The Fries with that economy

[InRareForm]

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/the-fries-with-that-economy/

[boutons_deux]

Unionizing the Bottom of the Pay Scale


More than two million workers toil in food preparation jobs at limited-service restaurants like McDonald’s, according to government statistics. They are the lowest-paid workers in the country, government figures show, typically earning $8.69 an hour. A study by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning research organization, concluded that almost three-quarters of them live in poverty. And they are unlikely to have ever contemplated joining a union.

On a full-time schedule, they could make a little over $18,000 a year, just about enough to keep a family of two parents and one child at the threshold of poverty. But full-time work is hard to come by. With fast-food restaurants increasingly using scheduling software to adjust staffing levels, workers can no longer count on a steady stream of work. Their hours can be cut sharply from one week to the next based on the business outlook or even the weather.

Orley Ashenfelter, a labor economist at Princeton, published a study earlier this year that captured the plight of workers under the Golden Arches in a novel way: measuring pay by the burgers a worker could buy for an hour of work, he calculated that the real wages of McDonald’s workers in the United States earn about 2.2 Big Macs an hour last year. That’s 15 percent less than in 2000.

But this argument overlooks the fact that the McJob is hardly a niche of the labor market reserved for the uneducated few. Rather, it might be the biggest job of our future.

The American labor market has been hollowing out for decades — losing many of the middle-skilled, relatively well-paid jobs in manufacturing that can be performed more cheaply by machines or workers overseas. It has split between a high end of well-educated workers, and a low end of less-educated workers performing jobs, mostly in the service sector, that cannot be outsourced or mechanized.

This process is not expected to reverse any time soon. According to government statistics, personal care aides will make up the fastest-growing occupation this decade. The Economic Policy Institute study found that some 57 percent of them live in poverty.

Fewer than 7 percent of workers in the private sector are in a union. We have the largest share of low-paid jobs in the industrial world, amounting to almost one in four full-time workers, according to the International Labor Organization.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/business/unionizing-at-the-low-end-of-the-pay-scale.html?ref=fastfoodindustry&_r=0

America The Beautiful where social/economic Darwinism fucks over 10Ms of people.

[velik_m]

Shitty jobs are recession-proof.

[baseline bum]

At least one campaign promise Obama has kept

-PFY-Zm8j0E

[Wild Cobra]

Why are people who can only find minimum wage jobs having children?

How irresponsible...

[RandomGuy]

The historical response to declining demand for less-skilled workers is for workers to accumulate skills that are valued in the labor market, both now and in the future. This explains, in part, why college enrollment rates have been steadily increasing over the last fifty years. In fact, the return to attending college has never been higher. However, these educational investments take place over a long period of time. Therefore, we do not expect to see the low employment-to-population rates for prime-age workers with less than a 4 year degree to revert back to 2007 levels anytime soon. The consequences of these reduced employment opportunities for millions of less-skilled workers will likely reverberate beyond the labor market and affect both the marriage market as well as the educational attainment of a generation of children who may face reduced economic opportunities as a result of economic decline experienced by their parents.


edit:
Got link from TB.


http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3999422-kerwin-charles-erik-hurst-and-matt-notowidigdo-on-the-u-s-labor-marke

[TeyshaBlue]

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3999422-kerwin-charles-erik-hurst-and-matt-notowidigdo-on-the-u-s-labor-marke

[RandomGuy]

Big quesion:


Which sucks more fast food work, or working at Walmart?

Alternately:

Which has a lower social status, fast food work or Walmart?


I would guess they both pay similarly, although fast food probably pays better than Walmart, which has recently had its service go in the toilet nationwide.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3999422-kerwin-charles-erik-hurst-and-matt-notowidigdo-on-the-u-s-labor-marke

TB with the goods. Thanks for the link.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol...I was just reading that yesterday.

[Drachen]

Big quesion:


Which sucks more fast food work, or working at Walmart?

Alternately:

Which has a lower social status, fast food work or Walmart?


I would guess they both pay similarly, although fast food probably pays better than Walmart, which has recently had its service go in the toilet nationwide.

what about the McDonalds IN the walmart?

[TeyshaBlue]

what about the McDonalds IN the walmart?

profit!

[boutons_deux]

what about the McDonalds IN the walmart?

location, location, location!

how do you think "Walmart People" stay so lean and fit?

[TeyshaBlue]

location, location, location!

how do you think "Walmart People" stay so lean and fit?

:lol

[Drachen]

location, location, location!

how do you think "Walmart People" stay so lean and fit?

See, this is why I don't put anyone on ignore. I laughed.

[TeyshaBlue]

Did Drachen just post something?

[boutons_deux]

Walmart is an easy target for criticism. It’s a classic corporate welfare queen pretending to be the face of capitalism. It is the top driver in the increasing use of food stamps. Per a workforce study quoted in Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net#):

Wal-Mart’s poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store.

In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid.

As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps.


It plays communities off against one another to get subsidies for new stores, when the primary beneficiaries are the local (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/has-walmart-been-engaging-in-large-scale-accounting-fraud.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29#) builders. Walmart is a wage reducer and business destroyer, so it’s hard to see how (once construction is completed) that it is a net plus to a community, unless it sucks revenues away from businesses in neighboring towns.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/has-walmart-been-engaging-in-large-scale-accounting-fraud.html#84RJu0V50PmKimTz.99


Yes, taxpayers actually pay, complement Walmart workers shitty paychecks.

[Ginobilly]

I see a lot of wanna be thugs in San Antonio doing better than most college and recent grads. They're working shitty ass fast food jobs and have pregnant girlfriends on welfare. But what they don't tell you that some of these dudes make tax-free money selling reggie and dro under the table, construction side jobs, taking care of dogs/old peole,etc. You could very easy come up with 50-100 extra thousand dollars on the side if you aren't lazy. You can't expect to wait for the private and gov sector to provide you with a job, sometimes you have to take the matter in your own hands and do something!

[Ginobilly]

If the 1% could evade 32 trillion dollars of untaxed money, why can't poorer people do it to??? No mas quiren chingar y cuando se los vienen a chingar a ellos, they flee like the little fuckin greedy bitches that they are.

[Drachen]

Did Drachen just post something?

Felt that fire breathing down your neck, eh?

[boutons_deux]

If the 1% could evade 32 trillion dollars of untaxed money, why can't poorer people do it to??? No mas quiren chingar y cuando se los vienen a chingar a ellos, they flee like the little fuckin greedy bitches that they are.

you dumbfuck ignorant right-wing asshole (sorry about the redundancy)

poor people don't have $$$ to pay $10Ks to high-priced tax lawyers/accountants to hide away they money the poor doesn't have. Even middle class in typically indebted and don't have the excess wealth to hide overseas.

[Drachen]

Bouton does not compute. Does not compute..... Daisy..... Dai.....sy.....

You are an idiot. He was saying that the poor shouldn't be demonized for not reporting all of their income since the rich get away with all the shit that they do

[TeyshaBlue]

That's not what thinkprogress told him!:madrun

[Drachen]

That's not what thinkprogress told him!:madrun

He has a busy day of being an idiot planned.

Reading comprehension?

http://www.sugarbang.com/storage/sweetbrown_autotune.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION =1353134785143

[Ginobilly]

you dumbfuck ignorant right-wing asshole (sorry about the redundancy)

poor people don't have $$$ to pay $10Ks to high-priced tax lawyers/accountants to hide away they money the poor doesn't have. Even middle class in typically indebted and don't have the excess wealth to hide overseas.

I know that, but that was not the point I was trying to make. If it's ethical for the rich to that, then it should okay for people in the U.S. to quickly rise through the ranks of social classes through "illegal" means. If their doing it, then everybody else should get to do it to. It's only fair!

PS
College is one big scam! If you don't get good grades or a degree that is on demand, then you wasted your time on liberal arts shit. Learn some live skills instead: skilled trades, agriculture,etc. Grow some weed to screw the Gov and big pharma! Start your own illegal companies like illegals and make tax free money. Everything is going to shit anyways! They fucked you and keep on fucking you, so fuck them back by screwing the system. I don't worry! I'm ready for chingasos if that's what comes down too. The U.S. and Mexican gov need a reboot bad!

[boutons_deux]

"If it's ethical for the rich to that, then it should okay for people in the U.S. to quickly rise through the ranks of social classes through "illegal" means."

superb logic, ignoring the fact that the "justice" system works against the poor caught being illegal and for the 1%.

[Spurminator]

Why are people who can only find minimum wage jobs having children?

How irresponsible...


Minimum wage should be enough to support a family.

[Ginobilly]

"If it's ethical for the rich to that, then it should okay for people in the U.S. to quickly rise through the ranks of social classes through "illegal" means."

superb logic, ignoring the fact that the "justice" system works against the poor caught being illegal and for the 1%.




I'm not ignoring the fact that the justice system works against the poor, but when enough are no longer agreeing with the way the system works, then it's time for a change.
I wish we could get rid of all the welfare moochers, corrupt corporations, etc. It not really a fair system if you think about it. We can't really 'create' our own wealth like the corporations because it is illegal for us, and the all the red tape they put in front of you. The only way to get money is to work for them, then you can pay your bills. But when there is no jobs or just shitty jobs, how the fuck do they expect you to live?? We need more liberty!!

[Ginobilly]

Minimum wage should be enough to support a family.


People on minimum wage are human too and want to be loved and have the same desires to procreate just like everybody else. Going by the logic of some you bigots, so then our ancestors shouldn't of had kids when they lived through the great depression or bad times because they they are "irresponsible". Then all of us wouldn't of been here! Humans need to have kids in good times and in bad because it's part of the human condition.

[Wild Cobra]

Minimum wage should be enough to support a family.
Since when?

Minimum wage jobs are the jobs that kids in HS used to take as first jobs.

[TeyshaBlue]

Since when?

Minimum wage jobs are the jobs that kids in HS used to take as first jobs.

That's ridiculous.

[Spurminator]

Since when?

Minimum wage jobs are the jobs that kids in HS used to take as first jobs.

Times have changed. We have decided that we are okay with a system of corporatization that shrinks the pool of business owners, and within those businesses the only real job growth is at the lowest levels.

Since this is the system we want, anyone who is willing to work full time at any job should be able to afford something as basic to the human experience as having a family. It's inhumane to dictate otherwise.

[Wild Cobra]

Times have changed. We have decided that we are okay with a system of corporatization that shrinks the pool of business owners, and within those businesses the only real job growth is at the lowest levels.

Since this is the system we want, anyone who is willing to work full time at any job should be able to afford something as basic to the human experience as having a family. It's inhumane to dictate otherwise.
Supply and demand. Want to increase the wages of jobs, reduce the workforce. Get rid of illegal immigration.

[boutons_deux]

"We have decided that we are okay with a system of corporatization"

"Since this is the system we want"

Speak for yourself! :)

Nobody asked me.

Did anybody else get asked?

[Spurminator]

Supply and demand. Want to increase the wages of jobs, reduce the workforce. Get rid of illegal immigration.

So let's figure that out first. Seems like more of a priority than deciding who's worthy of procreation.

[Spurminator]

"We have decided that we are okay with a system of corporatization"

"Since this is the system we want"

Speak for yourself! :)

Nobody asked me.

Did anybody else get asked?



You're asked when you vote.