seemed likely that I could catch a potentially deadly disease.
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Originally Posted by margaretBartle
I have to say, I agree with you.
I know a number of 20-somethings with a few years experience, and complaining about their work. They really don't want to work. They have a very poor work ethic, want their jobs to be "fun", and not too much hassle, and they don't seem to have a common sense nerve in their bodies. They quit easily, and G-d only knows where they get their money.
I'm really glad I'm not in the hiring mood these days!
When I started my last job, I was working with a bunch of young slackers who didn't really want to work. Unfortunately, we had orders to fill and that meant that we had to work until the production schedule was met, and that often meant 14-16 hour days, and sometimes Saturdays too. After a few months I started cleaning house, anybody that didn't want to work as hard as me, when I was nearly three times their age, went out the door. I started getting new people in, the ones that wanted to work stayed, those that didn't didn't last very long. In less than a year I cut the labor force by 50% while increasing production by more than 35%, and eliminated overtime and Saturdays.
Now, since 'surviving' Covid it looks extremely unlikely that I will ever be able to go back to work doing what I was doing. I liked my job and wasn't ready to retire yet, now it's been pretty much forced on me. Well I just got a chunk of money from selling a piece of property and that check is going into the bank on Monday. It's enough to carry me until I can file for early SS, and I have enough land to grow all my own food and then some (to sell for profit). So, to heck with it, I'm not going back to work. I'm dropping out.
Far too many grew fond of sitting at home rather than going to work. I have seen on a website or two where people are looking for the best deals in charities and public assistance, but that isn't new, just more people thinking along those lines.
If one compares a lower wage (it was $10 an hour about 10 years ago), and public assistance that includes food stamps, Section 8 housing, Medicaid, a check one doesn't have to work for and other assistance (child care, free job training, free cell phone, etc.), the smart person with no work ethic can do about the same to better by staying in bed all day, and partying all night.
Cut the free goodies for those capable of work, and there is your work force!
But then you'll get the reverse situation of people who work multiple jobs (that thanks to "just in time scheduling" can't always be coordinated), are always tired and burnt out, and yet still can't afford their rent, which is basically where we were with non-professional jobs just a few years ago (read the NY Times article about the woman with 3 jobs who never slept and basically killed herself from stress and exhaustion).
There is a middle ground. Let's just admit that both because we are human beings and because our every waking hour isn't to satisfy an employer, that it's time to pay a living wage (but not more) for basic jobs and make them have "human" hours (let's say 25-40 hours per week depending on the employee's needs). Then we don't have these two extremes of what we had a few years before and people trying to beat the system today.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
At the end of the day, a custodian or a secretary or a faculty member or an administrator or a clerk, etc... is worth what they are worth. We pay consultants who tell us what these jobs are worth based on regional studies and then we also have negotiations, that's how the salaries get set. We then put it to the public to vote on. Very few of our jobs are worth what it costs to buy a 700k house when 5 years ago they cost 350k and was well within the realm of possibility for our workers to afford. That's the fundamental problem.
This is the other issue. So many places housing has literally DOUBLED in 5 years and it's not just the places the news touts all the time like NY City or San Francisco. How can one work a standard job if they can't afford to live on it?
Had you bothered to read any of the many reports published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since the mid-1990s using your hard-earned tax dollars that explain quite clearly that 2/3rd of all jobs "created" (snicker) would be "created" by retiring Boomers, you wouldn't be asking the question, especially since Boomers have accelerated their retirement, meaning they're bowing out a FTR instead of working until age 70 like they had planned.
This has probably had the biggest effect on the unskilled worker pool.
Then the price of the service or product offered will skyrocket.
<shrug> So be it. Market economy 101 - if the price of labor makes it infeasible to man the drive-through and retain the current prices, then prices will go up, fewer consumers will want the product, and more drive-through places will close. If your business model won't work if the price of labor goes up, then it's time to find a new one. The existence of drive-though fast food isn't a law of nature.
The only thing that as changed is that power has shifted - very slightly - to the worker. And I'm sure the powers that be are working very hard to get that stopped.
I wonder....Will everyone urging employers to just pay more, be ok with paying the increased prices for goods and services that will be the result? I doubt it.
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