Now imagine you were trying support a family on those wages. You have to work three jobs at 7.25-8.50/hr because none of them will give you enough hours to qualify for benefits, let alone overtime. You’re working 80 hours a week to earn a bit more than 30k a year.
I tell you that you’re not looking hard enough, and that there are plenty of jobs out there that will pay 14 bucks an hour.
How do you feel about that?
Do you imagine that Joe Schmo is working 80 hours a week because he’s too lazy to look for something that will pay more for way fewer hours?
If you have a kid or kids, who is going to watch them while you are out making $8.50 an hour? How much is that going to cost? If your job is part time, nobody’s giving your health insurance. Even if the job does offer it, it won’t be free. Hopefully you live in a state with a good ACA subsidy, but it’s still not free. And co-pays and deductibles aren’t free. Transportation isn’t free. If you think people should just move to a place where they can get cheaper insurance and easier access to their jobs, how much does it cost to move? What’s the difference in the cost of living? And now that they’ve moved away from their free babysitter (grandma) who is going to watch the kids and once again how much does it cost?
What if you owe child support? If child support takes half of your wages why take a job for $8.50 and get $4.25 of that? Why not hold out for $10 an hour so you can keep $5?
Your tactic of taking any job, and taking multiple jobs is pretty groovy for a single, younger, healthy person with no dependents. But you add kids, chronic illness, advanced age, etc etc to the equation and it’s no longer that simple.
I don’t want to overly generalize this observation, but around here it seems like any competent person can find a job. Not necessarily a great job, but people out of work are either not trying, or lacking that competence in some sense. That lack of competence is often a laziness, there are people who just don’t want to get up in the morning and go to work. I’ve run across a variety of characters who get jobs but don’t last, and they always have some excuse, it’s never their fault, but the cycle is too obvious. Sometimes the lack of competence is just a lack of skills, and there’s a limited number of jobs that can be filled by any warm body, and those jobs don’t pay too well either. I know of a couple of cases where drugs and alcohol are a factor, some people seem to handle the lifestyle and keep on working, but for some work is just a desperation attempt to make some money to get stoned again one way or another, and then they’re soon out of work again.
The problem with describing the situation this way is that it doesn’t represent the total job market in this country, the jobs are much more scarce in some areas, and the economy can change quickly so the availability of lower end jobs can fade away quickly. With winter coming there will be a lot of construction workers trying to get through the winter on unemployment compensation, and who knows how many jobs will be available next spring. Companies shut down or move away all the time suddenly releasing a lot of new applicants into the market at any time. And many new jobs created require more advanced skills that the average person doesn’t have.
So there are those who have only themselves to blame for employment, but it’s certainly not everyone.
Possibly, but everything is negotiable. If you bring skills to the table that are desirable, you have an ability to at least talk about it. If they say no, they say no. Then it’s my choice to accept or decline. But I know there are lots of places where you can’t negotiate. I get your point.
All I can really say to this is that if two jobs are required, then so be it. Do what it takes until you are able to secure something better. PT work isn’t supposed to be enough to provide living expenses and I’m sure there are plenty of companies who offer part time work and are aware of this which would help in making schedules that aren’t in conflict.
I know these things do exist and they are definitely a part of the process. But where I live, there are some very different kinds of people employed all over our area. I don’t mean race or gender because everywhere I go around here, there are people of all races and all genders working. I mean people with visible disabilities, older people, people with few teeth, people who cannot hear well. Hell, just recently I worked for a company who’s sole (stated) purpose was to employ people who were legally blind. It’s actually amazing what they are able to do without their sight which the rest of us casually take for granted.
Sure they do, but is that not an established and known potential cost of being in a country illegally?
I’m not too sure that all of the complaints and people on unemployment are due to status as victims of prejudice/sexism/misogyny/racism/name as many as you’d like. I have no doubt that those things do occur. But I certainly don’t think it’s anywhere close to the majority.
Of course I don’t think they’re lazy. I think either you’re misunderstanding or I’m failing to explain properly. I applaud them for their work ethic and attitude to do whatever they can to provide for their families. My main point is geared toward those who say they can’t find a job because frankly I don’t believe that (in most cases). I believe many people are determined to live off the public teat without trying to better themselves or their station in life. That lack of taking responsibility for ones self is what I find frustrating and irritating.
I think your example is an unfortunate reality for many people and I completely understand the need for people to get help when they are down. I’m glad we have a system that allows for this type of assistance. I just have a hard time understanding how so many able bodied people can stay attached to that assistance for such long periods of time.
And good luck getting that second job, or keeping the first when you do. Around here, part time minimum wage jobs might only schedule you 15-20 hours a week, but they expect you to be available to work 168 hours a week, often with little notice. If you want them to schedule your shifts around school or a second job, they’ll just hire someone else who doesn’t have that problem.
I’d rather be unemployed than work at a fast food restaurant (as long as i’m not starving). Call me an asshole, but I know a job like that is beneath me and my skill set, and I wouldn’t take it unless in dire need, I mean, really really starving or something, since it obviously can’t pay the rent, much less for anything else. The only way i would is if i didn’t have a safety net or some kind of savings to keep me out of a bind, but that wouldn’t last too long. Also, people without much work history can get pretty decent jobs really easy too, especially if you know quite a few people. If you don’t have a safety net, know people and have really poor work history (or cannot cover your ass properly enough to lie on a resume), you’re screwed.
I think it’s pretty telling that the OP mentioned jobs at $10-$14 per hour, but when pressed for details one of the jobs was below $10 per hour and none were $14 per hour. These numbers always seem to have a similar flaw. Plus you often can’t combine multiple part-time jobs into one set of full-time work, as the various employers will expect you to work at overlapping times, so you can’t hope to keep all of your jobs.
If it makes you feel any better, you’re not likely to get hired to flip those burgers - the manager knows that you’ll be looking for better suited work and the last thing he or she wants is to waste a bunch of time training an overqualified employee.
I agree with everything you said. What I really don’t like is when I hear things like systemic (insert “ism”) is the main culprit. Again, I know it happens, but it’s not as prevalent as claimants would have me believe. When I go to the grocery store and see the wide array of employees, I would have a hard time believing the employer is being anything but inclusive of everyone who applies, as long as they pass a background check and drug screen.
I think it’s very telling that I took a survey after applying to a chain restaurant online and I had to take a survey of about 100 questions. I kid you not, some of the true/false questions were (paraphrased):
There are 64 hours in a day.
There are 543 days in a year.
I’ve stayed awake long enough to finish this survey.
I am literate enough to complete this survey.
There were other really out there statements that were no doubt used to ensure people were paying attention instead of just clicking through. There were a lot of repeats that were worded differently to see if you were being consistent in your answers. If they’ve had to implement a system like that, you can be sure they’ve had people slip through their screening who just didn’t give a damn about being a productive team member or providing a service. I thought the questions were funny, but very sad that they’ve had to reduce themselves to weeding out those types of people.
The availability of jobs is a function of location and timing … I’ve lived in places and at times where a job for half minimum wage was a God-send … I’ve lived in places and at times where common laborer positions at thrice minimum wage went unfulfilled …
Either way, the hardest part is being disciplined during your job search … there’s a bunch of rejection in such a search and most of us don’t tolerate rejection very well … thus the adage finding work is harder than the actual work …
Now to a funny story … this was during the Great Recession and unemployment was really high and a neighbor was kinda sorta doing a half-assed job search … but he did get up early every morning, walked the mile into town and bought a newspaper … one morning the fella from the lawn mower shop came out and asked if my neighbor was looking for work, yes he was, and could he start right now … turns out the lawn mower guy was having a hell of a time finding anyone who was willing to start at 6 am … and my neighbor was walking by at 5:45 am every morning … turns out that was the only reason he got hired, just being a warm body willing to work early in the morning …
If you’re willing to do hard physical labor, there’s construction sites all over this nation that will put you to work right now at a better than minimum wage … pay attention and learn the trade, couple of years you can be up to $18 - $22 an hour … no high school diploma required …
I think he’s just trying to say that there are jobs available.
I’m the office manager at a commercial cleaning company. We are always looking for good people. Granted the positions are PT with entry level pay, but we have a huge turnover. The majority of the people we hire have issues of some sort. It’s very hard to find someone that will show up every day on time and do the work properly. A lot of them just stop showing up and we never see them again. It’s a great job for someone that like the OP wants to make a little extra cash for bills, Christmas, etc. But this kind of job seems to attract the people that really don’t want to work or put much effort into working. They miss work or show up late because of court dates, losing their driver’s license, moving, leaving town, etc. Usually, there is no call to the office to let us know. Then they show up days later wanting their job back. One guy showed up late (without a call) and when the owner of the company confronted him about being late to the customer’s job site he said - “I’m not your bitch. I start work at 8:30 not 7”. We deal with this kind of stuff all the time. We would kill for good dependable employees.
I actually really liked working at McDonald’s in high school, and I’ve often dreamed of being a short order cook at a place like Waffle House. Maybe I’ll try to do that part time when I retire for the fun of it.
But you’re right, there’s no goddamn way I’m ever going to rely on one of those McJobs to pay my bills. McDonald’s was great when I lived with my parents and was still on their health insurance and the only thing I needed to buy was gasoline and car parts. I don’t know how in the hell an adult could eke out a living at those jobs, but people still try. Guess it’s better than nothing, when you have no other options.
I once did a temp gig for a call center. It didn’t pay very well, but at least I was inside and could sit down.
I trained with a group of eight people. One of them failed the drug trust, so there were seven. Another was told the shift ended at 6:00 p.m. That was a problem because she didn’t have a car, and the last bus from that area left at 5:50. Could she possibly leave early?
No.
Could she change the start and end time?
No.
Could she take “lunch” during the last 30 minutes of her shift?
No.
At this point the rest of us offered to work out our own schedules to make sure 5:45-6:00 was covered.
No.
And that was it. No car, no flexibility, no negotiation. No job.
No, it’s not anywhere close, it’s pretty damn close. And if you are getting up in years, forget it.
Among the interviews I had for office work during the six years I was laid off, there was one where I asked the interviewer if she had any reservations about giving me the temp position for which I was applying.
Her revealing answer? “We aren’t sure if at your age, you can handle the filing duties.”
I wound up getting the position, but only because I did some deep knee bends to prove I could get to the bottom drawers.
Now other places wouldn’t throw caution to the wind and risk an ageism lawsuit by making such a crass statement at my interview. But they wouldn’t be likely to hire me either, because how else would I know to show them my nifty knee bends to get the job otherwise?
Don’t tell me ageism, or racism, or misogyny, or anything else isn’t a major roadblock in finding a job these days.
What does that have to do with price of tea in China? If a job pays $10 per hour, it pays $10 per hour. One’s wage doesn’t depend on how many kids he has.
I’m sure it depends on where you live and a lot of other factors, such as time of year.
I watched my son (19yo) apply for job after job this spring and summer. Everything from fast food to supermarkets to clothing stores, pretty much everywhere in our area. He didn’t get a single call all summer. He was looking pretty damn hard. Could he have looked harder? Probably, but I felt his frustration, and it certainly wasn’t as easy as the OP makes it sound.
As soon as September hit, he had several calls, an couple of interviews and finally a job offer. Provided he passes background check and drug test, he starts at the new Amazon fulfillment center next month ($13.50 - $14.50 depending on the shift, plus benefits).
I am damn dependable, and I do the work with accuracy and pride. It would never even occur to me to not show up to work without calling in. If I have chores that interfere with work hours, I take hours off, not days, and I make up the time before or later.
But still it was six years until I had a permanent job at entry level wages. And I only got this gig because I had worked at the company for twelve years before I was laid off. And I’ve worked here now for two years. How much of an increase in pay did I get at review time? Ten dollars extra a week, which the state promptly took back in a tax hike.
Maybe workers would be more dependable if they weren’t treated as disposable temp fodder.
