Survey: Most Calif. Disney Workers Can't Afford Living Expenses (full time, contract, bill)

[TaxPhd]

Originally Posted by oh-eve

and DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN and especially not 6 if you cannot afford them.

Absolutely. I should have led with that one.

[TaxPhd]

Originally Posted by Crashj007

Or that great salvation of the toiling masses, "WIN THE LOTTERY!"
"You may be a weiner!"

.

[bUU]

Originally Posted by s1alker

I don't understand this trend for grown adults to try to make a living off a low wage service job, yet alone raise a family.

I think we need to repeatedly make clear that Disney is a special case, for reasons that have nothing to do with economic realities. Putting Disney aside though, the trend has been well-explained several times earlier in this thread: Wage growth has been flat over the last 30 years, the variance (the spread between the top end and the bottom end) has widened, and the level of education required for a greater portion of the available jobs is higher than more people can afford to pursue, given economic realities that have been the case for as long as we all have been alive, and have not changed for the better in the last few decades. This leaves fewer practicable alternatives for that group with regard to looking to make a living and support their family.

Originally Posted by oh-eve

and DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN and especially not 6 if you cannot afford them.

That expectation violates one of the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family." If an autocratic dictatorship which subjugates its citizens to the state is the intention, what you're suggesting might be reasonable. However, in a democratic republic where citizens have an expectation of basic human rights, it is the state that is supposed to serve the people, and therefore is charged with the obligation to craft a society within which its citizens can reasonably expect to have the opportunities to afford to enjoy the right to marry and to found a family.

Originally Posted by jnojr

I get angry when I see people moping and complaining, "Oh, I have no opportunity, life didn't hand me what I wanted and now I'm screwed and it's all someone else's fault and someone else needs to make up for this!" Bull. Get up and get to it... you own your own future.

I think it would be better for people to stop getting angry about the hard realities of society when they run counter to the pastoral vision of society they wish was reality. I am so grateful for having been blessed with so many opportunities, but I'm not so arrogant to overlook the fact that much of that is attributable to innate privileges of my birth and luck of the draw.

The hard reality is that people compete for limited opportunities and in the context of "Work and Employment," on any specific day, it is a zero-sum game. I recently was hired into a position. I know of at least a half dozen others, all of which with more experience in the discipline, who would have been happy to get that job. Am I a more worthy human being, warranting the blessings of gainful employment while the others were unworthy? Or did I luck out that given the specific priorities of the moment the hiring manager picked me instead of anyone else? Answer: The latter. If society was working properly, there would have been seven positions available in the labor marketplace, and perhaps as often as not employers would have to compete with each other for workers instead of it being more often the other way around.

I wish you were as grateful for your good fortune as I am for mine, rather than disparaging of those who are not for reasons beyond their control, despite your baseless claims to the contrary.

Originally Posted by ackmondual

Point is, a lot of things can change in 30 years. It's not just the American workforce that's had to adapt, to the changing times, but American companies too. Some of evolved, while others didn't and are no longer around.

And the crux of the matter is that for 50 years these changes you allude to resulted in more job growth than contraction. That metric hit an inflection point about ten years ago. Now, more job contraction can be attributed to these changes than job growth (at least domestically).

So when you talk about adaptation, in the end, you're talking about adapting to a global macroeconomic change, where the overall global standard of living, itself, is perhaps kept constant, but where the legacy disparity in standard of living between places like the United States, on the one side, and places like the BRIC nations, on the other side, is mitigated. In other words, the adaptation you're talking about is Americans getting used to something more akin to the standard of living that is more along the lines of how it has been in India and China, for example, while citizens of India and China enjoy some adaptation toward a standard of living that is more like how it has been in the United States.

The problem we're tripping over, though, is that that adaptation is not being visited on all Americans evenly, but rather in proportion to one's legacy economic power. (The whole, "rich get richer, poor get poorer" thing.) That makes the adaptation even more extreme, and therefore more grievous, for those who have to endure it.

[fisheye]

Wages are all about supply and demand. If Disney could not get enough workers; they would have to pay better wages or go out of business. Companies love a replaceable workforce; they throw crumbs and you either eat or walk away to be replaced by another sucker. I love the politicians pushing for more legal and illegal immigrants - who do you think is lining their pockets! Automation will continue to depress wages; even without the help of more immigrants. Adaptation will not save workers because many of the 'new fields' could be the focus of automation tomorrow.

Minimum wage legislation sets a false bottom. Some companies go out of business or downsize their employment rolls thus requiring the few to do more. Some companies will turn to automation. In a healthy work environment (for prospective employees) companies have to compete for their prize employees. When competing; they treat their employees with respect - they do not want to lose them. Under those conditions companies give raises to compete with other companies. They also increase benefits and award special 'perks'. They compliment and praise their employees because they want a happy workforce that does not want to leave. Thanks to outsourcing, immigration and the coming automation; we may never see those days again!

[jnojr]

Originally Posted by bUU

That expectation violates one of the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family." If an autocratic dictatorship which subjugates its citizens to the state is the intention, what you're suggesting might be reasonable. However, in a democratic republic where citizens have an expectation of basic human rights, it is the state that is supposed to serve the people, and therefore is charged with the obligation to craft a society within which its citizens can reasonably expect to have the opportunities to afford to enjoy the right to marry and to found a family.

Just because you have a "right" to do something doesn't mean you have to do it. Nor does that "right" confer upon you immunity from the consequences of exercising your right. If you go to an Antifa rally and exercise your right to free speech to disagree with them, you're going to be beaten down into the dust.

Nobody is talking about forcing people to not have kids. We're saying, if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. You will make your life worse, you'll make their life bad, and you'll contribute to an overall decline of society, and all for what? To preen about how you had a right to do it?

Get an education, get a real career, get a job that pays. Then exercise your right to start a family. Just be smart about it!

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by jnojr

An absolute crock. Community college. An array of grants and scholarships and low-interest loans. ROP. Continuing education. Vocational schools. Apprenticeships. Anyone who wants to advance themselves, can. Sure, it might be a struggle if they've waited too long, and now have a family and kids and bills. But you know what you do? Sit there and moan and complain and demand a higher minimum wage? Sure, see how far that gets you. No, what you do is, get to it. Make sacrifices. Stop worrying about what's "fair" or what you want to do or how unpleasant it might be. Get working towards an education, and work jobs that revolve around that. Cut out the cable TV and Starbucks and movies and eating out. Eat ramen and beans and rice.

I did exactly this... a long time ago, when I realized I had made some bad choices and was stuck in a cul-de-sac of low-paying, low-skilled work; I made the choice to move on. I started a vocational program for computers, and then took a night job that worked around that schedule. For a year, I got up at 6 to get to school by 7, got out at 3 and ran to my job that went until 11, then went home to do it again. I had no fun. And I was supporting a girlfriend and her son. There was no extra money. I had to take out a personal loan to buy a computer to work on home projects on the weekends. And then my first job sucked and paid about $7 an hour. But six months later, I got $13 an hour somewhere else. Within three years, I was making $50K. Three years after that, I was at $70K, and believe you me, I was doing far, far better than I would have in some dopey union with "seniority" pushing all the work on to the new guy. I never protested or marched or chanted slogans or waved silly signs. I worked, and learned, and made myself valuable.

Sorry, but posts like this bring it out. I get angry when I see people moping and complaining, "Oh, I have no opportunity, life didn't hand me what I wanted and now I'm screwed and it's all someone else's fault and someone else needs to make up for this!" Bull. Get up and get to it... you own your own future.

There's only one problem with this. Anyone CAN succeed, but EVERYONE can't. The job market is hierchical and therefore zero sum. There has to be losers, otherwise all low wage service jobs wouldn't exist and people would be back to making their own food and grocery stores, movie theaters, bowling alleys etc wouldn't exist, because no one would want to work for lower wages than they're qualified for. I just wish people like yourself would be honest and admit that not everyone can be middle class, and that a given number of people will be condemned to the lower end of the wealth ladder

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by bUU

That expectation violates one of the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family." If an autocratic dictatorship which subjugates its citizens to the state is the intention, what you're suggesting might be reasonable. However, in a democratic republic where citizens have an expectation of basic human rights, it is the state that is supposed to serve the people, and therefore is charged with the obligation to craft a society within which its citizens can reasonably expect to have the opportunities to afford to enjoy the right to marry and to found a family.

That is whacked. One may have the right to start a family but one does not have the right to insist that others pay for it. No, society does not owe anyone the means to afford something they choose.

[GreggT]

Originally Posted by jnojr

An absolute crock. Community college. An array of grants and scholarships and low-interest loans. ROP. Continuing education. Vocational schools. Apprenticeships. Anyone who wants to advance themselves, can. Sure, it might be a struggle if they've waited too long, and now have a family and kids and bills. But you know what you do? Sit there and moan and complain and demand a higher minimum wage? Sure, see how far that gets you. No, what you do is, get to it. Make sacrifices. Stop worrying about what's "fair" or what you want to do or how unpleasant it might be. Get working towards an education, and work jobs that revolve around that. Cut out the cable TV and Starbucks and movies and eating out. Eat ramen and beans and rice.

And I walked to school in the snow for six miles when I was a kid, why do we need buses today?

I did exactly this... a long time ago, when I realized I had made some bad choices and was stuck in a cul-de-sac of low-paying, low-skilled work; I made the choice to move on. I started a vocational program for computers, and then took a night job that worked around that schedule. For a year, I got up at 6 to get to school by 7, got out at 3 and ran to my job that went until 11, then went home to do it again. I had no fun. And I was supporting a girlfriend and her son. There was no extra money. I had to take out a personal loan to buy a computer to work on home projects on the weekends. And then my first job sucked and paid about $7 an hour. But six months later, I got $13 an hour somewhere else. Within three years, I was making $50K. Three years after that, I was at $70K, and believe you me, I was doing far, far better than I would have in some dopey union with "seniority" pushing all the work on to the new guy. I never protested or marched or chanted slogans or waved silly signs. I worked, and learned, and made myself valuable.

Good for you but what has already been mentioned, factory jobs that don't require an advanced education have moved overseas, trade jobs have been taken over by recent immigrants and illegals who will work for low wages, low skill jobs have gone from full time to part time to avoid benefits.

Sorry, but posts like this bring it out. I get angry when I see people moping and complaining, "Oh, I have no opportunity, life didn't hand me what I wanted and now I'm screwed and it's all someone else's fault and someone else needs to make up for this!" Bull. Get up and get to it... you own your own future.

No one is whining and complaining, just stating facts!

[charlygal]

Why can't the no/low skilled workers get new skills?

[GreggT]

Originally Posted by charlygal

Why can't the no/low skilled workers get new skills?

Examples of these "New Skills" you are suggesting?