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

originally posted by: karmicecstasy
a reply to: beezzer

In your head that might be what your doing. But from your words it seems like something completely different. Maybe its just me that sees it that way. I dont know.

It's not just you who sees it that way. Beezer has always been a loud-mouth caricature too in love with his own online persona to realize he perpetuates the very partisanship and polarization that is at the root of where we are now, in the country and the world at large. He is a perfect example of one who manages to talk alot yet say nothing at all.

This woman's death could easily become the norm as we incrementally lurch closer to the kind of bleak, grim-dark future both warned about and laid out as a blueprint in various fiction, quite literally working ourselves to death in one way or the other. A whip at our back and a boot stomping on our face: Forever.

originally posted by: GENERAL EYES

originally posted by: beezzer
Why do you have an issue with government having less and the people having more?

I'll step up to this one:

Because if anything the majority of this thread has taught me is that the "People" who seek to overthrow the Government would just continue the trend of sociopathic behavior along the same lines as the very system they condemn....except in their version of the New Order, they would be in charge so everything will be to their personal advantage.

Face it, even if by some chance "the People" overthrew TPTB what on Earth makes you think they'd be any more compassionate and caring to those in need and those lower on the scale than themselves?

Please...I see it every day - thousands of people tooling around in their new cars on their way home from jobs they're lucky enough to have avoiding eye contact and ignoring the poor SOB on the side of the road who is just asking for a little spare change for a sandwich, a little reassurance of humanity perhaps. Why? Because he's "taking advantage of my hard earned dollar. Bum needs to get a job." and other such rubbish.

Yeah, these people are so overworked and blindsided to the rat race that they've tuned out and reduced anyone not in their demographic to a non-human status. Classy. Real classy. Classic "class warfare" if you catch my drift.

I have never seen or met anyone who advocates an overthrow who has anything to offer that would care for people who didn't fit into their personal ideals of human productivity and behaviors.

In survival of the fittest the brutes will just leave the weak, infirm, undesirable and elderly to suffer and die because they couldn't pull their own weight....because all praise the glorious and almighty dollar.

Every one is just mimicking the current political process but somehow it's more meaningful because it's Average Joe.

Unfortunately, as well meaning as Average Joe may be, he fails to see the inherent hypocrisy in his own words and actions.

well said

Working one livable wage job and she would not have been sleeping in her car, she would have been at home with her family. But she isn't.

RIP to her

I sympathize with this woman. I have been there. As I have said on here before. I grew up in a very bad neighborhood. I had to work my way up from the bottom. I have had multiple jobs at the same time. After high-school, I took 2 jobs and then side gigs whenever I could get them. To save up, to pay for college up front, on a semester by semester basis. So I would not go into debt with student loans.

Then when I got a better job after that. I still worked a side job and side gigs doing anything and everything. So I could save up and move to a better neighborhood. I went from the worst neighborhoods in my city. To the best. I now live in the suburbs of my city because it is closer to my better halfs job. I am lucky. The hard work paid off and I work from home now. I did not ask for hand outs. I worked hard and made a better life for myself. I thought that is what everyone wants. Less people being a burden and more people doing for themselves. I sacrificed so much. I worked so hard just to survive and then worked harder to better myself.

Now we have a young lady doing the same. Trying to survive and better herself. It is a tragedy that she died. An absolute tragedy. What do people say. She should not complain. She should of bettered herself. She should of had a better job than Dunkin Donuts. Its about minimum wage. Its about this. Its the government. Its the corporations. Blame Blame Blame. Solutions Solutions Solutions. NO.....its about a young woman dying. A young woman who was trying to live a better life. Everything else comes second. Its a shame people see this as an opportunity to bring politics into a situation. You can try to pretend it is economics. But it is your political take on economics. Its a shame for people on both sides.

While serious discussions on the economic future of America need to take place. This is not the situation to be using to discuss it. If anyone was making these statements in a purely economic thread. I would not mind it at all. What I do mind is people using someone who died a tragic death. To push an agenda. It is shameful and disrespectful. I would say that to anyone. Those that I agree with. Or those that I do not agree with. This whole thread is an example of agenda driven double standard arguments. Go look at some of the posters in this threads, other posts in other threads. See them attack people for doing the same thing they are doing here. People on both sides of the argument do this. They bend over backwards to justify there pushing of an agenda using whatever they deem necessary. Even a dead woman just trying to get by.

Guess what, when you attack others for doing the same things you do. It invalidates your entire argument. It make you look like a two faced weasel. It hurts your cause more than helps it. We can all read and have memory's longer than that of a gold fish. This is just my opinion. Everyone is free to believe what they want. I made a mistake just going after one person earlier in a semi rude manner. I will not make that mistake again. I apologize to beezer. There are so many posters who are guilty of this on all sides of the political spectrum.

I for one will just hold this poor woman and her family in my heart. I will redouble my efforts in real life, of helping people learn how to better themselves and survive in this new world we live in. I already take part in anti gang initiatives to help people in poor high crime areas, get out of that lifestyle. I put my beliefs into motion and live by my word. I have gone away from mentoring the youth because of health problems. This thread has inspired me to get back into the game. To many of us just sit behind a computer and argue. We do nothing to make the world better. We just judge and complain.

originally posted by: eManym
a reply to: Dingo80
What I meant by my post was, why don't these workers learn a skill that pays higher wages rather than working several jobs at the same level?

And just how do you suppose this minimum wage, multiple job just to make ends meet worker is going to afford training or even has the time to do training. Are you going to pay her to go to school are you going to pay her debts.

a reply to: Kali74

I so understand that situation. I also had to juggle four part-time jobs as a single mom in order to make ends meet, as their dad was a deadbeat dad. Three of the jobs required an hour's commute, and I hated to have to spend money on gas as I did, because the net gain from those trips sometimes left me with very little. But I accepted the jobs because there was the possibility of working more hours there.

Two of the jobs were nights and I could write a book about trying to find a sitter who would stay all night at our place, so the best arrangement I could get was to have the children camp in sleeping bags on the living room floor of various friends while I was at work. That meant rushing from work to pick them up in the morning, drive them home to have breakfast, while I fed the animals and let the dog out. Then they would wash, dress and get their lunches, then we'd rush to drive them to school before the bell. I was late twice and Mrs. Morris the teacher threatened to call in Children's Aid to have the children removed from me. She will never know what terror she instilled in the children and me and her need to be judgmental and cruel is something that has really always affected us.

It was a living hell and a life I wish on no one, ever. The stress was unbearable at times, and were it not for the fact that the children needed me and I didn't want to add to the pain they already carried, I might have easily and happily ended it all for myself. I could not get welfare because the government felt I was 'too educated' to be on welfare. But damn, I sure could have used a little help, not to mention a break. I had no time to date at all, and no money for entertainment.

Cops often banged on my car with their flashlight when I had to pull over on the highway and grab a ten minute nap, and once I did forget to roll down the window, and that discovery horrified both him and me. (dang, that's the first time the ATS glitch with the word window followed by a period got me.)

Looking back on it all, I would advise anyone in that position to not accept the welfare office's decision. The alternative can leave deep scars and really bad memories for all concerned.

originally posted by: Bilk22

originally posted by: proob4
It's a sad, sad world today!

The world has always been a "sad place". Just read history. We now have the internet, so we just hear about it sooner.

Reads that twice, three times.. or more till you see how sad it is.

we have the internet... yet people need to work 4 damn jobs just to live.

and then die.

no, having the internet, makes this all the more tragic.

originally posted by: eManym
I understand the economy is bad but for someone working four jobs, it wouldn't last long because sleep deprivation has its problems.

DUHHHHH... what an idiot.

seriously, you must be a silver spoon champion.

"Look at the poor, why dont they just stop being poor, stupid poor people.."

ffs.

Automation makes labor less and less required in our world today, but why are they continuing eviction, mandates and property tax?

Why artificially increase the cost of living? Who is this benefiting?

This article made me upset. Why are laws enforcing slavery and domination when societies are supposed to collectively protect people? Whenever humans banded together in societies it was for protection, what the hell is going on with today's society?

What the #?

originally posted by: beezzer

Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?

Linky

Defense and international security assistance: In 2013, 19 percent of the budget, or $643 billion, paid for defense and security-related international activities.

. . . .

Social Security: Another 24 percent of the budget, or $814 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided monthly retirement benefits averaging $1,294 to 37.9 million retired workers in December 2013.

. . . .

Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: Three health insurance programs — Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — together accounted for 22 percent of the budget in 2013, or $772 billion.

. . . .

Safety net programs: About 12 percent of the federal budget in 2013, or $398 billion, supported programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship.

Plus there's a neat chart on the link I provided.

So cutting the big D-fence is all good and well. But we aren't starving social programs as it is.


We're doing something wrong though. We are pouring money down the drain. We "ain't" getting a return on the investment of all these social programs.

Maybe these social programs are part of the problem, because they sure as hell aren't part of the solution!

_________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm damn sick and tired of everyone saying Social Security is an entitlement. I've been taxed for it my whole adult life and that is not an entitlement.
As for welfare and healthcare I'd rather spend twice that on our own people than waste it on yet another illegal undeclared war.

a reply to: BlubberyConspiracy

Why artificially increase the cost of living? Who is this benefiting?

it is benefiting the fat cats...the ones who just like to count zero's on the bank statement and have no hope of ever spending it all even if they tried

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Think I'll weigh in as well after following the many pages of back and forth. This discussion is not a new argument, in fact it has become quite stale. Nevertheless, there's always someone--or many these days--who blame the poor or heck even despise them. Perhaps loathe them is the more apt term. But let us be done with the semantics. Blame the working poor for struggling best they can to not get by without some sort of assistance--be it government or community based. Empathy gone, all ability to relate to those less fortunate up in apathetic smoke. Government is the problem these types say. But wait a moment, they also claim government is the solution. Say what?

About ten years ago, fresh out of the Army, I went to work for a temporary employment service in the Midwest. The company required a bilingual recruiter to run one of their branch offices and luckily--or so I thought at the time--I was a perfect fit. Out of the gates I had a corporate Visa in hand along with a modest budget for advertising and fixing up the office which was located in a historic downtown building. Talk about a dream come true. I was newly married, commuting to a white collar job in a sizeable city every day, tasked with an important job that came with serious responsibility and nearly an autonomous level of independence to staff and run the branch as I saw fit.

Everyday I held new hire orientations for sometimes one hundred or more applicants. A major industrial client in the city was expanding and in order to meet anticipated surges in their labor demands, I had to build a large database of screened applicants.

At length my point is that not a one of the several thousand applicants I screened were young people looking for a stepping stone job. Not one of them. The cold steel reality was that while my employer expected me to intimate to each orientation attendee that the jobs they had just applied to were indeed available, that was a lie. Long story short, I had at one point thousands of applicants screened and ready to be placed, but only random openings of a few dozen positions once or so per week. The majority of these people desperately needed a job. Can you imagine so many Americans competing for jobs that paid $6-6.25 per hour?

No other place in America have I witnessed the disparity between the working poor and wealthy separated by so little distance. I reported directly to the VP or CEO at corporate HQ several blocks away from my office. For the heck of it one day I looked up their salaries in the employee database. So there I was hiring desperate for work Americans for a fraction of a living wage, knee deep in their daily inquiries to see if a non-existent job had opened, and my bosses a few blocks away are drawing salaries of nine hundred thousand and 1.5 million!

There's greed from a distance--something akin to bomber pilots or artillerymen lobbing munitions without ever seeing the result. And then there's the kind of malevolence I described above where men and women directly oppress those they consider less than human in order to take advantage of the pleasures they feel entitled to by their birth, education, unique opportunity, whatever.

So many Americans today view corporations as infallible, righteous and exempt from the basic human rights and wrongs we teach our children. After my experience in that job I still sit down sometimes and just pick and pick at the justification people must use to make stepping on the throats of others such a guilt free daily act.

Even more incredible to me is the widespread support for the corporate cause over the rights of the individual.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

We can mass produce the necessities of life.

Food.
Shelter.
Water.
Education

But they charge endlessly for it and enforce the value and need of money with guns and violence.

This is all #ed. Federal action only seems to set us back, they should be providing prize grants to meet scientific solutions to social problems, yet they spend so much to enforce this madness through imperialism, lies and indiscriminate killing...

Sick #ers!! I'm so #ing tired of hearing this and that poor woman, there's no way she could have deserved that death she was playing by the god damned rules.

# THIS SYSTEM # THE #ING # # THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
This damned system that protects the "right to suffer". #ed up big time #.
To hell with it and all its hypocritical sponsors.

When did all the well paying Factory Jobs first start moving Off Shore?

Ronald Reagan - Hero or Villain?

Billy Joel - Allentown (1982)

Ok. I'm not as educated as some (or even most) in the realm of economics, so maybe I'm out of my element here...

But isn't the most painfully obvious cause of our horrendous economy in the USA summarized in a single word?

OUTSOURCING.

I was living in an area where employment options were mostly retail and service based (fast food, Walmart, etc.) or working outside in the Florida sun for $10-$15 an hour. Not much more pay, but you could get40 hours if you were willing to sweat. I grew tired of back breaking labor very quckly.

I moved up north to get into the manufacturing industry, and within the first month I thought something like "wow...why isn't everyone doing work like this?" I held the job for longer than any other I had to that point, and I learned a hell of a lot of very cool stuff. I felt like I was contributing to something bigger...I knew the guy "at the top" still had fatter pockets than I did, but mine weren't doing so bad either.

Now I'm back down south, trying to get myself back into some sort of similar job, but to say they are few and far between could win understatement of the century.

Too many of the items in my home have labels like "Made in China", but the same can be said about the items on the shelves of our supermarkets. I know its far from an overnight solution, but how unrealistic is the idea to produce our own goods and in turn bring jobs back to the USA?

a reply to: Bilk22

No, no!

The world has never "been a sad place"!

Are you INSANE?!

It's only a "sad place" now!

Only now with the internet! It's only sad now! the last 200,000 years have been SUPER GREAT AWESOME TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

It's not that people just now complain like idiots, and have a voice.

a reply to: WhatAreThey

Is that a call to give up?

It better not be.

a reply to: AphoticJoe

I haven't been on ATS in a couple of days, so I'm not sure if this article made the rounds. However, it addresses the ludicrous growth of CEO salaries vs. that of the average worker. No one should have to work 4 min. wage jobs to survive when those at the top are making what they are.

From the article, titled Ex Kroger CEO admits he was paid a 'ludicrous' amount

Dillion went on to say that even though his total compensation was nearly $13 million last year, he was still only in the bottom 25 percent of CEO pay among peer companies.

The average CEO pay at America's top 350 companies was $15.2 million in 2013, according to the Economic Policy Institute

This next part is where corporate greed is best illustrated.

Since 1978, inflation-adjusted CEO pay has increased a staggering 937 percent while a typical worker's wages have only increased by about 10 percent, according to the EPI.

CEOs at these top companies now make roughly 293 times the annual wages of their employees. By contrast, in 1978 the typical chief executive made about 20 times what his or her workers earned.

a reply to: BlubberyConspiracy

Is it a call to get some "reason" ?

a reply to: ChaosComplex

OUTSOURCING.

yep and the reason for outsourcing...more profit and that just related back to greed