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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn America, You Can Work Hard, Play By the Rules, and Still Get Screwed
from The Nation:
In America, You Can Work Hard, Play By the Rules, and Still Get Screwed
Being steadily employed aint what it used to be.
By Pat Tomaino , James M. Larkin andZach Goldhammer
Last week we spoke about the surprising history of the bloody, decades-long fight for a two-day weekend, an eight-hour workday, for pensions, worker safety, and a minimum wage.
But we also heard Calvin Coolidges famous line, that the chief business of the American people is business. Almost a century later, thats still true. Ours remains the biggest economy in the world, and American workers remain more productive per capita than any (big) nation in the world.
Americans spend more time working than doing anything else, and more than almost any other developed economy. A pre-crash study by the International Labor Organization found that we worked 137 hours more per year than Japanese workers, 260 more than Brits, almost 500 more than the leisure-loving French. And 86% of American men and 67% of womensons and daughters of the union movementwork more than the union-preferred 40 hours a week.
Then again, the United States is exceptional in other ways: Among OECD nations for the share of our people living in poverty (more than 14%, or almost 47 million people), and among almost all nations for offering, as part of the law of our land, neither paid maternal leave, nor paid sick leave, nor annual minimum paid time off.
And then there are the problems we cannot quantifyor even always see: The stresses and disappointments that pile up, disproportionately upon the 35 million Americans who earn less than $10.55 an hour. .................(more)
http://www.thenation.com/article/in-america-you-can-work-hard-play-by-the-rules-and-still-get-screwed/
leftyladyfrommo
(18,868 posts)Big business has gotten so corrupt.
freebrew
(1,917 posts)of the well-paid union workers turned their backs on the unions when they got jobs in management.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Several of peers I grew up with, sons of working class fathers who ended up having a negative view of labor, or even working people in general. None in management, but got business management degrees and went corporate.
I don't even talk to them or maintain contact with them anymore, since they disgust me.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I spent so many years working for much less than $10.55 an hour. So that still kinda sounds like a decent wage to me. I mean for a couple of years I made less than $5.4 an hour at a factory, then I made $5.5 an hour as a janitor, then $7.15 an hour, then $7.25 and then $8.50. So when I got $10.69 an hour, I thought I was doing pretty good.
Then I checked the inflation calculator
1994 - $5.40 2015 - $8.68
1998 - $7.15 2015 - $10.45
1999- $7.25 2015 - $10.37
2001 - $8.50 2015 - $11.44
2002 - $10.69 2015 - $14.16
To me, that does not seem all THAT long ago. But it is hard for me to adjust my thinking.
$10.69 was a decent wage in 2002, but it isn't so much in 2015. Now you need $14 plus to equal that old $10.69. Or put another way, $10.55 today is only $7.96 in 2002.
Still hard for me to wrap my head around, what a mere decade of fairly low inflation can do to the value of a ten dollar bill.
DrBulldog
(841 posts)$1.25 / hour, while living at home.
I PAID ALL MY COLLEGE TUITION FOR ONE YEAR WITH IT.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)$1.25 in 1963 = $9.74
although I guess that could have been anywhere from 1963-1966
$1.25 in 1966 = $9.19
then it was raised to $1.40 in 1967 and $1.60 in 1968
which was the high point for the minimum wage
$1.60 in 1968 = $10.96 in 2015
More to the point though, college tuition has grown much faster than the rate of inflation.
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)Orsino
(37,428 posts)Sooner or later, we end up competing to see who can most please a billionaire. Winner gets to eat.
valerief
(53,235 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)It was an hour before closing time. I asked, "Long day?"
She said, "No. We're all only getting four hours, twenty hours a week. Hardly seems worth it."
I said, "Sounds like they're trying to avoid overtime."
Then she says, "It's Obama's fault."
These came to mind:
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)"We're cutting your hours because of Obamacare." Employees are believing it.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)Are known precisely for not working hard and not playing by the rules.
Initech
(100,060 posts)Look at people like Lloyd Blankfein, Don Blankenship (Massey Energy CEO) the Walton Family, the Koch Bros, Dick Cheney, the BFEE - none of these people made their ill gotten fortunes honestly. And they don't do anything honestly with their ill gotten gains either except for death, destruction, looting, and adding more to the pile.
TBF
(32,041 posts)Oldie but a goodie:
ileus
(15,396 posts)StarzGuy
(254 posts)...for getting a good paying job with benefits.
I graduated with a Masters degree in 1978. At the time while in college I had a roommate who also was pursuing a Masters degree. We both graduated the same time, one year later after completing our course work.
My roommate was ecstatic to announce to me that he had landed a good job with starting pay around $35,000. On the other side I was struggling to find the same good paying job (in 1978 terms $35k was a good salary). After much time the best I could do was $10,200.
What's the difference you may be asking? The answer shouldn't surprise anyone. My roommate earned an MBA and I earned an MA in ED.
Mu roommate landed a job with IBM and I took an offer to work as a teacher in an alternative school.
After being RIFED 3 years in a row with no guarantee of a job the following school year I resigned. Eventually I landed a good teaching job in an up scale suburb. It still took me about 10 years to reach the $35K level of income.
My highest earnings as a teacher after 20 years of service was a mere $56,000.
I didn't keep in contact with my former roomy but early on contact had him traveling around the world for his job and probably making a 6 figure income.
I was 10 years from retirement when I became disabled and had to retire. Now, my main income comes from disability. I also have a small federal pension. I struggle every month paying for medications, food, rent, etc. I usually have to decide whether to buy food or medicine. I almost never make it to my next payment before I run out of money even for food. I rely then on St. Mary's Food bank to supplement what I can no longer have money to buy.
It works for now but if congress does not fix it my benefit will be cut by 20%. If that happens I won't be able to afford both food and rent.
And now, with the repukes shutting down the government with no guarantee of benefits being paid I'm screwed again.
Who in the hell would want to live like this? I wonder often if suicide is an option. Who knows what the future will hold so I guess I will stick around for a while longer.
So, I would add teachers as part of the underpaid.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)boot straps and being a self-made success story. They know the game is rigged since they don't have to wake up at 4:00AM to get to work at one of the three jobs regular people have.
Self-serving works only if you're at the top, not the bottom.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)an occasional (not yearly) series of vacation days (3 working days plus one weekend) that coincide with the autumnal equinox.