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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How I Get By: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

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.





user-inactivated  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It's $215, for 2 weeks of work.

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.

    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.

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.

kleinbl00  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    From the article. Which is where I'm getting my concern from, because fifteen hours a week doesn't sound right.

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 really don't mean to be dark...

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.

ButterflyEffect  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·  

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee isn't structural unemployment so much fun

where's that article you posted way, way back about workforce retraining

kleinbl00  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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:

ButterflyEffect  ·  1569 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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!