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You realize that families that live on welfare would be considered unfairly deprived if they had to live nicet4 is describing?
No AC? The library instead of a computer and/or just DLing books?
A bowl-cut hair style???
I can't remember any clothes with brand names, other than Levi's.
I never got Levi's but Wranglers which were cheaper.
My parents never gave me one dime and if I wanted money I had to go work for it or I didn't get it. I mean it, we never got an allowance and never did I eat in the cafeteria I packed a brown bag lunch instead.
I am somewhat of a rarity in that I am 65 years old and a fifth generation Californian coming from my great, great grandfather who came from Russia jumping a whaling ship in San Francisco in 1846 two years before the gold rush. Both my parents were born in the bay area back in the 20's so my California roots run deeper than most.
I grew up in Santa Clara and remember when San Jose had a total population of under 200k and people who thought about living in Milpitas were laughed at for living in the sticks.
I also remember huge fields of string beans all around the San Jose airport and it was here that I went in the summer to pick string beans for two cents a pound. I would pick about $3.00 worth which is equivalent to $23.20 today but if I didn't do it I didn't get any money.
But everyone seems to be sobbing over the minimum wage worker but who are they and how many do they really represent?
Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last year 1.566 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly two million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.55 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.
People at or below the federal minimum are:
Disproportionately young: 50.6% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19).
Mostly (78%) white; fully half are white women. Largely part-time workers (64% of the total).
As for me I could care less what they get paid and if they want a minimum wage of $15 then I am all for it but don't come crying when half the minimum wage jobs disappear.
It's nothing more than a union ploy to get more dues paying union members. That is all it is.
You realize that families that live on welfare would be considered unfairly deprived if they had to live nicet4 is describing?
No AC? The library instead of a computer and/or just DLing books?
A bowl-cut hair style???
I can't remember any clothes with brand names, other than Levi's.
Do you even know any desperately poor people? Where DO you get this idea that they are living well?
Do you even know any desperately poor people? Where DO you get this idea that they are living well?
Yeezus.
Obviously desperately poor people aren't living well. The question is whether the standard of living of the poor in America qualifies as "desperately poor."
All on ehas to do is watch a program o say a construction site in the 50-60's to see whay their is more labor then than now.I well remember as a kind who love to go watch construction sites and the massive crews need. now days ist a massive equipment with nothing near the crews then needed.The prime examples that come to mind is watching concrete being pored from concrete truck to pumper truck to form; then see pre-constructed roof farming arriving by truck and the hear nail guns driving nails in a instant.Its the same if you watch hot mix machine paving a roadway. Little hard labor involved ;more operator and machine.
In all the discussion of a livable wage and the minimum wage law, I never see any discussion about how well the poorly educated folks who worked in a factory did in the 1950s to 1970s.
I have a number of relatives who graduated from high school went straight to the factory and made a nice middle class income which would be similar to $20 an hour today. They were not trained in anything, they just did grunt unskilled labor.
If these guys could make such nice incomes in the 50s, 60s and 70s, why can't restaurant workers and retail clerks, who come from a similar background, be paid well today?
Compensation is based on the availability of skills, and the demand of those skills. I am not seeing what is so difficult to understand about this.
Do you realize that you are saying the same thing? And that wanting to pay as little as possible is merely human nature? Think about it. Assume you are hiring someone to mow your lawn or clean your pool. If you interview 3 different people, all of whom have outstanding references and all of whom have similar amounts of experience and skill, but 2 of them want $40 a week to do the work and one of them wants $30, who are you going to hire? In other words, the value of the work is based on how little you can get away with paying.
It really is that simple in the workplace as well. If you offer a job for XX amount of money and nobody worth hiring applies, you offer more money. Once you get to the point where you can hire worthwhile employees for the amount you are offering, you stop offering more money.
Yes, wanting to pay as little as possible is human nature. So is wanting to get paid as much as possible but when working people do that they're called greedy
I suffered through low pay and hard work for my step father but the worst was for a farmer. I left both as soon as I could. Neither paid as much as a minimum wage.
I was a skilled machinist and prototype machine builder when I started my career. I escaped by obtaining a BS Degree ASAP. I have finished a career as a scientist and bureaucrat at much better pay, working conditions and respect.
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