911 Calls Raise Concerns Over Amazon Working Conditions

People in the 50s used to say that the new generation has it much easier and shouldn’t complain. People in the 80s said that the new generation didn’t have to work as hard, just smarter

People now days complaining about the new generation are just doing the same thing all those people did in the past. And in the future, the new generation we complain about now will complain about the next.


What I’m saying is, just because you don’t think something is hard or terrible doesn’t mean that it isn’t. And complaining about the people that complain won’t make anything better.
 
You ask around (plumbers, electricians, metal fab, welders, tilers, brick masons, marine docks-seawall installers) they will all tell you they can't find kids/young adults that will work, can't handle the physical part, can't stay off the phone, no valid drivers license, no drive to learn and move up.......... I could go on and on, I am a Gen-Xer we grew up with work, hard work. Hard work is good for the soul and character building. I am speaking generally, there is an exception to EVERY rule.


Tradesman here- I'm in industrial maintenance. I'm what you'd call an industrial maintenance electrcian- I'm not a wire puller, I deal with motor controls, specifically on overhead cranes. I applied for an apprenticeship(non-union) a little over five years ago, came from a job making $12/hr. They paid for me to go to school. I earned a certificate in industrial maintenance and graduated PTK. I gross a little over $100k a year in central Kentucky, which is huge. I have amazing benefits, company vehicle, cell phone, etc... Sure, it's hard work. We too have issues finding people that can handle this job. Working in the ceiling at factories is hot and loud, but the work is very rewarding.
 
Jeff Bezos has all the money in the world. He will never be able to spend what he has now or the vast fortune he will earn from tomorrow and the days beyond, ever ....

Why he doesn't address these issues so they just go away is beyond me.

If you know you're the wealthiest man in the world, why not enrich the people that work for you. Wouldn't be better for Amazon and the brand if all the employees sang his praise? I think Amazon would be my go to places more often if I knew he treated his employees very well. In fact, I know I would.

You ever listen to people that work at Cosco? They have nothing but great things to say about their employer. They are paid well, valued and not shit upon.

Remove the strike system so people don't lose their jobs, add additional employees so people can have real days off and away from work. Pay them better. Offer on the job childcare which would be amazing. There is so much more he could do them. And why should he really care if he puts 500 million a year back into his employees? You ever see that movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" ? The bank gave loans out so people could own their homes and not have to pay high rent from others? Man, and god knows this is true. I would be working very hard to make all of my employees happy and very well taken care of but more importantly, given extra time away from work to have better lives, do things with their kids or have a day for themselves. Regardless of what it cost me.

Literally everyone in the US has started shopping off Amazon and those numbers will only increase.
 
how hard can it be packing boxes? we used to send children into the coal mines for 14 hours a day no 911 calls back then.

We also used to wrap factories in barbwire and force people to work until they dropped, didn't get a single 911 call back then either!

:rolleyes:
 
how hard can it be packing boxes? we used to send children into the coal mines for 14 hours a day no 911 calls back then.

I want to believe this is sarcasm, but it seems to go well with the general "back in my day" mood of this thread:p.
 
Jeff Bezos has all the money in the world. He will never be able to spend what he has now or the vast fortune he will earn from tomorrow and the days beyond, ever ....

Why he doesn't address these issues so they just go away is beyond me.

If you know you're the wealthiest man in the world, why not enrich the people that work for you.

Because he's a baldheaded fuck.
 
There's an unfortunate lack of empathy for a working man these days. A kind of well F you buddy I got mine attitude. It's unfortunate the lack of empathy some folks have for our fellow citizens. I mean I did get mine I'm set with a great career but I struggled for a long time to figure out how to get here. And I'm watching my company try to change everything as hard as they can so the generation after me will be nothing but low class wage slaves. Whose labor goes like so much labor these days, to further enrich the insanely super wealthy even more.

Unrestrained capitalism is just a race to the bottom for all workers. If we don't bring back sane restraints, such as organized labor unions that actually represent labor, I can very much see a future where the mass at the bottom look up and hear, "F you I got mine" and they look back and say, "no, F you buddy" and vote in some socialist who totally wrecks the economy for everyone. I mean I've basically been watching us get to that point my entire life.
 
Sounds like a bunch of wimps. When i started i earned minimum wage and no body cared. I say get tough and quit bitching, cause i have zero pity. You dont like it mooch.
 
Sounds like a bunch of wimps. When i started i earned minimum wage and no body cared. I say get tough and quit bitching, cause i have zero pity. You dont like it mooch.

I bet Jeff Bezos would love to have you on his team. Is there a problem with the workers? Send in the Terminator! I bet you're also mean to waiters and never give them any tips. /s
 
You made smart decisions and they paid off. God forbid something happens in life and you're no longer in the "I made smart decisions and they're paying off" state. It's precisely the point, the majority of the country isn't getting a proper education to consciously made the right choices and set themselves up, and even if they did they fall into something eventually at one point. So then "if you can't get anything better, then you are doing something wrong" really doesn't apply here at all.

While I agree that sometimes things happens in life, people need to learn how to handle what life throws at them and make better decisions.
That can be the difference between a problem being an inconvenience, or a life changing disaster.

I've had major setbacks over the years, but the difference is that I saved and tried my best to be prepared for an emergency.

Right before the dot com bubble burst, the company I worked at, a large nation wide company, suddenly shut down.
Couldn't find an IT job anywhere, and as the months dragged on, it got even worse.
My certifications weren't current which made job hunting difficult.
So, I picked up a set of books/study guides, Spent weeks reading/studying, and took all the tests to get my MCSE. Did the same for the Cisco CCNA.
About a year after losing my job, and a month after getting my MCSE and CCNA, I finally landed a new job.
Not the job I wanted (help desk), and pay was much less, but after a year I was getting a little desperate for income.
Then I gradually worked my way back up, and eventually was hired into my current job.

Took us a few years to dig our way out, but we didn't lose our home, our cars or any thing else. We managed because we were prepared.

A few years ago I end up in the hospital for several days, a couple months later I had to have emergency surgery and was in the hospital for several more days.
Lots of bills as it was over 2 calendar years, so 2 max out of pocket and deductibles.
Yet, we somehow managed to pay the bills and didn't become homeless.
We did have to skip taking vacations the next couple years, and had to cut any extra spending.
But once again, it comes down to making good decisions, being prepared and living below your means.
 
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Unrestrained capitalism is just a race to the bottom for all workers. If we don't bring back sane restraints, such as organized labor unions that actually represent labor, I can very much see a future where the mass at the bottom look up and hear, "F you I got mine" and they look back and say, "no, F you buddy" and vote in some socialist who totally wrecks the economy for everyone. I mean I've basically been watching us get to that point my entire life.

I'm glad you said "organized labor unions that actually represent labor" because most the current unions are worse than any corporation.

As far as "Unrestrained capitalism" I'd have to disagree with you there as much of the problems in our country is due to too much government interference.
 
I'm glad you said "organized labor unions that actually represent labor" because most the current unions are worse than any corporation.

As far as "Unrestrained capitalism" I'd have to disagree with you there as much of the problems in our country is due to too much government interference.

Too much government interference in favor of massive corporations and against any competition. Ala crony capitalism or crapitalism or whatever you want to call it. A government bought and paid for.
 
Likewise, I grew up working on a farm and later briefly working in rural factory while I was working through college. The "suicidal" conditions certainly don't seem like that from my perspective. Try working a 10 hour day outside, in freezing rain and get back to me.



I've met plenty of lazy people at work, some young, some old, some male, some female. I have never noticed a trend.

I think your other point, about the housing, gets to the core of this. Regardless of the specific figure or amount of pay, people get hopeless when they can't get ahead. Housing is certainly a big a part of that, no one wants to be renting or having to commute long distance between affordable housing and regions with decent jobs (and astronomical housing costs). Likewise, people do not want to be accumulating debt to afford healthcare, or trying to attain education that costs a multiple of the expected salary upon graduation. I think, in general, things aren't so good for lower and middle class people in the US right now. You can point the finger at Amazon, but you would find just as many similar incidents of people in grim circumstances at any large company.

while i agree ultimately it again comes down to education i feel.. when i talk to people at work or even tenants that live in some of my rental properties(aka my retirement plan) most don't realize just how easy it is to become a home owner.. they have no basic understanding of mortgages and think they're destined to rent forever. i feel the removal of home economics from the vast majority of high schools in the late 90's/early 2000's was one of the biggest disservices to this generation that could of ever possibly happened. here where i live you could buy a house on a minimum wage job working 20h a week and still live comfortably yet this is one of the highest rental property cities in the pacific northwest and most of them that are renting don't even know they're paying almost twice what the mortgage is on the property they're living in per month.
 
I miss the old old days when mistreated workers would have an armed uprising.
 
What many people don't understand, who assume the working conditions really are hell, are that most Amazon warehouses have free daily tours you can take, you can sign up on their website. Go take a tour (each is about an hour long), I have one just 15 miles from me and well, the working conditions are better there than just about any job I ever had in my youth.
 
There's an unfortunate lack of empathy for a working man these days. A kind of well F you buddy I got mine attitude. It's unfortunate the lack of empathy some folks have for our fellow citizens. I mean I did get mine I'm set with a great career but I struggled for a long time to figure out how to get here. And I'm watching my company try to change everything as hard as they can so the generation after me will be nothing but low class wage slaves. Whose labor goes like so much labor these days, to further enrich the insanely super wealthy even more.

Unrestrained capitalism is just a race to the bottom for all workers. If we don't bring back sane restraints, such as organized labor unions that actually represent labor, I can very much see a future where the mass at the bottom look up and hear, "F you I got mine" and they look back and say, "no, F you buddy" and vote in some socialist who totally wrecks the economy for everyone. I mean I've basically been watching us get to that point my entire life.


I have plenty of empathy, I have nearly zero sympathy. Today's workers face the same inherent problems of the generations prior - with a key difference. More college educated people with degrees of limited usefulness were convinced by someone that they would be able to skip the struggle of early employment. Now, this large mass of special people are angry they have been lied to, and are becoming politically motivated to take away from the people who have seen success. There has been a fundamental shift from respecting hard work and success, to coveting it, and finally to hating the people who have achieved it. They must have lied/cheated/stolen to get to where they are, is the new mantra.
 
I have plenty of empathy, I have nearly zero sympathy. Today's workers face the same inherent problems of the generations prior - with a key difference. More college educated people with degrees of limited usefulness were convinced by someone that they would be able to skip the struggle of early employment. Now, this large mass of special people are angry they have been lied to, and are becoming politically motivated to take away from the people who have seen success. There has been a fundamental shift from respecting hard work and success, to coveting it, and finally to hating the people who have achieved it. They must have lied/cheated/stolen to get to where they are, is the new mantra.

When you major in English Literature, Psychology, Polka Studies, got your doctorate in Philosophy or you went to Elf School in Reykjavik, you shall not wonder why no one wants to hire you in this country. It's a sad reality that many people are lazy these days, as they were in the past, and they go for a degree that's easier to get. Even worse when they get their parents to get a second mortgage to finance their four-year college experience. That is why companies hire people from Singapore, India, Eastern Europe, and other places. They need coders, engineers, doctors, scientists, people who still have the hunger for more, they still want to achieve something in this life. Don't be confused, though corporations have an evil streak, these imported engineers, coders, doctors, are not much cheaper, if at all, than domestic workers who were born and bred here. But they tend to be more docile and harder, and that's a big deal. I don't know about Amazon's hiring practices, but Walmart is less likely to hire you to stock shelves if you have a doctorate in English literature than if you're just broke and hungry and in need of a job. On top of that, if you have any kind of labor experience, it's a plus. Even they don't want the spoiled snowflakes of the latest generation. Case in point, you don't like how Amazon treats you, quit. You can't find work in your area, move. Is the area you live in an economic disaster? Even more reason to give the bank with their shity mortgage the finger and move. There are always options, complaining and then going back for some more of the same punishment is stupid.
 
I have plenty of empathy, I have nearly zero sympathy. Today's workers face the same inherent problems of the generations prior - with a key difference. More college educated people with degrees of limited usefulness were convinced by someone that they would be able to skip the struggle of early employment. Now, this large mass of special people are angry they have been lied to, and are becoming politically motivated to take away from the people who have seen success. There has been a fundamental shift from respecting hard work and success, to coveting it, and finally to hating the people who have achieved it. They must have lied/cheated/stolen to get to where they are, is the new mantra.

You forget that wages have stagnated for decades while housing and food costs have gone way up. Back in 1996 when I was a teenager I worked a fast food job for $11 an hour. I got sick time, vacation, I got health insurance, at a fast food job. That same job pays the same hourly rate today, only with zero benefits and they will not give you full time hours.

My first apartment in 1999 I paid $400 a month for. Same apartment complex today for the same apartment is $1100. In 1996 a pound of ground beef was $1, a gallon of milk was $1, and a dozen donuts at my local grocer was $1.50. Today those three items that were $3.50 are now $12. And the donuts are lower quality as well. I could go on.

So no its not that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and that everyone now just expects to start with a six figure career. Things have gotten objectively worse in my own lifetime. And I have the empathy to see it and don't have the massive ego that I need to tell myself I'm so much better than the youth
 
You forget that wages have stagnated for decades while housing and food costs have gone way up. Back in 1996 when I was a teenager I worked a fast food job for $11 an hour. I got sick time, vacation, I got health insurance, at a fast food job. That same job pays the same hourly rate today, only with zero benefits and they will not give you full time hours.

My first apartment in 1999 I paid $400 a month for. Same apartment complex today for the same apartment is $1100. In 1996 a pound of ground beef was $1, a gallon of milk was $1, and a dozen donuts at my local grocer was $1.50. Today those three items that were $3.50 are now $12. And the donuts are lower quality as well. I could go on.

So no its not that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and that everyone now just expects to start with a six figure career. Things have gotten objectively worse in my own lifetime. And I have the empathy to see it and don't have the massive ego that I need to tell myself I'm so much better than the youth

That's cool. Back in 1998/99 I was making just over 5 bucks an hour with no benefits doing very physical manual labor in reasonably hazardous conditions. I'd argue things have gotten better, from that starting line.
 
You forget that wages have stagnated for decades while housing and food costs have gone way up. Back in 1996 when I was a teenager I worked a fast food job for $11 an hour. I got sick time, vacation, I got health insurance, at a fast food job. That same job pays the same hourly rate today, only with zero benefits and they will not give you full time hours.

My first apartment in 1999 I paid $400 a month for. Same apartment complex today for the same apartment is $1100. In 1996 a pound of ground beef was $1, a gallon of milk was $1, and a dozen donuts at my local grocer was $1.50. Today those three items that were $3.50 are now $12. And the donuts are lower quality as well. I could go on.

So no its not that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and that everyone now just expects to start with a six figure career. Things have gotten objectively worse in my own lifetime. And I have the empathy to see it and don't have the massive ego that I need to tell myself I'm so much better than the youth

We must be around the same age then. I agree with everything that you're saying. Sadly though, besides big business who has a devastating long term effect on our well being and economy, people also need to be responsible for their own actions. The herd mentality, keeping up with the Joneses and bad decisions by millions have brought us here. Americans have bought into an easy way of life, and now they're paying for it because slowly, some people, not all, are realizing that life is not all about running around and working yourself to death (again, some people) to buy (or finance) things that you really don't need. Getting to my point, the disaster that you speak of is due to corporate greed and overextended borrowing. Something has to give, and one of those things is hidden inflation.
 
Taking my head out of the sand... some of the amazon work places are nuts where employees are penalized for going to the bathroom, pee in jugs throughout the warehouse, fired for basic needs (Sick days etc). Amazon can be a shit hole but a good starting job.


Devil's advocate here, but there are people who abuse the system. Amazon is a huge company so it can't be too hard to find people who will make complaints against them.

Now if you have copies of policies or memos from leadership, specifically corporate leadership and not just an email from a shift lead who's a turd, that would be different.

What about State Labor Board investigations, any of those been opened?

I'm not saying that you are not correct because I don't know for sure one way or the other. I just know that the media makes mountains out of mole hills if it will bring clicks, and that they are not above completely misrepresenting facts to their benefit.
 
You forget that wages have stagnated for decades while housing and food costs have gone way up. Back in 1996 when I was a teenager I worked a fast food job for $11 an hour. I got sick time, vacation, I got health insurance, at a fast food job. That same job pays the same hourly rate today, only with zero benefits and they will not give you full time hours.

My first apartment in 1999 I paid $400 a month for. Same apartment complex today for the same apartment is $1100. In 1996 a pound of ground beef was $1, a gallon of milk was $1, and a dozen donuts at my local grocer was $1.50. Today those three items that were $3.50 are now $12. And the donuts are lower quality as well. I could go on.

So no its not that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and that everyone now just expects to start with a six figure career. Things have gotten objectively worse in my own lifetime. And I have the empathy to see it and don't have the massive ego that I need to tell myself I'm so much better than the youth


Not completely true. until recently the minimum wage has been mostly stagnant, but not all wages. I made like $5.75 an hour working sheet metal in Texas just over 30 years ago. Today the media wage for sheet metal workers in Texas is $18.29, about 200% more. I was making like $580 a month when I started in the Army as a PFC, and E-3 today makes almost $2,000 today. That's over 200% increase in 30 years.

Add to this that many jobs today are service industry jobs where work's wages are supplemented by tips and although the minimum wage that most of these jobs use as a base hasn't changes a lot, tipping has increased by quite a bit.

Furthermore, what a person earns is only half of the equation, the other is the cost of living and the tax burden, and quite frankly, lower income people are getting a bigger break from the Federal Government on Taxes then they ever have. There is far better assistance for lower people today than ever before.

Food prices have been greatly subsidized by the government to try and keep the prices low. By all rights, a tomato should cost far more than it does right now.. But the government has subsidized farmers and produce companies in order to keep the price at the store lower because they believe people will not accept $15 a pound for tomatoes. So we pay the difference in taxes for the artificial price at the register, those paying taxes at least. Those who are lower income don't pay anything in taxes which means they are actually getting a serious break.

I don't know what State you lived in back in the day, but I doubt that it was like most states.

As for housing costs, the government doesn't set those, the market does. And the market prices are what the market will bare. My oldest is renting here in Sierra Vista, she's paying $1000 a month for a 2000 square foot house, she makes $50K a year, just started as a new IT worker so she is bottom of the food chain in the professional world. Within a couple of years her income will likely increase above $60K and if she does decent and moves up she'll be pushing over $80-$100K within 10 years. That is reality today and this doesn't match your description of a stagnant hopeless economically depressed world.
 
You forget that wages have stagnated for decades while housing and food costs have gone way up. Back in 1996 when I was a teenager I worked a fast food job for $11 an hour. I got sick time, vacation, I got health insurance, at a fast food job. That same job pays the same hourly rate today, only with zero benefits and they will not give you full time hours.

My first apartment in 1999 I paid $400 a month for. Same apartment complex today for the same apartment is $1100. In 1996 a pound of ground beef was $1, a gallon of milk was $1, and a dozen donuts at my local grocer was $1.50. Today those three items that were $3.50 are now $12. And the donuts are lower quality as well. I could go on.

So no its not that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and that everyone now just expects to start with a six figure career. Things have gotten objectively worse in my own lifetime. And I have the empathy to see it and don't have the massive ego that I need to tell myself I'm so much better than the youth

What fast food place? What position and length of employment? And where at? All these will have an impact, as for most of the country at that time frame, $11/hr is hard to believe.

As for rent, welcome to rent control and regulation. Many if not most cities have many growing restrictions on new construction, and normal non-government housing in lots of areas is declining. Most new apartments no one wants to build anything other than welfare housing, government subsidizes the building and also pays the rent for these people, so out of pocket cost is low, they have guaranteed income/payment and they let it degrade into the ground because they already made their money and move on to the next. With land restrictions etc it means normal builders are paying more and more for the same buildings/locations, so rent has to go up as well.

And none of this accounts for inflation as well.

People like yourself like to claim that it was easier before etc etc. Yet I hire on younger people all the time and they only bitch and moan, I have friends who are older than me say "I wish I was as lucky as you", as if the 10 years of 80-100 hour work weeks had nothing to do with it. The younger kids I hire get upset about needing to be at work on time, no less having to actually do anything, and extra work? LOL! They are not willing to do ANYTHING to stand out from the other people wanting the job, they are the last to show up in the morning and the first to want to leave. They HIGHLY over estimate their value and work they put in, they do the bare minimal work to not be straight up fired and get pissed when they don't get a raise in 6 months, they think just showing up and not getting canned means they should get a raise every review. The number of people we go through just to find people who are not out right fuck ups is staggering.

With this is mind, I am also younger than you, so by your account I should have had an even harder time. I also came from a welfare family, father was a drug user etc etc lived for a number of years with my mother in a battered women and children's shelter. Rather than using this as an excuse and playing the poor victim of the evil greedy world, it motivated me to know exactly where I DIDN'T want to end up in life. I started working at 12, getting paid under the table as a shop hand (automotive), and worked my way up, I didn't do drugs, I didn't knock up any girls, and I busted my ass, to only now have people tell me I was "lucky", as if I had my position in life handed to me. Give me a break.
 
People in the 50s used to say that the new generation has it much easier and shouldn’t complain. People in the 80s said that the new generation didn’t have to work as hard, just smarter

People now days complaining about the new generation are just doing the same thing all those people did in the past. And in the future, the new generation we complain about now will complain about the next.


What I’m saying is, just because you don’t think something is hard or terrible doesn’t mean that it isn’t. And complaining about the people that complain won’t make anything better.

Pretty much, while there are certainly “lazy” people in each generation, they represent such a small minority of the overall population.

It’s like the “SJW” crowd, they are such a small part of the millennial population but they are the loud minority which leads people to believe that all millennials are like that.

My opinion? The future generation and younger kids have it much harder than previous generations as competition has grown drastically in the past few decades. This could by large affect the mental health of younger generations, people are quick to blame that social media is the cause of increase in depression which could be true but empirical data don’t support that.

It’s like the thing old people say, “back in my day I paid for my tuition by working in the summer” yeah we’ll back then tuition was cheap and prices of homes were a lot lower than today and wages haven’t matched inflation....
 
Not completely true. until recently the minimum wage has been mostly stagnant, but not all wages. I made like $5.75 an hour working sheet metal in Texas just over 30 years ago. Today the media wage for sheet metal workers in Texas is $18.29, about 200% more. I was making like $580 a month when I started in the Army as a PFC, and E-3 today makes almost $2,000 today. That's over 200% increase in 30 years.

Add to this that many jobs today are service industry jobs where work's wages are supplemented by tips and although the minimum wage that most of these jobs use as a base hasn't changes a lot, tipping has increased by quite a bit.

Furthermore, what a person earns is only half of the equation, the other is the cost of living and the tax burden, and quite frankly, lower income people are getting a bigger break from the Federal Government on Taxes then they ever have. There is far better assistance for lower people today than ever before.

Food prices have been greatly subsidized by the government to try and keep the prices low. By all rights, a tomato should cost far more than it does right now.. But the government has subsidized farmers and produce companies in order to keep the price at the store lower because they believe people will not accept $15 a pound for tomatoes. So we pay the difference in taxes for the artificial price at the register, those paying taxes at least. Those who are lower income don't pay anything in taxes which means they are actually getting a serious break.

I don't know what State you lived in back in the day, but I doubt that it was like most states.

As for housing costs, the government doesn't set those, the market does. And the market prices are what the market will bare. My oldest is renting here in Sierra Vista, she's paying $1000 a month for a 2000 square foot house, she makes $50K a year, just started as a new IT worker so she is bottom of the food chain in the professional world. Within a couple of years her income will likely increase above $60K and if she does decent and moves up she'll be pushing over $80-$100K within 10 years. That is reality today and this doesn't match your description of a stagnant hopeless economically depressed world.

That’s fine and all, but you are using a limited sample. Department of labor numbers show a different trend, wages have not matched inflation and cost of housing is increasing disproportionally to wages as well.

I can use anecdotal evidence as well. I live in the DC area, my rent for a room in a two bedroom apartment, just the room, was $1200. There aren’t many other options in the “safer” areas as well.

Jobs haven’t really decreased but they aren’t growing in areas beyond metro areas so many people have to resort to working in metropolitan areas and are subject to ridiculous prices. Not the mention that when a job opens up there are thousands of applicants for one job.
 
It’s like the thing old people say, “back in my day I paid for my tuition by working in the summer” yeah we’ll back then tuition was cheap and prices of homes were a lot lower than today and wages haven’t matched inflation....


wait wait wait ...... Not so quick their sonny :ROFLMAO:

Yes, back in my day, 1980ish say. My tuition was cheaper, a car was cheaper, everything was cheaper. And I worked my ass off for $5.25 an hour. That was a good bit more than the minimum wage of the day.

I remember my mother listening to the news on the radio, and saying "younger people today won't be able to save for a home, they'll have to get a mortgage". That was in the early 70's. In March 2000 my wife and I paid for our new home .... and wrote a check for it, no mortgage. I had people years before trying to tell me that such a thing was impossible, so we did the impossible. Yes, it is possible, and it's still possible, unless you are in debt. live in debt, give away a percentage of everything you make. The same percentage that you need in order to save for things, to invest and get ahead.



Unless your name is Reidy :angelic:

(If the name means nothing to you than don't worry about it)
 
That's cool. Back in 1998/99 I was making just over 5 bucks an hour with no benefits doing very physical manual labor in reasonably hazardous conditions. I'd argue things have gotten better, from that starting line.

You should have gotten some skills man and pulled harder on your boot straps. Minimum wage was like $5.15 back then and I made double it with skills I learned in high school.
 
Not completely true. until recently the minimum wage has been mostly stagnant, but not all wages. I made like $5.75 an hour working sheet metal in Texas just over 30 years ago. Today the media wage for sheet metal workers in Texas is $18.29, about 200% more. I was making like $580 a month when I started in the Army as a PFC, and E-3 today makes almost $2,000 today. That's over 200% increase in 30 years.

Add to this that many jobs today are service industry jobs where work's wages are supplemented by tips and although the minimum wage that most of these jobs use as a base hasn't changes a lot, tipping has increased by quite a bit.

Furthermore, what a person earns is only half of the equation, the other is the cost of living and the tax burden, and quite frankly, lower income people are getting a bigger break from the Federal Government on Taxes then they ever have. There is far better assistance for lower people today than ever before.

Food prices have been greatly subsidized by the government to try and keep the prices low. By all rights, a tomato should cost far more than it does right now.. But the government has subsidized farmers and produce companies in order to keep the price at the store lower because they believe people will not accept $15 a pound for tomatoes. So we pay the difference in taxes for the artificial price at the register, those paying taxes at least. Those who are lower income don't pay anything in taxes which means they are actually getting a serious break.

I don't know what State you lived in back in the day, but I doubt that it was like most states.

As for housing costs, the government doesn't set those, the market does. And the market prices are what the market will bare. My oldest is renting here in Sierra Vista, she's paying $1000 a month for a 2000 square foot house, she makes $50K a year, just started as a new IT worker so she is bottom of the food chain in the professional world. Within a couple of years her income will likely increase above $60K and if she does decent and moves up she'll be pushing over $80-$100K within 10 years. That is reality today and this doesn't match your description of a stagnant hopeless economically depressed world.


The median wage for an entire profession is hardly a comparison for the wage you started at. A fair comparison would be the median wage thirty years ago.

I've never heard anyone claim that anything other than corn and sugar are subsidized by the government. Never heard tomatoes. Do you have a link or source for that?

Also yes sure you can plot housing prices on a supply and demand graph but housing prices are highly influenced by the government. For example the last housing bubble and crash. I was able to purchase a very nice house for less than half of what I sold it for only a few years later during the post pop of that government created bubble. And now we've got president orange man raising immigration to record new levels and guess what? Immigrants need somewhere to live. That drives up housing prices. Among all the other ways the government and the federal reserve is involved.
 
What fast food place? What position and length of employment? And where at? All these will have an impact, as for most of the country at that time frame, $11/hr is hard to believe.

As for rent, welcome to rent control and regulation. Many if not most cities have many growing restrictions on new construction, and normal non-government housing in lots of areas is declining. Most new apartments no one wants to build anything other than welfare housing, government subsidizes the building and also pays the rent for these people, so out of pocket cost is low, they have guaranteed income/payment and they let it degrade into the ground because they already made their money and move on to the next. With land restrictions etc it means normal builders are paying more and more for the same buildings/locations, so rent has to go up as well.

And none of this accounts for inflation as well.

People like yourself like to claim that it was easier before etc etc. Yet I hire on younger people all the time and they only bitch and moan, I have friends who are older than me say "I wish I was as lucky as you", as if the 10 years of 80-100 hour work weeks had nothing to do with it. The younger kids I hire get upset about needing to be at work on time, no less having to actually do anything, and extra work? LOL! They are not willing to do ANYTHING to stand out from the other people wanting the job, they are the last to show up in the morning and the first to want to leave. They HIGHLY over estimate their value and work they put in, they do the bare minimal work to not be straight up fired and get pissed when they don't get a raise in 6 months, they think just showing up and not getting canned means they should get a raise every review. The number of people we go through just to find people who are not out right fuck ups is staggering.

With this is mind, I am also younger than you, so by your account I should have had an even harder time. I also came from a welfare family, father was a drug user etc etc lived for a number of years with my mother in a battered women and children's shelter. Rather than using this as an excuse and playing the poor victim of the evil greedy world, it motivated me to know exactly where I DIDN'T want to end up in life. I started working at 12, getting paid under the table as a shop hand (automotive), and worked my way up, I didn't do drugs, I didn't knock up any girls, and I busted my ass, to only now have people tell me I was "lucky", as if I had my position in life handed to me. Give me a break.

No one said anything about you. This post isn't about you. Congratulations on your success I was also born in a very bad family, bad enough that I was taken by the state and raised in foster care, also not fun, and I have succeeded through very hard work that others fail at.

None of this has anything to do with fifty years of stagnating wages while productivity has increased, the growth of an overclass of super wealthy who hoover up all productivity gains for themselves, and the awful inflation among food and housing that is hitting the young especially hard.
 
That’s fine and all, but you are using a limited sample. Department of labor numbers show a different trend, wages have not matched inflation and cost of housing is increasing disproportionally to wages as well.

I can use anecdotal evidence as well. I live in the DC area, my rent for a room in a two bedroom apartment, just the room, was $1200. There aren’t many other options in the “safer” areas as well.

Jobs haven’t really decreased but they aren’t growing in areas beyond metro areas so many people have to resort to working in metropolitan areas and are subject to ridiculous prices. Not the mention that when a job opens up there are thousands of applicants for one job.


In 1980 I would have been the sole wage earner, my wife would not have worked much, perhaps a very few years, help knock out buying the home. Today most households are two income and that is why the term "household income" is in use more than ever.

Anecdotal evidence is not something to dismiss. People with too much education go to school, learn about statistics and never ever learn that the real world doesn't always conform. The statistics are only as good as the data and too many times people only select the data that proves what they want the outcome to be.

Here's a thought, my town is a nice little town, just outside a nice little Army base. We can't fill the jobs here. There are always open positions. Some people need to accept that "a man has to do what a man has to do". Sometimes, if you really want a job, you have to move for it.

Wages have matched inflation. My wages have. You call my evidence anecdotal but my wage was normal for a sheet metal worker in the late 70's and early 80's. I referenced job data from the same area of the country today and it's $200 greater. Now tell me that homes of the same size and feature set are more than 3x times what they were in or around 1980.

Here is my family home in Lubbock Texas;
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2819-54th-St-Lubbock-TX-79413/54123987_zpid/

Built 1957
4 bed, 2 bath, 1304 sqft (garage converted to a room), originally sold for almost $40K, currently valued at almost $83K.

New homes in Lubbock that are comparable in size and rooms are $140K, but look at them and these have 2 car garages, the sqft of my family home includes the sqft of a one car garage.
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sa...,-101.60431,33.350318,-102.201005_rect/10_zm/

There is a seriously real difference in the quality of these two homes. Homes today are simply more than homes in the day. That doesn't come free, and it's a result of the market. People want more, it costs more. It's not as simple as your statisticians and analysts claim.

Oh, and let's not forget, the home my family bought for $40K doubled since then, despite the fact that it's 52 year sold. I'm sure it's been renovated some over the years, my dad did some of it.
So my wages tripled while the home I lived in doubled. And newer better ones are another 50% more, but are higher quality in terms of size and features, more energy efficient by far. Might not even have lead paint.
 
The median wage for an entire profession is hardly a comparison for the wage you started at. A fair comparison would be the median wage thirty years ago.

I've never heard anyone claim that anything other than corn and sugar are subsidized by the government. Never heard tomatoes. Do you have a link or source for that?

Also yes sure you can plot housing prices on a supply and demand graph but housing prices are highly influenced by the government. For example the last housing bubble and crash. I was able to purchase a very nice house for less than half of what I sold it for only a few years later during the post pop of that government created bubble. And now we've got president orange man raising immigration to record new levels and guess what? Immigrants need somewhere to live. That drives up housing prices. Among all the other ways the government and the federal reserve is involved.


I was working for my father who owned the company, how much more fair do you think you'll find?
 
The median wage for an entire profession is hardly a comparison for the wage you started at. A fair comparison would be the median wage thirty years ago.

I've never heard anyone claim that anything other than corn and sugar are subsidized by the government. Never heard tomatoes. Do you have a link or source for that?

Also yes sure you can plot housing prices on a supply and demand graph but housing prices are highly influenced by the government. For example the last housing bubble and crash. I was able to purchase a very nice house for less than half of what I sold it for only a few years later during the post pop of that government created bubble. And now we've got president orange man raising immigration to record new levels and guess what? Immigrants need somewhere to live. That drives up housing prices. Among all the other ways the government and the federal reserve is involved.

I'm not talking about a supply and demand for homes. The market demand I am refering too is what people want from a home. You can look at my post above to catch a clearer view of what I am saying. Houses today were mansions by comparison, 60 years ago.

I'll get back to you on your assertions on who created the housing bubble, "legal" immigration increasing, and your insinuation that it's being done to drive demand for housing.

OK, on immigration, from the following link, what has President Trump changed that has effected these immigration policies/limits?
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/how-united-states-immigration-system-works

And let's take this to PMs, we are getting off topic and into the politics thing and I've been slapped for that recently and didn't like it. So let's fix it ourselves and take it out of this thread if you don't mind.
 
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