Low wage workers. Are you one? Do you know a lot of them?

[Bouncy Ball]

I'm reading Nickel and Dimed and a lot of the posts in this forum and it's making me think of all the low-wage workers I know.

I was one for years. I'm very thankful to say I'm not anymore. My husband was one, too and is no longer (again, thank goodness). We know how lucky we are, AND we know how easy it would be to be right back there again. :scared: So we save, we've paid off debt (and hardly have any left). But it still scares us. Especially nowdays. Hardly anyone I know is truly safe from economic hard times or ruin.

1. My favorite checker at the grocery store was laid off soon after 9/11 (airline) and spent quite a while trying to find a good-paying job. She took unemployment, then when that ran out, she got two jobs--working a fast food drive-thru and as a checker. She told me the other day her previous employer called her, wanting her back, at HALF her previous pay (which wasn't exactly CEO level to begin with). She couldn't believe it. She was making more working these two jobs and couldn't afford to take her old job back at half the pay. She was insulted, actually. Told them no and is still looking for ONE job that can pay as much as her two (which you wouldn't think would be hard, since she's not exactly rolling in it).

2. My best friend and her boyfriend. They were both teachers, but he had to have back surgery in September. He was out for a while, obviously, but their health insurance is so crappy, he ended up owing a lot out of pocket (it was a medically necessary surgery). He put several thousand on a credit card and still owes more, which he makes payments on, too. He cannot work still because of his back (needs surgery again!) but the district disability pay is so tiny, they are in a really bad place (especially when combined with the unpaid hospital bills). So now she is taking a second job at night at Barnes and Noble (she's also a high school Chemistry teacher). They moved from a one bedroom apartment to an efficiency in the same complex to save money (didn't have to pay a new deposit). I loaned them my vaccuum cleaner indefinitely rather than have them buy one, and her parents bring them food from time to time. They are both degreed professionals.

(It really pisses me off, btw, that a guy who was working full time is reduced to this because of medical/health problems beyond his control.)

I know more, but don't want to make this too long.

Here's a great quote from Nickel and Dimed:

"If you hump away at menial jobs 360-plus days a year, does some kind of repetitive injury of the spirit set in?"

Oh and if you've never read it, highly reccommended. Please especially note the part where she tries to get emergency food assistance. Very eye-opening. I had no idea people had to jump through so many crazy hoops. The working poor don't have the entire day to make phone calls and drive all over creation to get two boxes of noodles and some beans.

[paula777]

1. Bouncy you don't even know what 'low wage workers' mean

I do the 'park and ride' to work. Park my car and ride the bus to Malibu. Every bus from about 6am to 8am is PACKED with illegals going to their domestic jobs in the mansions of Malibu (females - clean, cook, take care of kids, etc, males - paint, yardwork, etc.) Know what the average wage is - $100 to $200 per week. Now that my friend is a low wage worker. It's frustrating because the people that hire them could well afford to pay a decent wage. They just don't want to.

[Bouncy Ball]

11. It's kind of insulting for you to say I don't even know what a low

wage worker IS, don't you think?

My husband and I qualified for food stamps when we married, but he wouldn't let me apply and I listened to him back then (LOL!).

I once lived on $200 a MONTH because I scrounged food and slept on a friend's couch.

I could go on, but I'm sure it's evident to you by now that I DO know what a low-wage worker is.

Sheesh.

[paula777]

17. Didn't mean it like that AT ALL. It's just that I talk to these ladies -

they clean peoples homes ... $2.50 per hour - $20 for a days work. They ride the bus home and buy food for their families - many times LARGE families and then get up and do it all again tomorrow. This isn't a temporary job until they find something better - this is it. It's heartbreaking and it pisses me off that both the democrates and the republicans WANT this slave labor to continue. Anyway, your response is from yesterday so I doubt you will even see this one. It wasn't meant as an insult anyway - just minumum wage is a low wage - not even making half of that - THAT is a low wage!

[Cleita]

2. About your Jesus picture.

:-)Couldn't you make him a little more Jewish looking for some authenticity here instead of a ringer for Kevin Sorbo? :-)

[Bouncy Ball]

12. Well, I didn't make him

and I don't have Photoshop or anything! Sorry!

I started to call him "Corporate Blue-Eyed White Jesus."

[Cleita]

13. That would probably be more accurate.

I guess blue-eyed Jesuses bother me. Didn't mean to get on your case. I guess I've been cranky lately.

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Oh they bother me, too.

Believe me, my use of that picture is VERY sarcastic. On edit, I changed what he says! Read!

[B Calm]

3. I was making over 50 thousand a year, but thanks to the Bush Economic

Disaster I lost my job. I been rehired by another company doing the same kind of work for a lousy 11 dollars an hr..

[PowerToThePeople]

9. wow

I am nearly in same boat. Got a degree that should entry-level in at about 50k. Looked for work for year and half post graduation, no luck. Got into position with company who I was working for in labor position when 2 people left the department at once. Paying me 11 an hour :-( 5 years of math and physics really paid off.

[BronxBoy]

20. Math and Physics

Wow.... I remember when I was in school, the common thought was that if you majored in any of the hard sciences or engineering, you pretty much wrote your ticket for life.

There was a story in this Sunday's Atlanta Journal Constitution about now some chicken processing plants here in Georgia actually have an outreach center in South Korea where they bring people over who agree to work for them processing chickens at 7 or 8 dollars an hour. The built the story around a scientist who came over with his family to try to find what he thinks will be a better life.

After reading your posts, I wonder where our scientists will have to go?

[Lady Effingbroke]

4. I have been a low-wage worker since 2001.

I had a good-paying job at a chemical plant, but was laid off in 2001.

I interviewed a couple of times at other plants, but was not hired, then I had to start delivering pizzas and working low-wage jobs to try and make ends meet (they never do).

I came down with a nasty case of the flu in January, and against my better judgement went to the ER. Now I owe $1300 in medical bills I cannot pay (I am that broke - $1300 might as well be 13 million, for all I can afford to pay).

My condolences to your friends - there are many millions in the same or similar situation, and more are being added with each passing second.

Working a low wage job with no hope of anything better remotely in sight is like having your soul sucked out through your eyeballs.

"Nickel and Dimed" is a great book, btw - I read it a couple of years ago.

:hi:

[nytemare]

5. If somebody has a full time job, they should be able to support

themselves and at least one child. In the 50's and 60's one income could support a family. This is pitiful, and my heart goes out to those scraping by.

Shorly after I got out of the service, I was making 7.50 an hour, this was in 94 and 95. That was above minimum wage, but after rent and bills I only had 20 bucks every 2 weeks to buy food with.

Can you say Mac and cheese, tuna and Ramen noodles???

[whistle]

6. Any one earning below the mean average income is a low wage

...worker

[blondeatlast]

7. We all know low wage workers, it's just that we often like to

pretend we don't.

I work at a major city library, but I'm not oblivious to who is cleaning the sometimes deplorable messes that the public leaves in their own spaces.

I've been there myself for far too long. I always give 'em a smile and a thank you.

Something is seriously wrong with a nation that claims business can't afford a higher minimum wage; yet In 'n Out Burger STARTS their employees at $8.25 an hour.

I love the promise of America, but I hate what corporate America has made her.

[norml]

8. I deliver pizzas, just short of full time, for minimal wage.

The price of gas is up, and tips are down. I get dental insurance, and after having a few more things done, I'd like to find something else.

[Nikia]

10. I work with low wage workers

I make a bit more than they do, but the lowest paid workers at my plant make a little more than $9/hour. I think that the temps make a dollar or so less than that even. My best friend who worked there, at a slightly higher pay class, left for a higher paying job. Then he was laid off and now makes $7/hour as a cook at a diner. His wife makes $7/hour at a hotel.
Most jobs advertised in the Sunday paper around here pay less than $12/hour. I always laugh when I see a job advertised as paying under $10/hour which says "great pay".
Yes, I know low wage workers. Most of the people who I know in my town (living here for three years now) are low wage workers.

[Merope215]

15. I met Barbara Ehrenreich

a little over a year ago. I walked her back to her hotel after a speech she gave at my school.

She's a great woman. Very committed. I still haven't read her book, yet, though, which is unfortunate.

(I'm not a low-wage worker, so sorry to hijack the thread...just wanted to say how great she is!)

[Cuban_Liberal]

16. Sadly, I do know some.

One guy in particular comes to mind: he's 47, has had a light stroke (no permanent disability), is bright, personable and has a great work ethic. His problem, of course, is that virtually no one wants to take the 'risk' of hiring a 47 year-old guy who's had a stroke. As a result, he spent 17 months looking for work before finally landing a full-time/part-time (30-36 hours/week) job as a clerk a a convenience store making $8/hr. Out of that grand sum he is supposed to buy food, buy medicine, pay lot rent on his trailer, pay the electric and gas bill, buy clothes, get a haircut, etc. . He considers himself 'fortunate', however, because his current employer DOES provide major-medical insurance.

This is the best America can do by its working class?

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

18. I've been there a few times

The worst was working childcare while living in a non-live-work warehouse. I had to hide my bedding in the morning in case the owner came through, and I brushed my teeth in a public restroom while listening to truck drivers taking loud dumps.

Low wage sucks, and it sucks worse in the most expensive cities in the country.

[Cobalt Violet]

19. I am currently a low wage worker.

I have no sick days, no benefits. I work a job that requires an education and a licence. My company is doing very well. I am barely getting by. If my car breaks down, I'm really screwed. I am on food stamps.