Low Wages ?!!!?

[fly free]

Yep, Welcome to the USA and what is happening to it

[Summering]

Originally Posted by nocturnal rooster

I don't even have a car right now. My car died. So I've been riding a shwinn to work for the last 2 months.

Well then don't plan on a job in NJ or New York.....the ride in the snow wouldn't be a picnic, getting there on your Schwinn Bike.
On TV today it was predicted we are going to have a BIG winter.
In that case, do they sell chains for bikes?

[I LOVE PA!]

Originally Posted by Summering

Well then don't plan on a job in NJ or New York.....the ride in the snow wouldn't be a picnic, getting there on your Schwinn Bike.
On TV today it was predicted we are going to have a BIG winter.
In that case, do they sell chains for bikes?

Summering....quich. lets call the patent office...I think with the high price of gas and low wages in Pa., in addition to the obesity epidemic..we could design a bike with a shelter around it with heavy duty tires with chains, and possibly a salt spreader on the front, maybe even heated handlebars that work off a generator on one of the tires!

[Suzer]

Nice! Very amusing, I Love PA!

[JimmyLane]

Originally Posted by ScrantonWilkesBarre

The cost-of-living here is NOT as much of a bargain as it used to be even a decade ago. While our housing prices are still lower than the national average, we have a relatively-high property tax burden, relatively-high utility prices, gas prices that are higher than both the state and NATIONAL averages, skyrocketing health insurance premiums (thanks to all of the locals who are already 100 lbs. overweight and continue to smoke and booze like there's no tomorrow), along with other high costs.

I also don't buy the "low wage" myth either. Anybody been to the Pittston suburbs lately. 99.9% of the vehicles here are newer, with a good 1/4 of those being higher-end SUVs and sedans. There are three $30,000+ vehicles out of the five homes on my particular dead-end street alone. A HALL MONITOR at my alma mater drove a Jaguar. McMansions are springing up in the Pittston Area School District faster than I can keep a tally of them. TOWNHOUSES are rapidly selling for $300,000 a pop. The parking lots in Wilkes-Barre Township's expensive chain restaurants and retailers are perpetually packed with newer vehicles. Every person on my campus in "poor" Wilkes-Barre is walking around with iPods, iPhones, and other high-end gadgets. If this area truly is "struggling," then please point it out to me, as I'm failing to see it. A truly POOR area should be littered with run-down homes, cars from the 1980s, cramped soup kitchens, and people who have no access to the Internet, amongst other statistics. Not even in Scranton, which Dan claims is a very poor city, do I see people struggling en masse to survive. The standard of living in America must be very good overall if our area is deemed to be "poor."

well said, but the flaw in your argument is that, unlike the 80s, people today with those high end gadgets, mcmansions and chi-chi townhouses have relied heavily on jumbo mortgages and extended credit lines (consider the many who buy food with their credit card!) at least some of those items you list would have been a luxury yesterday whereas today they're a necessity. My seven year old niece just got her first cell phone the other day because as her parents put it to me, "all her classmates have one." so, areas approaching dire straits like Wilkes Barre/Scranton, et al, that ought to be deemed "truly POOR" are not because the generous American banking system continues to permit the truly POOR to surround themselves with what only the truly wealthy could actually afford, thereby blurring the line between real poverty and real wealth. You can't SEE the burgeoning debt households are struggling to pay down, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

[JimmyLane]

duplicate post, disregard. sorry.