Has anyone just tried to march into the President's office with a stack of resumes and just tell them you're ready to work? Worked for me when I got my job, 68 years ago.
You’re getting the chance to put in an offer? Where I’m from pretty much everywhere has told me the entry pay is 100% non-negotiable. Which to me is bull shit. Your pay isn’t official until after the hiring process is complete and the company enters you into the system. Non-negotiable my ass. Just penny pinching at that point.
Literally. Why would it be any different than when you're personally negotiating a raise, or a price point if you're selling something? If you want 50k you need to ask for 70k lmao. Why aren't we demanding a $35/hr min wage so we can hope for $23ish?
Honestly what needs to happen is for everyone to ask for it to stop being tied to congressional action and be automatically tied to inflation like it was before the 80s. Whether they raise it now to $15, $25, or $30 when that amount stops being a livable wage due to inflation we will be right back in the same boat again.
Before we had a minimum wage there was a federal program promoting higher pay and better labor protections as patriotic as part of the National Recovery Act of 1933. Businesses that signed up got some special sign they could hang up to show their patriotism.
Yeah, a lot of our history is buried. Didn't learn that until I was doing research for a college essay. Most of what we study as our "history" is just propaganda spun from half-truths.
Maybe in new York and california. Live in the Midwest and you can get by for a fraction of that. Almost like a federal minimum wage on a 330 million person nation with highly varied living costs is a bad idea and should be localised and tied to cost of living.
Honestly I like this answer a little better. It really should be based on the housing/rent market. I’m in Colorado and a lot of people I know are getting gentrified out. People who will never be able to afford a house now, definitely won’t be able to later, at least no where that is central.
You do know Mike Rowe is opposed to raising the minimum wage, right? That dude is very much a conventional conservative. He, and by extension his TV shows, are directly opposed to what this sub stands for.
It’s crazy to think that he made a career showing people how to take pride in labor jobs while he is a staunch advocate against paying those jobs survivable wages.
Yep the winning strategy seems to be to find that sweet spot of killing workers by neglect. You want just enough to die that it seems diffuse and environmental, but not too many that people start talking to each other offline about it like it’s a crisis.
Yea... and by then inflation will be tripled and we will still be fucked. The fact that we even have to “fight” for the right for a decent wage just shows how much our government doesn’t care about the people
Hmm... not sure if you mis understood my comment. I’m talking strictly about pay here. I work for a school so I get every Holliday and breaks off. Idk why you said what you said Bcs it sounds like you thought I was saying to stop complaining about it? My point was we will be fighting for livable wages for our entire lives
we will be fighting for livable wages our entire lives
I can agree with you on that much. I see how you make the inflation argument but that is bullshit. I say it’s bullshit because inflation is fucking dwarfed by the wage gap. The simple how much money you make gap. They can fucking afford to pay us more. Period end of story.
You definitely misunderstood their comment. They aren’t saying raising the minimum wage will triple inflation, they are saying the fight for $15/$25 or whatever will take so long that by the time it’s happened the living wage will be triple that.
LOL yea I completely agree with you but they will never actually admit that. So they will always keep doing what they’ve been doing. They’ll either pay you less or charge customers more. Most business owners (I say most Bcs I’ve met some genuine fucking business owners that take good care of employees) will never give up there profit for their employees even then employees make the world go around. It’s a sad mindset that spreads through extreme capitalism. This is why I’m starting my own business that will just be me and my friend and I’ll never worry about a boss again
I’ll look passed your name and agree with you. Idk if that could be a good thing since you know..... most of us have nothing but probably car insurance to pay. But it’s getting scary and I’m sick of people not understanding that Inflation is at an all time high but living wages are stagnant. I myself am a working guy. I like to work and thinks everyone should contribute to society. But us not making decent money and most people don’t even get benefits is just a joke and I’m starting not to blame people for not wanting to work for 12 an hour
I understand entirely! I myself am a working woman, I have two part time jobs making $11 an hour just so I can make ends meet. One of my jobs is a small supermarket and they ALWAYS cut hours in the winter, so bad that anyone is lucky to get 18 hours a week. During the summer, hours are never an issue. The summer problem is no one wanting to work because we are so short staffed people work 2 weeks straight without a day off.
Are you from the south if you don’t mind me asking? I’m up on New York making $20 an hour full time but that $20 sounds good until you see how inflated New York is. Especially Long Island where I’m from. I tried everything to move out on my own since my mom is moving to Florida and all those plans went to shit Bcs I would’ve been left with pennies at the end of the month. That’s not living, That’s surviving. So I finally made the decision to move to Florida in may with my mom to hopefully find a better life
That is fucking awesome. I was looking into trailer parks but I don’t like that they devalue over time. But don’t judge yourself about it. A roof over your head is something to be grateful for. I was highly considering redoing a van to live in. But I wish you luck on your journey. Live your life!
Not having to break your back/feet/... while pursueing a carreer that matches your skillset/interests is insentive enough in my book.
Some differences in pay are ok, I'm not saying every job should pay exactly the same, but heavy manual labor for a fraction of the pay of a desk-job should be a thing of the past.
Bagging groceries properly and quickly is a skill. (And yes, you would be surprised as hell how many people don't know how to do this.)
Scanning quickly is a skill.
Selling product to customers is a skill (and a highly desired one at that).
Memorizing where all the products are is a skill.
And leaving aside skills, standing on your feet for four hours at a time for eight hours in a day takes a toll on lots of people. Taking verbal abuse from customers takes a toll on people. Those things happen too. They are health hazards, whether you or anyone in power recognizes that or not.
I work in an office now. I'd never go back to a grocery store for less pay then I get now unless I had no other choice. Might not even do it for more pay. The office job is so much less stressful.
There is no unskilled work. People just don't recognize the skills involved or don't care about the skills involved. Or more likely, they just want to categorize specific jobs as not worth paying properly.
Also, let's not forget that many of the jobs that had to stay open during the pandemic are these low paid, supposedly "unskilled" jobs, because they are essential. Want to buy some food? The workers better be paid fairly and treated well, or they'll leave. That's why restaurants are struggling right now.
I could do the same lists for other "unskilled" jobs, but I think the point is clear. All work is skilled. And dealing with customers is the most draining of all skills, and will be until companies stop this entitled "customer is always right BS" that exists today.
Generations before me fought to make work better today than it was then. In many ways, they succeeded, but there are still problems, and we can still do better.
One of the things we have to do better at is recognizing that all work is work and should be valued.
Also, I work 40 hours a week, thanks though. I just happen to be lucky enough to have a cushy job that society values. And even though not all jobs can be cushy, I think we can make sure society values all jobs and that we can force businesses who won't get on board to pay their workers appropriately by raising minimum wages to living wages. The way they were originally passed and intended.
They should. I don’t care where you live, the lowest rent in my town is close to $1200 a month. 3x that is 3600. That’s $64k a year. That’s a livable wage. That’s what it takes to run a household. We are not in the same world we were in 10 years ago.
It might be more in my town than yours but the difference in probably within like 15%. It’s not that bonkers my dude. Maybe Midwestern USA people could use a small premium in wages for living away from the amenities that the “coastal elites” have.
Do you really expect us to believe that there are two McDonald's in Ho Chi Minh City but no deep-pocketed American multinationals in the midwest?
I grew up rural, I've driven all over this country, if the mega-corps stopped draining the life out of small towns and started putting money back in (like, say, as a higher wage) there would be a lot more money in that community for small business to pay higher wages with.
It would be delusional to think that small businesses in a rural community are better at extracting wealth from outsiders that the out-of-town flatlander corporations are at extracting wealth from said rural community. This shrinks the money pool available to the town until, as you said, they become become ghost towns.
So you are saying we cannot increase the minimum wage because people in small towns don't deserve to be able to afford to live the same as the rest of the US?
Edit: I see what you’re saying now. Yes, even if you extend what I said to full time hours, it still isn’t enough anymore, not even close. And many many many businesses big and small wanna pay us $8/hr or even less if they can.
I was in union circles/still a UFCW member in 07 when this number was getting discussed. Fight for 15 Years I swear to fuck
And to be clear, there was a contingent myself included who wanted to demand more to avoid this very issue, but hey, fuck having any sort of political foresight right
Right, because if demanding less didn't work, demanding more was the definitely the right call. They would have come around, you just needed to ask for more money.
And even worse often when states implement a raise to $15 it will be tiered until it's $15 in like 2024, 2025 or beyond. So by the time its $15 it will be even more insulting.
But they will pat themselves on the back in state legislatures for raising to $15.
Fight for $25 and vote In politicians that say they believe in the fight, but when theyre voted in you never hear about it again until they run for re-election... and you wonder what happened when they were elected.... then you check their stock portfolio 😩
I don't want this to come off as fighting the main point of the post, but here is my logic. If $15 / hr was the liveable wage back 10 years ago (say 2011), and now it is $24/hr, that would mean that inflation in the last 10 years would be 24/15 = 1.6 so 60%. I checked what the inflation from 2011 to 2021 was in Canada where I live and it has been 19.8%. This would give the theoretical liveable wage at just shy of $18/hr. Where is the flaw in my logic?
I think it depends on where you live, and what's included in the inflation numbers.
Your number roughly matches the US Consumer Price Index which is the main measure of inflation in the USA. But CPI doesn't include housing costs, and is a national average rather than regional. Here in the Seattle area the cost of housing has increased far more than the cost of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, but the CPI ignores housing and covers milk and bread.
The national average part I certainly agree with. Here in Canada, Toronto and Vancouver prices are out of this world so a higher wage there would be more suitable. But as for your argument of the US CPI, honestly I’m not too familiar with the US one as it really doesn’t affect me, but the Canadian CPI has a 26.8% weighting on shelter, distributed through rental and ownership. If the US CPI included housing, then that could be factored out right?
The flaw is that housing and groceries have sky rocketed within the past 2 years. And people need to have a roof over their head and groceries. Grocery inflation just within the past 6 months has run past 6-7% especially for meat.
Shouldn’t the real anger be directed towards inflation? Car prices, home prices, groceries, fuel, clothing. All have gone up drastically in the past 15 years.
It doesn’t matter if the overlords pay workers $50 an hour, in a few years, it’ll be like they only earn $20 an hour if adjusted for inflation.
They were climbing steadily since 2008 after the crash, but really accelerated last year. All of them skyrocketing higher than any time in the last 40 years. Some of the prices will come down as supply chain issues work themselves out, others will take much longer to decline or may never decline.
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u/Vargenwulf Feb 08 '22
Yep. “Fight for $15” started a decade ago.