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Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

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251–260 of 859 posts

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#251
post #40

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

HR does not decide pay raises. HR is in charge of anything. At most they collect data from market surveys to advise management and they advise management on ways to reduce attrition.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#252
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, I'd like to understand why "lower unemployment" is more important than people actually being able to make a living. What is all that employment for if people can't pay their bills from it?

Shifts the balance of power away from labor in favor of business. Puts a thumb on the scale. It is corruption.

In favor of business and also government who has a great degree of control over inflation. The government also benefits a lot from inflation of course, the tax brackets don't change and they have trillions of dollars to spend. Labor doesn't have even a fighting chance.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#254
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job. Note that this doesn't always even involve taking it. Go get a job offer that pays better and bring it to your boss. If they want to match it, great. If they don't, bye.

That won't work unless you're a soccer/basketball/whatever star and probably not even then.

Of course, anecdotes are anecdotal, but it worked for a coworker of mine.

He announced he was leaving our company for Amazon (which paid substantially more), and we even had a whole Friday goodbye party with cake and balloons. The next Monday we came into the office, surprised to see him still working for us. It turns out that over the weekend he somehow convinced management to match and exceed Amazon's offer.

His "trick" for getting a raise is that our whole dev-ops setup was unworkable without him. Management hadn't come up with contingencies for his inevitable departure, and thus he held all the leverage in salary negotiations.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#255

As someone who does OK, but lives in reality (not the bay area), I feel a revolution coming. I hope it's not a violent one, but who knows at this point. Hopefully it's just a politician with big policy changes. People feel completely disenfranchised. You keep hanging housing over their head but just out of reach like some baby toy, then inflation spikes everything else. What's the point of working even? I don't know…

Yeah, on that violent revolution thing. I've been thinking about it alot for the last few years, and then it dawned on me.

6 Jan 2021.

The violent revolution will always need a leader. In a democracy, that leader will establish some level of political success. These statements derive directly from the definitions.

So what we need to be on the lookout for is a political leader who normalizes mobs and violence, and quasi-political groups/associations which further encourage it.

Jan 6 2021 Proud Boys QAnon

If you forgive the Goodwin, the example is developments originating in Germany prior to WWII.

See for example Kristallnacht, Nov 1938, Vienna, Austria, and the "spontaneous" mobs responsible for large amounts of the violence

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#256
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, if you hang out in certain parts of the internet, it feels like a revolution is coming, but it reality Bernie still can't win the primaries, so I don't think the numbers are actually there. But I also won't be surprised if the next generation of voters is more socialist-leaning.

The revolution will not come from the left. The "left" elites have forgotten the people, and the left in general is talking more about identity issues than class issues. The revolution will be more Trump than Bernie. Like in the early 1900, where more revolutions where fascist than communist.

Antisemitism is on the rise to. Before comments were removed, the recent movie Santa Inc had tens of thousands of comments abut elves. It's full on Gab, and even on Twitter from the left.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#257

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

> As a non-American, it's heartbreaking to see efforts to unify the underclass completely derailed by this ridiculous race war.

Yeah, well, it's not like things are much better in Europe. Far-right parties are now mainstream in most major EU countries, and their n.1 priority is exactly the same.

Signed,

a Brexit victim.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#258
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution will not come from the left. The "left" elites have forgotten the people, and the left in general is talking more about identity issues than class issues. The revolution will be more Trump than Bernie. Like in the early 1900, where more revolutions where fascist than communist.

What people in the US call left elites, is being called slightly rightwing in the EU. When I hear comments like „state-funded housing is socialism“ I have to chuckle. That’s just how you make sure people won’t starve if they don’t resort to shady business. Bernie‘s ideas would be called leftist here, but not extremely so.

> is being called slightly rightwing in the EU

That's simply not true.

> Bernie‘s ideas would be called leftist here

Where is "here"? How is "financial transaction tax" a mainstream idea in europe?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#259
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love to study history, you can almost predict the future by studying the past. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

I wonder how much time we have left for a real citizen revolution. Is is not difficult to imagine a near future with an automated and mechanized military and police with equipment that cannot go rogue. People in the US like to talk about guns as protections against state tyranny but not many have automated laser point defence for drone attacks.

I miss the days when people were better educated in civics.

You are right, people talk about guns as protection against state tyrany, but they forget that the reason it works as protection against the state is because the person bringing violence against the state is willing to become a martyr.

The more the state pays in blood, the more it looses it legitimacy.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#260
post #43

Is it not rather that the inflation of the past 6-12 months has taken everyone by surprise, including employers, and the wages haven’t had time to adapt yet? What we don’t see in the article’s graph is that inflation used to be somewhat consistent but has risen sharply starting in March 2021: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

Pretty sure that's because it's yearly inflation and March 2021 on that graph means inflation between March 2020 and March 2021, and corona "started" then.
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