Just for the record 1.05 in 1963 is equivalent to 8.70 today or 20% more than the current national minimum wage today. How would you have felt about a 20% paycut back then?
Most jobs pay more than minimum. The current economy is driving that. How about this: inflation is being driven by printing money by the FED and to a lesser extent supply/demand for food and products. I wonder how much less inflation we would have if we weren't printing money to pay the debt that is caused by so many social programs.
$32/hr may not.be much in Columbus, OH. But, I can guarantee you that's a GOOD job here in MS. You can find plenty of 1000-1200 sq. ft starter homes here in good neighborhoods for $65k and up.
We take our 8th graders on a tour of a local community college. We tour their "trades" programs and academics. An auto mechanics instructor told us last yr that they have grads making over $70k/yr within 4 yrs of graduating.
$32/hr may not.be much in Columbus, OH. But, I can guarantee you that's a GOOD job here in MS. You can find plenty of 1000-1200 sq. ft starter homes here in good neighborhoods for $65k and up.
32k/year puts you in the top 20% of all workers. That's good anywhere. Again you're talking about microeconomics though.
People have given you a few economic examples from around the country and those "microeconomic" examples combined equate to,..are you old enough to have ever heard the phrase "The whole equals the sum of the parts."?
Your only goal is to argue and try to get conservatives to agree with you but in the years that I've been on this forum i've never seen it happen and I don't see things getting any better for you.
Layoffs, shortened hours, strange staggered shifts in restaurants. Sounds like a winner.
They'll adjust. Some businesses will adjust well and thrive. Others will fail. Just as always in a competitive market. Notice the businesses that anticipated the changes and planned ahead are doing fine.
Yes prices at restaurants will go up a bit. Eating out is a luxury so these costs will flow to people who can largely afford it, while benefits will go to those at the bottom who need it most. I feel pretty ok about it.
DC minimum wage is $13.50 on its way to $15. I haven't seen any tragic disruption to the local economy. Seems to be booming quite well around here.
Must be nice to live in a bubble that protects you from the truth. I gave ONE example, NYC, and the problems the restaurants are facing. If you want to see some more data, Look up Portland and how it hit them. There are many other examples on the West Coast if you dare look them up.
And I doubt it would affect D.C. much regarding restaurants as Joe Six Pack and family couldn't afford to eat where the overpaid underworked gooberment prefects and lobbyists belly up to the trough. The fast food places will have to go to the kiosk ordering system, and automate even further to get shed of those high overhead low producing workers, and you can bet your butt that will happen if it hasn't already.
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer” ― Douglas Adams
The opportunities are there for the people who TRULY want to WORK. It may not not be in a cozy cushy office. But, if a person takes advantage of the educational opportunities that are available, and make smart choices about what they learn, then yes, the opportunities are there.
You're wrong. I've never taken home more than ~60-62% of my gross pay with ~10% 401k contribution. I'm single, don't have kids and have pretty much always been in the tax mule tax bracket. My current take home pay is 59% of my gross.
regarding the housing costs: #1 is 2 and a half hours from Columbus nearly in WV. #2 is a POS shack in Linden which is basically a ghetto, but yes at least in Columbus. I know someone who owns a home in that neighborhood. It is at least "affordable". He has lots of guns and big dogs and is a single scary looking white dude with lots of tattoos so he's probably safe-ish. Wouldn't raise kids there in a million years though. 3# is a foreclosure sold as is with no pictures of the inside sold at auction only so probably needs a minimum of 30-40k in renovations to make it livable assuming you do the work yourself. Also in a mediocre area, but at least not a deadly area.
If a home 2.5 hours from your job, and unsafe home in a terrible neighborhood, or an as is foreclosure purchase that may not be livable is your definition of an affordable starter home then we are not on the same page. By that same logic, most people can afford a trailer. Anyone who can afford to buy a trailer is officially middle class and everyone else should shut up!
Maybe I'm crazy, but a reasonable starter home IMHO is 3br, 1.5-2 bath and 1,200-1,500 square feet. I don't think that's crazy. Most homes in that range run in the $180-$250k range in areas that aren't absolutely trash. I would consider those to be "middle class" homes. Maybe not absolutely starter homes, but someone in their 30's who is middle class should be able to afford them. Someone making $52k cannot unless they have another income in the household also making a similar income. Families with two incomes at $36k (The TRUE middle) would likely struggle with the house payment on such a home.
Actually, I am right. To figure out what taxes and ins are on a 70K wage is pretty easy for me. I look at my paperwork. Its about 1/3 with 15% going out in a 401K. More because I didnt figure in the child support payment.
Yep, there are a bunch of foreclosures. All of which the asking is 40K less than the median price. So if you get it for 85K and put 20 in it you are still ahead of the game.
Out of the 245 homes I found, you are saying that NONE of them are livable? This is exactly what I mean by scewed perception. A STARTER home isnt 3 br 2 bath and that is NOT equivalent to what grandpa bought.You want what they ended with, not started with.
Mine started in a duplex, renting one side, moved to a tiny 2 BR across the state because of unemployment, and I grew up in in a 3br (small) with 1 bath that doubled as a laundry room and had a kitchen that two people were on top of each other. We added a 1/2 bath years later.That one cost their gross combined income and needed updated and worked on, which we did. Their final house was a 3br 2 bath ranch.
I started in a mobile, bought a duplex, rented 1 side in a area that was nto great moved for employment and rented for years, then built a 4 br 2 bath ranch. In my 40's.
You seem to think that if you cant start out on top or 1/2 way up at a minimum, then it is unfair.
It's boring, and your lack of creativity knows no bounds.
We will never get Alpha to see our side of the fence. He went to college and expects different thing to come his way.
To him a starter house is 1200 to 1500sf. Mine was 900 and I paid $40,000 for it. Then poured 7 years of work into it.... I didn't know how. I just did it..............
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson
I'm actually not even talking about solutions. I'm just trying to get to a place of consensus on if there is in fact a problem. It seems we're not even there. Which is surprising to me given that Trump won an election with a message of economic populism focused on the pain and fear of the working class. What I'm hearing is all that pain and fear was way overblown and only present because people are lazy and entitled. Anyone complaining should just shut up and get to work.
It might help if children stopped having children too. A single mother with a child puts an inordinate burden on a single mother and/or father. Young people these days otherwise seem to want things handed to them, and it seems like parental influence and the education system seems to be promoting that.
Our resident pot-stirring progressive is beginning to sound like a certain buck-toothed harpy who wants to pay people "unwilling to work" a "living wage". There are two basic kinds of people who are content to subsist on minimum wage- - - - -lazy ones and stupid ones. A few people in my own family fit into one or both of those categories. Virtually everybody else understands that to get paid more, one must make himself worth more. The professional student with an advanced degree in Outdoor Masturbation and $100K in student loan debt who's working as a barista probably deserves to struggle. I guess I should have demanded that the government take care of me and provide a soft spot to land 45 years ago when I was a homeless Southeast Asia veteran who couldn't buy a job cleaning motel toilets after spending 8 years in the military instead of opening my own business on a shoestring. I'm sure if I just begged somebody- - - -anybody to coddle me back then that I'd still be sitting on 100 acres of paid-for real estate with a paid-for home on it today. Back in 1975 I was living in my car and hoping somebody would pay for the work I'd just done on his truck so I could eat that day. Since I started paying taxes on my wages in 1962, I've drawn unemployment exactly once- - - - -and I've NEVER received any sort of public assistance. The "part-time" job I do now pays $100.00 an hour and I work when and where I want to. That doesn't happen without spending a lifetime honing skills that other people don't have, or won't bother to develop.
You dont get to see a tax credit until apr 15 and since you never fed a kid you thing this is free money to be spent how one wishes. They cost in after tax income.
However, lets call it 60% take home instead of 66% and rework the numbers, in fact we can go 59%..
5833x.59=3441/mo vs 3850 @ 66%
The math still works. Even at 1200/mo which we agree on as housing expenses leaves 2241/month in after tax spending. Buying a starter home at that wage will not make you a pauper. Buying to much house will.
It is in the perception and you are only seeing what you want to own. That is not what the last generations did.
It's boring, and your lack of creativity knows no bounds.
Well varmantist we were talking about me. And my take home pay is 59%. Congrats on getting to take home more of your pay. My suspicion is the $2k tax credit per kid is the difference. With 2 kids that would account for a 6% raise in take home pay (don't know how many you have).
So you're saying that you are unhappy about the Govt. redistributing 41% of your income?
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn away from their ways and live. Eze 33:11
Got into a similar conversation yesterday. Some people think that they deserve 5 weeks vacation starting out. Not how grandpa did it. Folks want what the last gen had AFTER they put in their time, but they want it up front.
Its perception of the end of the game without accepting the reality of the beginning. "I want to score a touchdown, but I dont think I should have to run through all of those big guys to get there, and someone else carry this ball, its heavy."
It's boring, and your lack of creativity knows no bounds.
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that well the argument of our grandfathers/fathers income versus cost comparison of todays income versus cost was very effective at generating inflammatory debate, it was a poor tactic to influence personal perspective.
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that well the argument of our grandfathers/fathers income versus cost comparison of todays income versus cost was very effective at generating inflammatory debate, it was a poor tactic to influence personal perspective.
😋
Your inflammatory was our reality. Until I was 4 our family of 8 lived in a 3 bedroom trailer. Then rented an old dilapidated farm house with a coal furnace for years.
I got out of the Army in a mush Clinton economy (it was all internet generated, no live jobs). Made $220 a week as an E-4x4 and served in $$$Alaska$$$ so had zero savings.
Drove 20 miles to work for $7.50 and lived at home. Bid on every posted job and rose to $9.50. Rented a one room apartment in a basement with a shared kitchen with the owner.
When there was nowhere to rise in that job, I had a good 5 year run in one job that looked good on a resume and got hired quickly by Union Camp for $16. Bought a $40,000 house and redid it myself. Took years because I paid cash for materials as I went...... and because I worked a swing shift I just didn't feel like sanding drywall some weeks....
Got married at 30 and doubled income. Sold house for $70,000 and then...... then bought a 1300sf house in a nice neighborhood (last neighborhood was niceish, just old).
I know people right now who complain about their low pay and I tell them to come where I work. You start as a packer for $18 and hour and will be at $21 in two years. Purely unskilled labor. They won't even apply....... because they refuse to work afternoon or midnight shift for a couple years.
Over half of the applicants we do get fail the drug test, so there's that.............
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson
What I'm hearing is that everyone here thinks the job market is fine. Wages are fair. Anyone who is struggling in the country is doing so because they're lazy and unwilling to work harder. Nothing really needs to change. The middle class is just as strong as it was in generations past. Opportunity is just as prevalent as it always has been in this country. Does that about sum it up?
It's called self-responsibility Alpha. What part of that do you not understand? You desperately want to blame anyone with money or success and due to your communistic mindset, you think people less fortunate are somehow entitled to something they've never earned. Does that about sum it up there, Sport?
I'm beginning to wonder why he doesn't start spouting "gun control." Otherwise, he seems to support almost all of the Bernie Sanders agenda. Maybe he's here just to bloviate and argue with the conservative mindset.
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that well the argument of our grandfathers/fathers income versus cost comparison of todays income versus cost was very effective at generating inflammatory debate, it was a poor tactic to influence personal perspective.
😋
Your inflammatory was our reality.
A reasonable comparison of most peoples reality with some minor differences in pertinent details.
I have heard the example of people unwilling to do shift work before. Currently I see just the opposite in my daily affairs.
Today's liberals believe that artificially promoting the poor to the middle class relieves them from the disgrace that today's poor associates with being poor. There is no evidence to support that, after several decades of trying it, but it is profitable to keep selling it, anyway...to the seller.
Yesterday's poor believed that generations of toil might be needed to rise out of poverty, and that those generations of toil made prosperity worth having, for their children. They taught them the same work ethic, and that work ethic made them wealthy, in comparison to their fathers, because hard work done in a prosperous economy reaps greater rewards and more opportunities.
It is simply a fact that prosperity gained through hard work makes the reward more satisfying, and you can't teach that to children who continue into adulthood, living off of somebody else's labor. A child who grows up without developing a good work ethic is always going to see himself as a victim.
Over half of the applicants we do get fail the drug test, so there's that.............
That's a big issue. I think a lot of companies are going to have to rethink their testing requirements or what they test for if they want people, especially if they're hiring in the lower end of the job market. Pot is legal or decriminalized (possession and use is not a crime even if you can't legally sell it) in 23 states now including Ohio. Medical is legal in 34 states. Turning away good candidates just because they occasionally use pot (stays in your system and shows up on tests for weeks) I think is a bad business decision, but hey if you're ok with turning away half of the candidates who want to work for you go for it I guess.
Again, you're displaying your ignorance of how the real world works. Insurance companies dictate employers requiring a drug free workplace. There's this thing called workers comp that covers people that are injured on the job and different occupations are assigned different pecentages based on a number of factors like potential risk of injury, payroll size, and safety record. When I had employees I paid 13% of my payroll to workers comp while higher risk occupations like roofers pay at least 48% around here. Imagine having to pay almost half of your payroll amount for insurance every month. By being a drug free workplace, you get a 10% discount on your workers comp insurance which is big. When someone gets injured on the job they automatically do a drug test and if it's positive, workers comp won't cover the injury and the employer gets to enjoy an increase in rates. Until the federal goverment makes a drug legal, insurance companies will consider it illegal also. I've pointed out numerous times before and as MMD stated, you're just here to bloviate and argue with the conservative mindset.
Over half of the applicants we do get fail the drug test, so there's that.............
That's a big issue. I think a lot of companies are going to have to rethink their testing requirements or what they test for if they want people, especially if they're hiring in the lower end of the job market. Pot is legal or decriminalized (possession and use is not a crime even if you can't legally sell it) in 23 states now including Ohio. Medical is legal in 34 states. Turning away good candidates just because they occasionally use pot (stays in your system and shows up on tests for weeks) I think is a bad business decision, but hey if you're ok with turning away half of the candidates who want to work for you go for it I guess.
It is called............. choice
Do I want to smoke pot or do I want a good paying job. 50% choose pot then complain about being held down. You held yourself down.
When you're working in a goup to fix a line and you have 5 tons of metal moving around with a forklift. Then you tell me pot isn't a problem
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson
Just about every job site I go to falls under federal drug guidelines. Pot is still illegal on a federal level and will result in termination of employment if a random or annual is failed or refusal at time of hire if you fail the initial test. Contrary to what states say, pot is still illegal to use. Until it's legal on a federal level it's not actually legal.
If you would rather smoke pot than have a good job, that is your choice. Odd that the left seems to forget things. It's apparently not okay to be refused for use of an illegal drug, but they also want to ban all forms of tobacco use at the same time.
I dont care if you want to smoke pot. As long as it's not affecting me it's not really any of my business. That being said, rules are rules and if you dont like them you need to find a new path or follow the rules.
Pot.....................You REALLY want workers in power plants/NUCLEAR PLANTS smoking pot and doing things that could affect reactor safety/public safety. How about HELL NO! When I left it was STILL a termination offense to fail the drug test for pot/opiates. Opiates were O.K. if doctor prescribed, and you notified the plant nurse, and you were also prohibited from working in the plant until you were drug free. There were stinky poopy jobs that didn't require you to work inside the plant, and you had a minder the whole time watching you.
I suppose that pot usage might be O.K. for the folk working in the prairie dog town cubicle rat thing, not a whole lot they could do to kill people with a keyboard. But in ANY industrial setting, or working with dangerous equipment or high voltage, a pot user is a major liability. And JBP explained that well. Wanna smoke pot and work? I don't like pickles on my hamburger, because that will be your job.
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer” ― Douglas Adams
Today's liberals believe that artificially promoting the poor to the middle class relieves them from the disgrace that today's poor associates with being poor. There is no evidence to support that, after several decades of trying it, but it is profitable to keep selling it, anyway...to the seller.
Yesterday's poor believed that generations of toil might be needed to rise out of poverty, and that those generations of toil made prosperity worth having, for their children. They taught them the same work ethic, and that work ethic made them wealthy, in comparison to their fathers, because hard work done in a prosperous economy reaps greater rewards and more opportunities.
It is simply a fact that prosperity gained through hard work makes the reward more satisfying, and you can't teach that to children who continue into adulthood, living off of somebody else's labor. A child who grows up without developing a good work ethic is always going to see himself as a victim.
This makes perfect logical sense on the surface. It remains at least for me, impossible to quantify. I do not see any evidence from the people working low level jobs that support it. I interact with such people almost daily. If they have some sort of sulking victim complex going on, they're hiding it behind a very sociable and pleasant exterior.
In responce not to this post but to the marajawana testing for employment. Some types of jobs require a level of coherency that drug use would IMO compromise. IMO such a distinction is highly relevant.
Replies
― Douglas Adams
Your only goal is to argue and try to get conservatives to agree with you but in the years that I've been on this forum i've never seen it happen and I don't see things getting any better for you.
― Douglas Adams
At least I believe they are.
According to Google Wal-Mart is the biggest employer in the country, Amazon the second place winner.
Seems to me like that in itself is the whole that equals the sum of the parts.
Maybe Im being myopic???
To him a starter house is 1200 to 1500sf. Mine was 900 and I paid $40,000 for it. Then poured 7 years of work into it.... I didn't know how. I just did it..............
Our resident pot-stirring progressive is beginning to sound like a certain buck-toothed harpy who wants to pay people "unwilling to work" a "living wage". There are two basic kinds of people who are content to subsist on minimum wage- - - - -lazy ones and stupid ones. A few people in my own family fit into one or both of those categories. Virtually everybody else understands that to get paid more, one must make himself worth more. The professional student with an advanced degree in Outdoor Masturbation and $100K in student loan debt who's working as a barista probably deserves to struggle. I guess I should have demanded that the government take care of me and provide a soft spot to land 45 years ago when I was a homeless Southeast Asia veteran who couldn't buy a job cleaning motel toilets after spending 8 years in the military instead of opening my own business on a shoestring. I'm sure if I just begged somebody- - - -anybody to coddle me back then that I'd still be sitting on 100 acres of paid-for real estate with a paid-for home on it today. Back in 1975 I was living in my car and hoping somebody would pay for the work I'd just done on his truck so I could eat that day. Since I started paying taxes on my wages in 1962, I've drawn unemployment exactly once- - - - -and I've NEVER received any sort of public assistance. The "part-time" job I do now pays $100.00 an hour and I work when and where I want to. That doesn't happen without spending a lifetime honing skills that other people don't have, or won't bother to develop.
😋
I got out of the Army in a mush Clinton economy (it was all internet generated, no live jobs). Made $220 a week as an E-4x4 and served in $$$Alaska$$$ so had zero savings.
Drove 20 miles to work for $7.50 and lived at home. Bid on every posted job and rose to $9.50. Rented a one room apartment in a basement with a shared kitchen with the owner.
When there was nowhere to rise in that job, I had a good 5 year run in one job that looked good on a resume and got hired quickly by Union Camp for $16. Bought a $40,000 house and redid it myself. Took years because I paid cash for materials as I went...... and because I worked a swing shift I just didn't feel like sanding drywall some weeks....
Got married at 30 and doubled income. Sold house for $70,000 and then...... then bought a 1300sf house in a nice neighborhood (last neighborhood was niceish, just old).
I know people right now who complain about their low pay and I tell them to come where I work. You start as a packer for $18 and hour and will be at $21 in two years. Purely unskilled labor. They won't even apply....... because they refuse to work afternoon or midnight shift for a couple years.
Over half of the applicants we do get fail the drug test, so there's that.............
I have heard the example of people unwilling to do shift work before. Currently I see just the opposite in my daily affairs.
I've pointed out numerous times before and as MMD stated, you're just here to bloviate and argue with the conservative mindset.
Do I want to smoke pot or do I want a good paying job. 50% choose pot then complain about being held down. You held yourself down.
When you're working in a goup to fix a line and you have 5 tons of metal moving around with a forklift. Then you tell me pot isn't a problem
If you would rather smoke pot than have a good job, that is your choice. Odd that the left seems to forget things. It's apparently not okay to be refused for use of an illegal drug, but they also want to ban all forms of tobacco use at the same time.
I dont care if you want to smoke pot. As long as it's not affecting me it's not really any of my business. That being said, rules are rules and if you dont like them you need to find a new path or follow the rules.
Federal law says no guns in house with illegal drugs.
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/pick-one-medical-marijuana-or-firearms/95-ca8694bf-dd01-4172-b7fc-4bacad72116d
― Douglas Adams
In responce not to this post but to the marajawana testing for employment. Some types of jobs require a level of coherency that drug use would IMO compromise. IMO such a distinction is highly relevant.