Posted on 09/02/2018 9:33:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
They buy a lot of "stuff".
The Wilkins Micawber Principle:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."
most anyone in rural MO, min wage is currently $7.85 and while McD may pay $9-10/hr out here, it’s full of teens for the most part and there’s only so many fast food places.
Convenient stores and all the old folks homes around here start at min wage. Raises are scant, maybe 10 cents a year.
All the above is part time only, no benefits.
Sawmill pays $9-10 if you can handle the work. Gotta be a young strong guy for that.
There’s a battery plant somewhere around here. Starts at $8 and you have to get regular blood lead levels checked. Anyone who’s lead levels gets too high, which is everyone that works there, gets shuffled into an office job until the lead levels come down.
Royal Oak has a place out here. Don’t know much about it though. The factory type places out here aren’t big on safety like they are in more populous places because if you don’t like it, there’s the door. We can have a replacement for you in the morning.
A bit further away, 100 miles, in Lebanon, MO is a few boat and trailer shops. Welders and painters start at $8/9.00 and from what I’ve heard, they’re quite the sweat shops and have high turnover due to the work conditions. I worked at a wholesale electric sign shop there for a little while as a spray painter. They started me out at $12/hr but only because I had 25 years experience and could have done any job in the place. The head painter was still making $9.60/hr after being there for 10 years. Obviously, I didn’t tell him how much I was making.
With all of the above, raises are scant.
The average blue collar job out here starts at $8/hr and you better be related to someone because sons, brothers, nephews, cousins are all lined up for these jobs.
In my second job in 1985, I was making the same. That was 32 years ago and I think I started out at $6.50/hr but it was a decent place and I had a knack for things so I got a few 50 cent raises pretty quick. That was in FL where things are always booming.
Entry level mig welder, someone who’s run a few beads, can read a tape measure, not certified.
$8-9/hr to start here and probably $10-12/hr in FL where I worked for 25 years.
In the past 20 years, blue collar jobs have gone up maybe 20% in pay.
Meanwhile management, sales and tech wages have tripled/quadrupled as has the cost of everything.
More fake news from the trash minded Anti-Trump drive by Media...
Hey 37% (not ‘nearly half’): try the Econ 101 solution: Increase income or reduce consumption. Or BOTH!
Well...Hard to believe that nearly 50% of Americans are homosexuals...Unless you are into TV sitcoms and other programming...
I doubt that. I suspect they have exaggerated the cost of living data. These poverty activists can manufacture acy data they want.
Maybe it would be easier on everyone if Obamacare hadn’t caused premiums to skyrocket
I saw no reference to how much money they spend on tattoos, $1000 cell phones, cable TV, and miscellaneous gadgets.
I'm in the military and for the first time in ten years we're starting to see a return of the re-enlistment bonus. Truthfully, they never entirely went away, they just became very rare and only applying to very few jobs. Now they're coming back, a lot bigger and a lot more service members are qualifying for them.
What does this mean? It means that the military now has to compete with the civilian sector for good employees, something they haven't had to do since George W. Bush was president.
I find it amazing that spending a career in the AF as an enlisted man and marrying waitress (who later became a secretary) 23 years before we retired and starting with about $3K between us, I managed to be in the upper percentage of those who have assets enough for retirement and even be fairly comfortable at it....while so many with the same opportunities or better never manage to get their heads above water.
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