Share of US Workers Holding Multiple Jobs is Rising, New Census Report Shows (reuters.com) 140
The share of Americans working more than one job to make ends meet has been growing over the past two decades, and the pay from second jobs make up a substantial share of workers' earnings, according to a paper published by the U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday. From a report: An estimated 7.8% of U.S. workers had more than one job as of the first quarter of 2018, up from 6.8% in 1996, according to new data unveiled by the Census bureau, which provides a more detailed analysis of multiple job holders than was previously available. The findings were based on data from 18 states.
The earnings from the workers' second jobs make up an average 28% of their total earnings, showing that workers are likely relying on that pay, researchers said. In general, women were more likely to have multiple jobs than men, with 9.1% of women holding multiple jobs as of 2018, compared with 6.6% of men. They also noted that multiple-job holding occurred at all levels of income, but was more common for low-wage workers. Those juggling more than one occupation earned less, on average, than people who had only one job.
The earnings from the workers' second jobs make up an average 28% of their total earnings, showing that workers are likely relying on that pay, researchers said. In general, women were more likely to have multiple jobs than men, with 9.1% of women holding multiple jobs as of 2018, compared with 6.6% of men. They also noted that multiple-job holding occurred at all levels of income, but was more common for low-wage workers. Those juggling more than one occupation earned less, on average, than people who had only one job.
Multiple jobs, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Multiple jobs, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just the hours. Part time McJobs tend to come with fewer benefits. 2x part time != 1 decent full time job.
Even worse multiple gig economy jobs don't add up to very much at all.
Re: Multiple jobs, eh? (Score:3)
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This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:2, Insightful)
Best case scenario your raises and benefits won't keep pace with inflation. Maybe you can bounce around companies a bit to counter act that when you're young, good luck doing that in your 50s. Worst case you'll get laid off for somebody who was working 2 jobs for 1/3 y
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There is an oversupply of labor
An oversupply of labor means not enough jobs.
If people are working 2nd jobs, that means there is an undersupply of labor.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an oversupply of labor
An oversupply of labor means not enough jobs.
If people are working 2nd jobs, that means there is an undersupply of labor.
But also an undersupply of wages. A market failure, in other words.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:4, Insightful)
But also an undersupply of wages.
What is an "undersupply of wages"? What does that even mean?
Every worker, ever, would like to be paid more. But if they are paid enough to accept the work, there is no "undersupply".
A market failure, in other words.
In what way is the market failing?
A properly functioning market doesn't mean everybody gets everything they want with no effort.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:5, Interesting)
I just wonder how those that are supporting the overrunning of our borders with illegal immigrants, while simultaneously going for $15 min wage are going to manage when there are no Min wage jobs because they are being filled with sub-min wage black market / under the table labor.
I am a full open border kind of libertarian, meaning if they check in at the border, and pass whatever tests they can come across, kind of guy. But you can't be for $15 / hr artificial floor on labor and for opening the border for illegal untrackable immigrants without some sort of cognitive dissonance.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not surprising you're having such trouble finding people who support those policies to ask them. Strawmen are notoriously difficult to find in the real world.
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I just wonder how those that are supporting the overrunning of our borders with illegal immigrants
Simple: They aren't. That's a Fox News fantasy that you have been swallowing hook line and sinker. But hey there's jobs available for building walls.
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Are you really not conversant with the _basic_ principle of supply and demand that a healthy market is supposed to follow?
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Are you really not conversant with the _basic_ principle of supply and demand that a healthy market is supposed to follow?
Yes, I understand S&D.
I just don't understand why you think it isn't happening here.
Workers always want to be paid more than the market value of their labor. Employers always want to pay less. Neither is evidence of a "market failure".
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:4, Insightful)
It means people's health suffers when they have to work 60 hours weeks constantly just to make ends meet. And their kids suffer too.
One of the reasons for the introduction of the minimum wage was to prevent that kind of thing from happening, the idea being that a minimum wage 40 hour/week job should be enough to live on.
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Indeed. It only happened with people getting more valuable, because society had to invest more into individuals regarding education and health. But that is the key idea.
Fun fact 1: Child protection laws limiting work they can do were introduced by the Prussians, because their new military recruits were sick and weak from having worked in mines as children under very bad conditions.
Fun fact 2: General mandatory schooling was introduced by the Prussians as well, because their new military recruits were unable
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Oliver Cromwell was fired for paying his soldiers on time, and feeding them the night before battle, because it was believed to destroy morale.
They had to re-hire him though, because nobody else could field an army that was willing to win.
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There is no such thing as an "undersupply of wages". The price of labour is determined by supply and demand just like every other price.
If wages are too low it's because you have too many people competing for too few jobs. If you want wages to go up you need to either increase the number of jobs with business friendly legislation. Or reduce the number of people competing for those jobs by cutting immigration.
It's not a market failure, it's an immigration policy failure.
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So, you are trying to confuse the situation when clearly a basic principle does not work? Sorry, that market is broken, no other explanation. This is not kindergarten you know. This is the real world.
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clearly a basic principle does not work
Can you clarify which basic principle isn't working?
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clearly a basic principle does not work
Can you clarify which basic principle isn't working?
If you have to ask, you have no place in this conversation because you obviously do not even understand the very basics of a market.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:4, Insightful)
The labour market is biased in favour of the employer most of the time. People need jobs to live, which gives employers a lot of power.
That's why we have employment laws protecting employees. If the labour market isn't working it's because the regulation is not adequate.
Of course employers are always fighting to gain the upper hand by weakening employment laws. Voters sometimes fight back, but are often tricked into voting against their best interests. That's probably what has happened here.
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The labour market is biased in favour of the employer most of the time. People need jobs to live, which gives employers a lot of power.
And employers need employees to run a business. The dependency is mutual. Businesses and customers are mutually dependent too.
Whether it's harder to find a job or find good employees will vary wildly by occupation and location.
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Unless there is a massive shortage of labour though for the employer it often just means whipping the rest of the staff a bit harder, where as for the individual or means homelessness, loss of medical care, and worse.
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Unless there is a massive shortage of labour though for the employer it often just means whipping the rest of the staff a bit harder, where as for the individual or means homelessness, loss of medical care, and worse.
Well, depends. In Europe conditions are more balanced. A lot of blood was spilled to get that, admittedly. Also, employers that need highly qualified individuals may find they cannot get them unless they not only pay more but also offer good work conditions.
Re:This is bad for everyone who works for a living (Score:4, Interesting)
"And employers need employees to run a business."
An employee tends to need and have exactly 1 job.
An employer tends to need and have many employees.
An employee without a job is living off savings, credit, or at risk of not eating or having shelter. This becomes an issue within hours or days of losing a job.
An employer short an employee has 10, 100, or 1000, or more that can collectively let the employer run short without too much trouble. Large employers tend to have enough inefficiency that there isn't even a serious issue. An employer is only at any operational/existential risk if it is critically short of employees. And this rarely is an issue in practice, short of collective actions by many of its employees to deprive it of their services all at once.
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You're assuming that employees are fungible and plentiful. They aren't. The majority of jobs in America are provided by small businesses. If you lose a welder, you can't just have the receptionist fill that spot.
To be clear I'm not in favour of the GP's argument, but both of you are arguing some kind of extreme whereas the reality is actually in the middle.
Sincerely: Someone who just had to pay a graduate a wage higher than a senior engineer because some positions simply can't be filled easily.
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And employers need employees to run a business
No they don't. They can almost always substitute capital. As AI gets better and better, this will only increase.
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And employers need employees to run a business
No they don't. They can almost always substitute capital. As AI gets better and better, this will only increase.
Some areas: yes. Some areas: No way in hell.
"AI" will never be more than dumb automation. Turns out you can still replace a lot of jobs with it, but far from all of them.
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You'd want to look at t
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If people are working 2nd jobs, that means there is an undersupply of labor.
If people are working two jobs when one job would pay the bills, there's an undersupply of labor.
But people are working two jobs because they can't survive on one job.
We tend to prioritize the number of jobs created rather than the quality of them. We drive wages low so that we can create more jobs, but these jobs don't pay enough to survive, so people need to take multiple jobs. We're not looking at the right problem, so we're just making things worse.
No, you're mistaken (Score:2)
This is due to wages declining since the 70s relative to real inflation. "real" inflation means inflation that includes healthcare, housing and education, which are conspicuously absent from our "basket of goods" when we calculate inflation. It also includes the price of used cars, which are also absent from the basket (used cars have shot way, way up in cost whi
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Only if 20-hour job + 20-hour job == 40-hour job. You're creating a false equivalency, comparing apples to oranges.
An abundance of part-time jobs does not make a shortage of full-time jobs inconsequential. There is an inelastic supply of full-time workers. (We can't shoot people when employers downsize.) Which is why there is an oversupply, not undersupply.
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Obviously losing value to inflation sucks, but almost any investment has a return that outstrips inflation and most people are people who own things because of retirement investments. Just don't stuff all of your money into a mattress and you'll generally be okay.
I think you need to stop living in whatever bizarre fantasy world you've construc
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I learned the difference between working for a living and owning your living too late in life. Had I known this a few decades ago, I would have pursued a different career. A career in which I owned the business for which I worked.
And the parent is right. Most large corporations have people working full time on the problem of how best to lower your pay. Think about that for a moment - your employer is no longer your partner in your success, but rather, your adversary. You might get a fair shake initi
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The reason businesses are always seeking to lower their costs is because their customers don't want to p
Re: This is bad for everyone who works for a livin (Score:2)
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Boomers have stayed in the workforce because they have frittered away their money chasing self-indulgent fantasies and saved little for retirement.
I think their conclusion is unsupported (Score:4, Interesting)
"The earnings from the workers' second jobs make up an average 28% of their total earnings, showing that workers are likely relying on that pay, researchers said"
They offer no support for this assumption. This could also reflect a strong labor market with opportunities to generate more income for consumer spending.
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It's always amusing to find the Slashdotters who've never worked low-wage jobs.
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It's always amusing to find the Slashdotters who've never worked low-wage jobs.
I have worked since I was 11, and had many low wage jobs while I developed marketable skills.
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It sounds like your experience in low-wage work was probably to have a little spending money in college. For you it was optional, voluntary "income for consumer spending." For the other people working there, it's a matter of survival. They're not kids, they're not students. The money (all of it) goes directly to bills, and when it fails to cover everything, they have to take out a second job.
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It sounds like your experience in low-wage work was probably to have a little spending money in college.
Hmm, so someone posts a comment pointing out an unsupported assumption and you counter by making an unsupported assumption which you then use as evidence in your attempt at a counterargument. I guess if that's how your thought processes work it could influence how you parse the original article.
I have no idea why the poster started working at age 11, but your assertion that it was "to have a little spending money in college" seems dubious at best. I have a child older than 11 who is not even remotely thinki
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Hmm, we are in the middle of a pandemic, millions of people put out of work and great uncertainty about the future. A lot of businesses still closed or struggling, especially those that offer part time work and are based around discretionary spending. The government is issuing cheques to people.
What seems more likely, that the labour market is strong and people are taking the opportunity to do extra part time work on top of their 40 hour fill time job, or that people are desperate just to survive and the fr
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Hmm, we are in the middle of a pandemic, millions of people put out of work and great uncertainty about the future. A lot of businesses still closed or struggling, especially those that offer part time work and are based around discretionary spending. The government is issuing cheques to people.
What seems more likely, that the labour market is strong and people are taking the opportunity to do extra part time work on top of their 40 hour fill time job, or that people are desperate just to survive and the free money from the government isn't enough?
Well, since this report says "as of the first quarter of 2018" I would say it is much likely to be about the booming labor environment of 2018, and very unlikely to have anything to do with the pandemic of 2020.
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Was the labour market booming in 2018? Shitty gig economy and McJobs were...
I double many people would choose to do 60 hour weeks for the money, that kind of thing destroys your health and affects your relationships and family.
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So, your theory is that there is so much wages to be earned that people are giving up their leisure time to cash in on the wage bonanza. Things are especially good for low income workers, because they also are more likely to have a second job.
I think it's interesting that this period they're talking about (1996 to 2018) includes the shift of low-skilled manufacturing jobs have moved to China, leaving lower paid unskilled workers having to find multiple service sector jobs. At the same time this move fulfil
Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:4, Interesting)
Become a computer programmer they said. It will be fun, they said. You'll make more than a truck driver, and you'll have a good job, they said.
And I liked writing code. So I did.
And two decades into the career, I now have a side hustle, just to make ends meet. I've added up the number of hours, including college education, and paying for that education, and the unpaid overtime, and the hours I had to put in to "stay current" in software engineering, and calculated my hourly compensation.
I made less on an hourly basis than a trucker driver.
I'm not bitter, I really enjoy the work, but the days of software engineers making a decent living are long gone. When even highly educated professionals are struggling to make ends meet, you know the situation for the average person is approaching desperation. We have already witnessed the moral and cultural collapses of America; the political collapse cannot be far behind. Don't blame capitalism - capitalism made this country great, but the cultural values of long-term commitment and valuing the relationship with the workers (now "human resources") are now all but absent from modern business philosophy. What we have witnessed is a culture of ruthless desire for money, to the exclusion of all other human values. It is not new in human history, and students of history know how it ends. It's just unfortunate that this is the time in which we live.
Re:Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a programmer with 20 years of experience and make less money than a truck driver, you are doing something seriously wrong.
Perhaps you live in a little podunk town and don't want to move. Or maybe you are just really bad at your job. But if you have ambition and skills, you should be doing well.
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I do actually have a friend that is under $60k IIRC, and yes he lives in near-rural Kansas with 25+ years of programming experience. His particular challenge is that he cut his teeth working solo on projects from scratch and doesn’t especially work well in group programming scenarios stringing toolchains together.
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If you are a programmer with 20 years of experience and make less money than a truck driver, you are doing something seriously wrong.
Perhaps you live in a little podunk town and don't want to move. Or maybe you are just really bad at your job. But if you have ambition and skills, you should be doing well.
A podunk town adjusted for cost of living still does better than 6 figures in silicon valley. Renting a tiny space in a traincar? Really? For that price? Oh hell no. No fucking way Id live there for less than 1 mil. The cost of living would make me poor as hell. Where I live you can get a 4 br 3000sq ft house for less than 250k on a half acre plot. When was the last time you got 3000sq feet for well under $2k/mo in silicon valley?
Or he's just old (Score:3)
And maybe you're right and he's stuck in a podunk down. We don't always get to choose were we live. When you're young yeah, you can move where ever the work is. When you've got kids who are in school, or parents who need you to be there in case they slip (or in case dad wants to try going on the roof with his bad back) you've go
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https://www.indeed.com/career/... [indeed.com]
Also, you have a pretty elitist view of jobs. Just looking at those truck driver salaries at top companies, I'm also making less than they are. Driving trucks isn't
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I made less on an hourly basis than a trucker driver.
Truck drivers make $50k per year, or even up to $28 an hour.
It's good money, but you should be making double that as a software engineer.
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It's good money, but you should be making double that as a software engineer.
This time, don't skip over the part where he talks about unpaid overtime and training.
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Don't do unpaid overtime. That's your own stupid fault.
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Much more than 50k a year.
It's good money, but you should be making double that as a software engineer.
Only for those living in expensive cities, Marie-Antoinette.
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You still think she said that stupid thing that the guy at newspaper wrote in the political cartoon way back then, even though you have internet?
Really?
And you're trying to use it to 'splain things to people? LOL
Re:Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:5, Insightful)
And two decades into the career, I now have a side hustle, just to make ends meet. I've added up the number of hours, including college education, and paying for that education, and the unpaid overtime, and the hours I had to put in to "stay current" in software engineering, and calculated my hourly compensation.
I made less on an hourly basis than a trucker driver.
Dude, Indeed.com says the average truck driver base salary is about $62k/year. How can you be 20 years in and not making more than that? For comparison, my group is paying employees in their 20's $150k. None of the consultants are below $1200/day. Have you been sitting in some dead end job for 20 years? My advice is change jobs frequently and get a big increase with each change.
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Look at their sig: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a White Christian Male?"
They have a persecution complex. Someone else is to blame for how they ended up making less than a truck driver. You aren't going to get a straight answer as to what went wrong.
In any case, truck driving may only be a major profession for another few years. Trucks will be some of the first vehicles to get automated, and self driving tech is very nearly there already.
Re: Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:3, Insightful)
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I was a White Christian Male at one time. But around the time I came of age, I realized the good spirituality does is inversely proportional to how organized and prescriptive it is. Yeah, the Bible's got some radical stuff, but it's also got a lot of manure. Why would I fixate on that one book, when there are so many? Why fixate on Jesus when there have been loads of teachers?
Take something from all of them. Evaluate the teachings based on their merit, not because Daddy told you they were infallible. Some p
Re:Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, truck driving may only be a major profession for another few years. Trucks will be some of the first vehicles to get automated, and self driving tech is very nearly there already.
That's a pretty vindictive way of looking at things. It's not like he's complaining that it's unfair for truck drivers to get paid what they get paid. He's not saying that people shouldn't be getting paid more than he is.
If anything, we should all be worried about truck drivers getting automated out of a job, even if you think truck driving is a lowly job. Both him, and truck drivers and plenty of other people are going to be suffering in the near future based on the irrational and unsustainable narrative that a person only has worth in society if they have a well paying job. Jobs are going away and we really should be considering a new kind of society where it's okay not to be working all waking hours of the week.
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I wasn't being vindictive, I was just pointing out that comparing your income to that of a truck driver may not be a very useful thing to do given that changing career right now is probably ill advised.
Anyone who thinks they are persecuted for being a white Christian male in the United States today... Well maybe they do get a bit of criticism, but really that category is probably the most privileged right now. Every president has to be a Christian to get elected, and most of the people in power are still wh
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Re: Just doesn't pay the bills (Score:2)
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There exists no other system compatible with human freedom other than capitalism, meaning the ability to own things and to set the price of your own labor.
Not that we need "unfettered" capitalism, which isn't really a thing anyway - but I immediately tune out and ignore people who rant about capitalism.
Hello, gig jobs! (Score:3)
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Something fishy about the stat (Score:3, Insightful)
"An estimated 7.8% of U.S. workers had more than one job as of the first quarter of 2018, up from 6.8% in 1996"
So the number of US workers having more than one job only rose by 1 percentage point over *22 years*? While not a positive trend, considering the span of time, that's really negligible. Considering other factors, such as population growth, an aging workforce, and rise of single-parent households, I can see why that number would increase. And why 1996? Why not 1986 or 2006? Maybe somebody is cherrypicking the data to make things sound worse than they are? Hmmmm.
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...rise of single-parent households...
Now what could have possibly contributed to this fucking selfish problem? Could it be both men and women wanting to YOLO their life away, fucking anything that moves without any consideration of the real-life consequences?
Yeah, I'm speaking to you, Hollywood elitists and the [statistical majority] that follows you like a lost puppy. Light this comment on fire all you want. It'll keep you warm through the lies you tell yourself.
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Attitude reflects leadership: You want people to ask "what can you do for your country?" Start demanding it of politicians and CEOs first.
Capitalism demands consumerism, and with more technology, there's more opportunity to consume. If you want to return to the racist, xenophobic 'family values' of the 1950s, start there.
Yes, all those people demanding no sex-education, no contraception, no casual sex, no abortion, are ignoring "the real-life consequences" of having a vagina: It's sex-warfare and the
That, and there's the internet (Score:3)
There's that, and I have it on good authority that the number of people with a little web site where they make a few bucks is up 100%. Number if people doing Grub Hub on Saturday has risen 100%. Percentage of people selling something on Etsy - also up 100%.
Side hustles, like having a web site where you sell whatever, can easily earn 3X as much hourly as the wage at "normal", stable wage job. Side hustles aren't a bad thing. In fact that's where most of our small businesses come from - side hustles that do
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"Side hustles aren't a bad thing."
Totally disagree on that point. The fact that people are guilted into side hustles is a very bad thing...it's a side effect of employers not paying enough and not having enough open positions to give everybody stable employment.
We've basically killed any slack that used to exist in the system in the name of Agile, efficiency, lean, six sigma,. whatever. Employers used to have no problem hiring employees because there were positive tax consequences to investing in your busin
The solution is; (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop having children when you can't afford them. I know that sounds harsh but generational poverty is a real thing in the US. Segments of the population are procreating without any thought to who is going to care for their children.
Too Many Part-Time Jobs (Score:2)
The problem is that there are too many part-time jobs.
Now there's nothing wrong with a part-time job, but the problem is when an employer decided to offer two part-time jobs instead of a full-time job to avoid paying for benefits. That's just pushing the people who are looking for full-time work to get multiple part-time jobs and then struggle to get medical insurance either through Medicaid or Obamacare. This also has had some devastating impacts with COVID where assisted-living workers are often working
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Even better, just establish a modern healthcare system so the employers don't have to worry about it at all. I've never understood why this angle wasn't pushed more, considering how much employers seem to worry about health insurance, changing providers or plans every year. Imagine how much time and effort gets wasted arranging all this crap.
Overtime - unintended side effect (Score:2)
Not healthy regardless of explanation (Score:2)
A lot of people might say retailers and the like are intentionally limiting hours for employees because of overtime and having to pay them $15 an hour. Or, that people actually love the "freedom" of the gig economy where your life is ruled by 2 or 3 employers' work schedules. Either way, it's unhealthy.
The only time my dad ever took a second job was when money was a little tight, and it was a job he actually liked doing (teaching after-hours vocational school classes.) What this wasn't was an endless cycle
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
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We used to let state governments select Senators instead of by popular vote. That way the House represented people's interests, and the Senate represented a state government's interests. Now we have an meaningless distinction between houses.
Re: Good (Score:2)
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And we changed the way we elected Senators for very good reasons.
That's bordering on a fallacy. We can discuss and criticize past decisions without assuming that I'm arguing that we revert them as the only possible solution. Criticism is especially important when the consequences of those decisions are still present today.
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No thanks, I don't deal with literary extremists.
I'll let my original post stay unresolved with the opening statement in the passive voice. And everyone can seemingly apply their own personal take on what camp I must be from and attempt to pick an online fight.
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No thanks, I don't deal with literary extremists.
"What a maroon."
You're taking a stupid position that to be implemented would require convincing that majority of Americans to change their minds about something they feel strongly about. But you're too stupid-people-elitist to try to learn what the words mean, and don't want to admit to whatever your views are.
It is mental masturbation of "self-flagellation" variety.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
So it's not like the policies are an accurate reflection of the popular will.
The US is a republic and not a pure democracy, and that's a GOOD thing. The founding fathers feared having a pure democracy and wanted to avoid both a tyranny of the majority and a tyranny of the minority. Which is why we have a bicameral legislature. One part being representation based on the population of each state (House of Representatives) and the other part being equal representation among all states (Senate). Is the system perfect? No, but it keeps government from veering off the road to either side, and in 200+ years, I'd say it has worked, in general, very well.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
Please show any evidence the founding fathers feared a democracy or tyranny of the majority.
Here you go: "The body of people do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." --Alexander Hamilton.
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The OP's post was "Please show any evidence the founding fathers feared a democracy or tyranny of the majority." My response was on-topic and responsive. Yours was not. In civil discourse, feeling that your position is righteous does not grant you free rein to butt in on others' conversations. That's just rude and obnoxious. I'm guessing you don't care about such niceties; after all, there are great wrongs to be righted, and someone on the Internet said something you don't like.
As to "unequal representation
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Here you go:
"The body of people do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their
own good sense must despise." --Alexander Hamilton.
Good quote, but that's an argument against direct democracy, not an argument against fair and equal representation. The GP's point was not that every citizen votes on every law, but rather that we stop pretending that someone's voice in California should count for so much less than Wyoming. And critically the unfair design of such a system is completely unrelated to the quote you just provided.
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Here you go: "The body of people do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." --Alexander Hamilton.
Good quote, but that's an argument against direct democracy, not an argument against fair and equal representation. The GP's point was not that every citizen votes on every law, but rather that we stop pretending that someone's voice in California should count for so much less than Wyoming. And critically the unfair design of such a system is completely unrelated to the quote you just provided.
Your contention appears to be that Hamilton's statement applies to how people might vote on laws, but not on how they might vote on Senators. I think you're wrong, but maybe I'm misinterpreting, so let's put that aside.
Sadly, it seems that most people are completely unfamiliar with The Federalist Papers, where the Founders went into great detail explaining the rationales for the way the Constitution lays out the structure of the Federal Government. If you ever find yourself wondering, "Why on earth did they do it THAT way?", the answer is probably in the Federalist Papers. Here's some content from #62, by James Madison, which you may find instructive, as well as entirely related to your point:
The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. . . .
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. . . .
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the states. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may, in some instances, be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defence which it involves in favour of the smaller states, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other states, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the larger states will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser states; and as the facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the constitution may be more convenient in practice, than it appears to many in contemplation. . . .
You can find the full text of the Federalist Papers here. [loc.gov]
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"Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer pros
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Great. Now, go read #62 and find out how they dealt with that obstacle.
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Please show any evidence the founding fathers feared a democracy or tyranny of the majority.
I don't know, the fact that the House of Representatives is the shortest serving and weakest of the "co-equal" branches of government? The fact that the people themselves only direct elect the House and that in the original design had no say in the Presidency, Senate, or Supreme court? The fact that "advice and consent" roles on treaties and cabinet positions are delegated to the Senate which was designed from the get go to be a bougie House of Lords imitation?
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and in 200+ years, I'd say it has worked, in general, very well.
I mean sure, but in 200+ years many different forms of government have worked well including pure democracies and representative democracies.
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Who does? Keep in mind the US is a rule-by-minority nation. In the Senate, each person in Wyoming gets 65 votes for each 1 vote by each person in Cailfornia. So it's not like the policies are an accurate reflection of the popular will.
You do know we have a bicameral legislature right ? Please revise and resubmit your comment.