Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I Wonder

I wonder if any of the advocates for "tough love" so beloved in conventional media wisdom these days would themselves take a minimum wage job washing dishes, or a sub-minimum wage job in a poultry processing plant?

Since when did trying to live off $300 a week in unemployment insurance "spoil" the unemployed? You try paying rent and holding a family together on that kind of money. That kind of money might get you and your family a bed at a charity SRO here in New York, if you could find one.

"Tough love" is great when you can feel better and feel superior by being tough on someone else, and never have to face that same music yourself.

12 comments:

Chris H. said...

Since that amount of money is about half again what a person on the federal minimum wage makes, after deductions, why should they get it for free? Admittedly I don't live in New York, but if the people who are working aren't making that much, the people sitting at home shouldn't get that much either. The article in the New York Times about the college grad who after a 5 month search turned down a $40,000/year job cause it wasn't the field he wanted, doesn't encourage extending benefits either. I know several people on wellfare who admit it's a better living than minimum wage, so until benefits get so bad they HAVE to work, they aren't doing anything. If nearly 2 years of benefits aren't enough, how many years should the public pay for someone to be so picky about finding a job?

JCF said...

I know several people on wellfare who admit it's a better living than minimum wage

I don't believe you. No, I don't believe anything in your post above. It's all talking points you got off of FAUX News: admit it!

Counterlight said...

The article in the New York Times about the college grad who after a 5 month search turned down a "$40,000/year job cause it wasn't the field he wanted, doesn't encourage extending benefits either. I know several people on wellfare who admit it's a better living than minimum wage, so until benefits get so bad they HAVE to work, they aren't doing anything. If nearly 2 years of benefits aren't enough, how many years should the public pay for someone to be so picky about finding a job?"

So, even if that's true (and having been through long periods of unemployment myself in the course of my life, none of what you describe is anything like my experience), why punish everybody?

And would you work for minimum wage washing dishes? I did, and with a college degree complete with student loans that had to be paid off. I also worked in a laundry, as a fry cook, and in retail until I finally got back on my feet.
I never worked in a poultry processing plant, thank God.

You folks on the right love dishing it out to everybody else. But, I haven't seen any of you who can take your own medicine.

Counterlight said...

All right wing solutions to social problems are punitive.

Because they're all too smug and heartless to imagine any other kind.

Counterlight said...

I read that article in the NY Times Chris H refers to.
I think that young man was in a very tough spot. On the one hand, things are tough all over, on the other, why should someone who worked hard, took on a whole lot of debt, and finished first in his class settle for a low wage dead end job as a claims adjuster?

Would Chris H settle for such a position after working hard for 4 years in college? I don't think so.

Any of you rugged individualist self-reliant types up for washing dishes or cutting up chickens for $6 an hour? I've been there.

JCF said...

I've washed dishes (as well as bussed tables and slung coffee until all my various joints ached---and that was when I was in my 20s!). I've worked retail (including for a family-owned business where every member of the family---parents and two adult children---made me redo a display shelf 4 different times, according to each's "in-charge" preference!). I've been an administrative assistant . . . where the spouse of the ED (religious non-prof w/ parsonage attached), suddenly insisted I watch their kid: all for little more than minimum wage (though the last one was supplemented by work-study $).

RightWing talking-heads (and their lackeys) have NO idea of what it's like out there (much less, what it's like to be unemployed, and The Abyss inches away to swallow you up...)

I'm just blessed I have a generous dad (w/ one of those old-fashioned guaranteed pensions), or I'd probably end up on a slab somewhere...

[Now, back to the job hunt. Again.]

Counterlight said...

I did the low wage stuff off and on into my 40s.
I hope I've come to the end of that because I'm not sure I have the health for that kind of labor anymore.

Poor Michael is currently underemployed, and has been looking for low wage work in retail and in restaurants to supplement his income.
He's not finding anything. Employers all want kids. They can pay them crap and boss them around more easily than adults.

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

Counterlight's last paragraph is remarkably apt.

Chris H. said...

Yes, Chris H. has worked minumum wage after college. Chris H still only make 25,000 a year after college and my own sister was one of those who didn't seriously look for work until a month before her benefits ran out. Two of her former co-workers at a lawfirm that closed went more than 2 years without jobs because the jobs they were offered weren't what they wanted.
This is a rural state and the difference in pay between someone who's on welfare and someone who's working CAN balance in welfare's favor, especially if they have kids. And since I'm obviously a heartless conservative for wanting people to work for a living instead of living off others, what would you do about the people who don't look for work or accept any jobs they're offered, just because they don't offer a million bucks? Today's example:The Wall Street Journal's take today about the Engineering firm that had trouble getting unemployed engineers to accept $60,000--they wanted $80 grand. Looking around, it's not that hard to find more examples, either.

Chris H. said...

P.S. The college grad didn't have debt. Grandma and Gramps paid his way. No debt, no family, no reason to accept $40,000-gotta hold out for more.

Counterlight said...

And of course, everyone who is unemployed is a lazy pig living off all of our teats.

That's a lot of people being really lazy out there. Millions of them. What to do with them? There's always the Chinese solution, labor camps to make goods for the American market. They can work for nothing, and save companies and their shareholders labor costs.

I still don't blame the kid for not taking the dead-end 40 grand job. He did graduate first in his class. That doesn't seem very lazy to me. Even if Grandparents paid his debt, he still earned that degree. Why shouldn't he expect it to be worth something?
Perhaps when the economy deflates further, he'll get his comeuppance washing dishes somewhere for next to nothing.

Perhaps the real problem is that people across the board are underpaid. Real wages for most people have stayed the same or fallen since the 1970s. And now, a lot of people who still work must take cuts in pay, hours, and/or benefits (I know a lot of them).

I hear lots of moral outrage over poor schmucks getting a free ride (so it appears), but little outrage over the folks who looted the economy and nearly plunged the world into catastrophe. They did a lot more damage than all the welfare cheats put together and multiplied a hundred times over. And they're getting away with it, loot and all.

Counterlight said...

I don't think it's a matter of being hard-hearted or conservative. Perhaps your resentment is better directed at larger more culpable targets than your neighbors.