- First things first, I set aside $5 to pay back gas money for a friend who drove me to work last week. I mentally put a little bit of this check in the “saving for a car” fund. I set aside a chunk of this check for rent. I live with my boyfriend John and his parents. John and I help around the house and we pay rent every month. A couple years ago I had my own apartment, but the cost of rent has gone up so much in Durham, and my paychecks are about the same. I know a lot of other friends and workers who are living with family or even in their cars. So it’s not just me who can’t afford to be independent.
Then I go straight to the Dollar Tree and get the necessities: soap, toothbrush, canned food, pads, tampons, hand soap, and a few other things. It takes me a little while to decide whether I want to get my snack that I really like—these crunchy popcorn chips—or do I get soap. I decide I need to wash myself more than I need those chips!
My $215 check is lower than I expected. I thought my hours were going to equal up to a little bit more, but my calculations were wrong. I feel like I’m not progressing—I'm not able to do anything beyond my basic needs. And I know I’m not the only one struggling with these poverty wages.
Let's find out. It'll be FFFFFFFFFFFUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!! For starters, let's figure out what Cierra's making. According to the article, she averages 40 hours a week at $9.50 an hour. Worth noting, that's $2 over the federal minimum wage. Go Cierra! Let's assume she never takes a vacation. She's making a hair under $20k a year. Let's look up poverty rates. Easy to get carried away on that page; turns out there's more kids living in poverty in the United States than there are people living at all in Israel. Hold the phone though because Cierra, as a single person with no dependents, isn't poor at $20k a year. She's fuckin' blown through the poverty line, which for her is $12k a year. McDonald's could cut her ass to $6 an hour and the government still wouldn't consider her poor. Roll that around in your mouth for a minute while we look up a graph. Turns out Cierra makes more than 20 percent of the American workforce. With 157 million American workers, Cierra is doing better than 31 million of them. That's misleading, though, 'cuz kids don't work, the elderly don't work, the homeless don't work. There's 327 million Americans; 48% of them work (yet our "unemployment rate" is 3% - a discussion for another time). So we'll have to get mathy on it again. Looks like Cierra is sitting at sixteenth percentile of Americans - so she's beating 52 million Americans. Fifty two million. There ya go. Wolfram Alpha, always pithy when you need it, says that's somewhere between the population of France and the population of California. A quick perusal of Wikipedia tells me that there are more people at Cierra's income level or below in the United States than there are people in Myanmar. Aren't you glad you asked? "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - not actually Steinbeck Nobody's poor in the United States. Not really. People are "disadvantaged" or "getting back on their feet" or "struggling" but nobody is ever poor, not really. Poor people are those wretches in Southeast Asia we see in old newsreels; poor people are the kids Sally Struthers made us feel bad about. For seventy cents a day, you can feed a child like Jamal nourishing meals. Shit - it probably costs Cierra ten bucks a day to get fed even at McDonald's. Fuckin' oatmeal is $2. Ergo, Cierra isn't poor. One of the side effects of living in a global superpower is that things are tough all over and you can always find someone doing worse than you. Meanwhile everyone's got stories of Calcutta beggars and the kids in Juarez who hold their hands out for candy while here? here we're all working on our "side hustles", not trying to make ends meet. I got picked up by a Lyft driver once. It was a long ride. 45 minutes or so. She was earnest - she had a container full of mints because the Lyft driver Facebook groups told her to. She'd given up her other job (selling cosmetics to her friends) to drive Lyft full time because it was paying the bills great. She was an achiever. She had three kids and they were all great. And she got them up at 5am and dropped them at daycare and drove and was part of a carpool arrangement that got the kids to school and she drove and she was part of another arrangement that got the kids to daycare after school and she picked them up at 7 and they were all great and she made them dinner and put them to bed and the oldest one who was nine had her cell phone number and she went out and drove until 1am and things were great. Her husband cheated on her, you see, and also got laid off by Boeing, which meant that not only did she not get any alimony none of them got any health insurance and then it took eight months for him to find another job and he had to move to California and he got a new job but his health insurance didn't kick in for another month so two weeks into his new job he kicked it from ketoacidosis because he'd been rationing his insulin so he only ever got one paycheck which his mother took and she was left as his next of kin according to the lease he signed so she had to pay for the apartment that had had a dead rotting guy in it for the ten days it took for anyone to figure out he was dead and things were FINE. College-educated white woman in her late '20s. Did everything right. Sure as fuck wasn't poor. After all, look at all the options she had... and she was making it work. The interesting thing about the "Okay, Boomer" movement is it's the first real indication that there's a groundswell of people who are beginning to recognize that the deck is stacked against them and it's not their fault. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. Because you're right. The country is breaking into pieces, people are out with torches and politicians are being eaten alive. The problem is, when you're so goddamn busy earning $9.50 an hour that you don't have time to vote, you're going to listen for the simplest explanation of the problem and the simplest explanation is now has been and shall always be that guy. 'Sokay.How many people in the US live like this?
Every time I read something like this I just don't understand how the US is not breaking into pieces and people are not out with pitchforks, eating politicians alive, instead of their 5$ pizzas.
The dumb thing is we had the problem largely solved. The dumber thing is most every country in the developed world doesn't deal with this stuff. The solutions aren't even hard, they just make the 'boomers cry. 1) Raise taxes on the wealthy. 2) Open Medicare to everyone. I own a business. I pay out more in salary every month than Cierra makes in a year. IN A YEAR. Tomorrow I'm going to go pick up my car and drop two or three of Cierra's monthly wages on a car repair bill. But if Cierra were to attempt to buy health insurance she'd pay more than me on the open market - after all, she's a woman of prime childbearing age with two pre-existing conditions (diabetes & obesity) while I'm a man in my prime. Hold the phone though. I qualify for benefits through my union (which makes me a fuckin' unicorn - I'm one of the 6.4% in a private sector union and of that 6.4%, probably one in five that qualifies for benefits). So I pay - wait for it - fifty bucks a month for my family of three. Cierra, meanwhile: That $400/mo "bronze" coverage? Probably has about an eight thousand dollar deductible. So. If Cierra wants to protect herself against the ravages of diabetes she can spend a hundred dollars a week on insurance that covers sixty percent of her expenses after she's spent eight grand. And no, the premiums do not count towards the deductible. Cierra, who makes $20k a year, is required by American capitalism to spend $13k a year on medical expenses before her plan covers anything. Of course, if Cierra were actually poor - $12k a year, not $20k - she's suddenly on Medicaid and shit becomes free. The system has literally twisted itself in knots to the point where should Cierra get sick, her best move is to stop working at McDonald's. She's actually ahead in this one - her other job is at a hospital! Cierra, under any sort of medical issue, does better by not working. And things are so dumb that were Cierra to wind up at the emergency room, the social workers would have to counsel her through the Red Pill adventure of "honey, it's time to get poor" because if she drops at work because her blood sugar sucks? And she gets an ambulance ride to the ER? She'll be looking at a $40,000 bill. ...which will magically go away the minute she drops below the poverty line. This stuff isn't ACTUALLY hard. We just need the people of the United States to be grabbed by the lapels and shaken and asked "is this what you really want?"
This tax rates graph is insane and probably the best depiction of "how this show went to shit, slowly" I have ever seen. Looking at it, to me the 1960s/70s had a "healthy" taxation. But thats only me looking at numbers and sensing some kind of fairness. But I might be mistaken. I tried comparing the graph to the current german situation but I am not able to find a similar one. The only one I could find that gives similar data is this one: Which looks at the amount of income tax one pays depending on whether they are married (Ehepaar) or single and how much relative to the average income the household earns. It doesn't look like much but I find it hard to compare them really. The highest earners have to pay around 45%, which this also dropped over the years, from 53%. What would you think would be a reasonable taxation scheme to "make it work"=
The battle over tax rates usually begins by picking at "actual" vs. "published" tax rates. Republicans love to point out that corporate taxes are high in the United States so our "actual" tax rate is very high (because obviously we're all corporations or some shit). As Thomas Piketty pointed out, the United States Treasury Department is basically the first organization that has decided to repatriate black market funds aggressively; considering something like a third of the world's economy is off-the-books, that makes the US tax rate theoretically very high. Does the Treasury's repatriation of offshore funds impact Cierra? I'll bet she's never been to Liechtenstein, let alone opened a hedge fund there, so this is a particularly Republican talking point. Not only that you can't really argue that "taxes leveed" and "taxes collected" are the same thing, yet most people do. Here's a decent discussion on taxation in germany. This is ugly: Perhaps the most annoying thing about doing all the research and reading all the books is that you discover that the problems that are described as intractable really are intractable. There are no pithy, simple answers. Fundamentally, rich people have more power to make laws. People who make laws have more power to determine how things are counted, for example, and rich people around the world have done a banner job of changing the metrics so that we measure economic health by "how are rich people doing." If you're rich, hardship touches you less; if you're rich, you have more options in the face of adversity. That adversity can include "poor people wanting to change the rules on you." One way to look at populism is as a shrewd maneuver by the unprincipled wealthy to ensure that the anger of the poor turns on the principled. Investigation finds ‘88% of Tory ads misleading compared to 0% for Labour’
As with most things Vox, it's largely correct but simplistic. At the very, very end it gets to the amount of money left over, rather than it being the principal problem. Their graph of deciles were tax rates, not overall wealth. In the US, the bottom decile makes less than $10,500. The top decile makes more than $184,900. The bottom decile pays an overall tax rate of 27%, the top decile pays an overall tax rate of 29%. So. The bottom decile has $7600 a year to live on while the top decile has $135k. Average cost of living is, of course, a highly contentious number, but let's go with these guys 'cuz we gotta go with sumpin' so... $20,194 per person per year. The bottom decile is a factor of three away from hitting the average cost of living - three people in the bottom decile could roll all their earnings together and one of them can pay the average. The top decile can almost but not quite pay the cost of living for seven people. Let's say we add the cost of living of one American to the taxes of the top two deciles - all of a sudden, the bottom decile can live with dignity and the top decile still has $110k to live off of.
That solution would only work if the lowest decile would magically earn double of that what they earn right now. How would that be done? Lowering their taxes is not going to help much. Increasing the minimum wage would help a little, but no one would double it, or is that feasible? Or a tax financed basic income for everyone that is as high as the average wage of living?
...and I know that more of my money should be going towards Cierra's healthcare. I drive a fucking Porsche (granted, a 20-year-old Schadenporsche, but a Porsche). I own my home. I have a kid in private school. But much like Cierra is beating 52 million Americans, 50 million Americans ARE BEATING ME. And I'm of the opinion that more of THEIR money should be going towards Cierra's healthcare, too. They've got lobbyists. They've got economic interest. But we're still one person one vote here and the time is coming where people aren't willing to spend three quarters of their salary to keep from dying of diabetes. We just need to stop being temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
I played this pretend for a while in Boston. I say pretend, because I had a middle class parents safety net that I eventually returned to, and finished my degree. I don't know what this is like without a safety net. I can only imagine, because it isn't great even with one. I commonly borrowed from the bank of ecib to make rent, and much of my check was spoken for before I got it. Fishing through the sofa and house for a $0.99 7-Eleven hotdog dinner, walking across town at 11pm to get an expired bagel sandwich from my roommate at the coffee shop. There is no fucking way I could have done anything but get trapped in debt working at a Hardware store. I'm a privileged sob.Mondays are paydays at McDonald's. Before I leave for my hospital job, I get my McDonald’s paycheck. It's $215, for 2 weeks of work. I know I will be broke by Wednesday.
My privilege was realizing that (A) I made it through college largely by having a lot of credit cards, which I got because I was at a decent college, which means I established a credit rating early and which means I used revolving credit to get through most stuff and (B) I kept those credit cards from eating me alive by applying the sum total of my meager inheritance from my dead grandparents to them.
Anyone spending four hours a day on a bus in order to make $9.50 an hour is not getting their veggies on the reg. There are some choices at McDonald's that aren't terrible but the poor lady is basically working 80 hours a week in order to get two part-time jobs.Another tragedy and humiliation here is that a diet rich in McDonalds is likely a factor in her diabetes.
That $215 paycheck for two weeks doesn't make sense and worries me. If she works forty hours a week between two jobs, she's probably working at McDonald's about twenty hours a week, which is about average for retail and food. That way they have wiggle room to "ask" you to pick up hours when someone calls off or if things get crazy, but they won't risk getting near mandatory health insurance hours. Anyhow, 9.50 x 20 hours is 190. 190 x 2 weeks is 380. 380 x .75 to factor in taxes taken out is 285. Her check should be in that ballpark, especially if she's working extra hours. Obviously I don't know her schedule, but if she's keeping track of her hours and her check seems off, she might be the victim of wage theft, which sadly, is very common. This is why I always tell people to A) pay attention to their paystubs and B) work at places with systems that allow you to audit your time punches yourself. Not only does it keep pay honest, it's a great way to help you figure out upcoming paychecks in advanced.
I haven't read the article yet (but plan to). I don't think there is a reasonable expectation that fast food wages would go up with tenure. That is an entry level job, designed around a part-time workforce. There's an entire other conversation we could/should have around what a living wage is... but honestly - she's competing for that job with High School kids who live at home, are covered by their parents' health insurance, and eat their parents' food. And please don't mistake my point as some right wing "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ideology. I have tremendous sympathy for this person's situation (just from the snippet I've read).
I agree with what you're saying in regards to competition, certainly don't think you're bootstrapping! But surely that many years in the industry you work your way up the chain to some degree - she apparently left the role initially as she was promoted but not given the pay rise she was promised. So she was doing the right thing and getting shafted regardless - the poor thing. It's just the wages combined with the lack of healthcare and how she works herself off her feet just to keep the lights on. I really can't imagine that life and it's so unsettling knowing people are forced to live like that. If I don't get a payrise in a certain amount of time, I just leave for another role - but that doesn't sound like something she can do in her situation. She's spent years in the industry but wasn't given any training or progression plan to help her in the future.
The issue is that you're not so much talking about a corporate ladder as a corporate stepstool. You go from fry cook to front register to maybe assistant manager and then that needs to be parlayed into something better somewhere else. We're talking about a person who has worked entry-level jobs for fourteen years. Which sucks. No doubt. Steve's argument - which I agree with - is that there needs to be a compassionate plan for people who are never going to rise above entry-level. I mean, yeah - she didn't get promoted to assistant manager in 2015 but that was 10 years into her food service career. For all we know, the past four years she's been the Maitre'd at Spago (but probably not). You're right - it's unsettling knowing people are forced to live like that and there are lots of them, and there are plenty who are doing worse, and we need to do something about it.
MIT Cost of Living calculator for two adults, no kids is $9.53 an hour., "living wage" being calculated from Living wage = Basic needs budget + (basic needs budget*taxrate| And we only know what she's making, not what her boyfriend is making. We know they moved in with his parents for some reason. We know she lost her car. We know she's diabetic. And she's making 3 cents less per hour than what MIT considers the bare minimum. What you're illustrating is the basic conservative/liberal divide: a conservative would argue she needs a job closer to her home, that she needs to negotiate her pay better, etc. A liberal would argue that live needs to not suck for those people who lack the skills to negotiate a better paycheck or find a better job. Let's be honest: she's been working food service jobs for fifteen years. There's a failure to thrive here that a compassionate society works with, rather than punishes. Thee or me? Yeah, we'd find a smart way out of that situation and things would suck less. But your average conservative doesn't understand that when life starts sucking for the people who don't know the ropes, they start voting for Trump.\Basic needs budget = Food cost childcare cost (insurance premiums health care costs) housing cost transportation cost other necessities cost
I don't know what upsets me more. Those tax rates or that wage theft is so common that I automatically jump to that as the cause instead of assume higher tax rates. Edit: I see that part of my problem is assuming she's working more hours. My math involves an assumption of twenty steady hours a week, not fifteen and change.
The tax rates aren't even that bad - she's losing 17% of her salary to taxes. The Feds are going to give their income tax back, don't you worry, she's poor; that's about $18 per paycheck. The shitty part is working 27 hours a week (and probably spending 12 hours on the bus) in order to take home $215. What's shittier is that the job she does? It probably makes sense to McDonald's to pay her $9.50 an hour to do it but it doesn't to pay her $15. Up here? Up here you make $15 for working at McDonald's and they employ four people per shift. There's one on the drive through, there's one on the register, there's one cooking, and there's one doing everything else and the rest is robots and kiosks. Let's assume for the sake of argument that she has no viable skills. She's got diabetes. And she's one pay hike away from being roboticized out of a job. How do we solve a problem like Cierra? THAT is what is going to tear the future apart.
From the article. Which is where I'm getting my concern from, because fifteen hours a week doesn't sound right. That's either only two full shifts or three part time shifts and unless someone is pinned, that's not a lot. As weird as it sounds, an extra five hours and change makes a huge difference. Not trying to argue, just explaining my reasoning behind my math in the original comment. THAT is what is going to tear the future apart. I really don't mean to be dark, but through ignorance, apathy, and cultural inertia we live in a world where a lot of nasty stuff is going on that I don't even want to say out loud. But we got kids these days fighting for the environment, we got people waking up to the ills of big business, we're holding people responsible for the opioid crisis, we have a collective weariness against war, we have a collective weariness about women and minorities being treated poorly, on and on I could go. I mean, things are really dark right now, but things are also really good, and maybe we're at the point where society is ready to pay attention to its shortness of breath, the ballooning numbers on the bathroom scale, and that pervasive back pain that won't go away and not only go to the doctors, but actually start taking their advice. Yeah, giving up cigarettes is hard, dieting is no fun, and exercise isn't always an adventure, but it beats the alternative. Ten years ago, if I told people I was cutting back on meat, all but swearing off synthetic fabrics, and refusing to do business with companies like Disney and Amazon, they'd think I was just plain weird. Now when I talk to people about those kinds of things, either they're on board and do similar things, or they think I'm weird but at least understand where I'm coming from. That's progress. Are we all pretty screwed? Yes. Are we probably more screwed than we were ten years ago? Probably also yes. Am I more hopeful that things are starting to change now, though? A hundred times.It's $215, for 2 weeks of work.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that she has no viable skills. She's got diabetes. And she's one pay hike away from being roboticized out of a job. How do we solve a problem like Cierra?
Fuck, you're right. Looks to me like she's working Saturdays and Sundays at McDonald's, which is probably two 7.5 hour shifts per week (until they make her stay until 11, at which point whee an extra four hours of work but also shit, how am I going to get home when an Uber is half of that money right there). I am 100% on board with all of these things. The problem is, not everyone is. And between Greta Thunberg becoming a celebrity and Trump withdrawing the US from the Kyoto Protocol, there's some battles ahead. And they're fucking existential. There's people riding the bus 4 hours a day for $9.50 an hour so they can buy their insulin and there's people who think they aren't applying themselves and there's people who don't fucking care all they know is that a crisis model of healthcare is the most expensive paradigm you can subscribe to and we all have to live on the same planet.From the article. Which is where I'm getting my concern from, because fifteen hours a week doesn't sound right.
I really don't mean to be dark...
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee isn't structural unemployment so much fun where's that article you posted way, way back about workforce retraining
Joke's on you I'm pretty sure it's a McKinsey Report... Okay I looked, what I was thinking of was keifermiller's post to a Bain study: You might be thinking of this:
Thank. Fucking. God. That wasn’t a McKinsey report, that would have been a great way of getting me to write 500 words of pure unadulterated hatred. The Bain study is exactly what I was looking for, need to reread that with current context. Thanks!