So You Want A $15 Minimum Wage? / What About All of Us Already at $12? (interviews, interest)
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Oh, 'cause I make $70,000 a year with the "online work" that you supposedly think is BS.
I made $10 a hour telemarketing when the minimum wage was $5.15.
I brought in about $500 a week working 25ish hours a week waiting tables.
I know someone who rakes in a grand a week selling Kirby vacuum cleaners.
I know a guy who makes close to six figures selling cars.
Maybe people should be more of a go-getter rather than a complainer.
So you are saying that yourself and two people you know did OK, so everyone else has no excuse for not making a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Thanks for the insight.
Let's talk about some of those jobs you list, since you do not even seem to be able to see the sky. You see I am a tax accountant, so I get to follow people's lives 1 year at a time, and know what has happened through the years.
My cousin started as a dishwasher, moved up to fry cook, got a job at a better restaurant, ended up being sent to cordon blue in France by the better restaurant and is now an executive chef making over $100,000 a year. I have 2 brother in laws that both started out as fry cooks as well, they are now head chefs making about $60,000 a year.
After high school a friend of mine went to work doing oil changes at jiffy lube, then he went to a dealership as a oil changer, where they paid for his training to make him a full licensed mechanic and now he makes $60,000 a year.
My sister started a a cashier at a farm supply store, and within 14 years was a store manger of a major department store making $60,000 a year. My mom started at Walmart started part time for minimum wage as Christmas help at Walmart and retired early after 16 years there, where she had worked her way up to 6 figures as a store manager.
A cleaning lady I know very well started off working for someone else as she needed to make money badly and had no opportunities, 5 years later she owns her own cleaning service and made $75,000 last year.
A guy I used to work in mortgages with ended up working at a telemarketing center when the real estate market collapsed, he worked 30 hours a week and brought home $60,000 a year, now he is a team lead for the same company and makes $80,000 a year.
A little brother of mine was cleaning horse stables in high school, now he is a farm manager making $60,000 a year with a free house, and he trains horses on the side making another $25,000 a year. At 35 he is on his way to retire by 40, as having never had to pay for living arrangements and getting free meat as bonuses every year has kept his grocery bill down to nothing, allowing him to save half of his paycheck.
1 of my clients owns a carpet steam cleaning business, he started off working a low income program with me as a kid in the schools, went to work after high school for a company doing it commercially, and bought a franchise for $50,000 all borrowed, now he makes 6 figures.
Another client of mine works as a waitress, she has done it for the last 6 years as she worked on her degree while raising a child on her own, she was a hairstylist but makes more as a waitress. Now she just landed a job for Intel.
One of my cousins started off working for a factory putting together some kind of regulator that goes on cars as they helped pay for school and he was running out of money his sophomore year of college. He graduated 3 years later as a production engineer, and 2 years later had a masters, today he is 2nd in charge of the factory where he started off working on the line, and his wife drives a brand new Mercedes.
Another brother of mine started as a short haul truck driver making $45000 a year, within 2 years he caught on with a better company making $80,000 a year and was home every day, now he owns 3 trucks and makes into the 6 figure range.
My wife was a CNA, then she became an LPN doing home health care making $30,000 a year working 25 hours a week, most CNAs have the opportunity to become some sort of nurse, and most do. The ones that do not are the ones that make the choice not to further pursue their career.
In my current career I started off working temporary for 3 months out of the year, doing data entry for $10 an hour I went back every year though and eventually turned it into a full time job making $45,000 a year. I was also in college as a 30 year old adult, and worked temporary jobs or terrible jobs for years while finishing school. Now I own my own accounting firm making decent money.
There are plenty of people who work their way up in the jobs you listed, most people in those industries started out under your job titles, but they worked to do something more. Nothing was handed to them, and starting out it sucked, but you can work everything you listed into something more. The problem is people do not want to take responsibility for themselves, nor put in the effort to change their situation. It is not easy, and even those that make it wonder why they are doing it sometimes, but it can be done, I have done it twice now.
You forgot to make up a heart-warming story about how the dog walker ended up founding a multinational conglomerate manufacturing pet food. I'm so disappointed in you.
If someone is paying you $15/hr, the tasks of your job must be something that's worth $15/hr. Flipping burgers or cleaning the floors are no worth $15/hr.
Good for a laugh. When was the last time a maid at Motel 6 'worked her way up'? The job market is not structured that way any longer. Everyone wants to hire employees that ALREADY do the job they are hiring for. Even in places where it IS possible, how many cashiers and stock clerks at Walmart do they need to bump up to higher positions? 5%? 2%?
Are they giving away free night school where you live?
Unless you live in very special areas with hopping job markets, ONE job is hard enough to find, let along findng an additional job teaching marketable skills. And the people who are ALREADY working at this fictional 'other job where they can pick up extra skills', why can't THEY find a better job? Oh, that's right, because those skills are ALSO only in demand at low paying jobs.
There are tens of millions of Americans who have no choice but to place putting a roof over their head and food in their family's mouths TODAY ahead of 'making a career'. Do you have any idea how many college graduates are working at Starbucks schlepping coffee or working on the sales floors at department stores, because the careers they spent years and tens of thousands of dollars preparing for, and sometimes even years working in, shut down and moved to China and India? Or just fizzled out altogether?
50 years ago companies would hire a promising employee and train them at the company's expense. Now our society expects the employees to buy their own training on the CHANCE that they may be able to find a job in that field, and when they can't they are expected to buy MORE training for jobs that may also be non-existent when they apply for them as well. THAT is what is destroying the middle class.
You are right, your post is good for a laugh. Where did all this crap about how great companies were 50 years ago come from? Not from anybody I have talked to that actually lived it. You know those people who worked in this magical market of 50 years ago.
Sure companies trained you, they taught you how to stand in your place in the factory line and make sure you turns the wrench the proper way. Many of those jobs are now done by machines, where they can have 1 maintenance guy take care of the machines that do the work that dozens of people used to do. There are still plenty of apprenticeship programs out there for skilled trades, and in some areas they are begging for people, with the Electrician association actually putting on a career seminar in my area in the next week. However those jobs require showing up and do crap work for low pay for a couple of years, and people are not willing to do that.
Tuition reimbursement did not even start until 40 years ago.
And yes for low income people you can get Pell Grants and get your tuition, books, and have money left over for most of your travel expenses to go to community college or a trade school all across the country.
There are plenty of jobs on the market where they have trouble hiring people, the work sucks, the hours suck, and to start the pay sucks, but you can work your way up. People do it all the time, and yet others are sitting around saying it cannot be done.
Those college graduates that are sitting in a retail store or working at Starbucks are making a choice every day to accept that as their fate, or to try to do something about it. Nobody is forcing them to stay there. Even right now there are jobs paying bookkeepers $15+ an hour that people are having trouble filling, the only qualification you need is to become quickbooks certified, which takes about 20 hours of studying and a test. The cost is you have to join a program that is $50 and actually take the time to watch the videos and do the practice work. People working at starbucks should be able to handle that, yet they do not, which is their choice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrats2001
You forgot to make up a heart-warming story about how the dog walker ended up founding a multinational conglomerate manufacturing pet food. I'm so disappointed in you.
I wish I was making it up, and that me and my friends and family had just inherited the jobs we have now, as you seem to believe. That would have been much easier, but reality is we have all done exactly what I said. You see we were raised with the idea that if you want something than you are responsible for going out and getting it. We were not taught that all our problems are someone else's fault, and complaining about things was a good way to get punished. Of course you are welcome to sit around and make excuses on why you cannot do something. I am sure the people who take the opportunities that you miss and complain do not exist will appreciate when they are making much more money and enjoying life.
The only people that are advocating for a $15/hr minimum wage are either:
A. Unions looking to increase revenues through new members
B. Politicians looking to get more votes by sounding like "men/women of the people"
C. Innocent workers that are too stupid/naive to realize that they are merely pawns being used and manipulated by one of the above. Unions and politicians are only interested in advocating for a huge jump in minimum wage. They want nothing to do with the practical and political consequences of actually realizing a substantial increase.
Nothing to see here. Its not gonna happen because even the people in power advocating for $15/hr are simply pandering to their bases. We will have a $15/hr minimum wage at some point in the future. Probably about the time that $15 is worth what about $8 is today.
If you didn't believe me the first time I posted this, here is exhibit A:
I don't even have time to edit your rant. Suffice it to say I don't believe a single word. I don't. If even one of those stories is true it does NOTHING to negate the fact that it is not universally possible for every, or even most Americans to duplicate a one in one million lucky happenstance.This is one of the more egregious examples of reality shaming I've seen. Stop it.
I am 84 years old, not a kid. I can tell you after spending my life in the business world, that a lot of people have done exactly what he talked about. And they are doing it today.
Example: Young man got out of high school, and worked at McDonald's. Did not want to go to college. Got a job 3 years ago in the debt collection department of a Major National Bank in a mid size city and started working his way up based on performance. A year ago they sent him to their national training center, and now is the Bank's Mediation Officer for the area banks with his own office and staff and makes real good money. High school graduate makes good, going from dungarees and tee shirt, to suits and ties. Yes this is a true story, and I know him well. One of my two Grandsons.
I was one that worked my way up, and know a lot of people over the years that did. I know several people that have done it such as my grandson did, in the last few years. It is only people without ambition that cannot start at a bottom level job, and work themselves up to better and better ones. The reason a lot more people do not do it, is they would rather sit back and cry poor me I can't get a break, instead of going out there and pushing to get ahead.
someone doesn't even have to work at a bank post McDonalds...
work there full time post high school, with attrition rate of McDonalds, someone can make manager in 3-5 years, from there once they get the hang of managing people, they have skills for HR/office work at the lower rungs of management skills. Then do that for another 5 years, and they can slowly move into corporate offices. At this point, it's only been 10 years, and the high school grad is now 28-30, and they are on track to be groomed for a corporate job. This means, they can finally go pick up the college degree with a purpose and maybe someone else footing the bill.
not wanting to work "low" jobs doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to move up, it just means the person who doesn't want to do them is looking for shortcuts, and not all shortcuts lead to the "finish" line, some go off the cliff. At least working way up from bottom, while slower, is a more sure path. But it seems like americans these days would rather not work hard, they just can't "take" having to listen to orders/advice from older people, nor can they put aside their phones/concerts/etc to put in the time to learn how to get good at a job. Looking at the time between 2008 to 2015, how many people have worked the same job and "getting nowhere"? And yet, they keep doing the same job and not trying to pick up extra skills, so the next decade will be a repeat of the current one, and when they are 30, they are still at the call center jobs wondering why they don't know how to do more than answering calls. like this thread on CD https://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...e-service.html and this one https://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...vice.htmlwhere
I don't even have time to edit your rant. Suffice it to say I don't believe a single word. I don't. If even one of those stories is true it does NOTHING to negate the fact that it is not universally possible for every, or even most Americans to duplicate a one in one million lucky happenstance.This is one of the more egregious examples of reality shaming I've seen. Stop it.
The examples he's provided, all of which ring true to me, had nothing to do with luck or happenstance. The common thread among them is that they required a lot of work and long-term commitment. Virtually every business owner I know spent several years working and saving just to have the chance to pursue their own venture. No, not guaranteed riches, just an opportunity.
The fact is, many millions of Americans(not one in a million) have effectively worked their way out of poverty. The formula hasn't changed; it requires hard work and sacrifice. It will never be true that all or even most Americans in poverty will be willing to do the work necessary or make those sacrifices. And barring luck or happenstance, they will remain in poverty. Those choices remain their own.
All of that being said, there are many Americans who have spent years working hard and making those sacrifices, only to see their opportunities outsourced to a third-world country, or taken by a third-world immigrant who "broke into" the U.S. Therein lies the problem. If you want to understand why wages are depressed and real income is low, look at the effects of globalism and immigration. Capitalists haven't changed, they've always chased the bottom dollar. The difference is that, today, they can hire from the plentiful amount of un/skilled immigrant labor here, and yes, even professionals abroad, for a fraction of the prevailing wage in the U.S. There is simply no way to maintain "living wages" when you introduce these factors.
someone doesn't even have to work at a bank post McDonalds...
work there full time post high school, with attrition rate of McDonalds, someone can make manager in 3-5 years, from there once they get the hang of managing people, they have skills for HR/office work at the lower rungs of management skills. Then do that for another 5 years, and they can slowly move into corporate offices. At this point, it's only been 10 years, and the high school grad is now 28-30, and they are on track to be groomed for a corporate job. This means, they can finally go pick up the college degree with a purpose and maybe someone else footing the bill.
not wanting to work "low" jobs doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to move up, it just means the person who doesn't want to do them is looking for shortcuts, and not all shortcuts lead to the "finish" line, some go off the cliff. At least working way up from bottom, while slower, is a more sure path. But it seems like americans these days would rather not work hard, they just can't "take" having to listen to orders/advice from older people, nor can they put aside their phones/concerts/etc to put in the time to learn how to get good at a job. Looking at the time between 2008 to 2015, how many people have worked the same job and "getting nowhere"? And yet, they keep doing the same job and not trying to pick up extra skills, so the next decade will be a repeat of the current one, and when they are 30, they are still at the call center jobs wondering why they don't know how to do more than answering calls. like this thread on CD https://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...e-service.html and this one https://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...vice.htmlwhere
This is true. I know a guy who started working at McDonald's when he was 15. He slowly moved up the ranks...shift leader, store manager, district manager. Now, he has some upper management job with the company. I doubt he's wealthy, but he's making a good living.
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