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What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

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Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#331

Post by nemo44x »

basisword wrote: post #307
nemo44x wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re smart it’s a much better deal to live in the USA. It’s why you see so many Europeans move here and not the other way around. Europe is better if you’re dumb as there are better social systems. You can just exist more easily there.

I presume you're trolling but I much prefer my life to my higher paid US colleagues lives. I don't work a second more than I'm required. I get more holidays. Better parental leave. Can't be fired at will. Also requiring help from the welfare state has nothing to do with a persons intelligence. Sometimes there are massive recessions + unemployment...or global pandemics. Shit happens and when it does knowing that I'll…

Just stating an observation that way more people come to the USA for work than the other direction. This is simply data.

Your feelings are anecdotal. My anecdotal evidence comes from my European friends here, sone from the greatest of social safety nets. The money is so insanely good here and they want to earn it.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#332

Post by spacemanmatt »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #312
antifa wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe people are so detached from reality that they feel entitled to live within driving distance of their job...

In Europe, you could easily get that, except the car or driving part.

> except the car or driving part

Don't threaten ME with a good time!

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#333

Post by hattmall »

_moof wrote: post #134
xwdv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is obviously a dig at quality of life in the US. However, if you must choose between quality of life or higher salary, choose higher salary. Quality of life isn’t a liquid asset. Also, in the United States your life is substantially better the more money you have.

> if you must choose between quality of life or higher salary, choose higher salary Strongly disagree.

Literally probably the dumbest thing you could do. The point of money is for quality of life, if you can improve it without money that's perfect.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#334

Post by Beltalowda »

throwawayHN378 wrote: post #243

As a former drug addict with a DWI felony I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t gotten into tech at a young age and somehow managed to graduate from university. At 200k a year in a medium COL city I can just barely afford a house, car, and girlfriend while adding some money to savings every week. I don’t understand how people can live on 45k a year let alone 30k a year

> I don’t understand how people can live on 45k a year let alone 30k a year

At these kind of wages you get quite a bit of government assistance: medicaid, social housing, food stamps, all sorts of tax credits, etc.

The US does have a social welfare state. Whether it's "good enough" is something I'll leave up to the reader, and it certainly does seem a confusing hodgepodge of different federal and state programs, but it does exist.

It's the same in much of Europe really; if you earn minimum wage you simply cannot survive without the social welfare programs.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#335

Post by wonderwonder »

standardUser wrote: post #295
wonderwonder wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. My mortgage and escrow on a decent house in a nice suburb and good school zone on the outskirts of a large city is $2300. Spending $2,500 on rent is insane.

"Spending $2,500 on rent is insane" That's not normal, but it is simply what it costs to live in NYC or SF or London. I know tons of people who pay north of $2,500/month for decent (not fancy) apartments in central neighborhoods of those cities. And $3-$4k/month is very common for a single person.

I would posit that those people spending $3-$4k a month are making a great deal more than the $15 an hour that this thread is talking about. Living in NYC, London etc is for people that make a vastly above average salary. Anyone choosing to live there on ~35k a year or under is asking for financial distress. Granted it is very hard to move to another city when you are making a low wage as moving is expensive but if you have a job making $15 at McDonalds in NYC, you can get a job at McDonalds making $15 an hour in Alabama or Ohio and enjoy a better cost of living. You wont have all the perks and nice to haves of NYC but a financially sensible person would not be enjoying them on that wage anyway.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#336

Post by giantg2 »

lisper wrote: post #254
giantg2 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I take it that this was not a criminal prosecution that might result in actual jail time." Criminal summary offense (dog off leash) which carries the possibility of up to 90 days in jail. Instead of charging the off leash offense, they wrote the charge for a dangerous dog. This incorrect charge carried with it pretrial restrictions only found under that charge (dog could not leave our property, etc). "Part of the "t…

I've had first-hand experience with this but in the opposite direction. Had a cop cut me a break on a ticket and charge me with a lesser offense than the one I actually committed. When I went to pay the fine (this was a long time ago, before the internet) I was told the ticket hadn't been filed and so there was no fine to pay. Fast forward a year and I get a court summons for this ticket. At this point I'm annoyed en…

"I've had first-hand experience with this but in the opposite direction."

I think it's the same direction, unless I'm missing something.

Magistrates don't have to have a law degree nor pass the Bar. They tend to be very incompetent considering that they are the ones deciding the initial hearing for misdemeanors and felonies (although most of the time they deal with more minor things).

I asked a magistrate to dismiss a case with prejudice, and he thought I was calling him prejudice...

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#337

Post by rtlfe »

powerslacker wrote: post #327
rtlfe wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people think they’re entitled to private apartments in the most expensive cities in the world? If the cities weren't designed to inflate home values to enrich people who got in early, then yeah pretty much everybody could afford an apartment.

They aren't neccesarily designed that way, it is the reality of democratic local governance that real property owners in a community are naturally going to vote for measures that maximize the value of their property so that they can sell it once the land has a more profitable use than their own. When everyone votes for their own economic interest it tends to make real property more expensive over time.

You're just nitpicking vocabulary. This is exactly what I meant, and I would consider the laws and regulations that result from this process the "design" of a city.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#338

Post by ceeplusplus »

dumpsterlid wrote: post #153
unapproved4lyfe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You stated it in terms of social privilege ("jumped right from their undergraduate career to making a six-figure salary in a city...") but it's just as well intellectual privilege. I have a blue collar background and high school criminal career that looks like any poor person buying $20 scratchers, but after four years working in software I was a 22 year-old making six figures also. It makes it harder to feel sympath…

"It makes it harder to feel sympathy for those struggling: Indeed, repeatedly making wrong decisions has poor outcomes. At 18 it was pretty obvious that in the most basic sense, code = money." It's not the poverty that makes it hard to relate, it's that they seem to almost live by instinct and emotion. I wish them well but don't know what's wrong in their heads or have the slightest idea of how to durably improve the…

I have no sympathy for those who decided to spend high school smoking weed and screwing around and for those college students deciding to get a useless degree only to end up at Starbucks as a barista.

I know people who were _actually_ poor and had to drop out of high school to support their family. Those same people worked their ass off to go to community college and transfer to a better school and ended up successful. The idea that we should tax successful people like that to prop up leeches is just fundamentally wrong to me.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#339

Post by maxerickson »

lazide wrote: post #253
maxerickson wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it happens, but there's room to discuss whether it is a fact of the universe or partly an outcome of chosen policies.

What percentage of the world (or even western society) do people immediately move out of their parents homes into their own individual apartments that are nice and close to work? What percentage work into it? What percentage is it laughably out of touch for anyone and everyone who isn't top 1% of anything? That is what folks mean with the unrealistic luxury part.

It's not uncommon in the US for parents to more or less kick their children out when they turn 18/graduate from high school.

It's not the rule, and it's probably less common than it used to be.

A few minutes later: "It's not uncommon" is going too far. It's certainly not unheard of.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#340

Post by lolinder »

wonderwonder wrote: post #282
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we expect the minimum wage to afford the median rent?

To be fair, minimum wage is not the $15 an hour that Amazon pays, its half that.

But $15/hr isn't the median household income either. In 2020, the median was $67k.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...

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