Fuel Prices Again

[Nova Eona]

They're  paying from 14 to 16 bucks an hour and everyone still advertising for help around here.

Even $16/hour is basically poverty wages these days in most of the country.  The whole "Fight for $15" movement to raise the minimum wage was based on a livable wage back in 2012, $15 in 2012 money is more like $20 today.

[chessie4905]

Course it is. Forced wage increases never work for long. Next unions will start demanding their shrare and decry attempts of business to eliminate jobs to cope with higher and higher operating costs. Remember how long unions fought to keep fireman around after steam locomotives were history? History just repeating itself.

[luvrbus]

The poverty level for the US is $26,500.00 a year a lot of seniors are living on a lot less than $26,500.00 a year. Make no sense to me people here need help and we send billions of dollars to Ukraine to protect the CIA's handpicked leader. Charity begins at home.   

[Dave5Cs]

I shouldn't bitch because I just got a raise to my military pension and my Soc Sec...

BUT

With the "raise" they notified me they are taking yet more from my Soc Sec to pay for my Medicare?
(page 1021 of the affordable health care act.).

I guess they think I can affordable it...

Not a political statement. Just an observation.

That aside, it feels like they are taking from an entitlement to pay for the other one? Both of which I am pretty certain I earned??

"Give me your wallet so I can give you the ten bucks I owe you.....". LOL

I try to remember what my dad told me when I first bitched about taxes early in life.
"Welcome to the club Ted. Just try to remember, they can't keep all of it.". Not sure that made me feel much better at the time, but life goes on.

Ted what did you do everyone else got a raise  and Medicare decreased this year?Unless you added part D because you didn't get it originally then you would get a penalty?

[tr206]

Illegal immigrants may get $450,000 each.
https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/cash-illegal-immigrants-the-new-low-bidens-open-borders-push

[Nova Eona]

Course it is. Forced wage increases never work for long. Next unions will start demanding their shrare and decry attempts of business to eliminate jobs to cope with higher and higher operating costs. Remember how long unions fought to keep fireman around after steam locomotives were history? History just repeating itself.

So in one post you're complaining about how nobody wants to work for $16/hour, and in the next you're agreeing that that's not even a living wage?  C'mon.  If a business can't afford to pay their employees a living wage, either that business deserves to fail or our entire system is skewed in the wrong direction.  The people who don't want to work for a non-livable wage are not the villains here.

[tr206]

So in one post you're complaining about how nobody wants to work for $16/hour, and in the next you're agreeing that that's not even a living wage?  C'mon.  If a business can't afford to pay their employees a living wage, either that business deserves to fail or our entire system is skewed in the wrong direction.  The people who don't want to work for a non-livable wage are not the villains here.

Why work when you can make more sucking off the government just got to learn how to work the system. Not talking about those who genuinely need it.

[luvrbus]

Minimum wages were for entry level people starting in the work force with no skills,I started a $1.10 an hour the opportunities are there for everyone to advance in the USA you work hard and look for that opportunity. That doesn't happen sitting on your @$# looking for a handout or thinking you should start at the top.Not the way it happens you start at the bottom and work to reach the top, it is there for everyone if you want it.     

[Nova Eona]

Minimum wages were for entry level people starting in the work force with no skills,I started a $1.10 an hour the opportunities are there for everyone to advance in the USA you work hard and look for that opportunity. That doesn't happen sitting on your @$# looking for a handout or thinking you should start at the top.Not the way it happens you start at the bottom and work to reach the top, it is there for everyone if you want it.   

So people starting out with no skills don't deserve enough wages to put food on the table and a roof overhead?  I disagree - if a job exists, it should pay enough to keep a person who's working 40+ hours at it from dying of starvation or exposure.  I'm all for recognizing merit and awarding those who do well with a greater slice of the pie, but our economy should not rely on people doing jobs which don't pay enough to simply live.  Y'all want fewer entitlement programs?  Get the big multi-billion-dollar corporations off of the major entitlement program wherein our taxes are making up for the shortfall in their wages and salaries.

When you started at $1.10 an hour, how much was the average monthly rent on a one-bedroom?  How about the average tuition cost at a local college?  Compare that to today's rates and see how that matches up.

[luvrbus]

Get real you don't enter the workforce when you 30 years you enter most of the time when you are 16 or 17 years still living at home with mom and dad.You go to college or a trade school to start at better wages.Most employers offer an apprenticeship above minimum wage. Tax corporations all you wish it still will cost the taxpayers in the long run, all you do is add the increase to your overhead and pass it down.Have you eaten out lately a Big Mac is not 70 cents anymore. 
  .     

[chessie4905]

They have trouble getting help because after getting those stimulus payments, nobody of young generation want to work. Live with parents, with free room and board have a phone. No need to have to go and get a job. And since  Epa and Osha laws however beneficial, have forced the migration of industries out of this country.

[windtrader]

well. this seems to have gone 90 degrees off topic.
Just the other day a similar conversation was had with a neighbor. It seems working a minimum wage job did not allow someone to afford to live independently. I agree 100% a person with journeyman level skills and some years of experience should be able to afford to live alone. The real issue at heart is the loss of the middle class that battles against global wage competition.
If you accept the trend that th USA competes in a global market, then the main way to afford higher wages is via higher productivity. There is no reason why we can't compete but it requires investment by business into new gen automated systems.
When you have more automation and greater productivity that comes at the loss of jobs. If you have a job you will earn better living wages due to greater need for skills and education. Those not making the grade fall into the increasing chasm of the hollowed out middle class.

No easy answers, especially when AI can devour many more middle white colloar jobs. what do people do?

[Nova Eona]

The trouble is that our productivity has gone through the roof for decades, but none of us are reaping the true benefits of that and those that do are pouring enormous amounts of money into making sure we blame the 'entitled youth' or the 'global economy' instead of looking to see if our slice of the pie has wound up in their bloated pockets.  Wages and productivity no longer track together.  Increasing productivity of the workforce no longer benefits the workforce tangibly, and more and more people are getting tired of chasing the carrot on the stick.

Here's a thought experiment to consider.  What if tomorrow someone invents an AI/robotics/power-generation system which, once turned on, can do literally any job - including arts and sciences - better than a human while operating indefinitely.  These bots cost practically nothing and take mere seconds to produce, with the only caveat being that the factory needed to get them going costs a few billion dollars.  With almost every single job on the planet instantly deprecated, do we end up with a utopia where no one has to work if they don't want to, or a dystopian nightmare where billions starve because they don't have a job?

[lvmci]

When I was still working full time I put away money for my granddaughter, then 3 years later for my grandson, in a special fund for post high school education, here in Nevada. It was low interest but safe from risky investments, supposedly. But looking at the quarter statements, my grandsons lost $500 in a quarter. In My angryr call I was told I did it! Of course which I didn't do, but was told that is the only way it could have gotten changed. They wont replace the lost $500 but switched it back to the original instructions. Life has gotten so complex investors are so shrewd I don't know how regular people can survive any investments to get ahead. The sharks are everywhere...

[tr206]

Short answer: IMO unfortunatly half of the world has lost grip with reality and want to live in some sort of utopia. I think that's why were so divided these days and where it goes from here is anybodys guess. God help us all.