Americans Are Lining Up To Work For Amazon For $15 an Hour (qz.com) 211
One of the most important takeaways from Amazon's 2018 fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report, released Jan. 31, had little to do with the usual financial results. Amazon disclosed in the report that it received a record 850,000 work applications for hourly jobs in the US in October 2018 after announcing it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Nov. 1. From a report: The company said that was more than double its previous record for job applications received in a single month. Amazon said the new $15 minimum affects more than 250,000 employees in the US and 17,000 employees in the UK (where the increase was 10.50 pound in the London area and 9.50 pound everywhere else), plus more than 200,000 workers who were hired for the holiday season. As of Dec. 31, Amazon had 647,500 full- and part-time employees, up 14% from the same period a year earlier.
Why? (Score:2)
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I liked it, but I mostly played DoD. (Besides WoW and Decent, ofc)
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Well,
as a cost free hint:
o knowing how to code
o passing the interview
Have nothing to do with each other. (See below) Even getting an interview might be a hurdle.
In your country are training schools helping people who have no clues to pass an interview.
Plenty of people who can code don't easy pass interviews.
And then comes HR.
I have an anecdote about a HR department (I'm freelancer, HR should not be involved ...) where they sent a letter back: don't bother to sent this review again, he was 2 times rejected
Nope (Score:3, Funny)
Such a high minimum wage will never work because living wages aren't capitalist and this is literally white genocide and minimum wages literally killed the Lindbergh baby and a living wage is exactly the same thing as burning a flag and worse than 23 Benghazis and *pant pant pant*
*mops forehead with fedora*
But wait, there's more... (Score:4, Informative)
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Are you telling me it isn't true?
Re:But wait, there's more... (Score:4, Informative)
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And THAT's why you don't believe Haters without firm proof, because when they can't find what they want, they will make things up or vastly exaggerate.
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Don't underestimate local manager's capacity to put inhuman pressure on their team because they can't meet the objective or just want to impress the upper management.
This kind of issue can be extremely local (depends on the manager), so it doesn't mean it's an Amazon-wide issue and all Amazon employees suffer the same fate.
Re:But wait, there's more... (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.recode.net/2019/1/... [recode.net]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine... [www.cbc.ca]
https://www.newsweek.com/amazo... [newsweek.com]
https://www.kare11.com/article... [kare11.com]
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/... [vox.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a... [wsj.com]
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Because people did not wash hands, either because of spilled hot choc's or after toilet.
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I live < 5 miles from a distribution center, and the people I know that have worked there (pre-$15) were also generally positive. Two of my family members managed to no-call-no-show their way onto the no-rehire list and they are kicking themselves now.
Their complaint when working there was the amount of walking (>15k steps/day). That's better now that the skeeters bring the s
Wow, great jobs (Score:2, Insightful)
850,000 people lining up for $15/hour despite the repeated documentation of truly terrible, dehumanizing working conditions. Amazon employees urinate in bottles and trash cans in the warehouse because it's faster than going to the bathroom and they might face consequences for wasting that much time. They get various injuries as a result of proper industrial hygiene. They get fired for being ill. They're treated like disposable meat-bots. But I guess that's better than no job.
I have no facts to back up this
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Re:Wow, great jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
We're at about 4% unemployment,
It looks like you're using the U-3. Try using the U-6, which is at least closer to reality.
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U-6 includes under employed workers, which means they're not unemployed.
I'd argue that U-5 is flawed too. I'm technically U-5 but the reason I haven't looked for work in the past month is because I've been in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean on holiday. It feels inappropriate to class me as 'unemployed'.
U-4 would be a more reasonable measure, but even there I can understand the difficulty of treating someone as unemployed if they haven't even tried to find a job.
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Well, it does not really matter which one you use in this kind of analysis. U3 and U6 are very correlated. So the analysis you do using U3 will most likely be still correct using U6.
The media and Department of labor quotes U3 because it is the metric that resembles the most what other countries are measuring when reporting unemployment. The media do not report all metrics because there is such a high correlation between them that the story is the same. It is also the metric that is the closer to a natural u
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Could it depend on location? I'm in Canada, on the wet coast and it is hard to imagine large line ups for a lousy $15 an hour. Employment is low about 5% here IIRC, wages have started raising and it's expensive as fuck to live.
On the east coast, where unemployment is high, the cost of living is low, people would be lining up for one of these jobs.
People are lining up for these jobs..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the immigrants that built the railroads. They have no options. System working as designed.
Have you ever seen the inside of a meat packing plant? None of those people want to be there. They have to be there because they have no other options.
It's pretty sad that this many people are lining up for these jobs. Read between the lines. This is pretty damn bad.
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Have you ever seen the inside of a meat packing plant? None of those people want to be there.
Well, maybe this one guy. [youtube.com]
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Have you ever seen naked savages run down a pig and beat it to death with sticks? None of those people want to be there.
That's supposition. I've seen video footage of people living like that, and they're damned happy when they carry dead pig back home.
They have to be there because they have no other options.
I've also met people living like that who are clearly keen to improve their standard of living. They also have access to industrialised cities offering jobs that would help them achieve that goal.
Why do you think they haven't moved to those cities?
Look, dude, most people are willing to work for a living rather than the alternative.
Hunting pigs is hard work. I respect the men that do this to feed their families.
Duh (Score:3)
When will the bean counters and HR realize years of experience with the same job title does not bring higher quality workers. Higher wages do. You want to know why software developer salaries have gone up more? Easy, if you want something done you gotta pay the market wage.
Or is this socialism because it makes the CEO and Wall Street cry?
Minimum wage is $16/hour in Seattle (Score:2)
A base pay of $15/hour is so last year.
One must ask the question: (Score:2)
Far from the first time we've heard a litany of complaints about a big retailer over working conditions, either; Walmart comes to mind.
It'd
All part of Amazon's scheme.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not sure a lot of people realize (or want to realize) it, but Amazon was a proponent of the $15/hr. minimum wage laws from early on. That's simply because they know they're big enough and have enough money to handle that on their payroll, while many of their smaller competitors don't. They aren't trying to pay people more money because they're so generous and kind! They're trying to squeeze out their competition.
(And frankly? One of the reasons Amazon isn't hurt by having to pay that high a minimum wage
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It's quickly shaping up to be Amazon vs. WalMart .... with anyone much smaller than either one squeezed out.
Hold up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a second here... Do you mean to tell me that Americans will do "jobs that Americans won't do" if you pay them a living wage with benefits?
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Yes, but that brings the followup question: Are Americans prepared to pay for products and services that support American companies, the wellbeing of others, and the local economy? *looks at China's manufacturing* Well we answered that question in the last 20 years.
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Depends. [cbs7.com]
$15 an hour in Omaha, NE would be a good deal more attractive than $25 an hour in the SF Bay area.
Downside? Once folks are mandated a living wage for holding a job, automation and robotic replacement become incrementally more attractive.
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Re:Americans Are Lining Up To Post Firstomundo (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I just searched Omaha for apartments. It seems that a two bedroom apartment in a nice suburb will cost you $1030 a month. To secure this, it would require a $3090 a month income. That's about $18 an hour or it can be done at $15 an hour at 9.5 hours a day assuming time and a half overtime.
A 2014 BMW i3 with range extender would cost $18000 to $302 a month over 72 months. This is a good car because the resale value shouldn't drop considerably and after paying the car off, you can pay about the same for another year for a battery refurbishment. This car should have a very low cost of ownership (I drive one and it's almost like being paid to drive) and it should be relatively reliable. The only disadvantage is that it would have to be serviced by a BMW shop. But, it's still a far better purchase than a $12500 gas vehicle that has substantially more parts to break and replace... and pay gas for.
Car insurance will run about $125 a month on that for a 30+ man or woman.
I just grocery shopped online at one of the more expensive grocery stores I know of and shopped as if I had to budget. This didn't mean being stingy, but it meant grocery store brand over name. It meant fresh foods over packaged. It meant not paying double for organic. Choosing to shop the sales, etc... I came up with what should be a grocery card for a family of two including a month supply of soaps (bathroom, dish, laundry...), paper towels and toilet paper, tooth brushes, etc... I came up at $223. I suppose that using coupons and time as well as shopping at a non-rich person store would get it to $150, but I also didn't get anything really fun, it looked like what a healthy family would eat... you know, the kind of family where the parent loves the children instead of giving them food from boxes. So, let's choose $600 a month as a relatively round number for essentials (food, etc..) for a family of two.
Then there's clothes. Depending on your needs, you can dress fairly well on a budget of $100 a month for an adult... this will also cover buying new winter coats. And you can dress a child for $150 a month. They grow and require replacement of stuff much faster. So let's calculate $250 a month
The person would need furniture as well, but you can't budget that monthly, you buy that over 20 years and piece by piece. You inherit what you need from other people until you can buy the thing you actually want.
Then there's electricity, water, internet and telephones. I think even someone much better than I am at budgeting would still find this costing about $400 a month.
So, $1030 (rent), $600 (food stuff), $300 (Car), $125 (car insurance), $250 a month (clothes, shoes, etc..), $400 a month for utilities and phone.
We're up to $2900 a month. If the person manages to get 9.5 hours a day, they would earn $3090 a month. I think even if they get almost 100% tax free, they would still have to pay social security which I think is about 10%, so there goes $300 a month.
So, this person, if I don't account for any additional oopsies would be about $100 a month in the whole...at least.
The car is paid off in 6 years, so if they can do 8 years, that's probably an extra $100 a month in the bank. And if the car lasts 25 years... as it should since it's basically all plastic and easy to replace parts, after the loan is paid, the cost of ownership should drop to $100 a month. But that doesn't help earlier on.
There's no room for day car or babysitting... so, being a single parent would be REALLY REALLY difficult.
They could get a cheaper apartment, but the goal isn't survival. For $1000 a month, you get an apartment with a gym, a pool and other things. This is considered living like a human instead of someone who is simp
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Yup, you've never been poor. Amazon is a dystopian nightmare, but $30k is solid for unskilled labor.
Roomate. Apartment not in the good part of town. 5-year-old Honda Fit or Civic for under $10k, lasts forever. $300 is plenty for food. That's doing OK.
Roomates. Apartment where you hear gunshots every night. 15-year-old shitbox. $150 is plenty for food if you cook. That's gettin by.
Good times. Any time you make a payment. Good times. Any time you meet a friend. Not getting hassled. Not gettin hu
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Depends.
Where I live, it's a four to eight hour time expenditure to physically attend a driver's license renewal... every other 6 yr renewal, they allow me to renew online. For my last visit to the DMV, I arrived 90 minutes early (last year) and was 65th in line, so in addition to the $35ish fee, the time cost was still a half day.
Your argument is identical to the one that says we should stop ordering everything online and shop brick and mortar stores where we can to keep humans employed in jobs they're e
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Your argument is identical to the one that says we should stop ordering everything online and shop brick and mortar stores where we can to keep humans employed in jobs they're eventually going to lose, anyway.
I suspect that his motivation was more along the lines of wanting to feel as though he was getting his money's worth.
Anyway, I like to shop locally when I can. When I find something I want on Amazon, I look to see if Best Buy has it, because BB has a policy of price-matching Amazon. Too many people use brick and mortar stores as Amazon showrooms -- I wonder what they plan on doing when Amazon finally puts the brick and mortar stores out of business.
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Well, if you grew up and you or your culture didn't value an education, or make an effort when you had the opportunities....guess where you end up?
Remember the old saying:
"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too..."
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Or if you didn't have the opportunities...
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Well, that's life..it always has been.
There's no guarantee where you are on the starting line....behind, at the line or advantage of being in front when the start gun goes off.
You have to do the best with what you're dealt.
It can be done, there are PLENTY of people that have succeeded despite starting at the back, there's a lot of folks that started out with life handed to them and lost everything and die drug addicts on the streets.
There are no guarantees, but
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"It can be done, there are PLENTY of people that have succeeded despite starting at the back"
Define PLENTY. How much is "PLENTY"? 50%? 10%? 1%? 0.001%?
"I still believe the US gives some of the best opportunities in the world"
Keyword "believe".
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Statistics disagree with your believe relative to the other western democracies. Odds are very good on being in the same income class as your parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This is what tells me you're in the weeds (possibly due to not wanting to think about it):
if you start off valuing the education you get for free 1-12
You realize grade 1 is six years old, right? Are you ACTUALLY claiming that a six year old should have the ability to know the education they're being provided is sub-standard, have the foresight and worldly knowledge that this is a problem for the future, and the ability to demand better, be heard, and have his demands acted upon?
Of course, before that whopper, you outlined the unequal nature of opportunity and then c
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Boohoo. Minimal skills demand minimum wage. Want to make more? Learn a valuable skill.
Re: Not Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
That's fair, but an argument can also be fairly made that minimum wage should never be less than the amount that a person needs to live, without requiring further aid from social assistance programs, and assuming that they work full time hours. Anything less is dehumanizing, and if you want to dehumanize your workers, then use robots. This also means that minimum wage would vary, depending on the cost of living in the municipality where the wage applies.
If the technology doesn't exist to use robots for your business, then too effing bad. Treat human beings like human beings and pay them enough to actually live on.
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That's fair, but an argument can also be fairly made that minimum wage should never be less than the amount that a person needs to live
Most minimum wage earners are 2nd or 3rd earners for their household. So the amount they "need" to live is $0.
Most minimum wage earners live in households above the median income level, while relatively fewer poor people earn the minimum wage. So raising the minimum wage actually helps the better off more than it helps the poor.
The problem with the poor is not LOW wages, but NO wages. 60% of households in the bottom income quintile have zero full time workers. Even fewer have more than one person earnin
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Only if by minimum wage you mean the exact legislated amount that is the minimum you can pay a worker, where I was meaning it more to mean any wage that is less than what a person can fairly live on. Perhaps "minimal" wage could be more accurate term.
If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place. Do it yourself if you can't afford to pay anyone else that amount.
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Only if by minimum wage you mean the exact legislated amount that is the minimum you can pay a worker,
That's what the phrase means, and is what Amazon means when they say it.
If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place.
Your entire argument eliminates every part-time job open to high school and college students, along with a lot of others. And every entry level job that would cost more to automate than it returns in production.
Are you trying to increase unemployment and poverty?
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I would want to eliminate people being paid less, per hour, than what a human being fairly needs to live on if they were doing that job full time.
To pay anything less is, as I said, dehumanizing. If a business depends on doing this to make a profit, then its business model is broken.
And, yes.... in fact, I *am* quite in favor of automation - because I do not think that a human being should ever be put in situation where they must perform an automatable task just to survive. Human beings should be tre
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If they are not doing the job full time, they could reasonably make less
The obvious result of your policy is that millions of full-time jobs would be converted into part-time jobs. Wages would likely decline, since part-time workers would have less time and incentive to develop skills. Poor people would spend more time, unpaid, commuting between jobs.
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I would want to eliminate people being paid less, per hour, than what a human being fairly needs to live on if they were doing that job full time.
Then yes, you would eliminate all jobs that don't produce enough return to justify paying that much.
Maybe you don't realize that not every job is intended to be done by the breadwinner of a family of four?
If they are not doing the job full time, they could reasonably make less than a person needs to live on doing that job, but their effective hourly wage should still never be less than the minimal living wage that I am advocating.
So every job that doesn't return the investment in the wage will simply go away, or the increased costs of doing that job will be passed on to the consumer. A burger flipper who works where he can produce a value of $10/hour but has to be paid $15 because of your "minimal wage" law will be subsidized by
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Where did I suggest that the part-timer could be paid any less, per hour, than the minimal living wage for a full time worker?
I am suggesting that a part time worker only might make less than what they need to live because they are working less hours in the day to actually earn that income, not because their hourly wage was any lower than what it otherwise would have needed to be to live on *IF* the
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How many children someone has is irrelevant... What I am suggesting as a minimal living wage should be based entirely on what a single adult needs to live in that municipality. If they have dependants, then they might still require additional social assistance at that level of income.
And yes, it is good... because nobody should be forced to do an automatable task just to continue to live. Humans are not robots, and should not be treated as such.
And I am actually very skeptical that the economic apoc
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How is paying somebody less than what they need to live for a job that society doesn't even need getting done treating that person with any respect?
Paying a person for the work they've done is not treating them with respect, according to you. If a job can be automated but isn't because it would be cheaper to pay someone, and even if it is not cheaper it is a way of paying back to the community that the business is in, it is disrespectful to the employee to pay him to do it. What malarky.
High school students who are holding part-time jobs to save money for college are being paid money that they don't need AT ALL to live, because they're still living at
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I was meaning it more to mean any wage that is less than what a person can fairly live on.
Some people have 10 kids. Should they be paid more than someone with none?
If a job isn't worth paying a human being a living wage to do, then you shouldn't be paying human beings to do it in the first place.
So if a high school student wants to flip burgers part time for some extra spending money, that should be banned, since they can't live on it?
By raising the bottom rung of the economic ladder, you are just making it harder for people to reach that bottom rung. Getting a job, any job, is the first step out of poverty. The actual wage doesn't matter so much, because anyone willing to work hard is going to quickly move up.
Key facts ab [washingtonpolicy.org]
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No, I'm saying that if flipping burgers is somehow an essential task that society needs workers for, and they cannot otherwise use machines to do it, then any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.
What is wrong with treating human beings like actual people instead of just replaceable cogs that are only being used to make other people rich?
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And we disagree with you mark-t. Go read Bill's post again and maybe it will sink in. Minimum wage jobs are not meant to live on. They are what you do when you are living with your parents and going to school. If you work hard enough at most of those jobs, you can get a raise.
More importantly is the job experience for actually working at a job. Any job. Then when you have some education and apply for a career style job, you will actually have some real world experience dealing with coworkers and customers.
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any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.
So every burger flipper needs to be able to afford a house, a car, and send their kids to college on a single income?
I live in San Jose. You can't do that here on $200,000 salary.
Maybe the burger flippers shouldn't move out of Mom's basement until they learn a better skill.
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then any human that does it should not ever be paid less per hour than whatever a minimal living wage happens to be in that municipality.
So, if anyone in the "municipality" is a breadwinner with a family of four, ALL your employees make enough per hour to provide for a family of four, no matter what they do or how many people it feeds? Do you realize that some people have, or claim to have, really high "minimal living wage", like the guy who claimed that he makes $10k/month and needs every penny of that just to live? You're minimal wage is now $120k/year. Yes, please, sign me up for that.
Do you realize the havoc that would create when one
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That being the case, humans shouldn't be doing such jobs, because guess what? Humans are living creatures, and there are only so many hours in a day or week. Paying someone less than a minimal living wage is, as I said, dehumanizing... it treats people as expendable cogs that one is only using to further their own efforts to succeed. If one cannot afford to pay someone a minimal living wage, they should just do the job themselves.
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Assuming they are working full time, they need to be able to afford an average amount of rent being approximately one third of their gross income.
That is more reasonable. In SJ, they should be able to get by on $120k if they are renting with no dependents. That is only $60 per hour.
This will be a nice windfall for the 98% of minimum wage earners who aren't single salary head-of-household.
How many dependants they have is irrelevant.
So you don't care if kids starve?
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Of course I care that kids don't starve... but what I was talking about is simply a minimal living wage, which should not factor in whether someone has dependants or not.
If a person has dependants, then they may reasonably qualify for additional social assistance over and above their income... depending on the jurisdiction. Also, they could likely further be able to claim deductions on their taxes so that they have more take-home pay than they otherwise would.
And if a minimal full-time wage ends up be
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You can make that argument, but I personally would find it ridiculous if McDonald's paid enough to rent an apartment in San Francisco for a single mother of two.
At some point, we have to decide what really constitutes necessity.
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That's fair, but an argument can also be fairly made that minimum wage should never be less than the amount that a person needs to live, without requiring further aid from social assistance programs, and assuming that they work full time hours.
If the minimum wage were set that high, teenagers wouldn't be able to get jobs.
More importantly, it seems likely that we're only a decade or two away from massive automation-driven unemployment. The more we can slow and delay that shift, the less socially painful it will be. A high minimum wage will accelerate it just when we want to slow it down.
Re: Not Americans (Score:2, Offtopic)
The US spends billions an billions and billions of dollars every year to provide its youth with an education.
Many of the spit on it.
Others you just cannot reach.
Still others do nothing with it once they have it.
A whole collection of them refuse to work, believing everything should be free.
Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops. What the fuck is that? It is bitchy parents and fear of lawsuits.
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Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops.
10F is not too cold. But 10F with 40mph winds is too cold. School can wait till Monday.
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10F is not too cold. But 10F with 40mph winds is too cold. School can wait till Monday.
It's called snow days. You miss a day in winter, fine; you MAKE IT UP in summer. You don't skip it, do half-days, whatever to administratively cheat -- everything is simply pushed back a day. In particular, the start of summer vacation is as well. Oops.
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It's called snow days. You miss a day in winter, fine; you MAKE IT UP in summer.
Or they could download their assignments, complete them at home, and submit them through the school website. Which is exactly the same way they do many of their assignments on non-snow days.
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Today, public schools closed because TEN DEGREES is considered too cold to allow kids to wait a bus stops. What the fuck is that?
A realisation that people plan for normal conditions and not extreme weather that happens rarely?
If I were forced to wait at a bus stop in the mid-west right now, I would literally die. I do not own the cloths required to keep me alive in the temperatures just experienced. I guess if wore all my cloths at the same time I have a fighting chance, but really I'd just call in sick.
Re: Not Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Vermont routinely gets that cold and they do not close their schools for 10 degrees or even -10 degrees.
That's why Vermont doesn't have to close schools when it's -10 F - everyone is prepared for it, particularly when it comes to owning adequate winter clothes. When it only goes below freezing once a year, most people, especially people with lower incomes, don't waste money on that kind of winter gear. If you only have clothing that's helpful for 40 F, going outside when it's -10 F can be deadly.
Re: Not Americans (Score:2)
On my case...it gets cold here EVERY FUCKING YEAR. It is a surprise to no one that there will be cold weather and snow. Exactly zero excuses not to be prepared for it.
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On my case...it gets cold here
Define cold with an exact number including the humidity figure and compare the weather that causes the schools to close with the yearly averages and series of peaks.
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Does it? Then why for all that money, report after report indicates something is wrong with the system?
Yes, it does. Does it shock you to learn that throwing endless amounts of (MY) money at things doesn't magically fix them?
Are you starting to see how once you determine something must be fixed with loads of someone else's money, the problem is only incentivized to grow?
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Boohoo, you don't want to fund teaching them
Americans receive 13 years of free K-12 education funded by taxpayers.
If they come away from that with zero useful skills, they are likely untrainable.
Things I learned in high school:
1. Woodworking
2. Metalworking
3. Basic electronics
4. Programming
5. Touch typing
6. Calculus
All but #6 are useful for getting a job. #5 turned out to be the most useful.
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Sorry about all the horrible bean counting jobs you've been stuck with.
If you used an occasional float, you might have found calcuseless, useful.
I actually had an employer (after discovering someone with a pure BS resume) who walked the office asking for the first derivative of 1/x and making a list. If you couldn't answer, he had HR go back and check your refs and education.
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They said getting a job, not doing the job
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And my public education only gave me #6 from that list. We didn't even have real driver's ed.
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"I paid my way through school"
You didn't.
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How's life at Starbucks?
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Actually, the world has replaced ditch diggers with the operators of trenching equipment...
Technology and innovation have reduced the need for ditch diggers, but there are still advantages in many circumstances to hand-digging, not the least of which is careful locating of existing subterranean water, gas, data, electrical, and sewer lines. The time cost saved by mechanical excavation is often quickly undone by necessitating additional repairs to buried utilities.
...and lament the collapse of the American system of public schools that resulted when the right-wing had to choose between education for the underclass or betraying their values voters.
One of the wonderful remnants of our formerly cutting edge system of democracy in the US is that an individual is still not restricte
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America has one of the lowest economic mobility ratings compared to most western countries with peoples incomes usually quite predictable based on their parents incomes, though you are ahead of the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Every person, illegal or citizen, gets to go K-12 for free. That right there is a great opportunity. You go to school and work hard at it. You can then take out loans or if you are lucky enough get some scholarships or a combination.
That's available to nearly everyone, including those that aren't even legally here.
So spare me the dribble that there are people in USA that are given zero opportunities. That's just simply not true.
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"At least half the people that apply for a job don't show up their first day"
Quite aligned with the fact that you don't answer to at least half of the resumes you get.
How is it that when "they" do it is "damn lazies" but when you do it is "bussiness as usual"?
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