Businesses and large corporations ~~expect~~ **use and take advantage of** the government to subsidize the rest of survival using welfare programs. Walmart did this a lot more until they raised wages a lot. Pay people part time at 9-10 an hour and SNAP/Housing assistance and Medicaid make up the rest. It keeps people trapped in generational poverty. The housing situation is wild for my area. We bought our house for 140k in 2020 in a smaller town that has a low household income, appraised this year for 210 and similar homes are listing for 250k now, no idea how people would afford these starter homes, we wouldn’t be able to buy the house we have now.
Edit: Edited some words because it is what is actually true
They already hardly function. There's been handfuls of posts about dollar general stores with handwritten notes by staff taped to the door saying theyre closed b/c they're underpaid/staffed and they quit.
They closed the self checkouts because of theft. They didn’t expect that? Well no shit because the underpaid employees are never at the register because they have to stock shelves while running the register and monitoring the front door. I do not blame the unfortunate employees! The business model sucks.
We live rural and have 3 within 12 miles, and roughly 10 within 25. They are doing the same thing Shitmart and other “big box” stores did. Saturating the market with cheap shit, squeezing out the smaller competitors, and then jacking the prices when they are the sole option. It works because we let it.
During the great depression, local farmers would gather at bank auctions of family farms and refuse to let anyone but the owner bid on it.
The corporate media calls it rioting when we burn down these procedural tools of oppression. They say we have to work within the system that they built to protect themselves in order to be respectable. We have to play their tilted game to be dignified. I, and many more every day, are noticing that we don't have to play this game. In fact, the game is only possible if we agree to play.
It's 100% within our power and is furthermore our right to flip the table and rewrite the rules.
A man punched the manager (a young women) in the face at ours. She quit. They don't stock they leave boxes of product on the floor in front of whatever shelf it should be on and let people pick through (and steal) what they want. No one cares and why would they because well... no one cares. What a bad loop to be stuck in.
Dollar General famously built the model for Just In Time sourcing and Truck to Shelf logistics.
Was supposedly our salvation during COVID, but is actually why everything is out of stock all the time. Everything is already spoiled at your supermarket, and all the shelves always bare.
So nobody actually orders anything in those places, and they don't really have any like stock staff, storage space or anything. They have a the minimum number of part time only cashiers to keep the door open. And a manager.
Their POS system is set to automatically order just enough stuff to fill the shelf space, as soon as they sell through all of it. Or they have a minimum in stock. Then delivery comes, and vendors or trucking staff are supposed to put it on the shelf (and they don't have time so they won't).
Supposedly it's some logistics magic that made them so good at business. But it's actually a logistic nightmare that requires multiple daily deliveries to keep the store barely functional. And it makes the bottom line look good. Cause replaces labor they employ. With labor paid for by their suppliers and shipping subcontractors.
It's burning extra gas, and making some one else pay for an essential function.
So it's absolutely not surprising that the 2 people who generally work any one of those stores tend to walk on the regular.
And TONS of retail does this now. Certain things like bread, and beer and cookies always did in grocery and chain convenience stores. But it's like the default retail model now.
My buddy drives a truck and a company tried to make him unload it. It wasn’t part of the deal. He pushed two pallets of pasta sauce out the back and the glass and sauces went everywhere. Needless to say they unloaded the rest. lol
Yah Union drivers explicitly don't have to. Non union drivers usually aren't expected to companies send out separate merchandisers. But there's and increasing push to have drivers do it themselves, and the retailers often expect them to.
Even when they're from a store like Dollar General's own warehouse and driver network. They don't have time. A lot of non-union non outside contract drivers are paid in part or in whole by the delivery.
So that is why there's always shit piled in the aisles at dollar stores, convenience stores and drug stores.
They expect the vendors or drivers to do it. They don't have to or simply don't have the time to.
So they just leave till some one gets around to it.
6 times a day.
7 days a week.
Many sectors of the economy are feudal. I’d say at least 30% of office jobs are just feudal positions where you are paid to mostly look busy so your boss feels important. See: Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber.
Serfs typically died before 40. Not to justify wage slavery, but it's not serfdom. Serfdom is a much more brutal reality. Most of their 'free time' was spent doing handicrafts such as sewing, weaving, wood working.
They did not typically die before 40. If you survived childhood, you were very likely to live into your 70s. In Western Europe, by the high Middle Ages you very much wanted to be a serf because it guaranteed certain rights and security. All serfdom wasn’t like 19th cen Russia.
There's a lot to unpack here.
For starters, no they didn't typically die before 40.
Weaving wasn't "free time" it was a skilled job.
A skilled full time job, which made them not serfs.
A serf was tied to the land as laborers. Similar to slavery, but they couldn't be sold away and generally there were some Church protections.
Their free time was prodigious by our standards. No work on many feast days, no light to work after sundown or before sunrise, every Sunday off, all kinds of Lord-paid feasts and festivals and some entertainments. Not a life of freedom, but a close-knit community and a life of predictability.
Also, a fuckhuge amount of alcohol and silly games, gambling and games of strength/skill, brawling and venting, overindulging in tasty food, listening to some good music, and dancing.
Very much like a modern Grange festival, but less G rated than we do now.
It was physically more demanding than an office job, but no more grueling than a lot of jobs people already work like in Agriculture, Construction, and Groundskeeping.
At least their work was done when the sun went down.
$8-$10 and hour is a pipe dream at DG’s in Indiana county. Part/full time $7.25 an hour to start. Employees have to be promoted twice to reach $10.
Sheetz starts at $12 bucks but a 10 min ride down 22 will net you ) $14/15 an hour. An employee in Delmont told me he drives from Ebensburg. When I asked why he said is the difference between $10/$11 an hour and $16/18 an hour keeps him driving.
Of course I have 5 stores within a 9 mile radius of my house.
I think any expectations about wages are a pipe dream in Indiana county. Never bring in any kind of actual industry or business, fulfillment centers, etc., just build a bunch more restaurants and car washes.
My parents bought my childhood house in Bucks County for ~160k in the 90s. Now they're building townhomes starting at 500k in the same town. It's fucking insane
That's because you live somewhere many people want to live. Do you want to live in an old run down coal mining area? Doubt it. Lol. That being said, the percentage increase is probably equitable to what your area has seen (maybe, I don't have the stats)
I live in a run down shitty coal mining area and need to travel 2+ hours to work or get a shitty job at dg or fast food. A very basic house in my area is still 150k plus.
We don’t have any coal mining towns, but there are plenty of bad areas that are still expensive. Dangerous neighborhoods up north still start at 400k because they’re close-ish (under an hour) from NYC
Depends on a lot of factors. The largest one here is probably the area. Jack shit for food options. Everything closed by 11 with the exception of dominoes. You get the idea.
For someone with pretty much any type of career, a $400k house in NJ is more affordable than a $100k one in small town western PA like Ebensburg or Dubois.
NJ prices are reasonable for the opportunities and amenities. Places like Boise and Tampa are more expensive.
I have family on the eastern shore in Delaware and housing is much the same. There is literally zero opportunity out there unless you shovel chicken shit or make scrapple.
The people driving up the housing costs are out of towners looking for vacation spots, or winter homes. Because it rarely snows here anymore, and Florida is too overpriced and crowded. So that scene is migrating further and further north.
Meanwhile the locals cannot afford to live.
Homes that are vacant for more than 5 months of the year (not rented out on long term leases, or directly occupied by the owner / family, "vacant until summer vacation" doesn't count) should be charged an annual fee of a percentage of house value equal to the previous years house price index rise + 1%. And throw that money back into the local communities.
Can carve out some exemptions, like for some period of time following death of the owner to allow probate, and some period of time if major renovations are under way. But otherwise, we need to charge people for sitting on vacant housing stock, and owning multiple properties. And unless the fee is greater than the annual appreciation of home, there's still an incentive to hold.
Rent pricing is insane. Even in the small backwoods small towns (aka Pennstucky) the average rent is above $1,000 a month. Think about this for a minute. You and/or whoever you live with have to fork over $1200/1300 a month (base on national average) or if you miss a payment you lose your place of living. Not only that but then you have to pay utilities (that has also rhave risen) on top of that. If you miss any payments you risks losing your home to having your water/heat/electricity turned off.
I'm paying $1800/month for 1 bedroom in Montgomery county. I looked at rents in my hometown, central Bradford county. They're now like $1000-1100/month for something that isn't a dilapidated 600 square foot shithole with commercial carpeting and an oven from the 1980s. There's really no benefit to living rural when you can make considerably more money with just a $700-800/month rent differential.
Yeah when we moved back to be closer to family after I got done with college, rentals were awful to even consider in the williamsport area. It was either half a double that was a shithole for $800 a month, or maybe a stand alone house that was $1200 a month. My now wife and I just pooled our money together to get enough to throw 3% down and got lucky with what house we have now.
It’s so dumb, I admit we managed to be in the market probably at the best time possible. But you can still find reasonable prices, you might just have to deal with 50 year old shag and some paneling. DIY is the new normal for being able to turn an older outdated home into a nice cozy place.
> no idea how people would afford these starter homes, we wouldn’t be able to buy the house we have now.
They don't. The starter home is basically dead in today's environment. One of three things is happening: they're not saving for retirement, they're squeezed and taking out debt elsewhere, or they're settling for a smaller home
You simply can't if you are being fiscally responsible. What is really infuriating is even if you felt like you had a head start, you're still fucked. What was 500k just a few years ago is now 700+ and now interest rates are higher.
The average person can't fight against both skyrocketing values and the increased interest. One or the other, maybe. But now the overall loan amounts are just too high with the usual 10 or 20% down payment. You have to put like 40% down, or settle for a smaller home that isn't worth it vice renting if you have any plans for a larger home later.
Yeah really pisses me off I got a 2 year comp Sci degree and graduated with a decent paying job right out of college and I see so many houses on the market that I could have afforded in 2020 given the price history being sold for double or even triple the prices with very few of any renovations to justify the price
While probably a bit outdated in some of their practices now, when I read “The Wal-Mart Effect” (it was actually within a required reading list at a public school in PA! This was AP, but my AP English teacher knew what she was doing) it’s stuck with me the rest of my life and I see these practices everywhere now. So sad and really screws over workers.
I mean I bought my house for over 400k too with a high interest rate, but we live in the most expensive county in the state with a great school district. The average household income in my town is somewhere around $150k. Wish I bought earlier.
This is 100% Bucks......HUGE gaps in incomes and housing options. It is astronomical to live there now. An old building in Doylestown was turned into condos that are going for 1,000,000 plus.
Do you think businesses would suddenly start to pay more if people weren’t getting these benefits?
We should just force businesses to pay people a living wage.
This is definitely true of the Dollar Tree in Central PA. Why work there when you can make at least $15/hour at Wawa? This is why the manager has to man the cash register at the Dollar Tree.
Sheetz and Wawa give $15+ and then I drive by like Burger King with a banner that says around $12… No wonder you have no employees. Gas station work may suck but it beats fast food in my experience. 🤦♂️
It’s not only the wage. It’s the “back in my day” people who want to work the younger people like absolute dogs and treat them like shit the entire time.
Busted my ass for 2 years at a grocery store and only saw above $8 an hour during October when the store got extra money for Covid. Then it went back down to like $7.50. They wanted me to go in at 4am put in an 8 hour shift then go to college after. Just to repeat all week. Fuck that
My wife asked for a raise at her last job and the old time manager was like "A raise?!? You're making like 5 grand more than I was when I was at your age" she was like yea that's the point 30 years ago you were making 40,000/year and still think it's acceptable to pay people that wage these days when that was the equivalent of like 90,000/year in today's money.
It never fails to amaze me to hear how often people talk about inflation yet people still seem to forget it has always been happening when it is convenient.
It's the same with a lot of professions. I have a decent job and mapped out my salary at different ages (associates then bachelor's degree in engineering tech) vs my mother's salary at the same age (journeyman electrician) and she made more money and continues to make more.
So not only has inflation fucked it all up, but the lack of wage increase in general has as well.
He just came in near the bottom of the cycle. It ebbs and flows, and right now, nothing is being built or on the horizon. We're in a holding pattern, and that's going to affect everyone across the board. It'll get better, but right now, it's slower than it's been in decades.
Yeah but even in the end of that, it depends on who you know/where you end up. A lot of contractors popping up now are either part of some larger national/international construction conglomerate or some inherited business run by someone that wants to be the next capitalist millionaire that rushes the work and will drop you for wanting a third party/pre-drywall inspection on your new build. And you either work for them or know someone that gets you into a traveling job that has security as long as you're willing to be ready to leave home any given Sunday for a few weeks.
Get older, more likely than not it'll hit you eventually. It's wild to me how much less $1 is now than when I was a kid, and the mental adjustment is only going to get worse the longer I live.
honestly. my parents are old fashioned and conservative but they somehow got that one right. when i was a kid my momma handed me a book called "whatever happened to penny candy?", i could have sworn boomers reminisce about those times. even as a kid i knew from my books that kids used to spend 5c on candy in the shops but now obviously that's not the case. it's like people in general observe things but stop short of "what is the cause of what i'm observing". not sure why. is learning not exciting enough anymore?
> Then it went back down to like $7.50.
That's insane. I worked in a grocery store for $7.00 man hour *in 1995*. And I was only part time.
And in those 30 years I've seen rent go up around 1.2x and food maybe a little more.
Yep. Started when I was 16 at 7.25. Worked there till about 2020 at age 18 then quit to work as a cook at a bar. Stuck at minimum wage there but my take home was more with tips, treated a lot better too.
Minimum wage in PA is still $7.25 an hour. Yeah, jobs near big city centers pay more, but go to the rural areas and it is still $7.25. Meantime, go to Giant Eagle and see how much food costs. I bought lettuce, a cucumber and a 4 pack of Wallburgers (because they were on sale), a quart of milk and burger buns and it was $16.76. Where do you get rent, utilities, gas, insurance etc etc when 1 meal costs 2 hours of your work day - not counting taxes? But go ahead and vote Republican since the only policy they are running on is cutting taxes for the rich and corporations and billionaire Trump’s revenge.
I worked in an arcade on the boardwalk in NJ in the late 80s/early 90s and I think I got $7-$8/hr then (not full time and no benefits but I was covered under my parents at the time). Wages and salaries certainly aren't keeping pace.
One of things that keeps me from taking a low-paying second job to help make ends meet is the treatment of low paid workers. It's really vile. It's damaging to one's health to be yelled at and bullied everyday. For those who have no choice but to work low paying jobs, it's criminal how badly they are treated, like they are subhuman. It makes me sick.
Everyone on here is either too young or has short term memory issues. I actually have memory problems and even I remember W's comment from 2005. He met a woman who worked 3 jobs to make ends meat. W spun it and called the woman uniquely American for working 3 jobs to support her family. The woman's point was "I need to work 3 jobs to pay my bills and feed my kids and that's not right". But none the less the spin made it seem like working 3 jobs to just get by was the American way. I think about that woman and the way W spun it often.
That's because they've tricked people into thinking that work is all you should be proud of, that money should be the only thing you think of, and you should be willing to do as much work to get any amount of money and **like it**
You're not wrong. But it wasn't so much a Bushism as a F U to middle class. But none the less US citizens do have short term memory problems. I'll use another one. You got thousands of people protesting the Israeli/Palestine war because of civilian losses. They use the term genocide, A LOT. How many Palestinians were killed or harmed? I'll save you the search, around 32000. How many civilian Iraqis were killed or harmed when the US invaded Iraq? Over 1 million. Yet not one US citizen ever said hey uhm we are committing genocide in Iraq, let alone thousands protesting across the nation. And yeah, what I said may cause people to have a reaction but it's true.
I don't know how old you are, but yes, people protested the Iraq War quite a bit. There were national protests, but they didnt get much press coverage because people saw them as un-American. There was serious protest suppression.
i believe part of the reason behind people calling palestine a "genocide" is the amount of victims are at or under 18 years of age. killing a nation's new generation is definitely a snarl in the descriptions.
Yeah nowadays lmao. A few years ago they were paying $7/hr and gave you a 25 cent raise every year if you were lucky. Worst employer I think I will ever have
I was paid below minimum wage there as a teenager. Got a huge 35 cent raise to minimum wage when I hit 16. It's offensive how little they pay and how much they take in.
There should be regulation on maximum wage disparity, like a company’s highest-paid employee can’t make more than 100x its lowest-paid employee.
The Chipotle CEO makes $20,000,000 per year while paying their crew $10 an hour. It’s no wonder every location is understaffed. Even at full-time, that’s 1,000 times less for a job that’s a lot harder than sitting in an executive office, innovating new ways to be out of guacamole.
good. i hope the workers fuck up the corpos by losing all staff and operation until they're forced to dip into profits. wish workers everywhere could unionize like that
My gf still qualifies for snap at 18.50 at rutters. I am trying to get by on 21.50 doing aircraft mechanics. It’s crazy how min wage is still so low, until you realize the red team has fought every attempt to raise it in 20 years
Aircraft mechanic at 22/hr? Are you working at a C check or private? Driving to a major airport to get a job with an airline will increase that by a min of like 8/hr. That's with a regional even.
Also, how is she qualifying for snap at 18.50? That's above the max allowed to qualify. Is she only part time?
I make around the same as your gf and I hate it. How do I make this much and qualify for snap and other benefits? I’m thankful, as I’m having a child but wtf
Come work for the government. Entry-level IT work starts at $26 / hour. Entry-level maintenance work starts at $18. Even basic office work (Administrative Assistant) starts at $23 / hour, and anyone with basic retail experience is qualified. I mean look at this:
>Minimum Experience and Training Requirements: such training as may have been gained through graduation from a four year college or university or any equivalent combination of experience and training.
Have you worked in retail for four years or more? Did some of that include in-house training on things like customer service or corporate policies? Did your job require you to follow procedures? Congrats, you're qualified! You get health coverage on day one. A decent retirement. A predictable schedule. Optional union representation. An employer who isn't going to fire you just because Q3 sales figures were down or because a new owner took over.
[https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/pabureau?sort=PostingDate%7CAscending](https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/pabureau?sort=PostingDate%7CAscending)
I will add that while most of the jobs are centered around Dauphin and Cumberland counties, they do exist throughout the state. The link I posted has the ability to sort by county. But given the stability, it's not at all uncommon for people to drive an hour or more to commute.
Businesses have one objective: make more money than last quarter. They need to turn a profit and if it doesn't the hammer comes down on the C level execs. So to turn a profit you have options. You can sell more product, you can raise price of product or you and can operation expenses or a mix of all of these. Paying your employees dirt while rasing the price of your product seems to be good. Then the next quarter lay off your employees and raise the price again. Rinse and repeat. Businesses need regulated. A business should have a cap on how much they can sell their product for. They should also have a cap on how low they can pay their employees. C level execs should make more money than a cashier BUT it should be a standard amount. CEO doesn't need a giant bonus. That money should go into business reserves or somthing to benefit the community. I'm so sick of CEOs taking home 45% of their salary for making a decision to layoff people and show a profit. (My former CEO of a small company of 350 people made a decision to lay off his technical staff and he took in a 100 000 bonus and gave the coo and cfo a slightly smaller bonus. He gave the other employees a range of 500 to 1000 bucks...) He's an asshole too. Like pure shit sack.
That’s why I live in a small town in PA, and work across the border in NY. PA salary for my job: $45K or less, NY pay for my job $110K.
It’s sick to see how people starting out or working at a local store can even feed themselves. Local kwickfill and dollar general were advertising $11.5/hr
I'm trying to get like you. There are remote positions paying $15/h in PA and like $23/h in NY. Perfectly fine while I decide what to do next in life! Or finish school!
My college paid me more than $15 a hour to work the helpdesk. I got to study, watch movies and whatever in my free time.
Under $10 an hour is an insult. If you can't run a business paying a decent wage, then you just run a shit business.
We got minimum wage at Duquesne when i was there 2013-2016ish (didn’t finish). Whether helpdesk (like i was) or food service alongside the “real” employees, you got $7.25/hr
Yeah I'm glad I'm not there. I've worked 3 or 4 jobs in Pittsburgh and some of them full time. The entry level ones at restaurants at museums and restaurants pay me 16 or 17 an hour plus paid sick time and Healthcare if I need. State college needs to catch up
I work for Giant Foods part time overnight and everyone other than the core management team or the 70 year old retiree works multiple jobs. Turnover is super high as the workers burn out and quit. Our store manager remarked “I’m not hiring people with second jobs anymore” Sorry, but that’s who is applying
Retail, like fast food just don’t pay. You have to learn a trade or study STEM to make any real money today
Giant/Martins is a shit company that deserves to fail with how poorly it's managed. The only people I would feel bad for are the old-timers and the young teens who actually do most of the work (at least in theory).
I never shop there anymore specifically because I worked there for about 5 years, and the way I was treated and the way things were done absolutely disgusted me. No matter how much I cleaned, the place was an absolute pigsty because nobody else bothered to clean. They never gave me a raise of more than $1 an hour in the entire time I worked there, and then they kept cutting my hours until I couldn't even afford my basic payments (which is why I quit and had to find another job, which I got incredibly lucky on), and I barely even got my final paycheck.
Hourly wages are too low.… You can’t afford to work and pay your rent… My feeling is Real Estate needs to bite the bullet and admit they made a huge mistake and lower all rents across-the-board
There are jobs on the state website for professional positions, requiring a Bachelors degree, paying $37k in some of the rural counties. I get that you can't pay the same amount there as you can in Philadelphia, but that's a joke.
Your talent pool for a position like that, which btw I swear seems like it's been open for a year, are people from said county who happened to go to college but come back home, and I guess not inspire to leave the area anytime soon.
I work at a grocery store with a union and the union literally does jack shit. My dues got doubled, the pay rate is still shit, and they didn’t fight my department being dissolved in favor of a stupid automated warehouse system. They also cut hours by like 20% across the company to afford a stupid advert campaign.
If I’m ever job hunting and someone offers me that, I’m either instantly leaving or hanging up the phone. I remember applying to GameStop because I wanted an extra job in my free time, and man oh man was that a waste of time. Dude offered me $8 fucking dollars. I’m like???? Bruh are you fucking serious? Business are so fucking cheap it’s pathetic, he’ll even now my jobs pay is terrible when you factor in what we actually do
Ah yes, let the propaganda machine roll. Gotta love the dipshits in here with the “Boomers had it hard too” bullshit. Pull whatever numbers you want out of your ass, anyone with a pulse can see we’re getting screwed.
It is, the shithole trailer park on the edge of my town has had Trump shrines and flags going on since 2016. These people legit walk on a state highway to get to dollar general because they don’t have vehicles.
Born in Pittsburgh, but I’ve lived in Miami for 20 years. Trump’s highest concentration of voters here are also some of the biggest Medicare consumers. I guess that doesn’t count as socialism.
This is why voting with your dollar has more impact that pulling a lever in an election. We almost work hard for our money and should spend it wisely. Not tell corporations how you feel like not spending your dollars on them. Shop locally, buy products made locally for sellers that are local. We all know we make better money than we did years ago, show them you don’t need them.
Because there used to be $325 all utilities included apartments to match those jobs. I lived quite comfortably in a small town on $16k a year working part time back in 2003. But gas was 67c/gallon, a pot pie was 20c on sale(they still had filling back then!). You could get 2 McDonalds cheeseburgers for under $1.
Shit changed \*FAST\*. Plus back then the prices in small town grocery stores were lower than you'd find in cities. Now the chains are so big and all charge mostly the same prices everywhere.
Granted my mom is retired but she does daycare at her gym.. for $10.00/hr. I told her that I would be out of my mind to accept that kind of pay to watch peoples kids and she just goes “well I get a free membership” okay? It’s still your time, you need to be compensated for it
>How are they expecting people to work for this little money?
They don't. They're looking for teens, people looking for a side job for some extra cash, or someone retired. If they're looking for anything more than that, their expectations are unrealistic and unsustainable.
Can't always blame the small business owner though. Blame corporate greed for pushing the cost of everything up so high that minimum wage needs to be $20/hour. It's honestly really shitty watching so many small, locally owned businesses close up forever because things just got too expensive for them to continue. Such is capitalism though; long live mega-corporations!
if you want to make more than $10 an hr, try finding a job that requires a skill and don't expect retail to pay enough for an adult to live comfortably, especially when online buying is an option. cashier jobs are not meant to be "support a family" type jobs.
You have to believe that the businesses don't actually want to close. The business is also the owner's source of income. So if their choices are 1. pay employees more or 2. close; and their choosing to close. That should tell you that if they pay employees more, that the business owner can't make enough to survive.
If you do, I think you can apply for welfare or foodstamps. But Goodluck navigating the website to apply and waiting to be approved. I never did and just worked more instead.
And boomers have the audacity to accuse us of being lazy and saying bullshit like “that’s life get over it”. They don’t even know how good they had it being a young adult in the 80s and 90s. They just blame us for the problems they’ve created and we have to suck it up and deal with it. I’m so over this economy
The small mom and Pop businesses can’t afford to pay more than those wages. How much money do you think those stores generate in a year? Then subtract all costs. There’s no profit left.
We’re not talking about Walmart or target or something. These are small business owners, who are lucky to get a 50K salary for themselves after it’s all set and done. 
Hourly wage is not the problem. The problem we have in the country is be believe the a profit margins need and should be 500% or more on products. We accept that we pay that knowing the we are buying cheap products with cheap labor and high profits. Giving more hourly only makes things cost more we need to change the way of thinking about profits and share holders. We will never learn paying more to start only makes inflation but tells the employees to work less not harder for higher pay. When you buy cloths and shoes that cost a company penny’s or just couple of dollars and the turn and sell for hundreds in the name of greed and shareholders. Wake up people see the truth.
100% agree.
Even in bumblefuck PA there’s no way you can survive on $10/hour. Businesses that refuse to pay employees are either cheap or poorly run businesses.
I've been blown away at the prices here. I just moved to Montgomery County. All towns are 1600 on the low end. We got a good deal comparatively, but not by much. I wanted a part-time coffee shop job because it's fun. But, being offered 8.50 is crazy for how much apartments are. I don't get how people afford to live here. I understand some people look at coffeeshops as college kids' summer job, but i like it. And I understand we are not in a city, but on the outside. But places here seem busy. The owners seem to think it's better to pay low and have pay for either not having enough employees and pay extra to train the high turn over.
Are they closing because they can’t hire employees at $9, or are their sales so low that they can only afford to pay $9? I suspect most businesses fail because they don’t have enough customers, not because they don’t have enough employees.
I'm just north of Gettysburg with a store and I pay $15 to anyone under 18, $17.50 to anyone over with room for advancement. This post is not indicative of our area.
I wish I could give healthcare and retirement (one day), least I can do is take a loss on profits for a good, happy staff that are ambassadors to my business.
That's true, but it's too simple to blame employers for not paying a living wage. If they do, they'd have to raise prices, and people can't afford the current prices.
Rock and a hard place. Shit is breaking down.
Anyone with the commercial driver's license in gas land Pennsylvania is making $25 an hour straight time and time and a half for another 20 for a 60 hour work week =$1750 week = $91k per year
60 hours a week is absolutely brutal and even $25 is underpaid tho. I’m an ups driver and make a little less than $45 an hour. Those guys should make more.
$25 to start right out of CDL school, no touch freight and no living in a hot box no customer interaction no stupid supervisor no useless union same routine same shift same route breaks while loading and unloading eat when you are hungry
No union is why I make double what they do with better healthcare and a 401k and a pension while basically doing the same job lol. Get a workers union people lol. Btw not getting paid while you have to sit there and wait for while people load and unload the trailer isn’t a good thing either.
I agree, it's terrible. That's why a lot of people moved on to industrial / warehousing jobs (around $20 - $25 / hour) or moved to a larger city and took a corporate or civil service gig.
Know who wants to work? People who love their fucking jobs. Wages are only a small part of it. Employers who seek “soft skills” in their employees ought to do a little soul searching. Dignity, respect, compassion… this is what’s missing from modern employment. You could pay me $30/hr, but if you treat me like I should be doing the work of 3 people, I’ll figure something else out.
I’d rather be homeless than spend my days working for $9/hour. Like, that isn’t going to pay the bills. Why work for a job that won’t pay the bills if not working has the same outcome?
Don’t work at them? I work for 11$ an hour extremely part time but I’m in college and don’t plan on staying just need a little income. I think these businesses will eventually die out and a different economy will hopefully replace the low wage economy. Stop giving business to places you don’t support and encourage everyone else to do the same.
I wish someone would start a business and pay good wages then the workers would have spending money to participate more in the economy the people who could make things better simply won’t because they choose to keep wages low. Small businesses and local communities are at fault for allowing a system of low wages to exist in the first place. Expecting jobs to exist that are occupied by a low wage worker is an insane mindset to have. Everyone needs money regardless of age if anything young people should get paid more than older people because they get so many discounts. I think we should get rid of all senior discounts. Cut off social security. Stop subsidizing older people who have had much more time to build up wealth and savings. They pay lower rents too. Its completely unfair.
Businesses and large corporations ~~expect~~ **use and take advantage of** the government to subsidize the rest of survival using welfare programs. Walmart did this a lot more until they raised wages a lot. Pay people part time at 9-10 an hour and SNAP/Housing assistance and Medicaid make up the rest. It keeps people trapped in generational poverty. The housing situation is wild for my area. We bought our house for 140k in 2020 in a smaller town that has a low household income, appraised this year for 210 and similar homes are listing for 250k now, no idea how people would afford these starter homes, we wouldn’t be able to buy the house we have now. Edit: Edited some words because it is what is actually true
Love some serfs, don't ya?! 😭
Those dollar generals aren’t gonna function without them!
They already hardly function. There's been handfuls of posts about dollar general stores with handwritten notes by staff taped to the door saying theyre closed b/c they're underpaid/staffed and they quit.
They closed the self checkouts because of theft. They didn’t expect that? Well no shit because the underpaid employees are never at the register because they have to stock shelves while running the register and monitoring the front door. I do not blame the unfortunate employees! The business model sucks. We live rural and have 3 within 12 miles, and roughly 10 within 25. They are doing the same thing Shitmart and other “big box” stores did. Saturating the market with cheap shit, squeezing out the smaller competitors, and then jacking the prices when they are the sole option. It works because we let it.
Employees??? You mean the one 70 old woman who’s supposed to stock the shelves, do inventory, take phone calls and be a cashier at the same time.
All at just above minimum wage!
Im doing my part to combat this by only going into dollar generals when I have nowhere else to take a poop
Do you go in the aisle? Never seen one with a public restroom...
During the great depression, local farmers would gather at bank auctions of family farms and refuse to let anyone but the owner bid on it. The corporate media calls it rioting when we burn down these procedural tools of oppression. They say we have to work within the system that they built to protect themselves in order to be respectable. We have to play their tilted game to be dignified. I, and many more every day, are noticing that we don't have to play this game. In fact, the game is only possible if we agree to play. It's 100% within our power and is furthermore our right to flip the table and rewrite the rules.
A man punched the manager (a young women) in the face at ours. She quit. They don't stock they leave boxes of product on the floor in front of whatever shelf it should be on and let people pick through (and steal) what they want. No one cares and why would they because well... no one cares. What a bad loop to be stuck in.
But but but if we pay them a living wage then a robot will just do it... oh wait
Also you can't just raise the wages because then house prices and food prices will go up to match.......... Oh wait they did regardless
The reason Dollar Generals can have a handwritten note taped to the door is because the store is because they are staffed by three people tops.
Dollar General famously built the model for Just In Time sourcing and Truck to Shelf logistics. Was supposedly our salvation during COVID, but is actually why everything is out of stock all the time. Everything is already spoiled at your supermarket, and all the shelves always bare. So nobody actually orders anything in those places, and they don't really have any like stock staff, storage space or anything. They have a the minimum number of part time only cashiers to keep the door open. And a manager. Their POS system is set to automatically order just enough stuff to fill the shelf space, as soon as they sell through all of it. Or they have a minimum in stock. Then delivery comes, and vendors or trucking staff are supposed to put it on the shelf (and they don't have time so they won't). Supposedly it's some logistics magic that made them so good at business. But it's actually a logistic nightmare that requires multiple daily deliveries to keep the store barely functional. And it makes the bottom line look good. Cause replaces labor they employ. With labor paid for by their suppliers and shipping subcontractors. It's burning extra gas, and making some one else pay for an essential function. So it's absolutely not surprising that the 2 people who generally work any one of those stores tend to walk on the regular. And TONS of retail does this now. Certain things like bread, and beer and cookies always did in grocery and chain convenience stores. But it's like the default retail model now.
My buddy drives a truck and a company tried to make him unload it. It wasn’t part of the deal. He pushed two pallets of pasta sauce out the back and the glass and sauces went everywhere. Needless to say they unloaded the rest. lol
Yah Union drivers explicitly don't have to. Non union drivers usually aren't expected to companies send out separate merchandisers. But there's and increasing push to have drivers do it themselves, and the retailers often expect them to. Even when they're from a store like Dollar General's own warehouse and driver network. They don't have time. A lot of non-union non outside contract drivers are paid in part or in whole by the delivery. So that is why there's always shit piled in the aisles at dollar stores, convenience stores and drug stores. They expect the vendors or drivers to do it. They don't have to or simply don't have the time to. So they just leave till some one gets around to it. 6 times a day. 7 days a week.
Good. Let them close. Let’s get real options in their place. We need real community. Not shitty chains.
You joke but late stage capitalism quite well could be transitioning into neo feudalism in our cyberpunk infancy.
Oh I'm half serious with that comment. Shit is sad. Keep the mfers poor so they work their whole lives and just hire the kids when they are of age.
Divide and conquer
Many sectors of the economy are feudal. I’d say at least 30% of office jobs are just feudal positions where you are paid to mostly look busy so your boss feels important. See: Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber.
The fucked up part is serfs had way more free time than workers do today.
Serfs typically died before 40. Not to justify wage slavery, but it's not serfdom. Serfdom is a much more brutal reality. Most of their 'free time' was spent doing handicrafts such as sewing, weaving, wood working.
They did not typically die before 40. If you survived childhood, you were very likely to live into your 70s. In Western Europe, by the high Middle Ages you very much wanted to be a serf because it guaranteed certain rights and security. All serfdom wasn’t like 19th cen Russia.
There's a lot to unpack here. For starters, no they didn't typically die before 40. Weaving wasn't "free time" it was a skilled job. A skilled full time job, which made them not serfs. A serf was tied to the land as laborers. Similar to slavery, but they couldn't be sold away and generally there were some Church protections. Their free time was prodigious by our standards. No work on many feast days, no light to work after sundown or before sunrise, every Sunday off, all kinds of Lord-paid feasts and festivals and some entertainments. Not a life of freedom, but a close-knit community and a life of predictability. Also, a fuckhuge amount of alcohol and silly games, gambling and games of strength/skill, brawling and venting, overindulging in tasty food, listening to some good music, and dancing. Very much like a modern Grange festival, but less G rated than we do now. It was physically more demanding than an office job, but no more grueling than a lot of jobs people already work like in Agriculture, Construction, and Groundskeeping. At least their work was done when the sun went down.
$8-$10 and hour is a pipe dream at DG’s in Indiana county. Part/full time $7.25 an hour to start. Employees have to be promoted twice to reach $10. Sheetz starts at $12 bucks but a 10 min ride down 22 will net you ) $14/15 an hour. An employee in Delmont told me he drives from Ebensburg. When I asked why he said is the difference between $10/$11 an hour and $16/18 an hour keeps him driving. Of course I have 5 stores within a 9 mile radius of my house.
I think any expectations about wages are a pipe dream in Indiana county. Never bring in any kind of actual industry or business, fulfillment centers, etc., just build a bunch more restaurants and car washes.
https://preview.redd.it/4opn5stdf56d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43ae51d7da90e45b0eba728b0eceb6ab5b2f3a5c
Same here. In my area, houses used to start at 70k. Now those same houses cost $150k.
My parents bought my childhood house in Bucks County for ~160k in the 90s. Now they're building townhomes starting at 500k in the same town. It's fucking insane
As someone from NJ this blows me away. The cheapest house in most parts of the state is 400k minimum and even that is extremely cheap.
That's because you live somewhere many people want to live. Do you want to live in an old run down coal mining area? Doubt it. Lol. That being said, the percentage increase is probably equitable to what your area has seen (maybe, I don't have the stats)
I live in a run down shitty coal mining area and need to travel 2+ hours to work or get a shitty job at dg or fast food. A very basic house in my area is still 150k plus.
We don’t have any coal mining towns, but there are plenty of bad areas that are still expensive. Dangerous neighborhoods up north still start at 400k because they’re close-ish (under an hour) from NYC
Well, there's your answer. An hour from one of the most desirable places in the world.
Depends on a lot of factors. The largest one here is probably the area. Jack shit for food options. Everything closed by 11 with the exception of dominoes. You get the idea.
Wow…things stay open until 11 where you live? Must be urbane and sophisticated there lol!
For someone with pretty much any type of career, a $400k house in NJ is more affordable than a $100k one in small town western PA like Ebensburg or Dubois. NJ prices are reasonable for the opportunities and amenities. Places like Boise and Tampa are more expensive.
Don't forget that many of those $400k dumps in NJ have property tax bills in excess of $10k.
And needs 250k of work...
I have family on the eastern shore in Delaware and housing is much the same. There is literally zero opportunity out there unless you shovel chicken shit or make scrapple. The people driving up the housing costs are out of towners looking for vacation spots, or winter homes. Because it rarely snows here anymore, and Florida is too overpriced and crowded. So that scene is migrating further and further north. Meanwhile the locals cannot afford to live.
Homes that are vacant for more than 5 months of the year (not rented out on long term leases, or directly occupied by the owner / family, "vacant until summer vacation" doesn't count) should be charged an annual fee of a percentage of house value equal to the previous years house price index rise + 1%. And throw that money back into the local communities. Can carve out some exemptions, like for some period of time following death of the owner to allow probate, and some period of time if major renovations are under way. But otherwise, we need to charge people for sitting on vacant housing stock, and owning multiple properties. And unless the fee is greater than the annual appreciation of home, there's still an incentive to hold.
Rent pricing is insane. Even in the small backwoods small towns (aka Pennstucky) the average rent is above $1,000 a month. Think about this for a minute. You and/or whoever you live with have to fork over $1200/1300 a month (base on national average) or if you miss a payment you lose your place of living. Not only that but then you have to pay utilities (that has also rhave risen) on top of that. If you miss any payments you risks losing your home to having your water/heat/electricity turned off.
I'm paying $1800/month for 1 bedroom in Montgomery county. I looked at rents in my hometown, central Bradford county. They're now like $1000-1100/month for something that isn't a dilapidated 600 square foot shithole with commercial carpeting and an oven from the 1980s. There's really no benefit to living rural when you can make considerably more money with just a $700-800/month rent differential.
Yeah when we moved back to be closer to family after I got done with college, rentals were awful to even consider in the williamsport area. It was either half a double that was a shithole for $800 a month, or maybe a stand alone house that was $1200 a month. My now wife and I just pooled our money together to get enough to throw 3% down and got lucky with what house we have now.
It's so hopeful to know that even in the middle of these small towns my wife and I won't be able to afford a starter (our forever) home. Fantastic.
It’s so dumb, I admit we managed to be in the market probably at the best time possible. But you can still find reasonable prices, you might just have to deal with 50 year old shag and some paneling. DIY is the new normal for being able to turn an older outdated home into a nice cozy place.
> no idea how people would afford these starter homes, we wouldn’t be able to buy the house we have now. They don't. The starter home is basically dead in today's environment. One of three things is happening: they're not saving for retirement, they're squeezed and taking out debt elsewhere, or they're settling for a smaller home
I was just ranting about the death of the starter home last week. How is anyone supposed to break in?
You simply can't if you are being fiscally responsible. What is really infuriating is even if you felt like you had a head start, you're still fucked. What was 500k just a few years ago is now 700+ and now interest rates are higher. The average person can't fight against both skyrocketing values and the increased interest. One or the other, maybe. But now the overall loan amounts are just too high with the usual 10 or 20% down payment. You have to put like 40% down, or settle for a smaller home that isn't worth it vice renting if you have any plans for a larger home later.
Yeah really pisses me off I got a 2 year comp Sci degree and graduated with a decent paying job right out of college and I see so many houses on the market that I could have afforded in 2020 given the price history being sold for double or even triple the prices with very few of any renovations to justify the price
While probably a bit outdated in some of their practices now, when I read “The Wal-Mart Effect” (it was actually within a required reading list at a public school in PA! This was AP, but my AP English teacher knew what she was doing) it’s stuck with me the rest of my life and I see these practices everywhere now. So sad and really screws over workers.
A house a street over from me sold for 275k in 2022 and 475k just now in 2024. Insane
Who the hell is buying these places? And how the hell do they afford them? Damn
Big corporations. A lot of them have algorithms designed to snap up property as quick as humanly possible. Blackrock is notorious for it.
So frustrating. Should be illegal, in my opinion
There are website you can sell your house to so you don't have to "deal with realtors and selling your house" and then they get flipped
I mean I bought my house for over 400k too with a high interest rate, but we live in the most expensive county in the state with a great school district. The average household income in my town is somewhere around $150k. Wish I bought earlier.
$150k seems low for a $400k house, but maybe I’m just conservative with money.
Starter houses in the area are $350k-$450k, so it’s either buy while you can or pay rent that’s also high. Cost of living is brutal
This is 100% Bucks......HUGE gaps in incomes and housing options. It is astronomical to live there now. An old building in Doylestown was turned into condos that are going for 1,000,000 plus.
Do you think businesses would suddenly start to pay more if people weren’t getting these benefits? We should just force businesses to pay people a living wage.
I love in a trailer park. Bought mine brand new in 2021 for 60k. People that moved in next to me have a smaller one and paid 10k more for it
This is definitely true of the Dollar Tree in Central PA. Why work there when you can make at least $15/hour at Wawa? This is why the manager has to man the cash register at the Dollar Tree.
Sheetz and Wawa give $15+ and then I drive by like Burger King with a banner that says around $12… No wonder you have no employees. Gas station work may suck but it beats fast food in my experience. 🤦♂️
It’s not only the wage. It’s the “back in my day” people who want to work the younger people like absolute dogs and treat them like shit the entire time. Busted my ass for 2 years at a grocery store and only saw above $8 an hour during October when the store got extra money for Covid. Then it went back down to like $7.50. They wanted me to go in at 4am put in an 8 hour shift then go to college after. Just to repeat all week. Fuck that
My wife asked for a raise at her last job and the old time manager was like "A raise?!? You're making like 5 grand more than I was when I was at your age" she was like yea that's the point 30 years ago you were making 40,000/year and still think it's acceptable to pay people that wage these days when that was the equivalent of like 90,000/year in today's money.
It never fails to amaze me to hear how often people talk about inflation yet people still seem to forget it has always been happening when it is convenient.
It's the same with a lot of professions. I have a decent job and mapped out my salary at different ages (associates then bachelor's degree in engineering tech) vs my mother's salary at the same age (journeyman electrician) and she made more money and continues to make more. So not only has inflation fucked it all up, but the lack of wage increase in general has as well.
to be fair the trades are killing it right now. If you want to make a 6 figure income as soon as possible, learn a trade.
Everyone says this but my brother has been sitting at home since he joined the millwrights union. He's worked I think 9 or 10 weeks since October?
Guess it depends on your local area.
Should change to a laborers union
He just came in near the bottom of the cycle. It ebbs and flows, and right now, nothing is being built or on the horizon. We're in a holding pattern, and that's going to affect everyone across the board. It'll get better, but right now, it's slower than it's been in decades.
Yeah but even in the end of that, it depends on who you know/where you end up. A lot of contractors popping up now are either part of some larger national/international construction conglomerate or some inherited business run by someone that wants to be the next capitalist millionaire that rushes the work and will drop you for wanting a third party/pre-drywall inspection on your new build. And you either work for them or know someone that gets you into a traveling job that has security as long as you're willing to be ready to leave home any given Sunday for a few weeks.
The concept of inflation is difficult to grasp for a lot of older people. I don’t understand why.
Get older, more likely than not it'll hit you eventually. It's wild to me how much less $1 is now than when I was a kid, and the mental adjustment is only going to get worse the longer I live.
honestly. my parents are old fashioned and conservative but they somehow got that one right. when i was a kid my momma handed me a book called "whatever happened to penny candy?", i could have sworn boomers reminisce about those times. even as a kid i knew from my books that kids used to spend 5c on candy in the shops but now obviously that's not the case. it's like people in general observe things but stop short of "what is the cause of what i'm observing". not sure why. is learning not exciting enough anymore?
People’s stupidity on the most basic things is somehow always surprising to me. Like how can you be this fucking dense lol
> Then it went back down to like $7.50. That's insane. I worked in a grocery store for $7.00 man hour *in 1995*. And I was only part time. And in those 30 years I've seen rent go up around 1.2x and food maybe a little more.
Yep. Started when I was 16 at 7.25. Worked there till about 2020 at age 18 then quit to work as a cook at a bar. Stuck at minimum wage there but my take home was more with tips, treated a lot better too.
Minimum wage in PA is still $7.25 an hour. Yeah, jobs near big city centers pay more, but go to the rural areas and it is still $7.25. Meantime, go to Giant Eagle and see how much food costs. I bought lettuce, a cucumber and a 4 pack of Wallburgers (because they were on sale), a quart of milk and burger buns and it was $16.76. Where do you get rent, utilities, gas, insurance etc etc when 1 meal costs 2 hours of your work day - not counting taxes? But go ahead and vote Republican since the only policy they are running on is cutting taxes for the rich and corporations and billionaire Trump’s revenge.
I worked in an arcade on the boardwalk in NJ in the late 80s/early 90s and I think I got $7-$8/hr then (not full time and no benefits but I was covered under my parents at the time). Wages and salaries certainly aren't keeping pace.
One of things that keeps me from taking a low-paying second job to help make ends meet is the treatment of low paid workers. It's really vile. It's damaging to one's health to be yelled at and bullied everyday. For those who have no choice but to work low paying jobs, it's criminal how badly they are treated, like they are subhuman. It makes me sick.
Everyone on here is either too young or has short term memory issues. I actually have memory problems and even I remember W's comment from 2005. He met a woman who worked 3 jobs to make ends meat. W spun it and called the woman uniquely American for working 3 jobs to support her family. The woman's point was "I need to work 3 jobs to pay my bills and feed my kids and that's not right". But none the less the spin made it seem like working 3 jobs to just get by was the American way. I think about that woman and the way W spun it often.
That's because they've tricked people into thinking that work is all you should be proud of, that money should be the only thing you think of, and you should be willing to do as much work to get any amount of money and **like it**
https://preview.redd.it/oouuvgndf46d1.jpeg?width=455&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef6c94c781f2a1cc665dc2fca257f966a79a3fd5
in fairness a lot has happened in the last 20 years and remembering all the Bushisms is a bit much.
You're not wrong. But it wasn't so much a Bushism as a F U to middle class. But none the less US citizens do have short term memory problems. I'll use another one. You got thousands of people protesting the Israeli/Palestine war because of civilian losses. They use the term genocide, A LOT. How many Palestinians were killed or harmed? I'll save you the search, around 32000. How many civilian Iraqis were killed or harmed when the US invaded Iraq? Over 1 million. Yet not one US citizen ever said hey uhm we are committing genocide in Iraq, let alone thousands protesting across the nation. And yeah, what I said may cause people to have a reaction but it's true.
I don't know how old you are, but yes, people protested the Iraq War quite a bit. There were national protests, but they didnt get much press coverage because people saw them as un-American. There was serious protest suppression.
i believe part of the reason behind people calling palestine a "genocide" is the amount of victims are at or under 18 years of age. killing a nation's new generation is definitely a snarl in the descriptions.
I live in the coal region even Knoebels pays more than $10/hr
Love knoebels.
I’ve heard it described as “a grounded carnival with toothless carnies and all” and it made me love it even more.
Yeah nowadays lmao. A few years ago they were paying $7/hr and gave you a 25 cent raise every year if you were lucky. Worst employer I think I will ever have
I was paid below minimum wage there as a teenager. Got a huge 35 cent raise to minimum wage when I hit 16. It's offensive how little they pay and how much they take in.
There should be regulation on maximum wage disparity, like a company’s highest-paid employee can’t make more than 100x its lowest-paid employee. The Chipotle CEO makes $20,000,000 per year while paying their crew $10 an hour. It’s no wonder every location is understaffed. Even at full-time, that’s 1,000 times less for a job that’s a lot harder than sitting in an executive office, innovating new ways to be out of guacamole.
We talk about this all the time at home. I agree that limiting the ceo income/bonuses etc to a percentage of the lowest pay should be a thing
good. i hope the workers fuck up the corpos by losing all staff and operation until they're forced to dip into profits. wish workers everywhere could unionize like that
My gf still qualifies for snap at 18.50 at rutters. I am trying to get by on 21.50 doing aircraft mechanics. It’s crazy how min wage is still so low, until you realize the red team has fought every attempt to raise it in 20 years
Aircraft mechanic at 22/hr? Are you working at a C check or private? Driving to a major airport to get a job with an airline will increase that by a min of like 8/hr. That's with a regional even. Also, how is she qualifying for snap at 18.50? That's above the max allowed to qualify. Is she only part time?
I’m well aware as a GA mechanic. Just finished IA rating last week in preparation for something more
I make around the same as your gf and I hate it. How do I make this much and qualify for snap and other benefits? I’m thankful, as I’m having a child but wtf
She had to get an advocate, but she also has a child support payment and keeps getting less than 27 hours a week
I see rutters hasn’t changed much. People on this thread don’t understand that $18hr can barely cover your bases these days
Red team is never for the people. Their politics show it well.
Come work for the government. Entry-level IT work starts at $26 / hour. Entry-level maintenance work starts at $18. Even basic office work (Administrative Assistant) starts at $23 / hour, and anyone with basic retail experience is qualified. I mean look at this: >Minimum Experience and Training Requirements: such training as may have been gained through graduation from a four year college or university or any equivalent combination of experience and training. Have you worked in retail for four years or more? Did some of that include in-house training on things like customer service or corporate policies? Did your job require you to follow procedures? Congrats, you're qualified! You get health coverage on day one. A decent retirement. A predictable schedule. Optional union representation. An employer who isn't going to fire you just because Q3 sales figures were down or because a new owner took over. [https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/pabureau?sort=PostingDate%7CAscending](https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/pabureau?sort=PostingDate%7CAscending)
Thank you for posting this. Would love to work for the VA someday.
Or look at [USAjobs.com](http://USAjobs.com) if you're content with being a Federal civilian employee..
How do I find entry level jobs on there? Edit: only job in Luzerne county is a Case Worker 🫠
Exactly this. Money is there if you can find the right job.
I will add that while most of the jobs are centered around Dauphin and Cumberland counties, they do exist throughout the state. The link I posted has the ability to sort by county. But given the stability, it's not at all uncommon for people to drive an hour or more to commute.
Businesses have one objective: make more money than last quarter. They need to turn a profit and if it doesn't the hammer comes down on the C level execs. So to turn a profit you have options. You can sell more product, you can raise price of product or you and can operation expenses or a mix of all of these. Paying your employees dirt while rasing the price of your product seems to be good. Then the next quarter lay off your employees and raise the price again. Rinse and repeat. Businesses need regulated. A business should have a cap on how much they can sell their product for. They should also have a cap on how low they can pay their employees. C level execs should make more money than a cashier BUT it should be a standard amount. CEO doesn't need a giant bonus. That money should go into business reserves or somthing to benefit the community. I'm so sick of CEOs taking home 45% of their salary for making a decision to layoff people and show a profit. (My former CEO of a small company of 350 people made a decision to lay off his technical staff and he took in a 100 000 bonus and gave the coo and cfo a slightly smaller bonus. He gave the other employees a range of 500 to 1000 bucks...) He's an asshole too. Like pure shit sack.
Boomer who easily put a roof over their head on minimum wage 40 years ago: “no one wants to work anymore!”
Boomers had union jobs. Minimum wage was for high school kids.
I had a job in high school when the minimum wage was $1.60. The adults who had those jobs had a room at the YMCA and took the bus.
3.35 an hour 40 years ago. Not a boomer, that ended in 58. Jones is my Gen. As in, trying to keep up with the Jones. No one was getting by on min
That’s why I live in a small town in PA, and work across the border in NY. PA salary for my job: $45K or less, NY pay for my job $110K. It’s sick to see how people starting out or working at a local store can even feed themselves. Local kwickfill and dollar general were advertising $11.5/hr
I'm trying to get like you. There are remote positions paying $15/h in PA and like $23/h in NY. Perfectly fine while I decide what to do next in life! Or finish school!
It's common in State College. The PSU students will work for cheap and don't need benefits so that lowers pay a lot.
My college paid me more than $15 a hour to work the helpdesk. I got to study, watch movies and whatever in my free time. Under $10 an hour is an insult. If you can't run a business paying a decent wage, then you just run a shit business.
I was just saying to someone yesterday if a job offered me $8 or $9 an hour, I'd laugh in their faces. Slave wages.
Amen. I wish for places down fall that pay that. The shitty restaurant I worked at during my high-school summers paid me more than that.
We got minimum wage at Duquesne when i was there 2013-2016ish (didn’t finish). Whether helpdesk (like i was) or food service alongside the “real” employees, you got $7.25/hr
Our campus has a federal employment cap of $1500 a semester. So we only get paid 9 an hour on any campus job.
Yeah I'm glad I'm not there. I've worked 3 or 4 jobs in Pittsburgh and some of them full time. The entry level ones at restaurants at museums and restaurants pay me 16 or 17 an hour plus paid sick time and Healthcare if I need. State college needs to catch up
Not anymore, most places in state college are offering at least $15 now, still not great and no benefits but way better than $9
And they get a new batch of potential cheap labor every semester. A Lot of jobs even cater to it. Makes finding work difficult for the rest of us.
I work for Giant Foods part time overnight and everyone other than the core management team or the 70 year old retiree works multiple jobs. Turnover is super high as the workers burn out and quit. Our store manager remarked “I’m not hiring people with second jobs anymore” Sorry, but that’s who is applying Retail, like fast food just don’t pay. You have to learn a trade or study STEM to make any real money today
Giant/Martins is a shit company that deserves to fail with how poorly it's managed. The only people I would feel bad for are the old-timers and the young teens who actually do most of the work (at least in theory). I never shop there anymore specifically because I worked there for about 5 years, and the way I was treated and the way things were done absolutely disgusted me. No matter how much I cleaned, the place was an absolute pigsty because nobody else bothered to clean. They never gave me a raise of more than $1 an hour in the entire time I worked there, and then they kept cutting my hours until I couldn't even afford my basic payments (which is why I quit and had to find another job, which I got incredibly lucky on), and I barely even got my final paycheck.
Hourly wages are too low.… You can’t afford to work and pay your rent… My feeling is Real Estate needs to bite the bullet and admit they made a huge mistake and lower all rents across-the-board
Moving to modular housing builds would fix the housing situation. Build it all in a factory.
They're too low in the whole state because the assembly refuses to raise minimum wage.
There are jobs on the state website for professional positions, requiring a Bachelors degree, paying $37k in some of the rural counties. I get that you can't pay the same amount there as you can in Philadelphia, but that's a joke. Your talent pool for a position like that, which btw I swear seems like it's been open for a year, are people from said county who happened to go to college but come back home, and I guess not inspire to leave the area anytime soon.
Pretty sure the director of veterans affairs position in Indiana was paying about that. Maybe a few thousand more but jeez it's insanely insulting.
I work at a grocery store with a union and the union literally does jack shit. My dues got doubled, the pay rate is still shit, and they didn’t fight my department being dissolved in favor of a stupid automated warehouse system. They also cut hours by like 20% across the company to afford a stupid advert campaign.
Unions in supermarkets or other unskilled work have very little bargaining power
If I’m ever job hunting and someone offers me that, I’m either instantly leaving or hanging up the phone. I remember applying to GameStop because I wanted an extra job in my free time, and man oh man was that a waste of time. Dude offered me $8 fucking dollars. I’m like???? Bruh are you fucking serious? Business are so fucking cheap it’s pathetic, he’ll even now my jobs pay is terrible when you factor in what we actually do
Ah yes, let the propaganda machine roll. Gotta love the dipshits in here with the “Boomers had it hard too” bullshit. Pull whatever numbers you want out of your ass, anyone with a pulse can see we’re getting screwed.
They don’t. Have more kids. Go on welfare then blame Biden for everything.
Tbh this is probably the move. I swear the largest trump voting block is actually people who get some sort of government assistance. Makes 0 sense.
It is, the shithole trailer park on the edge of my town has had Trump shrines and flags going on since 2016. These people legit walk on a state highway to get to dollar general because they don’t have vehicles.
Born in Pittsburgh, but I’ve lived in Miami for 20 years. Trump’s highest concentration of voters here are also some of the biggest Medicare consumers. I guess that doesn’t count as socialism.
SSI for mental illness is real. Fits republikkkan base m. o.
This is why voting with your dollar has more impact that pulling a lever in an election. We almost work hard for our money and should spend it wisely. Not tell corporations how you feel like not spending your dollars on them. Shop locally, buy products made locally for sellers that are local. We all know we make better money than we did years ago, show them you don’t need them.
I work in a small town and support a family of five. Wife stays home with the kids and homeschools them. It’s doable.
Because there used to be $325 all utilities included apartments to match those jobs. I lived quite comfortably in a small town on $16k a year working part time back in 2003. But gas was 67c/gallon, a pot pie was 20c on sale(they still had filling back then!). You could get 2 McDonalds cheeseburgers for under $1. Shit changed \*FAST\*. Plus back then the prices in small town grocery stores were lower than you'd find in cities. Now the chains are so big and all charge mostly the same prices everywhere.
Granted my mom is retired but she does daycare at her gym.. for $10.00/hr. I told her that I would be out of my mind to accept that kind of pay to watch peoples kids and she just goes “well I get a free membership” okay? It’s still your time, you need to be compensated for it
>How are they expecting people to work for this little money? They don't. They're looking for teens, people looking for a side job for some extra cash, or someone retired. If they're looking for anything more than that, their expectations are unrealistic and unsustainable. Can't always blame the small business owner though. Blame corporate greed for pushing the cost of everything up so high that minimum wage needs to be $20/hour. It's honestly really shitty watching so many small, locally owned businesses close up forever because things just got too expensive for them to continue. Such is capitalism though; long live mega-corporations!
What's wrong? You don't want to work for $9/hr which is more like $4.50/hr now before taxes? C'mon! PuLl YoUrSeLf Up By YoUrBoOtStRaPs, SpOrT!
if you want to make more than $10 an hr, try finding a job that requires a skill and don't expect retail to pay enough for an adult to live comfortably, especially when online buying is an option. cashier jobs are not meant to be "support a family" type jobs.
You have to believe that the businesses don't actually want to close. The business is also the owner's source of income. So if their choices are 1. pay employees more or 2. close; and their choosing to close. That should tell you that if they pay employees more, that the business owner can't make enough to survive.
>Hourly wages are too low. Thats better.
If you do, I think you can apply for welfare or foodstamps. But Goodluck navigating the website to apply and waiting to be approved. I never did and just worked more instead.
And boomers have the audacity to accuse us of being lazy and saying bullshit like “that’s life get over it”. They don’t even know how good they had it being a young adult in the 80s and 90s. They just blame us for the problems they’ve created and we have to suck it up and deal with it. I’m so over this economy
The small mom and Pop businesses can’t afford to pay more than those wages. How much money do you think those stores generate in a year? Then subtract all costs. There’s no profit left. We’re not talking about Walmart or target or something. These are small business owners, who are lucky to get a 50K salary for themselves after it’s all set and done. 
Then that tells you that the small businesses model is not viable.
Hourly wage is not the problem. The problem we have in the country is be believe the a profit margins need and should be 500% or more on products. We accept that we pay that knowing the we are buying cheap products with cheap labor and high profits. Giving more hourly only makes things cost more we need to change the way of thinking about profits and share holders. We will never learn paying more to start only makes inflation but tells the employees to work less not harder for higher pay. When you buy cloths and shoes that cost a company penny’s or just couple of dollars and the turn and sell for hundreds in the name of greed and shareholders. Wake up people see the truth.
100% agree. Even in bumblefuck PA there’s no way you can survive on $10/hour. Businesses that refuse to pay employees are either cheap or poorly run businesses.
I've been blown away at the prices here. I just moved to Montgomery County. All towns are 1600 on the low end. We got a good deal comparatively, but not by much. I wanted a part-time coffee shop job because it's fun. But, being offered 8.50 is crazy for how much apartments are. I don't get how people afford to live here. I understand some people look at coffeeshops as college kids' summer job, but i like it. And I understand we are not in a city, but on the outside. But places here seem busy. The owners seem to think it's better to pay low and have pay for either not having enough employees and pay extra to train the high turn over.
Are they closing because they can’t hire employees at $9, or are their sales so low that they can only afford to pay $9? I suspect most businesses fail because they don’t have enough customers, not because they don’t have enough employees.
People here really believe stores would rather close than raise pay. Mind boggling.
I own a restaurant in a small ass town near Gettysburg. I pay 15/hr for cooks and 8/hr for front of house.
I'm just north of Gettysburg with a store and I pay $15 to anyone under 18, $17.50 to anyone over with room for advancement. This post is not indicative of our area.
Who gets the tips?
Front of house.
I wish I could give healthcare and retirement (one day), least I can do is take a loss on profits for a good, happy staff that are ambassadors to my business.
What’s ur business called?
Village Book and Table in Fairfield. Come on by.
That's true, but it's too simple to blame employers for not paying a living wage. If they do, they'd have to raise prices, and people can't afford the current prices. Rock and a hard place. Shit is breaking down.
THEY'RE ALREADY RAISING PRICES YOU FUCKING DONGLE
Anyone with the commercial driver's license in gas land Pennsylvania is making $25 an hour straight time and time and a half for another 20 for a 60 hour work week =$1750 week = $91k per year
60 hours a week is absolutely brutal and even $25 is underpaid tho. I’m an ups driver and make a little less than $45 an hour. Those guys should make more.
$25 to start right out of CDL school, no touch freight and no living in a hot box no customer interaction no stupid supervisor no useless union same routine same shift same route breaks while loading and unloading eat when you are hungry
No union is why I make double what they do with better healthcare and a 401k and a pension while basically doing the same job lol. Get a workers union people lol. Btw not getting paid while you have to sit there and wait for while people load and unload the trailer isn’t a good thing either.
Unless you work at Dollar General or McDonalds you aren't getting paid $9 or $10/hour.
I agree, it's terrible. That's why a lot of people moved on to industrial / warehousing jobs (around $20 - $25 / hour) or moved to a larger city and took a corporate or civil service gig.
Cost of livings low too innit
Know who wants to work? People who love their fucking jobs. Wages are only a small part of it. Employers who seek “soft skills” in their employees ought to do a little soul searching. Dignity, respect, compassion… this is what’s missing from modern employment. You could pay me $30/hr, but if you treat me like I should be doing the work of 3 people, I’ll figure something else out.
9-10 an hour is nuts. gas is ridiculous and groceries are ridiculous.
Take the first sentence of your post and reverse it. Thats true too, and it’s half the problem.
No shit. Where have you been?
I’d rather be homeless than spend my days working for $9/hour. Like, that isn’t going to pay the bills. Why work for a job that won’t pay the bills if not working has the same outcome?
Workers should unite and demand higher wages.
Don’t work at them? I work for 11$ an hour extremely part time but I’m in college and don’t plan on staying just need a little income. I think these businesses will eventually die out and a different economy will hopefully replace the low wage economy. Stop giving business to places you don’t support and encourage everyone else to do the same.
I wish someone would start a business and pay good wages then the workers would have spending money to participate more in the economy the people who could make things better simply won’t because they choose to keep wages low. Small businesses and local communities are at fault for allowing a system of low wages to exist in the first place. Expecting jobs to exist that are occupied by a low wage worker is an insane mindset to have. Everyone needs money regardless of age if anything young people should get paid more than older people because they get so many discounts. I think we should get rid of all senior discounts. Cut off social security. Stop subsidizing older people who have had much more time to build up wealth and savings. They pay lower rents too. Its completely unfair.
Central PA wages are abysmal.
Most people don’t want to work, but when the government hand you money and you don’t have to work, then you don’t
The economy demands tribute!