Survey: Most Calif. Disney Workers Can't Afford Living Expenses (letters, school, opportunities)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
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. These jobs were never meant for that even 30 years ago when I was doing them in high school.
I know what you mean, BUT, in some tourist areas where adults live, there are only service jobs. Besides the few coveted gov't jobs which not everyone can have---despite people here telling us all to get one. So those adults don't have much choice. I lived in such a tourist town with only service jobs. So I settled for "serving" and since I was good at it, made $30 an hour. All the other jobs were lucky to make $12. That's just the reality in certain places.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wish I could rep you more than once. Especially for the bolded part of your response. I wish people were able to understand this, even in the most basic sense. The opportunities and privileges you have been presented does not mean everyone else gets the same!
This is why I wish throughout our education, we are required to take at least one sociology course, so that people can understand that "privilege" isn't a liberal buzzword, it's an actual societal factor. Race, education level, socioeconomic position of your parents - this all plays a role in the position you "start" in on the proverbial track. There was a really well-done video circulating Facebook recently that explained this really well.
For one thing, many are probably P/T. Lol, who can afford to live in S California on their own unless you make good money, or have roommates? It's stupidly expensive there. If they upped their wages then they would have to increase the prices to get in to where only the rich could afford the place. I grew up in S Cali, and Disneyland was already expensive back in the 60's. I can't imagine what it costs now days. It was fun though, and so was Knotts Berry Farm.
Yeah, I remember when Disneyland was $12 to get in and Knotts was free. "Back in the day!"
My niece works at Disneyland and rents a room in somebody's house. I don't know if she gets any benefits since she's part-time like most are. But at least CA has Medi-Cal (or used to).
You touched on it with "From ground keeper to mechanical repair...It's not all poverty level pay."
A lot of people evaluate what they can see instead of what is happening, literally, under their feet. Theme park visitors see men and women pressing a button, flipping a switch or handing you a frozen Mickey Mouse face ice cream pop are the people they want you to see.
They dont want you to see the behind the scene carpenters, mechanics, computer staff, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, et cetera, who are making a living.
If flipping a stop/go switch, using a mop or any other no experience necessary jobs is your limit, then you need to get it in gear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nov3
Disney has an astounding methodology for operations. Truly a place to study efficiency.
Something businesses place second and think $$$ is the ruler. Granted Disney has increased its entrance fees in accordance with material increase and covering safety modifications.
From ground keeper to mechanical repair...It's not all poverty level pay.
I'm all for unions...it keeps management in check. Disney learned that lesson the hard way.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,687,695 times
Reputation: 9169
Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd
Then they will be reduced to working low end jobs. That is the reality for most who either can't get the skills, or won't get the skills.
You are leaving out the third option, that everyone gets the skills, but there are only so many skilled jobs, people still want their groceries and fast food, so whoever can't get the skilled slots that fill up get stuck having to flip burgers or Huck groceries even though they have the skills for more
I'm not confusing anything but you are. What I said is that society is obligated to ensure sufficient opportunities for all. What you are trying to pass of as adequate is a "Hunger Game" where there are enough opportunities for only certain people and the rest are left to vy for an inadequate number of suitable opportunities. Hunger Games are not moral.
Exactly, why have a country if there is no greater goid and safety net.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oceangaia
Bad analogy. In Hunger Games they were physically forced to participate. In our society, if you do not feel there are sufficient opportunities in the job market, you have the opportunity to be an enterpreneur and make your own job.
Nonsense. You just don't have a legitimate response to what I have written, so what else could you say to try to defend what you believe?
Yeah, I do. Workers can step up and either help themselves, or organize and help each other. You resent the idea of people having to put effort into it.
There are too many successful entrepreneurs that started with nothing to believe your false narrative.
Can you give me some examples?
I guarentee it wasn’t nothing. They had access to education, roads, running water, the right mentors and all sorts of tangible and intangible things.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
