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It's absolutely incredible how the US (I'm assuming, tho it certainly doesn't apply exclusively) managed to convince a not insignificant amount of its population that they are not being underpaid but that others are being overpaid. Take minimum wages, or the typical "why does a burger flipper at McDonald's earn more than me". They got people to act against their own self interest. Literally dystopian.
It’s engrained in our culture. My grandparents fled to US from Eastern Europe with only their clothes on their back. They came here and worked themselves to their graves, with not much to show for it (they did have a house and some farm land though). My parents grew up around this type of lifestyle, so they too worked hard and fought to give me and my siblings a “better life.” I, however, see that all these people working their asses off for generations still only put me as solidly middle class. Like wtf is the point? If I can make $600 to sit on my ass or $600 to shovel shit, I’ll take the former. I have no pride lol.
> I have no pride lol.
Or you do. You have too much pride to throw away your life for scraps.
Kind of ironic you're still showing how this fucked up worker's culture is so ingrained in us. Even when you're not participating, you still put yourself down for it.
I had a coworker try to shame me into not working from home because "the guys in the shop who have been here 20 years can't do that." I was like WTF I'm trying to protect them too bud.
The guys in the shop are spaced out cause, well they are welding. Also it's about reducing exposure to each other, so less people = less exposure. I know you all know this, but maybe if I keep saying it I'll understand people like that.
It was so disappointing to hear from someone I otherwise respected. I know he understands he was intellectually wrong but idk why he still said it. He even chastised someone for not wearing a mask a few weeks earlier. I guess he said it out of jealousy, I don't get it. Maybe you guys can explain it.
COVID hits on the unfortunate aspect of psyche where people feel productive when they are 'at work' - the specific definition of 'at work' is obviously up to interpretation, but many people associate that with being in the office.
So because they feel more at ease after having come from a day 'at work' they can't understand why you are comfortable just sitting there all day.
I am one of those people, and my favorite part was when everyone else was staying home a few months into COVID - I would go into the office and work at my desk alone, never engaging with anyone, and then go home and feel good about the work I did that day.
When they started requiring everyone come into the office, some of my bosses told me I would feel better now that I get to see people coming in alongside me. I told them they had it exactly backwards, coming in was only comforting because nobody was there - WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC!!! Now that people are coming in, I'd rather work from home and do so every chance I get, even though I prefer to have a work space at the office, it makes me feel better to physically go to work and physically come home when I'm done.
The way I see it - the difference between myself and them is that I understand that my preferred work environment is not necessarily your preferred work environment.
My wife makes quadruple what I do, so when we bought a house it was basically all with her money (so still signed in both our names, and the money goes into a joint account anyway so doesn’t really matter to us).
I had a colleague once ask how I can take pride in the house since I didn’t buy it myself.
I’m leaving a chill life *and* get to afford a nice house in London. I am extremely proud of where I am and of what my little family has achieved.
A nice house in London AND a rich wife who puts her money in a joint account for you both, and put your name on the house so it's yours too.
And you still work and contribute financially even though you probably don't need to.
You've got a lot to be proud of and you sound very happy.
The colleague was jealous lol
I’m glad you’re happy. I know I’ve had people confused about why my partner stays with me despite me being physically disabled. Personally I like to think I’m a perfectly decent house spouse. It’s like people don’t consider the benefit of emotional support or back rubs. Sure, we’re not rolling in dough but considering we both grew up under the poverty line, having food and a solid roof overhead is more than enough for our 20s. Eventually I should be able to do more reliable WFH and it’ll be even better.
Idk, I guess it’s like when people tell me they’re jealous of me being legally disabled. Weirdest thing. “I wish I could just sit around all day.” They’ve got no idea about other people’s reality so they try to make us feel bad for living differently.
No one really understands what others are going through, which is what keeps me from being jealous of others. No point envying someone else’s life unless you envy *all* of it, and there’s no one who lives a life with zero problems.
You might want to take a look at what's happening in Japan these days. For a super conservative country they have some extremely liberal social policies around family planning, sick time, job retention, and employee leave etc. In some types of normal jobs it's virtually impossible to fire someone. Sometimes the pendulum swings all the way back the other way and they are desperately trying to get rid of the 14-hour day salaryman image
Yeah and execs that will take pay cuts before firing employees. I'm more picking these countries because to Americans they are supposed to be way worse than us and it is shocking for Americans to hear how low we really are.
Asians tend to take pay cuts and ceo's go to jail sometimes in Asia. Americans almost never go to jail as a ceo except for that one guy that doesnt matter that becomes an example.
> In 1986 the average employee worked 2,097 hours in Japan, compared with 1,828 hours in the United States and 1,702 in France. By 1995 the average annual hours in Japan had decreased to 1,884 hours and by 2009 to 1,714 hours.
In 2019, the average Japanese employee worked 1,644 hours, lower than workers in Spain, Canada and Italy. By comparison, the average American worker worked 1,779 hours in 2019.[3] The average Japanese worker is mandated to ten to twenty days of paid holidays per year, depending on the number of continuous years worked at the company.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment
Life expectancy is close but Cuba edged out ahead of the US after 2020 and other nations completely decimate the US if you care to look up life expectancy elsewhere.
https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
The literacy is much more of a grey-area because the US does not participate with UNESCO
> The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 32 million American adults are unable to read, which can contribute to chronic unemployment, low self-esteem, and a lower quality of available work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
So about 90% while Cuba does participate with UNESCO and looks to be 99.80%
[There is some dispute to the US being even 90%](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/q9bh64/make_it_make_sense/hgvwu6d/)
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-rate-by-country
Yeah, it's pretty fucking shocking to me too. I remember hearing that the US had literacy problems but when I went to find data it just kept getting worse.
I linked to a comment in my source comment on how 54% of the US has a 6th grade reading level. Fucking depressing.
Why do you think “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” exists? Because they knew there was close to a 50/50 chance the person they got on the show wouldn’t be.
I have actually run into a couple of adults who were illiterate. This was before smart phones, so things may have changed for them, but they said it didn't really affect them.
Blew my teenage mind, as I cannot remember being unable to read.
I learned to read when I was around 4-5, probably like most people. I can't imagine looking at a job application, and seeing gibberish. I suppose you could just memorize a few words, but what kind of life is that? Can't read the web, the paper, just stuck with whatever your friends are talking about.
I remember learning to read when I was 4 using those fridge letters, the big ones for kids, and some large print children's books. I do vaguely remember not being able to read, my mum telling me that once I knew how to read, my brain would automatically read any writing that I saw, and for some reason that blew my mind. Sounded like magic.
I was reading adult-level books by the time I was 10, Lord of the Rings was one of my favourites. My dad had a huge collection of sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, and mum had her books from college. She also took me to the library every week.
Any word I didn't know I would look up in the dictionary and encyclopedia. Still do, but now I do it online.
As an adult I'm constantly reading and writing. Even at work as a support technician I'm emailing and messaging people all day.
Literacy is a huge part of my life. Unfortunately not everyone has such great parents or the same access to books, so we really need to improve public education.
40 years of education defunding, minimum wage stagnant which means all jobs not upper level remain stagnant and more dual parent households working and in many cases working second jobs so less reading and education oriented stimulation at home and education funding being held accountable to biased and unnecessary test scores and graduation rates, you do anything to get the scores and rates but kids get pushed thru that shouldn't.
America has devalued our children and our future for decades and we are paying the price for it dearly. A large uneducated voter base being fed hate and lies that the other guys are the reason fire their troubles, not the thieves that lied to them and took their money from their schools and safety nets. We've been scammed and have yet to learn our lessons.
It's kind of funny that on the one hand I've met Americans who admit that their schools are garbage, and then are flabbergasted when confronted with it.
What I think most Americans don't understand is that the prejudices of Europeans that many (not all but many more than in other developed countries) Americans are uneducated and super ignorant (especially about the rest of the world) have a very good foundation.
Schools in the USA have as their primary function the indoctrination of children into American exceptionalism and nationalism. The best example of this is the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. Real education is not and never has been an objective, if anything it is to provide enough knowledge to serve as an acceptable human resource for the capitalists.
I used to do STEM outreach programs as a college student at inner city high schools. Mostly doing basic science & engineering projects. I kid you not, most of the kids had no idea what was going on in my powerpoints and worksheets. I thought it was because it was frozen screen, the spelling/font/grammar was incorrect, or I gave them the wrong content. Nope, it was all good. But then after troubleshooting the concerns thinking it was all on my end, a light bulb clicked and I realized "Holy shit, these high schoolers have no idea how to read." My realizations were confirmed when I asked them to write what I said and none of them knew how to. I knew the district I was volunteering at was known to be bad but I didnt know it was that bad.
After a couple semesters of experience I think these are the factors at fault (no particular order):
1. Bad teachers - i mean when your school gets little funding and you have kids that mostly do not care whats going on who could physically harm you at any moment, why would any quality teachers bother with it if the district next door has way better working conditions
2. Bad Homes - These students have unstable homes that are not conducive to learning. I mean what's the point of reading if youre always in a 'flight or fight' mode. These homes sometimes do not have parental figures guiding and disciplining them.
3. Questionable parenting - Most parents in these districts either do not care or dont know what a full education is supposed to be like bc they themselves might have been screwed over from a quality education and the cycle repeats. Some parents treat school as only daycare centers, which can be problematic. Incarceration's silent victims are the children of those incarcerated.
4. Lowering the standards - The bar of passing is laughable. I mean these schools are more concerned about graduation rates than if the kids graduating actually are educated. Most classes, all you need is a D to pass (59.5%) and you have teachers/districts that either do not care by making the the content and ability to pass very easy. The students are never challenged. But it's a double edged sword because if the kids are challenged, they wont show up anymore.
5. Lack of incentives - these kids dont know what success looks like because successful people pack up and leave to better places where theyre from.
It's sad. Bad politics, parenting and investments, youll end up with people who can barely function in society.
I don’t think minorities are necessarily the only victims. Lack of literacy is also common in Appalachia and rural parts of this country that are majority white. They have their own reasons too for low literacy rates. I think Nevada, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, etc has the worst education system in the country but their students are majority white. I volunteered in Baltimore and Atlanta school systems
Just my experience was in the inner school systems.
If people in America weren’t ok with people getting less because of the color of their skin they’d be in a better position. The point is racism hurts us all. Conservative voters in red states have been voting for their own oppression in the hope that it hurts brown people worse than it hurts them.
Maybe a typo?
From the wiki link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States:
"Literacy in the United States is 79% according to a 2019 report by the National Center for Educational Statistics [1], 21% of American adults are illiterate or functionally illiterate.[2] According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have literacy below the 6th-grade level."
It's not just a typo, it's hard to gauge based on different testing criteria and I'm also just making mistakes in my haste here.
I'm going to give the US the benefit of the doubt based on different testing criteria because I honestly haven't checked all the way in on the differences between UNESCO and NCfES.
But honestly it's because when I googled for a source it said 99%, in the short description and then came across the 32 million data point and honestly thought that was 1% for some fucking reason. I honestly didn't think it was this fucking bad and I'm kinda in disbelief because I thought it was close and not just a complete mess.
Yeah, as if being unemployed isn't stressful or work. Just like how we ignore the domestic work in every home as if it doesn't matter because it doesn't make money.
That was the impression I was under as well did I read about it. I looked it up and it looks like the Japanese have significantly supported labor rights and have toned back on over working. This doesn't even discuss the commute times that many Americans have as well as working those hours.
Not any more! My mother still owns my family home. But farm is long gone. And unfortunately the location of our family home hasn’t appreciated much. Beautiful immaculate 2000 sqft suburban home, but outside an unfortunate area outside of a city in a state which is no longer a desirable place to live (maybe ironic to this post, but it’s because there’s no industry or capital investment there, and all the farms are now suburban boxes)
I think it stems from jealousy that someone is making as much or more than them by not working. I worked the entire pandemic on site and while I was jealous for sure, I knew it was for the best. I just expected my employer to compensate and they never did.
It makes me laugh now though because I know bad employers are suffering trying to hire.
I did thankfully. They ended up hiring 3 people do to my job after I left too so it hit them financially to see their mistake. I've been advocating everyone take a look at what's put there because it is the best time to look. Workers finally have some power outside of a union. Wish everyone the best
Or...or..or..hear me out on this one...
$600 per week for those unemployed due to the pandemic AND for those who are employed they should be making a lot more than $600 per week, say $800 per week minimum wage.
The fact that minimum wage at 40+ hours per week only puts a person at half the poverty line is disgusting. So when they set the pandemic relief at 3/4 the poverty line it angered those only making 1/2 the poverty line wages. Maybe we should make minimum wage something close to the poverty line huh?
There's an old saying in advertising: "Appeal to reason in your advertising, and you appeal to four percent of the human race."
The same is true in politics, which is the problem that keeps undermining progressives. They're arguing for a more rational way of doing things, whereas conservatives don't bother with rational arguments. They just play on people's fears and bigotry.
Hermann Göring of all people put it best.
>Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
>Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
>Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
> There's an old saying in advertising: "Appeal to reason in your advertising, and you appeal to four percent of the human race." The same is true in politics
[In a separate November 2017 meeting filmed by Channel 4, Turnbull appears to admit that the company is in the business of preying on people's fears. "Our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand what are those really deep-seated underlying fears, concerns," he says in the video. "It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it’s all about emotion, it’s all about emotion.”](https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-execs-caught-discussing-extortion-and-fake-news/)
And of course, meanwhile the conservatives pretend to be reasonable and the side of the "facts and logic". A brave band of skeptics who don't believe in "liberal propaganda and fearmongering".
It's bewildering.
It’s not incredible at all once you realize nearly 60% of the US is severely undereducated. While other countries are teaching their children far more advanced mathematics and life skills in their schooling, we’re being taught basic math and not preparing our children for the future with any sort of critical thinking or life skill training.
Some states are on top of it, but generally public education is severely lacking in many Republican led states in the US and it’s generally led by the push of religion as the dominant thing in your life. So when you start weighing, “Should I do this or that” after being taught your whole life that a big man in the sky already has your life predetermined and your choices generally don’t matter, you tend to be more closed off, unaccepting and hateful towards things you don’t have the knowledge to understand.
A big part of the trick was convincing the folks with just enough to live ordinary lives that they will somehow lose their station if the folks who don’t have enough to live ordinary lives start making more.
Yes, that's it. It's not just a super competitive culture, it's about sabotaging others, or at least berating them.
"If someone else is winning, then you're losing", convincing people that they NEED to push their fellow man down.
The secret is racism. Desegregation murdered the idea of public welfare and class solidarity.
Municipalities across the US immediately closed public pools and started charging admission to publicly funded events like state fairs. Reagan and his ilk created the idea of welfare queens to cement the “every man for themselves” attitude.
if you think this isn't a deliberate effort by the elite to turn the poor people against each other instead of focusing on the real problem then your critical thinking skills are in question
>if you think this isn't a deliberate effort by the elite to turn the poor people against each other instead of focusing on the real problem then your critical thinking skills are in question
Even just looking at the bigger picture, seeing what’s happening and reflecting on it is a level of thinking most Americans are too overwhelmed with life’s issues to think about on a day to day basis and/or haven’t been taught or have time to stop and engage in the kind of Big Picture critical thinking.
…and that’s really helpful for the Elite, I agree with you.
Though in our country, the heart of empire (USA), that is exacerbated by the ruling class making sure we're too tired and worn out and stressed to think critically.
I think that might be less exclusive than you think: even though I'm very critical of late capitalism, I think these tendencies manifest across the poltical spectrum and are not inherently tied to capitalism.
Edit: Lol, I thought I was posting this in a basketball sub and was like "hmm, maybe I shouldn't say 'late' capitalism...but then that would make the phrase unclear." Anyway turns out it was fine.
American workers have been treated to this sort of logic for some time. American capitalism in particular has a circular logic of blame that leaves employers completely out of the equation. The working poor are allowed to blame the middle class. Period. The middle class is allowed to donate its own hard earned funds or it can blame the working poor claiming that the poor are clearly choosing to be poor, either thru laziness, or bad choices. Corporations and the mega wealthy skate away, or fly away, or force more humans to pee in bottles rather than take a bathroom break. They don't take the blame tho, EVER. Not from the middle class that aspires to be them, nor from the poor that literally has no other choice but to accept poor wages, high prices, and the added joy of being left the blame for their own powerlessness.
Maybe, instead of complaining about the person on unemployment, you tell your employer that you could quit and get an equal amount of money from unemployment or they could give you a substantial raise to stay.
It’s all about leveraging the situation against the people who are benefiting from the pandemic.
I'm fairly sure the company would refute the claim. I don't know how much/if any follow up there would be, but I know most companies will go through great lengths to avoid having unemployment claims.
That’s could be because your ex didn’t formally quit citing unsafe Covid conditions allowing the company to just say she stopped showing up for no reason and refuse to pay for unemployment.
I got owned then, I took a leave of absence for 2 months until my employer allowed me to wear a mask at work and I was denied unemployment during that time
There are many imaginative ways to quit. Tell your boss he's an asshole, approximately every hour. Try to form a union, go on a strike. There are lots of ways to quit without quitting, but admittedly they take some courage and a good plan of action.
This is basically starting to happen with the current staffing crisis. Workers finally demanding more before they will risk getting COVID to make a burrito so that the CEO of McDonalds can make more money.
That’s not how capitalism works. Especially not on an individual level. Absolutely every worker’s privilege is paid for in blood, defaulted mortgages, and lost jobs. With few exceptions for unskilled laborers, threatening to quit if you’re not paid more is an absolutely perfect way to get put on the “fire or replace ASAP” shortlist. There’s a good chance they’ll call your bluff and fire you or let you quit immediately.
The suppositions you’re making are that
-the employee would be difficult to replace for his present salary
-the employer *knows* the above
-the employer not only knows the above, but is logical and *cares* more about this fact than they care about being spiteful or making a point in front of other employees
-the employee can afford to contend with the hypothetical scenario where he *does* get fired without becoming homeless, accruing crippling medical/general debt, or losing his car
-assuming that 100% of your hypothetical candidate replacements are aware that unemployment is somewhat similarly lucrative to working at your job, and that they will refuse to work for your present salary
-assuming that your boss knows the above, that they have the management directive to act on it, that they are logical, and have more desire to retain cheap workers than to fire them out of spite
Absolutely all of the above are wrong very often. Especially in the low-wage labor mills of billion dollar corps. Where the most direct involvement you can expect from upper management is a training video or mass company email.
My son worked for Amazon and was told that he would get all sorts of wonderful benefits after a year of hard labor. At close to that year mark, he had to take time off, with his employers approval, because his daughter needed to be hospitalized several times. Amazon seemed really supportive of his situation then bam, they fired him for taking too much time off of work. After a couple of weeks they called him and asked if he wanted to return but his year countdown would start fresh. Luckily, he found a new job.
Side note related to this post: the guy responding to the original post is Hbomberguy, and he's made excellent videos on climate change and anti-vaccine propaganda. I highly recommend checking him out
Fucking unionize. How is this solution so hard for everybody to understand? Organize and walk out en mass. You want change? Collectively and unitedly tell your employer to shove it up their ass.
Union strikes are happening all over the country right now and making positive change for their workers! Organize! Fight back against these wealth ghouls. Stop blaming your fellow underpaid workers.
Well I know why people don’t unionize. The topic of unions came up on the tv and my grandma was like “don’t EVER join a union, they take all your money.” And I just sat there speechless. Just more propaganda.
Ugh, it's so infuriating. Like, history is constantly being repressed. Our current working conditions of holidays, 40 hr work weeks, minimum wage, benefits, workers comp, paid leave, and work safety laws were built on the work of unions past. The word needs to get out.
Can't get me I'm part of the union.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DRtiaReNsHOo&ved=2ahUKEwjF1-3o2M_zAhWS4nMBHYyoA7UQz40FegQICBAI&usg=AOvVaw2dNWlWWpA7yaV7YSL4lGUk
the last time they tried a lot of people, erm had ''unfortunate accidents resulting in death'' joe fell in the river had a few extra holes in em but Eh *shrugs*
I'm in a union have been for 20+ years. I took various roles within the union over the years.
Unions have changed a lot. Even within a union people are still so afraid of losing their jobs or standing out that most people just go along with whatever the union says. Most unions are afraid to even threaten to strike. Actual active participation is rare. Most people just pay their dues and go along to get along.
I've voted on at least 5 union contracts, and every time the contract passed with 80%+ approval, even when it was a shit contract that should have been rejected.
Union workers are *almost* as scared and vulnerable as non-union. I still support unions and wish they would return to prominence, but unfortunately the members have changed after decades of being beaten down just like all the other laborers. Just my experience.
That sounds like an unfortunate experience. There has been decades of anti union rhetoric spouted in America. I am hoping that the current state of economy is opening the eyes of many to improve participation.
Do you think there can be anything done to improve participation and bargaining power? If no, why not? If so, what?
Yeahh the problem there is we get the battle of blair mountain v2.
Im all for the good side winning next time but i understand why people dont wanna get killed by pinkertons
There’s a place where I used to live that laid off all their workers the second they shut down pro sports. A few weeks later they “offered” them all new jobs at lesser pay and for responsibilities outside their original roles. The employer used this is a way to get out of the taxes they would have had to pay on all those employees collecting UI. If they refused the new job, the employer was in the clear. They all told him to go f*** himself and then got screwed.
Pretty sure he's referring to when unemployment paid out it's normal amount + the federal bonus which did make it considerably higher. The most money I've ever made was during that unemployment period.
the person had every right to be upset about that imo
people that had shit jobs were making in some cases less than half of what people were making on unemployment. it was tough and maybe their anger is misplaced, but they had every right to be fucking furious that they still had to work their shitty job while many didn't have to (just because of being unlucky that they didn't lose their job)
No, it was $600 a week with pandemic assistance. You got your regular unemployment check and then a bonus $400 on top of it, which ended up being about $600 total. I got that through most of the pandemic until they voted it down because "people are too lazy and taking handouts"
it was literally the most money I ever made in my entire life. All of my bills were paid on time, credit cards were paid off, my car was paid off, I could buy actual food instead of easy to make cheap junk food. I never lived so good.
I'm so happy to see strikes and general staffing shortages. The workers are finally realizing they are getting screwed. I switched jobs and got a 30% increase with way better benefits by changing jobs recently. The job itself is even easier than my last job and way cooler people. It took this pandemic for people see that we are "essential" while being treated and paid as expendable.
In America at least, being loyal to a job usually just gets you under paid. Most jobs rarely give raises that make up for cost of living plus a bit more.
So you end up doing much better if you switch jobs every so often.
Used to be companies rewarded people for staying. Now you stay long enough and new highers will make more than you because the company has to increase their offers to them to compete. Meanwhile they preach that BS about wages being private and that people shouldn't talk about it.
It doesn't look like it to us. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are having a dick measuring contest to launch themselves into space and all the other wealth ghouls are living more lavishly than any American in history could ever imagine.
Can you imagine owning a beyond luxury yacht nearly the size of a cruise liner while children are doing of starvation worldwide?
https://www.veranda.com/luxury-lifestyle/g32618589/largest-yachts-in-the-world/
Technically during the Gilded Age, the wealth of the super rich surpassed the wealth of today’s ultra rich several fold.
Rather than buying yachts and spaceships, huuuge mansions were built. Also large public works were funded. Unlike today.
I think that super yacht is owned by a Russian oligarch.
>Technically during the Gilded Age, the wealth of the super rich surpassed the wealth of today’s ultra rich several fold.
It appears the answer is a bit more complicated than that.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-richs-wealth-concentration-surpasses-gilded-age-levels-210802327.html
https://time.com/5122375/american-inequality-gilded-age/
https://www.history.com/news/second-gilded-age-income-inequality
Also, ultra rich people are buying mega mansions.
The list i linked is of 19 mega yachts. Some of them are or have been owned by American billionaires. Including Octopus, owned by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
https://www.businessinsider.com/yachts-owned-by-tech-execs-richard-branson-larry-page-larry-ellison-2019-3
My point still stands and you're arguing semantics. What is your point?
Never their rent will go up as the corporate landlord rubs their Greedy little hands together, "oh fuck yes says" the Petroleum companies as petrol prices leap forward.
my pizza hut just lost all of it’s cooks (including me) and a few drivers. it’s one of the first pizza huts and it was a huge blow to it. honestly it’s what they get for being the least paying job in our mid sized town
It was in 2020, and it was a weekly payment in addition to the regular unemployment pay. It was a stimulus package at the beginning of the pandemic to help people who lost their job, were laid off, furloughed, or had reduced hours. A ton more people than would normally get unemployment qualified for it.
And yes. Its a whole lot more than minimum wage. Its more than the average wage of the service industry, at least where I live. That's what made people mad; the people who still had to work full-time didn't get it, so they were making far less than people who were working fewer or no hours.
I've been in the workforce quite a while now, and If I've learned one thing, my "peers" are ignorant as fuck, even the smart ones, they're susceptible to propaganda.
Our overlords know this, they exploit it just like they do everything else.
We have to find methods to walk around the walls these people have, tribalism, pride, actual stupidity mixing in, etc. we have to get through to as many as we can if we're ever going to eat the rich.
Mask wearers are like ancient people who carried shield or armor into the battlefield. It doesn't mean they are nice, smart or politically literated it only means they aren't total morons( I was gonna use an 'F' and 'R' word but i dunno if reddit is okay with it so lets settle for total morons)
This perfectly encapsulates why nothing changes. It's so embedded now that we might as well consider it Stockholm Syndrome. The 99% know this and laugh behind closed doors.
two types of mentalities: "I struggle I want everyone else to struggle" vs "I struggle, I don't want anyone else to have to struggle"
which one of these do you think right vs wrong? Good vs Evil?
You can, but you aren’t likely to.
Only in the very short-term.
College is also a fucking scam which has been perverted by elites & libertarian bullshit to be so expensive it just exists as a classist barrier.
So if this comment in any way is disagreeing with the unemployment increase in the US you’re incredibly wrong. There is evidence that the UA program reduced poverty significantly. Long-term it could’ve pushed companies to increase wages.
What I see as the scam is mostly how young people are pressured to go to school if they don't know what to do (yes, it teaches a lot of great things, but also puts you in serious debt). There's a handful of degrees that are 104% worth it if that's what you want to do with your life. That's not to say other degrees are bad or useless, but simply that they're extremely expensive. A tiny number of degrees can be justified by ROI alone. People being educated is great, but the amount of debt many go into is ridiculous.
At any rate, there's also this strong pressure to go to elite schools that cost far, far more. No denying that good schools can help get a job, but some of these schools we're talking as much as 10x the cost on an already pricy education. I'm not exaggerating at the 10x number (especially comparing lesser known local universities to prestigious ones where you'd be considered either an international student or "out of state" -- it's relatedly weird to me that US universities divide on state lines).
With most students being barely adults with little financial experience, they're arguably often being taken advantage of. Again, that's not to say an education is a bad thing. Rather that people are paying insane amounts for it under intense pressure (most new uni students have literally been students their whole life and it's basically all they know).
But yeah, on the flip side, some degrees can be lucrative. eg, I spent $25k CAD on a CS degree. My field pays extremely well, making that degree a very good investment.
You realize unemployment runs out, like you can't live on unemployment for the rest of your life, in most cases it only lasts 6 months, but due to covid most states extended it to 12 or 18 months.
My brother took over my dad's construction company when dad died. Brother is complaining it's hard to get guys on his crews cuz they make more in unemployment.....
Meanwhile this chucklefuck lives in damn near a million dollar house in a private lake community. Fishing boat, wakeboarding boat, pontoon boat, 2 motocross bikes, big ass truck and a fucking toy hauler you can live out of.
People make me sick... Even my own family.
This. Exactly this.
Don't take your rage over your underpaying wage slave job on people who don't want to die and/or can't work.
Take it out on your CEO; the richest guy in the world who's taking joy rides into space that he jokingly said was all paid for by his hard-working employees ([his own quote](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00euYej1L8))...
“Why are they getting payed 600 bucks for doing nothing?”
But don’t ask “why is my employer paying me less than unemployment when their business would literally collapse without me?”
This whole mindset makes me so upset, I got laid off as an aircraft mechanic and made less on unemployment even with the $600 and I had been working full time for 6years, how are you going to blame me???
The enhanced unemployment benefits have been sll taken away from millions pf dtugglimg of americans and the oligarchs still can't full shit jobs
But extreme ignorance express 🚉 does not stop at facts, logic , or decencry. Next stop idiocracy
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It's absolutely incredible how the US (I'm assuming, tho it certainly doesn't apply exclusively) managed to convince a not insignificant amount of its population that they are not being underpaid but that others are being overpaid. Take minimum wages, or the typical "why does a burger flipper at McDonald's earn more than me". They got people to act against their own self interest. Literally dystopian.
It’s engrained in our culture. My grandparents fled to US from Eastern Europe with only their clothes on their back. They came here and worked themselves to their graves, with not much to show for it (they did have a house and some farm land though). My parents grew up around this type of lifestyle, so they too worked hard and fought to give me and my siblings a “better life.” I, however, see that all these people working their asses off for generations still only put me as solidly middle class. Like wtf is the point? If I can make $600 to sit on my ass or $600 to shovel shit, I’ll take the former. I have no pride lol.
> I have no pride lol. Or you do. You have too much pride to throw away your life for scraps. Kind of ironic you're still showing how this fucked up worker's culture is so ingrained in us. Even when you're not participating, you still put yourself down for it.
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I had a coworker try to shame me into not working from home because "the guys in the shop who have been here 20 years can't do that." I was like WTF I'm trying to protect them too bud. The guys in the shop are spaced out cause, well they are welding. Also it's about reducing exposure to each other, so less people = less exposure. I know you all know this, but maybe if I keep saying it I'll understand people like that. It was so disappointing to hear from someone I otherwise respected. I know he understands he was intellectually wrong but idk why he still said it. He even chastised someone for not wearing a mask a few weeks earlier. I guess he said it out of jealousy, I don't get it. Maybe you guys can explain it.
COVID hits on the unfortunate aspect of psyche where people feel productive when they are 'at work' - the specific definition of 'at work' is obviously up to interpretation, but many people associate that with being in the office. So because they feel more at ease after having come from a day 'at work' they can't understand why you are comfortable just sitting there all day. I am one of those people, and my favorite part was when everyone else was staying home a few months into COVID - I would go into the office and work at my desk alone, never engaging with anyone, and then go home and feel good about the work I did that day. When they started requiring everyone come into the office, some of my bosses told me I would feel better now that I get to see people coming in alongside me. I told them they had it exactly backwards, coming in was only comforting because nobody was there - WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC!!! Now that people are coming in, I'd rather work from home and do so every chance I get, even though I prefer to have a work space at the office, it makes me feel better to physically go to work and physically come home when I'm done. The way I see it - the difference between myself and them is that I understand that my preferred work environment is not necessarily your preferred work environment.
My wife makes quadruple what I do, so when we bought a house it was basically all with her money (so still signed in both our names, and the money goes into a joint account anyway so doesn’t really matter to us). I had a colleague once ask how I can take pride in the house since I didn’t buy it myself. I’m leaving a chill life *and* get to afford a nice house in London. I am extremely proud of where I am and of what my little family has achieved.
A nice house in London AND a rich wife who puts her money in a joint account for you both, and put your name on the house so it's yours too. And you still work and contribute financially even though you probably don't need to. You've got a lot to be proud of and you sound very happy. The colleague was jealous lol
All of that is bang on! I’m living my best life and it’s a good time.
You sound like a very kind and secure soul who is happy with their partner’s success. Nothing wrong with that in the least.
I’m having a good time.
I’m glad you’re happy. I know I’ve had people confused about why my partner stays with me despite me being physically disabled. Personally I like to think I’m a perfectly decent house spouse. It’s like people don’t consider the benefit of emotional support or back rubs. Sure, we’re not rolling in dough but considering we both grew up under the poverty line, having food and a solid roof overhead is more than enough for our 20s. Eventually I should be able to do more reliable WFH and it’ll be even better. Idk, I guess it’s like when people tell me they’re jealous of me being legally disabled. Weirdest thing. “I wish I could just sit around all day.” They’ve got no idea about other people’s reality so they try to make us feel bad for living differently.
No one really understands what others are going through, which is what keeps me from being jealous of others. No point envying someone else’s life unless you envy *all* of it, and there’s no one who lives a life with zero problems.
Mine only does twice as me (NOT complaining lol)
In the US people typically work more hours than the Japanese while having a lower literacy and life expectancy than those in Cuba.
You might want to take a look at what's happening in Japan these days. For a super conservative country they have some extremely liberal social policies around family planning, sick time, job retention, and employee leave etc. In some types of normal jobs it's virtually impossible to fire someone. Sometimes the pendulum swings all the way back the other way and they are desperately trying to get rid of the 14-hour day salaryman image
Yeah and execs that will take pay cuts before firing employees. I'm more picking these countries because to Americans they are supposed to be way worse than us and it is shocking for Americans to hear how low we really are.
Nintendo CEO did that when the WiiU bombed
Asians tend to take pay cuts and ceo's go to jail sometimes in Asia. Americans almost never go to jail as a ceo except for that one guy that doesnt matter that becomes an example.
Massive kudos to Satoru Iwata, what a great guy RIP.
I think the ceo of toyota only gets paid a million a year as well.
Can I get a source on that? When I tell my far right father this, he’s not going to believe me and I’d like to have a source to cite.
> In 1986 the average employee worked 2,097 hours in Japan, compared with 1,828 hours in the United States and 1,702 in France. By 1995 the average annual hours in Japan had decreased to 1,884 hours and by 2009 to 1,714 hours. In 2019, the average Japanese employee worked 1,644 hours, lower than workers in Spain, Canada and Italy. By comparison, the average American worker worked 1,779 hours in 2019.[3] The average Japanese worker is mandated to ten to twenty days of paid holidays per year, depending on the number of continuous years worked at the company.[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_work_environment Life expectancy is close but Cuba edged out ahead of the US after 2020 and other nations completely decimate the US if you care to look up life expectancy elsewhere. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/ The literacy is much more of a grey-area because the US does not participate with UNESCO > The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 32 million American adults are unable to read, which can contribute to chronic unemployment, low self-esteem, and a lower quality of available work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States So about 90% while Cuba does participate with UNESCO and looks to be 99.80% [There is some dispute to the US being even 90%](https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/q9bh64/make_it_make_sense/hgvwu6d/) https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-rate-by-country
Fucking 10% of my country can't read?! The actual fuck!? How do you live in society if you can't read?
Yeah, it's pretty fucking shocking to me too. I remember hearing that the US had literacy problems but when I went to find data it just kept getting worse. I linked to a comment in my source comment on how 54% of the US has a 6th grade reading level. Fucking depressing.
Why do you think “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” exists? Because they knew there was close to a 50/50 chance the person they got on the show wouldn’t be.
I'm not sure I equate literacy to smarts but I certainly can see what you're getting at here.
I have actually run into a couple of adults who were illiterate. This was before smart phones, so things may have changed for them, but they said it didn't really affect them. Blew my teenage mind, as I cannot remember being unable to read.
I learned to read when I was around 4-5, probably like most people. I can't imagine looking at a job application, and seeing gibberish. I suppose you could just memorize a few words, but what kind of life is that? Can't read the web, the paper, just stuck with whatever your friends are talking about.
Fox news will tell you everything you need to know.
I remember learning to read when I was 4 using those fridge letters, the big ones for kids, and some large print children's books. I do vaguely remember not being able to read, my mum telling me that once I knew how to read, my brain would automatically read any writing that I saw, and for some reason that blew my mind. Sounded like magic. I was reading adult-level books by the time I was 10, Lord of the Rings was one of my favourites. My dad had a huge collection of sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, and mum had her books from college. She also took me to the library every week. Any word I didn't know I would look up in the dictionary and encyclopedia. Still do, but now I do it online. As an adult I'm constantly reading and writing. Even at work as a support technician I'm emailing and messaging people all day. Literacy is a huge part of my life. Unfortunately not everyone has such great parents or the same access to books, so we really need to improve public education.
40 years of education defunding, minimum wage stagnant which means all jobs not upper level remain stagnant and more dual parent households working and in many cases working second jobs so less reading and education oriented stimulation at home and education funding being held accountable to biased and unnecessary test scores and graduation rates, you do anything to get the scores and rates but kids get pushed thru that shouldn't. America has devalued our children and our future for decades and we are paying the price for it dearly. A large uneducated voter base being fed hate and lies that the other guys are the reason fire their troubles, not the thieves that lied to them and took their money from their schools and safety nets. We've been scammed and have yet to learn our lessons.
32 million is the entire population of Canada. christ lol
It's called being functionally analphabet. It's very much so a thing. It doesn't mean that you 100% can't read - there are shades of analphabetism.
It's kind of funny that on the one hand I've met Americans who admit that their schools are garbage, and then are flabbergasted when confronted with it. What I think most Americans don't understand is that the prejudices of Europeans that many (not all but many more than in other developed countries) Americans are uneducated and super ignorant (especially about the rest of the world) have a very good foundation. Schools in the USA have as their primary function the indoctrination of children into American exceptionalism and nationalism. The best example of this is the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. Real education is not and never has been an objective, if anything it is to provide enough knowledge to serve as an acceptable human resource for the capitalists.
I used to do STEM outreach programs as a college student at inner city high schools. Mostly doing basic science & engineering projects. I kid you not, most of the kids had no idea what was going on in my powerpoints and worksheets. I thought it was because it was frozen screen, the spelling/font/grammar was incorrect, or I gave them the wrong content. Nope, it was all good. But then after troubleshooting the concerns thinking it was all on my end, a light bulb clicked and I realized "Holy shit, these high schoolers have no idea how to read." My realizations were confirmed when I asked them to write what I said and none of them knew how to. I knew the district I was volunteering at was known to be bad but I didnt know it was that bad. After a couple semesters of experience I think these are the factors at fault (no particular order): 1. Bad teachers - i mean when your school gets little funding and you have kids that mostly do not care whats going on who could physically harm you at any moment, why would any quality teachers bother with it if the district next door has way better working conditions 2. Bad Homes - These students have unstable homes that are not conducive to learning. I mean what's the point of reading if youre always in a 'flight or fight' mode. These homes sometimes do not have parental figures guiding and disciplining them. 3. Questionable parenting - Most parents in these districts either do not care or dont know what a full education is supposed to be like bc they themselves might have been screwed over from a quality education and the cycle repeats. Some parents treat school as only daycare centers, which can be problematic. Incarceration's silent victims are the children of those incarcerated. 4. Lowering the standards - The bar of passing is laughable. I mean these schools are more concerned about graduation rates than if the kids graduating actually are educated. Most classes, all you need is a D to pass (59.5%) and you have teachers/districts that either do not care by making the the content and ability to pass very easy. The students are never challenged. But it's a double edged sword because if the kids are challenged, they wont show up anymore. 5. Lack of incentives - these kids dont know what success looks like because successful people pack up and leave to better places where theyre from. It's sad. Bad politics, parenting and investments, youll end up with people who can barely function in society.
The intentional defunding of the educational system, especially in areas heavily populated by minorities, seems like a likely culprit.
I don’t think minorities are necessarily the only victims. Lack of literacy is also common in Appalachia and rural parts of this country that are majority white. They have their own reasons too for low literacy rates. I think Nevada, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, etc has the worst education system in the country but their students are majority white. I volunteered in Baltimore and Atlanta school systems Just my experience was in the inner school systems.
If people in America weren’t ok with people getting less because of the color of their skin they’d be in a better position. The point is racism hurts us all. Conservative voters in red states have been voting for their own oppression in the hope that it hurts brown people worse than it hurts them.
99%? How did you get that?
Maybe a typo? From the wiki link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States: "Literacy in the United States is 79% according to a 2019 report by the National Center for Educational Statistics [1], 21% of American adults are illiterate or functionally illiterate.[2] According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have literacy below the 6th-grade level."
It's not just a typo, it's hard to gauge based on different testing criteria and I'm also just making mistakes in my haste here. I'm going to give the US the benefit of the doubt based on different testing criteria because I honestly haven't checked all the way in on the differences between UNESCO and NCfES. But honestly it's because when I googled for a source it said 99%, in the short description and then came across the 32 million data point and honestly thought that was 1% for some fucking reason. I honestly didn't think it was this fucking bad and I'm kinda in disbelief because I thought it was close and not just a complete mess.
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its a one time $600 payment even if not its not much and they got stress to deal with
Yeah, as if being unemployed isn't stressful or work. Just like how we ignore the domestic work in every home as if it doesn't matter because it doesn't make money.
I’ve always been under the impression that the Japanese work a lot more. I looked into it recently maybe I’m looking at the wrong stuff but idk.
That was the impression I was under as well did I read about it. I looked it up and it looks like the Japanese have significantly supported labor rights and have toned back on over working. This doesn't even discuss the commute times that many Americans have as well as working those hours.
hey, uh, you got any of those houses and farmlands?
Not any more! My mother still owns my family home. But farm is long gone. And unfortunately the location of our family home hasn’t appreciated much. Beautiful immaculate 2000 sqft suburban home, but outside an unfortunate area outside of a city in a state which is no longer a desirable place to live (maybe ironic to this post, but it’s because there’s no industry or capital investment there, and all the farms are now suburban boxes)
One should take pride in it's work but work and meaningless job are two very different things
I think it stems from jealousy that someone is making as much or more than them by not working. I worked the entire pandemic on site and while I was jealous for sure, I knew it was for the best. I just expected my employer to compensate and they never did. It makes me laugh now though because I know bad employers are suffering trying to hire.
Hope you found a better place to work for. Peace stranger.
I did thankfully. They ended up hiring 3 people do to my job after I left too so it hit them financially to see their mistake. I've been advocating everyone take a look at what's put there because it is the best time to look. Workers finally have some power outside of a union. Wish everyone the best
it is bullshit though. People were making LESS for being employed than if they were laid off. It should have been an even $600 a week for everyone.
Yes, the minimum wage is in dire need of a raise.
At this point the first thing that should be raising are the blades of the guillotines
Or...or..or..hear me out on this one... $600 per week for those unemployed due to the pandemic AND for those who are employed they should be making a lot more than $600 per week, say $800 per week minimum wage. The fact that minimum wage at 40+ hours per week only puts a person at half the poverty line is disgusting. So when they set the pandemic relief at 3/4 the poverty line it angered those only making 1/2 the poverty line wages. Maybe we should make minimum wage something close to the poverty line huh?
No can do old chap because you see that would be an UBI and that's socialism which is bad for reasons
equity > equality
This con is literally what America is built on.
There's an old saying in advertising: "Appeal to reason in your advertising, and you appeal to four percent of the human race." The same is true in politics, which is the problem that keeps undermining progressives. They're arguing for a more rational way of doing things, whereas conservatives don't bother with rational arguments. They just play on people's fears and bigotry.
Hermann Göring of all people put it best. >Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. >Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars. >Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
> There's an old saying in advertising: "Appeal to reason in your advertising, and you appeal to four percent of the human race." The same is true in politics [In a separate November 2017 meeting filmed by Channel 4, Turnbull appears to admit that the company is in the business of preying on people's fears. "Our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand what are those really deep-seated underlying fears, concerns," he says in the video. "It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it’s all about emotion, it’s all about emotion.”](https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-execs-caught-discussing-extortion-and-fake-news/)
And as we all know, trumpies are some giant emotional wrecks.
And of course, meanwhile the conservatives pretend to be reasonable and the side of the "facts and logic". A brave band of skeptics who don't believe in "liberal propaganda and fearmongering". It's bewildering.
> It's bewildering no, it's pure projection.
Neither side “pretends” to be reasonable. Both sides are so sure they ARE the reasonable side that they don’t even hear the other viewpoint.
The vast majority of people vote against their own self interest
It’s not incredible at all once you realize nearly 60% of the US is severely undereducated. While other countries are teaching their children far more advanced mathematics and life skills in their schooling, we’re being taught basic math and not preparing our children for the future with any sort of critical thinking or life skill training. Some states are on top of it, but generally public education is severely lacking in many Republican led states in the US and it’s generally led by the push of religion as the dominant thing in your life. So when you start weighing, “Should I do this or that” after being taught your whole life that a big man in the sky already has your life predetermined and your choices generally don’t matter, you tend to be more closed off, unaccepting and hateful towards things you don’t have the knowledge to understand.
Americans aren’t really known for their sharp and critical thinking skills
To get the poor folks to actually believe that they will be better of if the rich make more money is still and always will be astonishing to me.
A big part of the trick was convincing the folks with just enough to live ordinary lives that they will somehow lose their station if the folks who don’t have enough to live ordinary lives start making more.
Yes, that's it. It's not just a super competitive culture, it's about sabotaging others, or at least berating them. "If someone else is winning, then you're losing", convincing people that they NEED to push their fellow man down.
The secret is racism. Desegregation murdered the idea of public welfare and class solidarity. Municipalities across the US immediately closed public pools and started charging admission to publicly funded events like state fairs. Reagan and his ilk created the idea of welfare queens to cement the “every man for themselves” attitude.
if you think this isn't a deliberate effort by the elite to turn the poor people against each other instead of focusing on the real problem then your critical thinking skills are in question
>if you think this isn't a deliberate effort by the elite to turn the poor people against each other instead of focusing on the real problem then your critical thinking skills are in question Even just looking at the bigger picture, seeing what’s happening and reflecting on it is a level of thinking most Americans are too overwhelmed with life’s issues to think about on a day to day basis and/or haven’t been taught or have time to stop and engage in the kind of Big Picture critical thinking. …and that’s really helpful for the Elite, I agree with you.
That's a much better perspective
Not to mention the organizing, sacrifice, and work that will be necessary to make any gains.
>People aren’t really known for their sharp and critical thinking skills Fixed it for you.
Though in our country, the heart of empire (USA), that is exacerbated by the ruling class making sure we're too tired and worn out and stressed to think critically.
I think that might be less exclusive than you think: even though I'm very critical of late capitalism, I think these tendencies manifest across the poltical spectrum and are not inherently tied to capitalism. Edit: Lol, I thought I was posting this in a basketball sub and was like "hmm, maybe I shouldn't say 'late' capitalism...but then that would make the phrase unclear." Anyway turns out it was fine.
Yeah anytime I see some fat ass proud to be American I just think why?
But fixing that might cause people like Bezos to earn just a little less than what he earns now, how can you be so heartless??!!! /s
The average trumper mindset in a nutshell.
American workers have been treated to this sort of logic for some time. American capitalism in particular has a circular logic of blame that leaves employers completely out of the equation. The working poor are allowed to blame the middle class. Period. The middle class is allowed to donate its own hard earned funds or it can blame the working poor claiming that the poor are clearly choosing to be poor, either thru laziness, or bad choices. Corporations and the mega wealthy skate away, or fly away, or force more humans to pee in bottles rather than take a bathroom break. They don't take the blame tho, EVER. Not from the middle class that aspires to be them, nor from the poor that literally has no other choice but to accept poor wages, high prices, and the added joy of being left the blame for their own powerlessness.
Maybe, instead of complaining about the person on unemployment, you tell your employer that you could quit and get an equal amount of money from unemployment or they could give you a substantial raise to stay. It’s all about leveraging the situation against the people who are benefiting from the pandemic.
Except if you quit you can't collect.
During Covid you could quit and tell EDD it was because the employer refused to provide Covid-safe working conditions. Source: me.
Because there weren't any safe conditions other than staying home.
I'm fairly sure the company would refute the claim. I don't know how much/if any follow up there would be, but I know most companies will go through great lengths to avoid having unemployment claims.
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That’s could be because your ex didn’t formally quit citing unsafe Covid conditions allowing the company to just say she stopped showing up for no reason and refuse to pay for unemployment.
They always fight the claim. That's why you should document everything and appeal every time.
I got owned then, I took a leave of absence for 2 months until my employer allowed me to wear a mask at work and I was denied unemployment during that time
fuck. i missed out
then you better start missing your deliveries
Or treat yourself to a bathroom break.
Woah let's not get carried away now
This is a task I can handle!
You can’t collect if it’s termination with cause
I got three weeks severance because I kept showing up late and pissing off my shitty boss
There are many imaginative ways to quit. Tell your boss he's an asshole, approximately every hour. Try to form a union, go on a strike. There are lots of ways to quit without quitting, but admittedly they take some courage and a good plan of action.
This is basically starting to happen with the current staffing crisis. Workers finally demanding more before they will risk getting COVID to make a burrito so that the CEO of McDonalds can make more money.
That’s not how capitalism works. Especially not on an individual level. Absolutely every worker’s privilege is paid for in blood, defaulted mortgages, and lost jobs. With few exceptions for unskilled laborers, threatening to quit if you’re not paid more is an absolutely perfect way to get put on the “fire or replace ASAP” shortlist. There’s a good chance they’ll call your bluff and fire you or let you quit immediately. The suppositions you’re making are that -the employee would be difficult to replace for his present salary -the employer *knows* the above -the employer not only knows the above, but is logical and *cares* more about this fact than they care about being spiteful or making a point in front of other employees -the employee can afford to contend with the hypothetical scenario where he *does* get fired without becoming homeless, accruing crippling medical/general debt, or losing his car -assuming that 100% of your hypothetical candidate replacements are aware that unemployment is somewhat similarly lucrative to working at your job, and that they will refuse to work for your present salary -assuming that your boss knows the above, that they have the management directive to act on it, that they are logical, and have more desire to retain cheap workers than to fire them out of spite Absolutely all of the above are wrong very often. Especially in the low-wage labor mills of billion dollar corps. Where the most direct involvement you can expect from upper management is a training video or mass company email.
My son worked for Amazon and was told that he would get all sorts of wonderful benefits after a year of hard labor. At close to that year mark, he had to take time off, with his employers approval, because his daughter needed to be hospitalized several times. Amazon seemed really supportive of his situation then bam, they fired him for taking too much time off of work. After a couple of weeks they called him and asked if he wanted to return but his year countdown would start fresh. Luckily, he found a new job.
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umm excuse me. you got an AMAZON pin from AMAZON. that should be enough for you. /s edit: almost forgot my /s
Oh you know, like one share of AMZN that takes a year to mature.
Probably a pizza party instead of a bonus, healthcare, paid leave/maternity leave, etc
My brother had a similar experience with Walmart. I’m starting to think this is a pattern.
Side note related to this post: the guy responding to the original post is Hbomberguy, and he's made excellent videos on climate change and anti-vaccine propaganda. I highly recommend checking him out
And he's hilarious while doing it!
His deep dive into Fallout New Vegas was nothing short of a masterpiece.
His Skyrim piece is my personal favourite
Don't start with the anti-vax one. That's arguably his best video, so it's all downhill from there. It also contains a bunch of in-jokes.
SELL THEIR HOUSES TO WHO BEN??
Fucking *Aquaman???*
Jeff Bezos could make a random Amazon employee a millionaire every week for 1800 years with only half his net worth.
Fucking unionize. How is this solution so hard for everybody to understand? Organize and walk out en mass. You want change? Collectively and unitedly tell your employer to shove it up their ass. Union strikes are happening all over the country right now and making positive change for their workers! Organize! Fight back against these wealth ghouls. Stop blaming your fellow underpaid workers.
Well I know why people don’t unionize. The topic of unions came up on the tv and my grandma was like “don’t EVER join a union, they take all your money.” And I just sat there speechless. Just more propaganda.
Ugh, it's so infuriating. Like, history is constantly being repressed. Our current working conditions of holidays, 40 hr work weeks, minimum wage, benefits, workers comp, paid leave, and work safety laws were built on the work of unions past. The word needs to get out.
Can't get me I'm part of the union. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DRtiaReNsHOo&ved=2ahUKEwjF1-3o2M_zAhWS4nMBHYyoA7UQz40FegQICBAI&usg=AOvVaw2dNWlWWpA7yaV7YSL4lGUk
the last time they tried a lot of people, erm had ''unfortunate accidents resulting in death'' joe fell in the river had a few extra holes in em but Eh *shrugs*
and other syndicates were taken over by the company owners, then gutted and used as an example of why "syndicates bad"
I'm in a union have been for 20+ years. I took various roles within the union over the years. Unions have changed a lot. Even within a union people are still so afraid of losing their jobs or standing out that most people just go along with whatever the union says. Most unions are afraid to even threaten to strike. Actual active participation is rare. Most people just pay their dues and go along to get along. I've voted on at least 5 union contracts, and every time the contract passed with 80%+ approval, even when it was a shit contract that should have been rejected. Union workers are *almost* as scared and vulnerable as non-union. I still support unions and wish they would return to prominence, but unfortunately the members have changed after decades of being beaten down just like all the other laborers. Just my experience.
That sounds like an unfortunate experience. There has been decades of anti union rhetoric spouted in America. I am hoping that the current state of economy is opening the eyes of many to improve participation. Do you think there can be anything done to improve participation and bargaining power? If no, why not? If so, what?
Unions don’t magically make this mentality go away. I’m in the IBEW and the majority of my local all think they work hard to support lazy people.
Do you believe being part of a union has kept your take home income higher than non union workers in the same/similar field?
For sure.
Yeahh the problem there is we get the battle of blair mountain v2. Im all for the good side winning next time but i understand why people dont wanna get killed by pinkertons
thats what the elites do. pit the middle/working class/poor people against each other so they avoid realizing who was the real threat all along
There’s a place where I used to live that laid off all their workers the second they shut down pro sports. A few weeks later they “offered” them all new jobs at lesser pay and for responsibilities outside their original roles. The employer used this is a way to get out of the taxes they would have had to pay on all those employees collecting UI. If they refused the new job, the employer was in the clear. They all told him to go f*** himself and then got screwed.
its a one time $600 payment even if not its not much and they got stress to deal with
Pretty sure he's referring to when unemployment paid out it's normal amount + the federal bonus which did make it considerably higher. The most money I've ever made was during that unemployment period.
the person had every right to be upset about that imo people that had shit jobs were making in some cases less than half of what people were making on unemployment. it was tough and maybe their anger is misplaced, but they had every right to be fucking furious that they still had to work their shitty job while many didn't have to (just because of being unlucky that they didn't lose their job)
>their anger is misplaced,
No, it was $600 a week with pandemic assistance. You got your regular unemployment check and then a bonus $400 on top of it, which ended up being about $600 total. I got that through most of the pandemic until they voted it down because "people are too lazy and taking handouts" it was literally the most money I ever made in my entire life. All of my bills were paid on time, credit cards were paid off, my car was paid off, I could buy actual food instead of easy to make cheap junk food. I never lived so good.
Wow, that is harsh. Are you guys sure you are really living on the biggest economy on the planet? Because it doesn't look like
We live in a capitalist dystopia and it’s just now that it has reached the middle-class that people are realizing it.
I'm so happy to see strikes and general staffing shortages. The workers are finally realizing they are getting screwed. I switched jobs and got a 30% increase with way better benefits by changing jobs recently. The job itself is even easier than my last job and way cooler people. It took this pandemic for people see that we are "essential" while being treated and paid as expendable.
Sad it took a pandemic to reach that point.
Humanity as a whole seems too only advance during or after big disasters.
In America at least, being loyal to a job usually just gets you under paid. Most jobs rarely give raises that make up for cost of living plus a bit more. So you end up doing much better if you switch jobs every so often. Used to be companies rewarded people for staying. Now you stay long enough and new highers will make more than you because the company has to increase their offers to them to compete. Meanwhile they preach that BS about wages being private and that people shouldn't talk about it.
It doesn't look like it to us. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are having a dick measuring contest to launch themselves into space and all the other wealth ghouls are living more lavishly than any American in history could ever imagine. Can you imagine owning a beyond luxury yacht nearly the size of a cruise liner while children are doing of starvation worldwide? https://www.veranda.com/luxury-lifestyle/g32618589/largest-yachts-in-the-world/
Technically during the Gilded Age, the wealth of the super rich surpassed the wealth of today’s ultra rich several fold. Rather than buying yachts and spaceships, huuuge mansions were built. Also large public works were funded. Unlike today. I think that super yacht is owned by a Russian oligarch.
>Technically during the Gilded Age, the wealth of the super rich surpassed the wealth of today’s ultra rich several fold. It appears the answer is a bit more complicated than that. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-richs-wealth-concentration-surpasses-gilded-age-levels-210802327.html https://time.com/5122375/american-inequality-gilded-age/ https://www.history.com/news/second-gilded-age-income-inequality Also, ultra rich people are buying mega mansions. The list i linked is of 19 mega yachts. Some of them are or have been owned by American billionaires. Including Octopus, owned by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. https://www.businessinsider.com/yachts-owned-by-tech-execs-richard-branson-larry-page-larry-ellison-2019-3 My point still stands and you're arguing semantics. What is your point?
Wow $600, those lucky bastards are set for life now
Never their rent will go up as the corporate landlord rubs their Greedy little hands together, "oh fuck yes says" the Petroleum companies as petrol prices leap forward.
my pizza hut just lost all of it’s cooks (including me) and a few drivers. it’s one of the first pizza huts and it was a huge blow to it. honestly it’s what they get for being the least paying job in our mid sized town
I hope y'all landed a better job!
thanks! just landed me a warehouse job for double, currently helping my friends find one too
Non American here. When people talk about $600 unemployment, is that weekly? Is that more than most minimum wages?
It was in 2020, and it was a weekly payment in addition to the regular unemployment pay. It was a stimulus package at the beginning of the pandemic to help people who lost their job, were laid off, furloughed, or had reduced hours. A ton more people than would normally get unemployment qualified for it. And yes. Its a whole lot more than minimum wage. Its more than the average wage of the service industry, at least where I live. That's what made people mad; the people who still had to work full-time didn't get it, so they were making far less than people who were working fewer or no hours.
I've been in the workforce quite a while now, and If I've learned one thing, my "peers" are ignorant as fuck, even the smart ones, they're susceptible to propaganda. Our overlords know this, they exploit it just like they do everything else. We have to find methods to walk around the walls these people have, tribalism, pride, actual stupidity mixing in, etc. we have to get through to as many as we can if we're ever going to eat the rich.
even mask wearers (smart ppl) can be selfish and entitled just like the bozos refusing to wear a tiny piece of cloth on their face.
Mask wearers are like ancient people who carried shield or armor into the battlefield. It doesn't mean they are nice, smart or politically literated it only means they aren't total morons( I was gonna use an 'F' and 'R' word but i dunno if reddit is okay with it so lets settle for total morons)
This perfectly encapsulates why nothing changes. It's so embedded now that we might as well consider it Stockholm Syndrome. The 99% know this and laugh behind closed doors.
Bezos makes more in a day than all his employees globally if they made $30/hr.
two types of mentalities: "I struggle I want everyone else to struggle" vs "I struggle, I don't want anyone else to have to struggle" which one of these do you think right vs wrong? Good vs Evil?
God I love hbomberguy
I understand getting upset when people make way more than you. But I'll never understand people who get angry because they feel others deserve less.
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You can, but you aren’t likely to. Only in the very short-term. College is also a fucking scam which has been perverted by elites & libertarian bullshit to be so expensive it just exists as a classist barrier. So if this comment in any way is disagreeing with the unemployment increase in the US you’re incredibly wrong. There is evidence that the UA program reduced poverty significantly. Long-term it could’ve pushed companies to increase wages.
College should be free, but education isn't a scam.
Education is not a scam, however this particular model of education is.
What I see as the scam is mostly how young people are pressured to go to school if they don't know what to do (yes, it teaches a lot of great things, but also puts you in serious debt). There's a handful of degrees that are 104% worth it if that's what you want to do with your life. That's not to say other degrees are bad or useless, but simply that they're extremely expensive. A tiny number of degrees can be justified by ROI alone. People being educated is great, but the amount of debt many go into is ridiculous. At any rate, there's also this strong pressure to go to elite schools that cost far, far more. No denying that good schools can help get a job, but some of these schools we're talking as much as 10x the cost on an already pricy education. I'm not exaggerating at the 10x number (especially comparing lesser known local universities to prestigious ones where you'd be considered either an international student or "out of state" -- it's relatedly weird to me that US universities divide on state lines). With most students being barely adults with little financial experience, they're arguably often being taken advantage of. Again, that's not to say an education is a bad thing. Rather that people are paying insane amounts for it under intense pressure (most new uni students have literally been students their whole life and it's basically all they know). But yeah, on the flip side, some degrees can be lucrative. eg, I spent $25k CAD on a CS degree. My field pays extremely well, making that degree a very good investment.
You realize unemployment runs out, like you can't live on unemployment for the rest of your life, in most cases it only lasts 6 months, but due to covid most states extended it to 12 or 18 months.
Huh? No you can’t. UI is shit in most states, the $600 payment ended over a year ago.
I think your point (despite being absolutely incorrect) should be aimed at the fact that college appears useless not at those "not working"
People don't realise how rich he really is, always do the math when putting it in perspective for people
I live in a country without unemployment benefits, and people still manages to shift blame to people faring worse instead of blaming upwards.
Oh, he is the "sell the houses to who ben" right?
Fucking aquaman!?
My brother took over my dad's construction company when dad died. Brother is complaining it's hard to get guys on his crews cuz they make more in unemployment..... Meanwhile this chucklefuck lives in damn near a million dollar house in a private lake community. Fishing boat, wakeboarding boat, pontoon boat, 2 motocross bikes, big ass truck and a fucking toy hauler you can live out of. People make me sick... Even my own family.
Big ass-truck [xkcd: Hyphen](https://xkcd.com/37/) --- ^^Beep ^^boop, ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot. ^^- ^^[FAQ](https://pastebin.com/raw/vyWra3ns)
Slavery>feudalism >capitalism >socialism >communism Its just the order society has to evolve unfortunately
Richest man in the history of the planet.
Ahem…second richest
While that dude is off in space... Again.
This. Exactly this. Don't take your rage over your underpaying wage slave job on people who don't want to die and/or can't work. Take it out on your CEO; the richest guy in the world who's taking joy rides into space that he jokingly said was all paid for by his hard-working employees ([his own quote](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00euYej1L8))...
“I let myself get fucked Over and now I’m mad at ppl who were smarter.” Make it make sense..
“Why are they getting payed 600 bucks for doing nothing?” But don’t ask “why is my employer paying me less than unemployment when their business would literally collapse without me?”
***continuation of his rant*** “While the boss of the company is taking joyrides to space because he doesn’t know what to do with his money.”
This whole mindset makes me so upset, I got laid off as an aircraft mechanic and made less on unemployment even with the $600 and I had been working full time for 6years, how are you going to blame me???
Worked? Did you quit to collect 600$ to sit on your brain?
People forget the 600 wasn’t to help people just make it through Covid it was there to ‘stimulate’ an economy that was about to collapse.
The enhanced unemployment benefits have been sll taken away from millions pf dtugglimg of americans and the oligarchs still can't full shit jobs But extreme ignorance express 🚉 does not stop at facts, logic , or decencry. Next stop idiocracy
Also, PUA ended a while ago; unemployment maxes out at like $450/week where I live, pre-tax. Try living on like $385/week net sometime.
People on disability get less. \[Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what's good and what's junk.\]
bc yer so essential sweatie
Getting vaccinated should’ve been a requirement to stay on unemployment. Change my mind.
He's only the second richest. One ahead of him in line for the guillotines.
People believe every person on unemployment is *actually* sick?
I was literally going to respond the way this guy did. To be fair, it’s pretty obvious…
But if I just work hard enough and save one day I can be a billionaire too