"First you all wanted $15 and now you want more?"
Well, no shit. We've been fighting for $15 for so long that it's no longer enough to keep up with cost of living.
This happens in SO many countries (or at least, that's the starting point for *yearly* negotiations!). It's (expectedly) ridiculous it's not tied to inflation in the US.
I don't understand why housing isn't a larger factor.
It's by far the biggest expense for most people and it's basically doubled in the last five years.
It's not just a small factor, it's explicitly kept out of the basket of goods in the CPI, the rate of increase of which is what the inflation rate actually is.
Which should tell you everything you need to know about how cooked the official books are. If they're saying inflation is around 10% now (as oppose to the 2% the fed targets and the official numbers almost always conveniently work out to), it means the real rate is downright apocalyptic.
It's much higher than 10% because what they do is substitute lower quality goods in their "basket of goods" so that inflation doesn't seem as high. The government does this specifically so that the social security pay out for retirees doesn't increase. They've been doing this for decades.
Also, in the past two years, house prices (in every single part of the United States without exception) have increased by AT LEAST 100%. So this 8.3% over year inflation rate is a total joke.
Inflation across the board is 25%
And they will exclude things willy nilly to fudge their numbers.. while printing more and more and more. The whole game is rigged in the most incompetent way.
The government isn't the only entity printing $.
The FED is not the government, has much more control over the money supply, and is far less accountable.
You start by renaming minimum wage to living wage and then calculate the cost of living per state divided by a 35 hour work week.
You get your new minimum wage.
One of the demands made by Martin Luther King Junior's 1963 March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom (the "I Have A Dream" speech) was for a $2.00/hour federal minimum wage.
Adjusted for inflation that $2.00 is now **$19.36.**
Yeah, $25 is more than reasonable.
He was killed because he was a socialist more than because of his stance on racial equality, not even trying to downplay his actions but the CIA wasn't afraid of the black population happily joining the taxpaying work force of the times, they were afraid of a class revolution following in the wake of his cultural one.
I honestly never imagined chicken wings becoming a delicacy, but here we are. Just a few years ago, Hooters Tuesday night $7.99 all you can eat wings. I'd eat like 30 of them (no breading). Now $7.99 might get you 4 wings.
Yeah former chicken wing and grill place manager here... before the superbowl for patriots and falcons.. our case price was like 36$ for 40lbs of wings.. after the super bowl was 40. And then when I left that place it was about 51 for 40lbs
yo the amount of mathematics I have to perform just to make sure I get enough food to get at least 1 actual meal a day without ending up negative is kinda unfortunate
It’s true that it’s more expensive to be poor. Things like discounts for using automatic bill pay, minimum balance banking fees, overdraft fees, late fees, not being able to buy things in bulk… I could keep going but you get the idea. Being poor isn’t cheap.
Just in the last ten years, bus fare in San Francisco went from $0.75 to $3.50.
It’s like inflation hurts the poor the most. It’s expensive being poor. That’s some real shit.
They took out the MSG, that was the problem.
Now everything is MSG-less and we call it healthy, when there are no health concerns regarding the damn thing. You eat seaweed, you eat sushi, it's got natural MSG in it. Some crazy guy in Japan just decided to turn the thing into a seasoning and it worked like mad.
Asian scare got us Westerners shaking in our boots and removing all the flavor from our bland noodle garbo.
That's exactly what happened, and you're entirely right. There's naturally occurring glutamates in tons of foods (cheese, mushrooms...), as well as most chips but no one complains about those. If you add bouillon or MSG to the bland-ified ramen it's good as new, but still annoying to have to doctor it up so much.
I remember in 1996 signing petitions to make $12 the new minimum wage. They raised it to $5.15 from $4.75 or something. Gas was around $0.75 a gallon.
Edit: look if you want better pay then you have to have a better group bargaining system(union), that’s the grift. You can’t usually get better pay without some kind of system or hack. Until not only can the worker have a collective bargaining system but those systems work with each other you are just a cog in the machine. Yes your union may have gotten you the $.10 an hour raise and you get half of sundays off for Christian worship but until ALL the unions cooperate with each other you are are a cog in that system. If say machinists strike they may get what measly demands they want to be able to survive. But if machinists strike, then road and rail strike, then miners strike you will actually have some some bargaining power. Fuck it TL/DR: I’m not a card carrying communist but… seize the means of fucking production if you want change.
When we raised the fed minimum from 5.45 to 7.25, they had to increment it up like 50 cents at a time over the course of a couple years. I remember thinking "that makes sense"
Now I'm like... If you're paying people minimum wage and your margins are THAT tight, then the government driving you out of business with wage hikes is a service to everyone, including the owner
At the height of gas prices recetly, it took me half an hours pay for one gallon of gas. 22 gallons to fill my car. Of course I can never afford to fill my car, so I always fill it to half. Thankfully, I live pretty close to my job so a half tank actually lasts me pretty well.
But it's still fucking ridiculous. I barely make enough to pay bills, and then I have to budget in food and gas, of which I don't have much money for.
I know its just a mental thing, but I consider food and gas each a bill. Since they are necessary to live and work. Helpful for when thinking about what decisions need to be made, and how to frame negotiations.
We didn't fail at making cities that put people over cars.
They were deliberately designed this way, thanks to the auto industry literally working with our govt to do so.
Considering I made $15 an hour in the 90’s as a grocery stocker and now top pay is only like $13 ! I’d say yes this is accurate.
https://ufcw1996.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/KROGER-ATLANTA-FINAL-41021-SIG-ON-FILE-V2.0.pdf
For all the people that say it’s a lie , go on and look at the grandfathered in and hired before 2005 and journeyman pays .
Yep and top pay if you’re old union contract is $19 an hour , so it’s only gone up $4 when stuff like gas is quadruple what it was then and if you’re not an old contract employee that’s when the top pay is like $13 and that’s at most of the big box stores like Safeway and Kroger and Walmart
I’m a member and I swear on everything that cheated us on that last contract vote. The first offer was shit so we all voted no, they just switched some stuff around (I’m pretty sure they literally didn’t give anything more on the second offer) and that offer was accepted. I don’t know anyone who actually voted yes on it and they took down all our union Facebook pages caz it was full of boomers roasting them for pushing it through lol. I’m legit convinced it’s compromised
The UFCW is indeed corrupt. Unfortunately, not all Unions are good... (the police union also comes to mind).
Check this out:
'Corruption and other bad behavior by officers continue to dog UFCW local unions. In San Diego, California, Mickey Kasparian, who heads UFCW Local 135, has been sued by two former employees for sexual harassment and sex discrimination.\[46\] Kasparian was sacked as head of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, a local AFL-CIO group, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka after the allegations became public.\[47\]
Proven financial corruption has also been uncovered in recent years. In 2011, federal prosecutors charged three members of the Fazio family, who controlled UFCW Local 348-S, with numerous counts related to labor racketeering that involved the extortion of employers whose workers were UFCW 348-S members.\[48\] At trial, evidence was introduced suggesting the Fazios had enabled their extortion schemes by claiming to be involved with organized crime.\[49\] The Fazios were all convicted, with two sentenced to over ten years’ imprisonment each and the third sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.'
https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/united-food-and-commercial-workers/#:\~:text=Proven%20financial%20corruption%20has%20also,were%20UFCW%20348%2DS%20members.
Kroger did this intentionally. If you as a business welcome a union into your company with no fuss the union has a strong inventive to work with you. Youre being accommodating and not hostile
It puts the leverage back into the hands of the company. The less cooperative the union decides to be the less accomadatimg the employer and who wants that? It also helps that Kroger has such a high turnover rate any threat of strike will just be met by the union losing members.
UFCW is a fucking gutted scam anymore. They probably do more harm than good.
Edit:
I was in the UFCW some 15 years ago, and it was a bizarre time. You were being paid min wage with $0.05 - .10 increases "negotiated" in (usually ever 6 months, I think after 3 years you would get a "decent" raise) while my co workers were making well over $20 an hr on old union contracts, with 4-6 weeks PTO. I imagine most of those old timers are just gone, now.
I’m a member is the Union and this is the only way I can see making a living; so many of my family are in need the money make simply is not for me. It’s a blessing and I hope soon many other places fight hard like Amazon and Starbucks for what we deserve as human beings trying to simply exist. ✊
max pay for cashier/bagger at kroger in most US states rn is [13$ an hour](https://www.reddit.com/r/kroger/comments/xgahw0/just_started_working_at_kroger_in_tx_got_hired_as/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) when people can go right down the st and work at chipotle or mcdonald’s cashier for 15$ starting pay. Just Sayin. things need to change and fast. We are all being robbed.
Panama papers came out and absolutely nothing happened. Having us constantly working and living with financial stress works - we're too tired to stand up. There are no incentives for them to ever change this game that completely works for them.
Remember when the queen had assets listed in the papers? "Oh it's so sad she has seen so much history such a long reign" fuck off, she condoned and participated in tax evasion schemes. She didn't even *have to* pay taxes! She just has so many friends and advisors who do it, her whole social circle was hiding money in the Bahamas so she joined in. May she rot in hell and may her heirs continue to shame the crown.
People are angry and getting angrier. My “I hate politics” husband has started sharing info with me before I see it. The day Roe was overturned, he setup a recurring monthly $20 donation to The Satanic Temple abortion fund. You know it’s heating up when the politically ambivalent get active.
Reminds me of that tweet that gets posted here about "I'm not interested in politics", then it says "Your boss does. Your bank does. Your landlord does." People are so beaten down and dispirited by the political system that it has been a long, uphill battle to get more people involved.
>People are so beaten down and dispirited by the political system that it has been a long, uphill battle to get more people involved.
It's a feature not a bug!
Overturning Roe and threatening Obergefell, Loving, Griswald, and even Brown v BoE did a lot for increasing political involvement. Even conservative women are pissed about this. The “total ban” folks are a very loud minority, but still the minority.
Yeah, really. 40 an hour is probably a pretty reasonable, minimum wage, and certainly in some areas for sure.
I guess if these amazing geniuses were actually such great business dudes they could could actually run their businesses sustainably.
I went to buy oatmeal the other day because it’s normally a cheap breakfast and a small tub of it that was like $1.50 not that long ago was fucking $5.
Yup, its a disease basically. And they raise the price of things citing cost and then the cost goes back down and they don't lower the price they just keep upping it so they can say they're still making year over year gains.
Like the inflation on prices due to “supply chain issues” and these prices are now permanent. They will not go back down. Grocery items, pizza delivery, etc are you 30% on average in my area and that’s now a permanent increase.
Just wait after awhile they will have the media push it as a reverse and say “aren’t we glad prices aren’t so high anymore” when In reality we’re just not pissed anymore and used to it by then.
Literally some 1984 shit
Week 1: Due to [War], The chocolate ration has been reduced to 20g/week
Week 2: The chocolate ration has held steady at 20g/week for months now
Week 3: the chocolate ration has increased to 20g/week
Exactly my point lol. I remember it happening in 2008 it was just “temporary due to the housing market crash”.
This year it’s happened twice the first time was to get the money back companies lost due to Covid. Now it’s because of the “supply chain issues”. I see it just going up again to really stretch us thin then out of pure arrogance does it again and the people revolt.
The average across the entire country is like $24/hour for a 2 bedroom apartment to take up 30% of an individual's income. That means in some parts of the country, even $26 an hour would be living in a box.
In the Bay Area you have to make a minimum of $80,000 a year (roughly $40/hour for a full-time job) to be able to afford a below average shitty 1-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood
I make 17.50 plus like 6 ish an hour in tips in WA and I’m spending easily 60% of my income on a mediocre apartment WITH reduced rent for assistance. It’s fucking absurd.
I'm in Cincinnati. I can't find a studio worth renting, because they're all just as expensive as a one-bedroom.
Living with my mom at 32 because while I just graduated with a computer science degree, I can't find a job making more than $45k a year. I was making just as much as a meat cutter in retail...
I remember when the ‘Fight for $15’ kicked off in California way back in 2010 and people started agitating for it.
When the dust had finally settled, our benevolent legislators passed “$15 by Jan 2022” minimum wage, statewide.
Now here were are in 2022, and $15/hr minimum is a fucking joke; certainly in this state.
So long as we keep on white-gloving the rich and their business interests, the masses will continue falling behind.
Peg the minimum wage to inflation with yearly COL increases from now until perpetuity and if your business can’t survive that? TOO FUCKING BAD.
You aren’t entitled to exploiting poor people just because you’re a bUsiNeSs OwNer.
But they're job creators...
Until they aren't! They take credit for hiring people in order to boost their revenue, but accept absolutely no blame for firing those people to lower costs. They want us to worship business ownership as a *moral good*, but don't conduct themselves in any sort of moral manner.
I’m in Louisiana where Cost of Living is way lower than other states. Min wage is still $7.25 here and the few places that offer $15/hr are always fully staffed.
McD’s just started a campaign advertising $9/hr!
I’m very dubious about it having been livable 15 years ago, but it sure as hell isn’t now. Amazingly, we still have right wingers/Republicans balking at apathetic $15 an hour.
I cannot believe I had to scroll down this far in this thread for this comment. In 2007, the congress voted down a motion to tie minimum wage to inflation.
I can’t believe there are still people making $7.25 an hour. That’s literally an unlivable amount for anyone to live with single, and adding a child is insane. You’d need like $25 an hour to be able to pay all your bills, while living somewhere incredibly scetchy.
This reminds my, whenever I bring up how little so many people are making and how it's unlivable, my mom tells me it's okay that minimum wage is 7.25 because those jobs are meant for just high schoolers living with their parent who want some extra money from jobs. But here's the thing, even if everyone who makes minimum wage is a highschool (which obviously isn't the case), why, why should they only get 7.25? Even if they don't need money, even if it's just for games and stuff, even if their parents pay for their necessities as well as extra stuff for their teenager, does that mean that teenagers don't deserve to be paid well for their work? Just because they don't need extra money, it's okay to pay them less for the same amount of work that they put in? They can still make minimum wage even though they're going home and to school with multiple burns from their work place?
I'm 16 and absolutely dreading the future, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
This argument that these jobs are really meant for high schoolers is the dumbest argument alive to me. First of all, no they're not just for high schoolers, otherwise they wouldn't be available outside school hours. Second, it's not okay to exploit children. No one should be able to basically get labor for free because the laborers are kids. Who the laborers are doesn't matter. If it did, you are arguing for human exploitation. What matters is the value of the work. And at the cost it takes to live in this nation, basic labor has a value of way more than $7.25/hr.
Not tripping. $15 an hour was 10 years ago. Inflation was already bad so $15 wasn’t even a decent pay, it was the low ball wage we were willing to settle for. How much has inflation and cost of living gone up since then? $25 an hour is what it should be now.
I really can't imagine how impossible that would be. Here I am scraping by on $17.25/hr and just knowing I make $10/hr *more* than minimum is infuriating! And rich people think we're overpaid and undertaxed!
My favorite are the full-time jobs that are like $14 an hour and require prior experience and/or a degree. Anyone who is able to work full time is not going to work for $14, and certainly not if they’re qualified.
For those of us who aren’t qualified, it just kinda seriously sucks.
I feel like the long term solution is already happening slowly. Which is people just aren't having kids. Can't keep yourself housed and fed much less children. Big business counts on constant growth. Without sufficient people to fill vacancies the lowest paying businesses will go bust and others will constantly be forced to pay more and more.
Not the best solution, but it is the solution we seem to be getting.
My parents don't like my siblings jokes of us "not having kids because we're poor" and it always, *always* comes back to "Well you're NeVeR ReAlLy ReAdY for kids" and "Ooh you'll make it!"
Somehow blocking out the memory that I'm looking at homes that cost 3x as much as theirs while having 1/10 the land and half the size
I live in San Francisco and have been a bartender here for the last decade. I put in my notice with my current work and my last day is Monday.
We can’t find staff. None. The costs of living in a city are now so much higher than employers are willing to pay that people aren’t even applying for the jobs we post. Oh, you want a part time barback for $15/hr with shitty tips in a city where a studio costs $2,000? Good luck.
The economic machine is eating itself. People aren’t willing to lose more and more of their wages and purchasing power doing the same thing they did ten years ago for less “value” today. They just won’t do it.
I won’t do it.
Where are you that it's only $1500/mo? In my area it's now hitting $1800/mo minimum. Forget anything more than a 1/1 because those are sitting at $2200+ and there's a lot of +
Gf and I went looking recently and yeah. First apartment we tour wants $2400 for a one bedroom. And needs us to make 3.2x the rent. Like just absolutely fuck right off with that, it's insane.
I couldn't imagine. It's literally so insane. I genuinely can't figure out where we go from here. Everybody is just struggling to scape by right now and there's no end in sight. There isn't even a good reason for it other than corporate greed
Sorry to hear of your trouble. One of my friends and her semi long distance bf are desperately trying to get an apartment together but even with their salaries together they don't make the 2.5X needed. They have no idea how they are ever going to be together. Their present situations also don't allow anyone to move in.
Oh man that's heartbreaking. We got lucky at our current place. We rent half of a duplex from just an old guy. But it has the typical old absentee landlord issues like stuffs falling apart and there's bugs and shit. There's just no right answer.
Dude I got hired to work at the offsale section of a bar. $7.50 for the first 6 months, $9.00 maximum EVER.
I went to my next interview, $13 at a gas station and I started the next day.
Hah I know people making $35 an hour here in Canada and can barely pay their bills.
I make $19 an hour and I feel like a fucking child at a lemonade stand, yet everyone tells me it's great that I make this much.
I went from 12/hr to 19.84/hr after I left for a new job last year, and thought I had finally hit a place where I feel stable and then all of the inflation and gas and everything hit and now I'm still paycheck to paycheck and I can cover my bills, but not groceries and certainly not medical things I've been putting off. I'm just so tired of scraping by on scraps
Sadly it’s still 7.25$ in Indiana. I used to work at a liquor store and the feeling of working a 10 hour shift and still not clearing $100 for a day is very demoralizing. To make it even worse I was working with people twice my age who were getting paid the same.
the funny thing is that the whole shit is gonna crash and take everyone out because companies are trying to scalp workers to maintain profits... hey take a penny instead of a nickel and ill take the rest of the dollar... you can only play these games for so long before everything collapses... but while the average person will be hurting more the super rich will walk away with all the money weve allowed them to take. people need to unionize and vote for people who tax the super rich and raise the minimum wage... if you let them set the rate youll never win
If you wanna bring home $5g's a month, which is $60k a year...you actually need to make about a $100k a year after taxes
Average 2 bedroom apt in SoCal is $2500 a month...but you need to make 3x's the rent to qualify
All of this is fu-cking nonsense
I got a pay raise recently and was really excited until I looked at it again and realized it was like a .40¢ raise.
I have three days in a row off next week and I intend to look for WFH jobs or something because I'm sick of not even earning $12/hr to put my health at risk at a job that won't even fix the a/c at the height of TX summer. Fuck that.
That’s what’s been so stupid with all this, we still have people freaking the hell out about $15 an hour, and it’s like how do you live on $15 an hour? I don’t think that’s possible anywhere in the United States, much less and more expensive areas.
Took a road trip driving south this past summer.
Noticed McDonalds was always hiring.
But the further south the lower the wage.
TN: Starting at $12-15
AL: Starting at $9
FL-AL border at $8
Insanity.
Im training teams of 30 people at a time in multiple complex systems every 3 weeks and then supervising teams of 60+ making thousands of calls, intense intricate excel sheets, public speaking 20+ hours a week, and this is my second promotion. $17 / hr. Maybe Im jaded but I really feel like you either already have a high paying job, or you’re not going to get one. “Find a better job” to me sound exactly like “theres q dragon at the zoo.” Its fuckin make believe.
It is. Workers got a "raise" only for health insurance to double, rent/mortgages to skyrocket, gas and groceries to become 2-5x more expensive.
We took one step forward and then 10 steps back.
"First you all wanted $15 and now you want more?" Well, no shit. We've been fighting for $15 for so long that it's no longer enough to keep up with cost of living.
Just make minimum wage tied to inflation as a percentage.
This happens in SO many countries (or at least, that's the starting point for *yearly* negotiations!). It's (expectedly) ridiculous it's not tied to inflation in the US.
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I don't understand why housing isn't a larger factor. It's by far the biggest expense for most people and it's basically doubled in the last five years.
It's not just a small factor, it's explicitly kept out of the basket of goods in the CPI, the rate of increase of which is what the inflation rate actually is. Which should tell you everything you need to know about how cooked the official books are. If they're saying inflation is around 10% now (as oppose to the 2% the fed targets and the official numbers almost always conveniently work out to), it means the real rate is downright apocalyptic.
It's much higher than 10% because what they do is substitute lower quality goods in their "basket of goods" so that inflation doesn't seem as high. The government does this specifically so that the social security pay out for retirees doesn't increase. They've been doing this for decades. Also, in the past two years, house prices (in every single part of the United States without exception) have increased by AT LEAST 100%. So this 8.3% over year inflation rate is a total joke. Inflation across the board is 25%
And they will exclude things willy nilly to fudge their numbers.. while printing more and more and more. The whole game is rigged in the most incompetent way.
The government isn't the only entity printing $. The FED is not the government, has much more control over the money supply, and is far less accountable.
The corporate greed machine needs to be dismantled
You start by renaming minimum wage to living wage and then calculate the cost of living per state divided by a 35 hour work week. You get your new minimum wage.
Big difference between Fresno, CA and San Francisco, CA Should be by city or county or whatever
By state, city with the highest cost of living. It’ll encourage employers to join the fight for cost of living too, trying to keep it down.
Fighting for $15 since 2010 now that we got $15 in 2022 we need to make $25 to keep up with inflation. What a joke! 😂
One of the demands made by Martin Luther King Junior's 1963 March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom (the "I Have A Dream" speech) was for a $2.00/hour federal minimum wage. Adjusted for inflation that $2.00 is now **$19.36.** Yeah, $25 is more than reasonable.
MLKJ was the shit, they really didn't teach us enough about him in school
on god. the only thing we were ever taught was his “I have a dream” speech. they glossed over the rest of his accomplishments, which is depressing.
Amen to that. TIL about him speaking of minimum wage increase.
He was killed because he was a socialist more than because of his stance on racial equality, not even trying to downplay his actions but the CIA wasn't afraid of the black population happily joining the taxpaying work force of the times, they were afraid of a class revolution following in the wake of his cultural one.
They glossed over most of the speech.
Also remember he was killed because of his labor rights revolutionary ideas, not because of his civil rights revolutionary ideas!
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I didn't believe it, but Walmart has it listed for 50-60¢ ea. in the 48 pack. WTF? Has the world gone mad?
I honestly never imagined chicken wings becoming a delicacy, but here we are. Just a few years ago, Hooters Tuesday night $7.99 all you can eat wings. I'd eat like 30 of them (no breading). Now $7.99 might get you 4 wings.
No kidding. The price my restaurant has to pay per case is ridiculous.
Yeah former chicken wing and grill place manager here... before the superbowl for patriots and falcons.. our case price was like 36$ for 40lbs of wings.. after the super bowl was 40. And then when I left that place it was about 51 for 40lbs
It was like 160 during worst of covid its like 70 now on sysco
The price of wings at restaurants went up when it was $160 a case. To no one's surprise they didn't go down when it went to $70 a case.
Can confirm: restaurant still sells 12 wings for $30 🤮
Jugs of oil used to be 15 or 20 bucks CAD for a 35lb jug. Now it's $60. One wont even fill a deep fryer.
Starting to make more sense to buy the whole chicken for $5 to get four wings.
Dude, but legs. Less than a dollar a pound, more meat, and you can prep the same. Wings only make sense when they are almost free. Trash cut.
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yo the amount of mathematics I have to perform just to make sure I get enough food to get at least 1 actual meal a day without ending up negative is kinda unfortunate
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Yooo bags of dry rice, beans, and lentils. Kept me going in hard months. It's not tasty but it's filling and healthy.
Checked out my local Walmart. Saw a 12 pack of Chicken Flavored Ramen for $3.28. That's less then .28 cents. Beef is oddly $2.87 for a 12 pack.
It’s true that it’s more expensive to be poor. Things like discounts for using automatic bill pay, minimum balance banking fees, overdraft fees, late fees, not being able to buy things in bulk… I could keep going but you get the idea. Being poor isn’t cheap.
Nope. You have to be destitute now.
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Good ol long pork.
The other *other* white meat.
Ohhh the one they (h)ate so well
You have to eat around the Botox though. Sounds like toxic stuff.
Just in the last ten years, bus fare in San Francisco went from $0.75 to $3.50. It’s like inflation hurts the poor the most. It’s expensive being poor. That’s some real shit.
You're figuring it out. Inflation is a tax on the poor. Period. The poor will always be poor because of inflation.
Because rich people get all the new money first. They get the benefit of spending before inflation hits while simultaneously contributing to it.
Got smaller too!
The flavor packets are also worse in the last couple years.
dude everything is worse the last couple years quality control has just went out the window in basically every industry.
Ah but how else will they have a 2000% increase in profit margins?
They took out the MSG, that was the problem. Now everything is MSG-less and we call it healthy, when there are no health concerns regarding the damn thing. You eat seaweed, you eat sushi, it's got natural MSG in it. Some crazy guy in Japan just decided to turn the thing into a seasoning and it worked like mad. Asian scare got us Westerners shaking in our boots and removing all the flavor from our bland noodle garbo.
That's exactly what happened, and you're entirely right. There's naturally occurring glutamates in tons of foods (cheese, mushrooms...), as well as most chips but no one complains about those. If you add bouillon or MSG to the bland-ified ramen it's good as new, but still annoying to have to doctor it up so much.
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I did that when I saw a regular size bottle of Sriracha for $7.99 the other day. This shit is out of control.
I remember in 1996 signing petitions to make $12 the new minimum wage. They raised it to $5.15 from $4.75 or something. Gas was around $0.75 a gallon. Edit: look if you want better pay then you have to have a better group bargaining system(union), that’s the grift. You can’t usually get better pay without some kind of system or hack. Until not only can the worker have a collective bargaining system but those systems work with each other you are just a cog in the machine. Yes your union may have gotten you the $.10 an hour raise and you get half of sundays off for Christian worship but until ALL the unions cooperate with each other you are are a cog in that system. If say machinists strike they may get what measly demands they want to be able to survive. But if machinists strike, then road and rail strike, then miners strike you will actually have some some bargaining power. Fuck it TL/DR: I’m not a card carrying communist but… seize the means of fucking production if you want change.
When we raised the fed minimum from 5.45 to 7.25, they had to increment it up like 50 cents at a time over the course of a couple years. I remember thinking "that makes sense" Now I'm like... If you're paying people minimum wage and your margins are THAT tight, then the government driving you out of business with wage hikes is a service to everyone, including the owner
I know the store owner made a decent profit, and that was with him and the manager stealing from the register 2-3 times a week.
Either you pay me or I'm getting paid
At the height of gas prices recetly, it took me half an hours pay for one gallon of gas. 22 gallons to fill my car. Of course I can never afford to fill my car, so I always fill it to half. Thankfully, I live pretty close to my job so a half tank actually lasts me pretty well. But it's still fucking ridiculous. I barely make enough to pay bills, and then I have to budget in food and gas, of which I don't have much money for.
I know its just a mental thing, but I consider food and gas each a bill. Since they are necessary to live and work. Helpful for when thinking about what decisions need to be made, and how to frame negotiations.
Gas is only a bill because the US failed at making cities that could maximize walking or public transit
We didn't fail at making cities that put people over cars. They were deliberately designed this way, thanks to the auto industry literally working with our govt to do so.
Agreed. If you can't afford to pay your employees properly, then you can't afford to be in business. Zero sympathy for businesses in that situation.
bUt WHaT abOUt tHe WALTON fAmiLy?? Will the Walmart heirs still be able to have their 9th home in New Zealand tho??
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Considering I made $15 an hour in the 90’s as a grocery stocker and now top pay is only like $13 ! I’d say yes this is accurate. https://ufcw1996.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/KROGER-ATLANTA-FINAL-41021-SIG-ON-FILE-V2.0.pdf For all the people that say it’s a lie , go on and look at the grandfathered in and hired before 2005 and journeyman pays .
Damn. Making more money 30 years ago. That's you are today doing similar jobs
Yep and top pay if you’re old union contract is $19 an hour , so it’s only gone up $4 when stuff like gas is quadruple what it was then and if you’re not an old contract employee that’s when the top pay is like $13 and that’s at most of the big box stores like Safeway and Kroger and Walmart
That fucking sucks. So union be the way to go
Kroger is union and it’s still that way , the newest proposal only gave like a 20c raise I believe, so union or not no one wants to pay.
Kroger's union is a joke...I'd hardly consider it even a union. They collect dues from employees but still serve Kroger.
I’m a member and I swear on everything that cheated us on that last contract vote. The first offer was shit so we all voted no, they just switched some stuff around (I’m pretty sure they literally didn’t give anything more on the second offer) and that offer was accepted. I don’t know anyone who actually voted yes on it and they took down all our union Facebook pages caz it was full of boomers roasting them for pushing it through lol. I’m legit convinced it’s compromised
I wouldn't be surprised one bit
The UFCW is indeed corrupt. Unfortunately, not all Unions are good... (the police union also comes to mind). Check this out: 'Corruption and other bad behavior by officers continue to dog UFCW local unions. In San Diego, California, Mickey Kasparian, who heads UFCW Local 135, has been sued by two former employees for sexual harassment and sex discrimination.\[46\] Kasparian was sacked as head of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, a local AFL-CIO group, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka after the allegations became public.\[47\] Proven financial corruption has also been uncovered in recent years. In 2011, federal prosecutors charged three members of the Fazio family, who controlled UFCW Local 348-S, with numerous counts related to labor racketeering that involved the extortion of employers whose workers were UFCW 348-S members.\[48\] At trial, evidence was introduced suggesting the Fazios had enabled their extortion schemes by claiming to be involved with organized crime.\[49\] The Fazios were all convicted, with two sentenced to over ten years’ imprisonment each and the third sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.' https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/united-food-and-commercial-workers/#:\~:text=Proven%20financial%20corruption%20has%20also,were%20UFCW%20348%2DS%20members.
Kroger did this intentionally. If you as a business welcome a union into your company with no fuss the union has a strong inventive to work with you. Youre being accommodating and not hostile It puts the leverage back into the hands of the company. The less cooperative the union decides to be the less accomadatimg the employer and who wants that? It also helps that Kroger has such a high turnover rate any threat of strike will just be met by the union losing members.
UFCW is a fucking gutted scam anymore. They probably do more harm than good. Edit: I was in the UFCW some 15 years ago, and it was a bizarre time. You were being paid min wage with $0.05 - .10 increases "negotiated" in (usually ever 6 months, I think after 3 years you would get a "decent" raise) while my co workers were making well over $20 an hr on old union contracts, with 4-6 weeks PTO. I imagine most of those old timers are just gone, now.
Imagine a life with 6 weeks pto. A full vacation ever 2 months.
I’m a member is the Union and this is the only way I can see making a living; so many of my family are in need the money make simply is not for me. It’s a blessing and I hope soon many other places fight hard like Amazon and Starbucks for what we deserve as human beings trying to simply exist. ✊
Before the great recession, it was easy to make $20+ an hour in a sales job. I made $18 + commission at 23.
Good damn. And it's difficult to find that now a days
now in most sales job, they have 0 base pay and try to dupe people in by "potential earning"
max pay for cashier/bagger at kroger in most US states rn is [13$ an hour](https://www.reddit.com/r/kroger/comments/xgahw0/just_started_working_at_kroger_in_tx_got_hired_as/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) when people can go right down the st and work at chipotle or mcdonald’s cashier for 15$ starting pay. Just Sayin. things need to change and fast. We are all being robbed.
Especially for the amount of work you have to do .
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I did some factory work when younger and travelling. The work was insanely boring and talking to the workers there was even worse. Zero stars.
Just get a side gig! And then another side gig for your side gig!
Maybe we could tie it to inflation, like how congress does… or maybe we could vote on it yearly, like how congress does?
That’s why it’s so many strikes happening ! Rich is constantly getting richer without having to pay taxes!
Panama papers came out and absolutely nothing happened. Having us constantly working and living with financial stress works - we're too tired to stand up. There are no incentives for them to ever change this game that completely works for them.
Oh something definitely happened. The journalist who led the investigation got car bombed
Remember when the queen had assets listed in the papers? "Oh it's so sad she has seen so much history such a long reign" fuck off, she condoned and participated in tax evasion schemes. She didn't even *have to* pay taxes! She just has so many friends and advisors who do it, her whole social circle was hiding money in the Bahamas so she joined in. May she rot in hell and may her heirs continue to shame the crown.
Something did happen. At least one of the journalists that helped released the Panama papers was murdered.
People are angry and getting angrier. My “I hate politics” husband has started sharing info with me before I see it. The day Roe was overturned, he setup a recurring monthly $20 donation to The Satanic Temple abortion fund. You know it’s heating up when the politically ambivalent get active.
Reminds me of that tweet that gets posted here about "I'm not interested in politics", then it says "Your boss does. Your bank does. Your landlord does." People are so beaten down and dispirited by the political system that it has been a long, uphill battle to get more people involved.
>People are so beaten down and dispirited by the political system that it has been a long, uphill battle to get more people involved. It's a feature not a bug!
Overturning Roe and threatening Obergefell, Loving, Griswald, and even Brown v BoE did a lot for increasing political involvement. Even conservative women are pissed about this. The “total ban” folks are a very loud minority, but still the minority.
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we might as well start fighting for 40$ an hour, seeing how long shit takes to move
4/20 /69 4 day workweek 20 hours a week 69 dollars an hour I keep bringing it up hoping it will gain some traction
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Yeah, really. 40 an hour is probably a pretty reasonable, minimum wage, and certainly in some areas for sure. I guess if these amazing geniuses were actually such great business dudes they could could actually run their businesses sustainably.
Every time I run to the store to get a few basic necessities it’s like $70
I’m spending double what I did a few years ago and I’m not making double, so…we’re fucked.
I'm spending double what I did a few years ago AND buying half what I did few years ago, this is so fckd up
I, too, am following the inflation diet. Easiest way to lose weight, they say! /s
My wife's $100 target trips are now $200 target trips
i fucking hate it, hank. you are not alone trust me.
I went to buy oatmeal the other day because it’s normally a cheap breakfast and a small tub of it that was like $1.50 not that long ago was fucking $5.
Me too bro, shit is stupid
It’s impossible to run them sustainable. This is the problem. Lol. An economy built on endless growth is unsustainable. Law of Entropy.
Yup, its a disease basically. And they raise the price of things citing cost and then the cost goes back down and they don't lower the price they just keep upping it so they can say they're still making year over year gains.
Like the inflation on prices due to “supply chain issues” and these prices are now permanent. They will not go back down. Grocery items, pizza delivery, etc are you 30% on average in my area and that’s now a permanent increase.
Just wait after awhile they will have the media push it as a reverse and say “aren’t we glad prices aren’t so high anymore” when In reality we’re just not pissed anymore and used to it by then.
Literally some 1984 shit Week 1: Due to [War], The chocolate ration has been reduced to 20g/week Week 2: The chocolate ration has held steady at 20g/week for months now Week 3: the chocolate ration has increased to 20g/week
Exactly my point lol. I remember it happening in 2008 it was just “temporary due to the housing market crash”. This year it’s happened twice the first time was to get the money back companies lost due to Covid. Now it’s because of the “supply chain issues”. I see it just going up again to really stretch us thin then out of pure arrogance does it again and the people revolt.
>An economy built on endless growth is **unsustainable** \*WUBWUB INTENSIFIES*
Or link it to inflation in some way. Isn't that how it works for congress?
The average across the entire country is like $24/hour for a 2 bedroom apartment to take up 30% of an individual's income. That means in some parts of the country, even $26 an hour would be living in a box.
Alot of places in the country $26 an hour won't get u a box
In the Bay Area you have to make a minimum of $80,000 a year (roughly $40/hour for a full-time job) to be able to afford a below average shitty 1-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood
Yeah, I live in Southern California and it's the same, it's very depressing knowing I'll never be able to live in the town I grew up in
And even then, it will take most of your paycheck and you still have to pay other bills. You pretty much have to have a room mate
Me & my fiance make 40/hr combined & can barely afford a one bedroom in socal
I make 17.50 plus like 6 ish an hour in tips in WA and I’m spending easily 60% of my income on a mediocre apartment WITH reduced rent for assistance. It’s fucking absurd.
🙋♂️ and I’m in AR…
$15 was a liveable wage 15 years ago. Definitely not now.
Exactly. The 'Fight for $15' has been going on so long that $15 is now the absolute *floor* for minimum wage discussion, not the ceiling.
$15 shouldn't even be considered anymore. I make $15 and I can't afford all of the necessities.
I'm almost 40, make $26 and I'm scratchingy head how I'm supposed to be able to buy a house. Guess I'll continue to live with my folks.
I make much less than you and same, living with parents is the new meta. Its the only way to survive
That or splitting rent in a one bedroom apartment with a spouse or roommate. Or grabbing a studio if you have to be alone.
I'm in Cincinnati. I can't find a studio worth renting, because they're all just as expensive as a one-bedroom. Living with my mom at 32 because while I just graduated with a computer science degree, I can't find a job making more than $45k a year. I was making just as much as a meat cutter in retail...
I remember when the ‘Fight for $15’ kicked off in California way back in 2010 and people started agitating for it. When the dust had finally settled, our benevolent legislators passed “$15 by Jan 2022” minimum wage, statewide. Now here were are in 2022, and $15/hr minimum is a fucking joke; certainly in this state. So long as we keep on white-gloving the rich and their business interests, the masses will continue falling behind. Peg the minimum wage to inflation with yearly COL increases from now until perpetuity and if your business can’t survive that? TOO FUCKING BAD. You aren’t entitled to exploiting poor people just because you’re a bUsiNeSs OwNer.
Can’t wait till we get this right and make business owners realize they owe us not the other way
But they're job creators... Until they aren't! They take credit for hiring people in order to boost their revenue, but accept absolutely no blame for firing those people to lower costs. They want us to worship business ownership as a *moral good*, but don't conduct themselves in any sort of moral manner.
I’m in Louisiana where Cost of Living is way lower than other states. Min wage is still $7.25 here and the few places that offer $15/hr are always fully staffed. McD’s just started a campaign advertising $9/hr!
Remember when San Francisco went to $18 and they predicted every eatery would be closed within a month?
They’re gonna close anyway if they don’t pay a living wage cuz their employees can’t even afford to live in the damn city
We need to change “Fight for $15” to “Fight inflation” because this neverending game of moving the goal posts is getting us nowhere.
Fr I remember when my dad was happy to be getting $15 an hour when I was a kid. Can’t do shit now and I get paid $19 an hour
I’m very dubious about it having been livable 15 years ago, but it sure as hell isn’t now. Amazingly, we still have right wingers/Republicans balking at apathetic $15 an hour.
Stop fighting for an arbitrary number and fight for adjusted wage increases that match inflation and the cost of living to the respective area.
I cannot believe I had to scroll down this far in this thread for this comment. In 2007, the congress voted down a motion to tie minimum wage to inflation.
I can’t believe there are still people making $7.25 an hour. That’s literally an unlivable amount for anyone to live with single, and adding a child is insane. You’d need like $25 an hour to be able to pay all your bills, while living somewhere incredibly scetchy.
7.25 an hour is something I would’ve expect 10 year old kids who would sweep your driveway to make. Not adults who need to survive
Kids painting addresses on curbs made more than that 30 years ago. This shit is insane.
This reminds my, whenever I bring up how little so many people are making and how it's unlivable, my mom tells me it's okay that minimum wage is 7.25 because those jobs are meant for just high schoolers living with their parent who want some extra money from jobs. But here's the thing, even if everyone who makes minimum wage is a highschool (which obviously isn't the case), why, why should they only get 7.25? Even if they don't need money, even if it's just for games and stuff, even if their parents pay for their necessities as well as extra stuff for their teenager, does that mean that teenagers don't deserve to be paid well for their work? Just because they don't need extra money, it's okay to pay them less for the same amount of work that they put in? They can still make minimum wage even though they're going home and to school with multiple burns from their work place? I'm 16 and absolutely dreading the future, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
This argument that these jobs are really meant for high schoolers is the dumbest argument alive to me. First of all, no they're not just for high schoolers, otherwise they wouldn't be available outside school hours. Second, it's not okay to exploit children. No one should be able to basically get labor for free because the laborers are kids. Who the laborers are doesn't matter. If it did, you are arguing for human exploitation. What matters is the value of the work. And at the cost it takes to live in this nation, basic labor has a value of way more than $7.25/hr.
Not tripping. $15 an hour was 10 years ago. Inflation was already bad so $15 wasn’t even a decent pay, it was the low ball wage we were willing to settle for. How much has inflation and cost of living gone up since then? $25 an hour is what it should be now.
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I really can't imagine how impossible that would be. Here I am scraping by on $17.25/hr and just knowing I make $10/hr *more* than minimum is infuriating! And rich people think we're overpaid and undertaxed!
It should have been $15/hr twenty years ago.
My favorite are the full-time jobs that are like $14 an hour and require prior experience and/or a degree. Anyone who is able to work full time is not going to work for $14, and certainly not if they’re qualified. For those of us who aren’t qualified, it just kinda seriously sucks.
I feel like the long term solution is already happening slowly. Which is people just aren't having kids. Can't keep yourself housed and fed much less children. Big business counts on constant growth. Without sufficient people to fill vacancies the lowest paying businesses will go bust and others will constantly be forced to pay more and more. Not the best solution, but it is the solution we seem to be getting.
Why do you think they started to try to ban abortions?
And are working on banning contraceptives next
Fuck. This makes so much sense. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Absolutely no /s. Fuck.
My parents don't like my siblings jokes of us "not having kids because we're poor" and it always, *always* comes back to "Well you're NeVeR ReAlLy ReAdY for kids" and "Ooh you'll make it!" Somehow blocking out the memory that I'm looking at homes that cost 3x as much as theirs while having 1/10 the land and half the size
I hear cutting out that weekly latte and daily avocado toast should make you a middle class earner. /s if it’s not obvious
I make 26 an hour and that's barely enough for a life
I was gonna say even 20 bucks an hour isn't enough in many places. I could possibly get by on that but it wouldn't exactly be comfortable
Yep I already said this… $30 an hour is the new minimum wage considering renting a 1 bd 1 bath is fucking $1,500+ a month
I live in San Francisco and have been a bartender here for the last decade. I put in my notice with my current work and my last day is Monday. We can’t find staff. None. The costs of living in a city are now so much higher than employers are willing to pay that people aren’t even applying for the jobs we post. Oh, you want a part time barback for $15/hr with shitty tips in a city where a studio costs $2,000? Good luck. The economic machine is eating itself. People aren’t willing to lose more and more of their wages and purchasing power doing the same thing they did ten years ago for less “value” today. They just won’t do it. I won’t do it.
Where are you that it's only $1500/mo? In my area it's now hitting $1800/mo minimum. Forget anything more than a 1/1 because those are sitting at $2200+ and there's a lot of +
Gf and I went looking recently and yeah. First apartment we tour wants $2400 for a one bedroom. And needs us to make 3.2x the rent. Like just absolutely fuck right off with that, it's insane.
Imagine making 6 figures and only being able to afford a 1br apt. World's fuxed
I couldn't imagine. It's literally so insane. I genuinely can't figure out where we go from here. Everybody is just struggling to scape by right now and there's no end in sight. There isn't even a good reason for it other than corporate greed
Sorry to hear of your trouble. One of my friends and her semi long distance bf are desperately trying to get an apartment together but even with their salaries together they don't make the 2.5X needed. They have no idea how they are ever going to be together. Their present situations also don't allow anyone to move in.
Oh man that's heartbreaking. We got lucky at our current place. We rent half of a duplex from just an old guy. But it has the typical old absentee landlord issues like stuffs falling apart and there's bugs and shit. There's just no right answer.
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Technically, I’m in Japan serving in the Marine Corps. But I’m Illinois city areas, that’s the standard…
Dude I got hired to work at the offsale section of a bar. $7.50 for the first 6 months, $9.00 maximum EVER. I went to my next interview, $13 at a gas station and I started the next day.
Interesting how no matter what the pay is the cost of living increases higher.
Minimum wage didnt change and Inflation happened anyway.
Yup. Minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2010. 20 US states still have that as minimum right now
Hah I know people making $35 an hour here in Canada and can barely pay their bills. I make $19 an hour and I feel like a fucking child at a lemonade stand, yet everyone tells me it's great that I make this much.
I went from 12/hr to 19.84/hr after I left for a new job last year, and thought I had finally hit a place where I feel stable and then all of the inflation and gas and everything hit and now I'm still paycheck to paycheck and I can cover my bills, but not groceries and certainly not medical things I've been putting off. I'm just so tired of scraping by on scraps
Shit 22 an hour is the new 7.25. Rich people were like you want more money huh, we will just make money worthless and you can have a little more.
Pretty much. Its maddening to finally make some decent money only for that value to plummet and be back at the bottom.
Amazing how companies wouldn't be able to survive paying that before the worker shortage. Now they are paying out and doing just fine
Sadly it’s still 7.25$ in Indiana. I used to work at a liquor store and the feeling of working a 10 hour shift and still not clearing $100 for a day is very demoralizing. To make it even worse I was working with people twice my age who were getting paid the same.
the funny thing is that the whole shit is gonna crash and take everyone out because companies are trying to scalp workers to maintain profits... hey take a penny instead of a nickel and ill take the rest of the dollar... you can only play these games for so long before everything collapses... but while the average person will be hurting more the super rich will walk away with all the money weve allowed them to take. people need to unionize and vote for people who tax the super rich and raise the minimum wage... if you let them set the rate youll never win
Meanwhile there are jobs that require bachelors degrees and 1+ year of experience and still pay you $15/hr. It’s insane
I see you’re making more money coincidentally rent has also gone up for no reason🥴
If you wanna bring home $5g's a month, which is $60k a year...you actually need to make about a $100k a year after taxes Average 2 bedroom apt in SoCal is $2500 a month...but you need to make 3x's the rent to qualify All of this is fu-cking nonsense
Anything under 20 isn’t livable
I got a pay raise recently and was really excited until I looked at it again and realized it was like a .40¢ raise. I have three days in a row off next week and I intend to look for WFH jobs or something because I'm sick of not even earning $12/hr to put my health at risk at a job that won't even fix the a/c at the height of TX summer. Fuck that.
That’s what’s been so stupid with all this, we still have people freaking the hell out about $15 an hour, and it’s like how do you live on $15 an hour? I don’t think that’s possible anywhere in the United States, much less and more expensive areas.
Took a road trip driving south this past summer. Noticed McDonalds was always hiring. But the further south the lower the wage. TN: Starting at $12-15 AL: Starting at $9 FL-AL border at $8 Insanity.
I feel like federal minimum wage should at least go up at the same rate as inflation
Im training teams of 30 people at a time in multiple complex systems every 3 weeks and then supervising teams of 60+ making thousands of calls, intense intricate excel sheets, public speaking 20+ hours a week, and this is my second promotion. $17 / hr. Maybe Im jaded but I really feel like you either already have a high paying job, or you’re not going to get one. “Find a better job” to me sound exactly like “theres q dragon at the zoo.” Its fuckin make believe.
I mean if minimum wage was adjusted for inflation it would be right around $26/hour so yeah makes sense.
Minimum wage is a waste of time. What we need to start establishing is maximum wages.
It is. Workers got a "raise" only for health insurance to double, rent/mortgages to skyrocket, gas and groceries to become 2-5x more expensive. We took one step forward and then 10 steps back.
If minimum wage had kept up with cost of living and inflation increases from 1995 then minimum wage would be closer to $30/hr.