The concept that entry-level food service is mostly staffed by high-schoolers who don't really "need" the money is the weirdest trope. Basically every restaurant is open during school hours. Who is handling the lunch rush?
Also, most places serve alcohol and teens can't serve.
Considering how profitable alcohol is, I wonder if that regulation isn't a major factor in hiring under 21s.
obviously highschoolers are not filling 100% of entry-level food service jobs, but they make up a pretty good chunk of these workers along with some college kids. it's a good option for someone who has literally no work experience.
Someone can recognize the status quo and yet believe that the needs it creates ought to be changed. There was a time younger children needed jobs to. The reason they did was largely because the fact that they could be employed drove down wages for adult workers. One who said children didn’t need jobs at that time would be wrong, probably from privilege – children in working class families needed jobs. But they also shouldn’t have had them, and them as a class not having them also eliminated the need.
With teenagers the situation may not be precisely the same, but the divergence between perceiving what is needed now and what should be is the same.
On the other hand, I notice people who didn't have to work as kids and went straight into college and respectable white collar jobs usually have absolutely no idea how the rest of their fellow citizens actually work and live, so I'm thankful for the perspective.
The counter-examples I can think of involved drugs or health issues.
How do you feel about college students working part time during their studies?
Does that restaurant pay incoming career food service staff a wage sufficient to raise a family on?
A solid third of the households in the US take in under 50k/yr. More than half that are under 25k. I don't know about you, but 37k doesn't go far.
Assuming 30% effective tax rate that's 2158/mo.
1 bed flat in my city $1400
Cell phone bill: $100
Home internet: $100
Electricity: $50
Heating: $50
Healthcare: $230* assuming 50% sponsored
Car payment: $400
Insurance: $130
Without including food, dental insurance, deductible, OOP limits, retirement contributions, emergency savings, and anything at all for pleasure I've exceeded my budget. So, please, tell me more about how that's a good wage. How can someone go about improving ones position in life if they're kicked into a world that they'll never be able to afford? Should I go to college as an adult and get into eye watering levels of debt that'll follow me out of bankruptcy to keep bussing tables, like all the people that do just that? How can I juggle my full time job, side hustles at uber and lift (to keep the lights on), and a full course load? There are structural problems in society that no amount of blaming poor peoples bad decisions can wave away. Simple fact is some people with very large waists are going to have to tighten their belts so the millions of Americans whose only mistake was being born poor can have half of a fair chance at success and lead a modest yet dignified existence. There's no incentive for any halfway intelligent poor person to go to college unless they're a glutton for punishment, have a strong $upport network, and massive appetite for risk.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...
It's sad to say, but the pandemic was lifechanging for me. With the unemployment benefits I received, I was able to save up some money and had time for myself to start thinking about what I needed to do before the money disappeared into rent. I applied for the local community college and trying to get financial aid here in California, and if it works out, I'll "only" pay like $3.5k for each of the two years. If they don't give me financial aid, it's time to give up lol. I wouldn't have been able to afford even entertaining this idea before, because all the money disappears into living expenses. The pandemic saved me...the only way for someone like me to get a higher education, is for a global pandemic to happen at 24 years old haha.
Rent- get a roommate or rent a room instead of a one bedroom flat. Rent is reduced from $1400.
Use a prepaid phone plan to reduce from $100.
Use a slower speed or share internet to reduce from $100.
Motorcycle or cheaper car to reduce from $530.
These aren’t impossible problems and are things that are really common to deal with. I worked with people in Manhattan who slept three to a bed. That obviously sucks but assuming that every single person should have a one bedroom flat with their own car and luxury internet and phone is not as good an assumption that people will adjust their spending.
>Rent- get a roommate or rent a room instead of a one bedroom flat. Rent is reduced from $1400.
While that is an option, it is not reasonable to make that assertion for the millions of people struggling without adequate housing. How can you tell people, with a straight face, that have been sexually assaulted, robbed, or battered by previous roommates that they should continue to put themselves at risk because they can't afford the market rate for a 1br apartment? Many people that are housing insecure face discrimination in their searches as well. Landlords have countless incentives and ways to refuse renting to people who they perceive as poor. Credit checks, wage statements, large cash deposits. Then there's everything they can learn during a showing. How do they dress, are they wearing Wal-Mart clothes or Patagonia? Did they bring their same sex partner? Are they BIPOC? Do they have a nice car or no car? Is everything they own in their car? I think that I've said enough to make this point but I can continue if you want.
>Use a prepaid phone plan to reduce from $100.
Phones are still several hundred dollars, and are effectively disposable items. In conversations about poor people we cannot assume they can afford to put up several hundred dollars for a used phone. $100 might be on the high end, but I am thinking more about the amortized all-in costs of phones. Stuff like cases, chargers, screen protectors, that often get sold to people at stores under high pressure sales tactics. We also need to consider access. If someone just broke their phone and need a new one ASAP or they'll lose their job they are at the mercy of what's available to them at that moment. They may not be able to shop around or know how to do a price comparison between providers. They may get coerced into signing expensive multi year contracts by dishonest sales reps of which the total cost is not apparent for weeks.
>Use a slower speed or share internet to reduce from $100.
That's not always an option. For years, the cheapest non-dsl, option available to me was cable internet, for over $100/mo without a contact. For people with housing insecurity signing multi year contracts is scary because they have no reason to believe they will live in the same place for that long.
>Motorcycle or cheaper car to reduce from $530.
Motorcycles are not a rational option for virtually everyone. They're unsafe, and at greater risk of being stolen in the areas poor people are congregated. I'm not saying the car payment is $400, but ones either paying more upfront for a reliable vehicle or on the back end in repairs. If one gets burned enough by scam repair shops and used car sales people they'll inevitably look to cars with manufacturer warranties. Poor areas have more sketchy repair shops and high pressure used car sales lots that straddle people with high interest car payments, even if they qualify for great rates.
>These aren’t impossible problems and are things that are really common to deal with. I worked with people in Manhattan who slept three to a bed. That obviously sucks but assuming that every single person should have a one bedroom flat with their own car and luxury internet and phone is not as good an assumption that people will adjust their spending.
I think you're making wide assumptions that are not reflective of the reality poor people face. It is callous to assume that poor people have the same ability and education to know how to navigate things like loans, auto repair, comparison shopping, house hunting, etc while they're possibly homeless and probably working in excess of 40 hour weeks barely scraping by. This is my lived experience, I've seen too many families that do everything right get absolutely crushed into homelessness because the company the worked for blew up, they got scammed, or were disabled by a workplace accident. These conversations are overly reductive when we cannot focus on the specific contexts under which people fall out of 'normal' society into homelessness or near homelessness. Without this context we cannot have reasoned discussions about the factors that lead to homelessness and prevent people from escaping.
I’m talking about my lived experience here and find it odd how you’re finding rare, negative edge cases that don’t disprove my point.
I’m not saying that every single person can get internet for less than $100. I’m saying it’s unreasonable to assume $100 for budgeting purposes. In the rare situation where the only option for internet is $100 and one must have internet the systemic solution isn’t to pay the person an extra $100, the solution is to reduce the cost of internet. Rewarding the exploitative company charging $100/month only makes things worse within the system.
Similarly with phones. $100/month or $1200/year is a poor assumption for someone who needs their salary to go towards more important things. In 2019 I bought a new iPhone6 from Walmart for $100 with a no contract prepaid mobile plan for $20/month. Annualized costs of only $340. I cracked and scratched the screen but if I had had to replace it I would have spent an additional $100.
For “normal” society and to understand people’s experiences I think it’s valuable to model what is typical and then use that as a baseline to plan protection for edge cases. In my head I’m thinking “What should we plan to fix this?” Planning and modeling with assumptions that edge cases are most common means that our mean values will be way off and we’ll have wasted resources.
I’ve seen too many families that waste $180 on phone plans every month because they don’t know there’s a better way, corporations market expensive plans more heavily, and conventional wisdom reinforces that this is routine and acceptable.
If I’m only netting $2k/month and I’m spending $100/month on a phone, that is a problem with me that I can easily fix. If society is trying to get me to buy a new phone every year and have an expensive plan, that’s hard to struggle against and overcome. The solution isn’t to reinforce bad decisions, but to help.
I'm not assuming this of people, but that's quite an extreme projection you're making... Rather I'm stating that telling people to find roommates or rent a room is generally bad advice, if they're not first time renters then it is reasonable to assume they have valid reasons, that should be respected at face value, to not live in communal environments. Modeling the cost of living around communal living environments is ignoring the reality of how people want to live on a fundamental level. What people freely choose to do is different than what people with only bad options do. Communal environments are notorious for the factors I mentioned above, and many people refuse to deal with that, at great cost to themselves.
>find it odd how you’re finding rare, negative edge cases that don’t disprove my point.
My point is that 37k is insufficient for a single person to live independently in many, many, cities. 74k is also insufficient to raise a family, hence the growing movement of child free people.. Snide paternalistic advice like get roommates, get a cheaper phone/car/internet/etc is insulting and blaming the poor for being being poor. If you'd like to give free financial advice, and are qualified too do so, I can get you in touch with an organization offering these services in your community. If not, your arguments come across as made in bad faith. I've given you reasons why these common pieces of advice aren't always helpful, in good faith.
>I’m not saying that every single person can get internet for less than $100. I’m saying it’s unreasonable to assume $100 for budgeting purposes. In the rare situation where the only option for internet is $100 and one must have internet the systemic solution isn’t to pay the person an extra $100, the solution is to reduce the cost of internet. Rewarding the exploitative company charging $100/month only makes things worse within the system.
Okay, but hypothetical person needs internet today and telling them they shouldn't be paid more because the government should instead make internet cheaper is, absurd. It does nothing to help them and marginalizes their problem. If the government can't regulate ISPs like utilities what reason do poor people have to expect relief in the form of government aid? Just. Pay. People. More. 44% of households spend 100 and less per month on cable internet[] which in many places is the only option outside of dsl.
>Similarly with phones. $100/month or $1200/year is a poor assumption for someone who needs their salary to go towards more important things. In 2019 I bought a new iPhone6 from Walmart for $100 with a no contract prepaid mobile plan for $20/month. Annualized costs of only $340. I cracked and scratched the screen but if I had had to replace it I would have spent an additional $100.
That's great. But we can't assume people made a bad choice to lock themselves into an expensive phone contract, rather we should give them the benefit of the doubt and recognize that most people are not paid enough to live a dignified existence. What is someone who lost their job to do about their contract? What was affordable yesterday may not be tomorrow. This type precarity makes people act rashly.[0] I'm really trying to focus on the types of situations that poor people find themselves in, not the nuances of their budget. $100 less on internet and cell isn't world changing.
>For “normal” society and to understand people’s experiences I think it’s valuable to model what is typical and then use that as a baseline to plan protection for edge cases. In my head I’m thinking “What should we plan to fix this?” Planning and modeling with assumptions that edge cases are most common means that our mean values will be way off and we’ll have wasted resources.
We are already wasting resources everywhere. We should plan to fix expensive housing, healthcare, transportation, telecommunications. there's no political will from establishment politicians. In the mean time let's have some humanity and help people instead of just talking about it and sending out the occasional pittance.
[...your other comments about how much people should spend on phones here]
*You're way to focused on the phones. The point is everyone is an edge case somehow. Planning for averages forces more people to run into more edge cases. Say hypothetical person is now paying $50 for internet and $50 for their cell a month. What say you now?*
[] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034487/united-states-mo...
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5422783/
Tldr:
You're not putting yourself in the shoes, nor the mindset of a poor person. Try to do that. When the next meal, or bed is uncertain thinking rationally is hard. It's easy to point at a hypothetical budget and say you can do better. It's another thing to walk in the shoes of someone who's not as intelligent, gifted, connected, wealthy, or whatever as you.
I think spending $340/year on a decent phone is pretty dignified. I think it’s comical to assume that dignity requires $1200/year in phone service.
I’ve lived in poverty, I’ve worked and fought against extreme poverty and I’m not sure your basis of reality. Poor people live in group settings. I’m not sure what advice you would give to help them as me saying “get a roommate” and you saying “$37k is not livable” have very different levels of usefulness.
I used a lot of help when poor (and still do now) and the most frustrating part was people who expressed their sympathy but did nothing to help me. I didn’t want empathy, I wanted food and safety. Of course I’d rather have both empathy and food, but if I have to choose one, you know what I and most will choose.
$18/hr being "great" was meant to compare to what I hear people tend to make in that position, not that it is objectively great as a living wage for a family.
My post was a little twist-and-turn - I was thinking about two related things, one being the tactical issue of wages in food service, and the other macro issue about the fact that this country has enough wealth in it for everyone to be well taken care of.
$400 is way too high for a car payment. You can get a great used compact for $10k. With decent credit that’ll run you $150/month.
$100 is way too high for home Internet. I pay $40/month for 100 mbps, which is more than enough for five decides to stream simultaneously.
$1400 is too high. A low earner should be saving money by getting a roommate. I can easily find rooms for rent in my medium COL metro for $700/month. Heck, I can find one bedroom houses for sale where the PITA mortgage is well below $1400.
It's either pay that or get DSL in many places in the US.
And if you include health insurance--which in other countries is provided for and paid for with taxes--then it goes up. A lot.
OP explicitly broke out health insurance as a separate line item.
If I were low income, I could get a plan for as little as $15 to $25/month.
It's most likely because somebody in the area is paying more and/or offering a better job.
Is it really $37k, or is it an $18/hr job? That is, are they offering $18/hr for 40 guaranteed hours a week for 52 weeks, or is it just a few hours a day during the dinner rush (unless they send me home early because of a light evening)? Can they tell me today what hours I will be working 2 weeks from now, or do they usually disclose the schedule a day or two in advance? Are there any benefits? In other words, is it a typical restaurant job?
I personally would prefer (say) $16/hr with a guaranteed 40 hours and predictable schedule to a typical restaurant job. Now that big employers like Target, Amazon, etc. are in the $16 range, they may offer jobs that pay a lower hourly rate but are more compelling overall. (The Amazon warehouse in Fort Worth is paying nearly $18 and they have nonzero benefits and are unlikely to run out of hours.)
If we continue to encourage an economic system through policy that is satisfied with labor making wages that provides a dystopian poverty level of life quality, it will take longer to arrive post scarcity. Economic incentives matter!
And that won't last forever.
Maybe it's because it offers no meaningful health insurance, is most likely not full-time (such a job rarely is), and has little long-term promise.
So that's something.
There are millions of people who are eligible for Medicaid but can't receive it because their states never expanded Medicaid under the ACA, and there are even more people who cannot afford health insurance, but aren't eligible for Medicaid.
"$100 in 1980 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $321.45 today, an increase of $221.45 over 41 years" - Source:https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980 This is a 68.89% decrease in spending power.
For comparison, the minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10, and minimum wage today is $7.25, and increase of 233.87%.
By rights the minimum wage should be able to keep up, with that big of a disparity. The problem is that purchasing power figure takes into account an average over all things. The ten cheapest cars in 1980 all had a base price under $5k (source: https://blog.consumerguide.com/cheapest-american-cars-1980/). Then ten cheapest cars in 2020 were, other than 1 exception, all below $17k (source: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g29414710/10-cheapest-...). That's a decrease in spending power for cars of ~70%.
For median family single home in 1980, $55k. In 2020, $300k. (source: https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/). A decrease in spending power of 86%.
The majority of the US is facing a huge discrepancy in the decrease of spending power amongst big ticket items, the increasing lease-economy, and unprecedented debt. There is also a sense of entitlement at avoid certain menial jobs in some. As a result a $7.25 minimum wage is not going to cut it, as that's only $14.5k per year, well below the poverty line of $26.2k for a 4 person household (2020). Double it to $15k/hr and you still are just barely above the poverty line, forcing both parents to work full time, or one parent to work two jobs.
Inflation-adjusted monthly mortgage payments (the actual price that matters when it comes to housing) has actually gone down since 1989. This is on top of houses getting bigger.
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/03/what-if-housing-pri...
Most "pizza places" will not hire someone full-time. They want part time employees so that they do not have to deal with benefits.
Now, the intelligent thing to do as a nation would be to offload those benefits to the government so that companies would be free of the extra work AND employees would be free to move to better jobs... but America is not the land of the smart.
They want part time employees because it offers scheduling flexibility. If all you have is full time workers and someone calls out sick, you're short a person. If you have mostly part time workers, you can call everyone not scheduled that day to see if they can come in. Office jobs don't really have this because it's typically not critical that the employee is there.
In your rush to defend the actions of asshole bosses, you miss an important part: people who are trying to make a living with part time jobs are going to get another part time job. Not only are those people NOT more flexible than full time employees, but half the time they are less available than full time workers because they are stuck on a treadmill where not being at both jobs equals a loss in hours for the next week. There are tons of full time hourly employees who will JUMP at overtime.
Where in Texas? On average for the state, that's only a living wage for a single person with no kids. https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/48
I saw a post recently that said something like "We watch Star Trek and marvel at their post-scarcity world. We are living in a post-scarcity world now, but all the benefits are being funneled by wage slaves up to the 0.1%."
Paraphrased.
I was talking with a friend who mentioned that a local pizza place is offering *$18/hr* for bussers at the restaurant. To me, that is a great wage for someone to wipe down tables and sweep floors. If they're still having trouble filling that, is it because making $37k a year in Texas isn't good enough for a no-education, no-experience job? Is it because the high-schoolers who would normally do that aren't looking for jobs due to pandemic? Is it the unemployment security and not having to actually do work 40 hours a week?
I wonder if the roles of people at restaurants will have to shift, so each person does some of everything, and get paid more, instead of having dedicated low-wage cleaners. Or that profit-sharing and healthcare may be the new model for restaurants.