Dunkin' Donuts Worker's Death Reveals The True Cost Of Our Low-Wage, Part-Time Economy

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: Xtrozero

I am tired of bickering sorry

here is a suggestion that would probably improve things!

As bad as this administration has screwed things up 10 bucks an hour is most likely close to what is needed. When we talk about 15 per hour businesses will close.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
As bad as this administration has screwed things up 10 bucks an hour is most likely close to what is needed. When we talk about 15 per hour businesses will close.

The real inflation rate since 2001 or so has been between 10 and 15% per year... food inflation this year is *22%*. That rate of inflation at 10% per year would take a $5.15 minimum wage from 2000 to $19.56 today to remain equal. These types of issues compound year after year, you can't just flip a switch or sign a document that radically adjusts the wage. Rather it has to be phased back in slowly. $10/hour is less than what is needed but the economy could probably survive it. $15 is being tried in I think Seattle but they were starting from a higher base rate so it's a smaller percentage adjustment.

When it comes to businesses closing, higher wages actually do the opposite but the trick is EVERYONE needs to be paying more. If you single out a lone business and make them pay a higher wage they'll never be able to compete and will close. When everyone is paying more however there is more disposable income for everyone. Look at this thread. It shows that a 100% increase to wages results in approximately a 40% increase in the cost of goods. That means the people on the bottom have more money, which means they spend it through the economy, and that extra economic activity actually offsets most of the additional cost of a higher wage. We have a real world example of Australia which has a $15 minimum wage but has goods that cost only about 10% more than in the US.

Did you know that a $50,000/year job today has less buying power than the minimum wage of 1955?

a reply to: eManym

No offense dude, but you are pure-D grade A 100% ignorant. Maybe you should get out of your comfy zone and check out the real world once in a while.

Have you considered that perhaps these part time crap jobs are the only ones available? That more and more jobs, including skilled ones, are becoming part time? When Boeing started its layoffs and downsizing here in the Seattle area, you had Boeing engineers...guys with MASTERS DEGREES working part time jobs at Starbucks and Safeway because jobs became scarce, and competition became harsh.

In fact, I know a lot of people who are qualified for better jobs than they are working, but are taking whatever job is available to support themselves. Because in the REAL WORLD, good jobs, regardless of your education, are scarce, and people do what they must to survive. And more and more, that means working multiple crap jobs.

I have to work two jobs, and I have skills and training. My main job pays low, and is only part time, despite it being a somewhat skilled job, and despite my attempts to get full time hours. Fewer and fewer full time, sustainable jobs are being created. Even people with degrees end up working near minimum wage crap jobs that don't pay the bills.

Wake up.

Indeed, in the information systems industry it use to be a great career for a guy without college until all the big companies started hiring overseas.

Now there paying network engineers in some cases 40 thousand where one use to make 100 thousand

I use to work for HP as a consultant computer engineer and we would have to call guys with Indian accents named George or Peter…ha ha

Or even people from the Philippines at one point. Dell, IBM, Microsoft, all of them; and all these good American jobs now gone…

The whores in Congress are responsible for this because they refuse to reign in the greedy companies who bribe them to do nothing about outsourcing

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Have you considered that perhaps these part time crap jobs are the only ones available? That more and more jobs, including skilled ones, are becoming part time? When Boeing started its layoffs and downsizing here in the Seattle area, you had Boeing engineers...guys with MASTERS DEGREES working part time jobs at Starbucks and Safeway because jobs became scarce, and competition became harsh.

So where do you put the blame and the burden on? The guy who owns a shop?

In fact, I know a lot of people who are qualified for better jobs than they are working, but are taking whatever job is available to support themselves. Because in the REAL WORLD, good jobs, regardless of your education, are scarce, and people do what they must to survive. And more and more, that means working multiple crap jobs.

It is funny how the administration sees a huge increase in Government jobs as an success and your example is more along the truth. Got to support the small businesses

originally posted by: Aazadan
Minimum wage is currently index to inflation using CPI so it is and will continue to be pegged to those rates. The problem is that CPI isn't a true reflection of price increases in the economy. A much better comparison is how many minutes/hours of work it took in 1996 to buy a product and how long it takes in 2014 to buy that same product.

Exactly, time IS money, after all.

Which is why it is utterly DISGRACEFUL that those who are working minimum/low wage jobs are spending their (limited) time on this Earth, and getting almost NOTHING in return - they can't even expect a decent meal daily, much less 3 nutritionally balanced ones! Add to that, intense stress about bills, over making rent, having a running vehicle, getting sick etc. The wages are certainly NOT even close to quid pro quo, for this day and age/economy.

Mark my words, if every single minimum/low wage earner EVER walked off the job for an entire week, at the same time - society as you know it would crumble. Starting with the hissy fits in thousands of offices in corporate america when they couldn't get their morning coffee fix...I can see the road rage now. Add to that pumping their OWN gas, minding their OWN kids, bagging their OWN groceries - imagine the line-ups that would ensue everywhere, with managers/owners desperately trying to appease the increasingly enraged customers, and having NO staff to help. The grumble factor of the privileged and over-privileged would be OFF the freaking charts in just one day! At the end of ONE WEEK of this, I cannot even imagine!! They don't know how good they have it!

How I wish the poorest people knew JUST HOW MUCH POWER THEY COLLECTIVELY HAVE!

I truly hope something like this happens in real life. That would teach people to value the work of EVERYone, no matter their "skill level" - because EVERY cog in the machine of society MATTERS.

Plus, slave owners tend to be MUCH more compassionate once they have to fend for themselves, and do things they feel are beneath their "delicate sensibilities".

a reply to: MoonBlossom

I'd like to see that too! It would be interesting to see just where all the holes would pop up at if all those workers who are not making enough to make ends meet stayed home a few days. One thing is for sure it would be more than just the fast food resturants that would be hurting!
but that is why we have welfare, to keep most of those low paid workers pacified so they don't stop working and start rioting..

a reply to: Xtrozero

The blame goes in a number of places, because the problem is not down to one simple thing, but a combination of many factors.

1. Companies, from small business to giant multinational corporations, have been following a trend of cutting full time, full benefits jobs into part time no benefits jobs.

2. Wages have not increased with inflation. Not minimum wage, but salaries and wages for lower to mid level workers in most jobs. Minimum wage has followed a similar trend. Pay raises are not reflecting cost of living. If wage hikes were causing everything to become more expensive, then wages would follow a parallel climb, but they do not.

3. Employers are demanding more qualifications, more education, more experience, for jobs that were once successfully done by high school graduates and on the job training. Now the employee has to spend years and tons of money, dig themselves into debt to work the same jobs. On the job training used to be the norm, and it was also better for the employer in the long run. Now, however, it is hard to find.

4. The quality of education in this country sucks, yet it is expensive as hell, public and private.

5. Neither party has any real interest in changing the situation. The left get to justify more people dependent upon some government assistance to survive, and thus, ensure a larger pool of voters, while the right gets to continue to squeeze, exploit, and discard human capital for every penny they get, while condemning the very people they put into poverty and blaming the left. Both sides benefit, so they have no real motive to do anything to change the system.

6. Meanwhile, people continue to wallow in ignorance, and slave away under the impression that soul crushing, mind numbing, back breaking work to collect more junk and consume more cheaply toys that they are too tired to ever use is somehow a good, healthy thing for society.

You do what you gotta do. My understanding is that she worked one job (Dunkin Donuts), but at multiple locations. I have done the same before. It was a tragic accident, brought on by carelessness. It's sad. Minimum wage has stayed the same for so long, it's buying power has eroded a lot. We should bump it up, but doubling it to $15/hour, or even making it 10 would have unintended consequences. One thing most people aren't aware of is that most "McJobs" pay more already. Working a convenience store pays $10 - $12 where I live, and even fast food pays more than the minimum. The law of the market has raised wages anyway, but we should adjust the minimum to account for inflation and protect those people at the bottom of the heap.

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
1. Companies, from small business to giant multinational corporations, have been following a trend of cutting full time, full benefits jobs into part time no benefits jobs.

I agree but think of a company that takes the path of least resistance in terms of profit. The Government has made it more profitable for companies to do as you say above. Obamacare is just one example that drives companies to do this.

2. Wages have not increased with inflation. Not minimum wage, but salaries and wages for lower to mid level workers in most jobs. Minimum wage has followed a similar trend. Pay raises are not reflecting cost of living. If wage hikes were causing everything to become more expensive, then wages would follow a parallel climb, but they do not.

Once again when the cost of living goes up sharply, like it has in the last 6 years, pay raises are slow to follow. It would be nice if the board of directors read that the cost of living went up 10% in one year and then they give everyone an instant 10% pay raise but that just is not how it works or ever worked. It does average out over time, but it takes time, and never quiets catches up. We will see 10 bucks minimum soon, and already see it in many states.

3. Employers are demanding more qualifications, more education, more experience, for jobs that were once successfully done by high school graduates and on the job training. Now the employee has to spend years and tons of money, dig themselves into debt to work the same jobs. On the job training used to be the norm, and it was also better for the employer in the long run. Now, however, it is hard to find.

I blame this on the degree mills (much like puppy mills) where a person goes to school and gets 50k indebt and finally enters the job market with little above what they originally had fresh out of high school.

This is a lot like your first statement where companies don't make the paths, they just follow the paths we create, and in this case what is available in the market to fill the job.

4. The quality of education in this country sucks, yet it is expensive as hell, public and private.

60% of the people that go to college should not go to college.... they should learn a trade/skill. The part that really sucks are the plethora of stupid degrees that do not align with any actual job market. So I get a degree in generic_01 degree, or I'll just pick one, BA in Cultural Studies, and I get a C average and a diploma. As a person hiring what does that tell me of the person who has this degree? Is there anything about it that I can say oh, you are a perfect fit for this 70k starting job? ....nope
All those degrees mean is your a little bit better than a high school degree.

6. Meanwhile, people continue to wallow in ignorance, and slave away under the impression that soul crushing, mind numbing, back breaking work to collect more junk and consume more cheaply toys that they are too tired to ever use is somehow a good, healthy thing for society.

Some of us actually play the system and do quite well. I agree we are a consumer society, and people do not know how to really live cheap anymore. I saw a homeless guy talking on a better IPhone than I had. I see people who can't afford to live have a 500 bucks month car payment, IPhone, computer, internet, eat out 4 days a week, cable, nice TV, named brand cloth, 150 bucks Nikes, regularly buy weed/liquor etc etc.

When I look back at my 20s in the 1980s I had a lot less, and that is why I was able to live on about 4 bucks an hour wage.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
So where do you put the blame and the burden on? The guy who owns a shop?

Not the person you aimed this at but there is no one to blame, it's human nature. Of course turning society to **** and subjugating people is in human nature too. It's important to have laws in a society that prevent us from giving in to these urges.

The whole thing plays out as an epic scale implementation of the prisoners dilemma. If two employers offer strong wages everyone benefits more, but if one employer cuts back on wages a little bit they guarantee they do better. People often times take the individual guarantee over the larger benefit that requires cooperation.

It is funny how the administration sees a huge increase in Government jobs as an success and your example is more along the truth. Got to support the small businesses

What else can the administration do? Don't get me wrong, I don't call what they're doing a success but the government can't create private sector jobs. We can make conditions more favorable to such things but it requires business to want to invest in the US and it's legislation that needs to pass through congress. Congress is bought and paid for by the guys who want to employ people in third world countries that work for 10 cents per day, those businesses don't want to be forced to pay American wages.

Small business is just along for the ride. They don't have representation in congress.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
I agree but think of a company that takes the path of least resistance in terms of profit. The Government has made it more profitable for companies to do as you say above. Obamacare is just one example that drives companies to do this.

But these companies already weren't offering health coverage. 40 hours with no health coverage or 29 hours without it. The government didn't suddenly make it more profitable to cut benefits, instead they gave companies a way to circumvent having to pay benefits. What if Obamacare said companies had to cover health insurance premiums, and the amount they had to pay out of the total was proportional to how many hours they hired someone for? If they hired someone for 30 hours per week they paid 75% of the premium, 20 hours they paid 50%, and so on.

It never would have passed because the corporate backing of Obamacare of which there was much (remember, Obamacare was essentially the official Heritage plan from 1988 until McCain lost the election in 2008) wasn't about providing coverage. It was about how to not provide coverage.

Once again when the cost of living goes up sharply, like it has in the last 6 years, pay raises are slow to follow. It would be nice if the board of directors read that the cost of living went up 10% in one year and then they give everyone an instant 10% pay raise but that just is not how it works or ever worked. It does average out over time, but it takes time, and never quiets catches up. We will see 10 bucks minimum soon, and already see it in many states.

It's more than just the past 6 years. We've had a real inflation rate since 2001 of 10% and a real rate of 5-7% from 1980 to 2000. The problem is that CPI doesn't measure inflation, yet that's the tool we use to to give the real inflation rate. It's like weighing a dog turd in order to predict upcoming rain.

$10 minimum right now is an absolute pittance, that's like taking half of a persons wage and then offering 10% of it back to them. Or a bank committing $1 trillion in fraud and then paying back 10 billion in penalties. The minimum wage right now should be $24/hour, and this isn't some high position to negotiate from, that's what it should actually be just to have kept pace with inflation for the past couple decades.

Many people make less than $24/hour right now, most people do actually. Think about that when you put some thought into labor costs and just how low they are currently. People are cheap and we're becoming cheaper... the whole idea is that our labor becomes competitive with third world country labor. That is where business wants us in a global economy.

60% of the people that go to college should not go to college.... they should learn a trade/skill. The part that really sucks are the plethora of stupid degrees that do not align with any actual job market. So I get a degree in generic_01 degree, or I'll just pick one, BA in Cultural Studies, and I get a C average and a diploma. As a person hiring what does that tell me of the person who has this degree? Is there anything about it that I can say oh, you are a perfect fit for this 70k starting job? ....nope
All those degrees mean is your a little bit better than a high school degree.

I have a STEM degree. The jobs still don't exist. We overproduce certain degrees like Cultural Studies to use your example, but those degrees do serve a purpose to society. These days degrees don't get you a job.

Some of us actually play the system and do quite well. I agree we are a consumer society, and people do not know how to really live cheap anymore. I saw a homeless guy talking on a better IPhone than I had. I see people who can't afford to live have a 500 bucks month car payment, IPhone, computer, internet, eat out 4 days a week, cable, nice TV, named brand cloth, 150 bucks Nikes, regularly buy weed/liquor etc etc.

The homeless guy doesn't have rent to pay, he also likely got the phone through the lifeline program. Often times these programs offer recent phones because it's most economical to dump excess current stock than to reproduce older stock of a lower quality. I can't afford to live myself... I posted 2 weeks of groceries for me actually. I have none of the stuff you mentioned. No car payment, a cheap prepaid phone, no eating out, no tv, no cable, 4 year old shoes (that cost $50 when I bought them), all second hand clothes from good will, and no drugs/alcohol. I have a computer and internet but that's because I have to have it for work/school, I don't exactly have a choice to not have it.

When I look back at my 20s in the 1980s I had a lot less, and that is why I was able to live on about 4 bucks an hour wage.

That's also before real inflation vs CPI really took off, it's a change we made in 1980 and then took years to compound. $4/hour in 1980 is about equal to $30/hour in purchasing power today yet those jobs that were paying $4 back then are paying $7.50 today. Your 1980 wage is more analogous to trying to get by on $1/hour back then.

a reply to: Parthin

How come raising the minimum wage by 3, 4 or 5 dollars is the end of the world, but hiring Foreign Labor overseas and over the border for 1 dollar a day is not?

The reason is because the shysters charged Americans the same amount when adjusted for inflation when we made it ourselves and pocketed the profits on Wall Street and in extra bonuses. That is where the Wealth Inequality exists in this country. On Wall Street.

I am seriously curious when the Middle Big CEO's and Investor's are going to take a paycut in this Globalist Utopia that they lobbied for and are having everyone else take a paycut from, that citizens never had a say on?

When are they going to take some skin in the game and responsibility and take a paycut?

It's not the end of the world. But when you change one thing, it affects everything else. Read up on some economics. I'm not saying this to mock you, but because you need to understand how the game is played. As I said, even menial jobs in my area pay better then minimum wage, because more pay was needed to attract the workers. Minimum wage is just a safety to make sure companies cannot pay less. You're not supposed to make a career out of it. a reply to: jacobe001

originally posted by: Willtell
I always tell this story in the context of sad tales like this.
This is how things have changed

In the 80’s I was at GM making good money for a young guy.
Before the auto industry got wiped out by the Japanese, bad American auto factories, and greedy capitalists.

The thing is we were actually close to a 35 hour work week shooting for a 4 day work week in the next union contract.

Then Ronald Reagan got in office and there’s history

Go go America, big tax cuts for the rich and after that the American economy slowly over the years with the Reagonomics, trickle down philosophy (super tax cuts for the rich) mixed with Bill Clintons NAFTA spelled the doom of the American working class and that dream of 35 hour work week has now turned into a nightmare of a 60 hour work week for the average American SLAVE!

Oh did I say slave…

That's a very interesting take on what happened to the auto industry. The way I remember it, it was a combination of corporate penny pinching and union demands for high wages (a four day work-week, really?) and most of all, poor/shoddy build quality (caused mostly by assembly line workers) that made the Japanese successful. It sure as heck wasn't Ronald Regan that killed domestic auto company reputations.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti

That's a very interesting take on what happened to the auto industry. The way I remember it, it was a combination of corporate penny pinching and union demands for high wages (a four day work-week, really?) and most of all, poor/shoddy build quality (caused mostly by assembly line workers) that made the Japanese successful. It sure as heck wasn't Ronald Regan that killed domestic auto company reputations.

Yeah Ronny played a good part in the mess we have now, but I do agree he isn't what hurt the auto industry so much. You are correct it was corporate penny pinching and lazy union workers. Mind you I am generally for the unions, when that means they protect only the people worth protecting, expect a high level of professionalism out of their members and recognize that high wages should be determined by the quality of the work and not seniority. Any moron can go in and do a crappy job everyday, I don't see why they should get rewarded for it just because they did a crappy job consistently for x amount of years.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

Look at the big picture…the trend he set. A 4 day work week would have indicated progress for the working class in general
When Reagan got in office it was happy times are here for the elite, rich capitalists who employ the middle class and lower classes.

After this era everything started going backwards for the poor, middle and lower wage earners, and way up for the rich and super-rich. So now today a CEO makes 380 times more money than the average worker, whereas in 1980, the year Reagan was elected, the average CEO made only about 42 times the average worker's pay.

If this doesn’t make you see my point than nothing will!

The gov't bribed companies to buy at least part of t heir products from overseas. this is what happened to the apple orchards in NY! The apple pickers weren't unionized and didn't demand high wages! They were migrant workers and kids! And yet the gov't saw fit to give companies a tax credit if they imported the juice concentrate from overseas instead. I'm sorry but without that tax credit I cannot see just how it could have been cheaper for the company to have the crap sent from halfway around the world than it was for the company to have bought the apples from the orchards in their area.. We were boondoggled!