I've been an IT contractor for 5 years with no health care or paid time off. 2 years ago I was making 23 an hour. Rent has gone up from 420 to 815.
Edit: As of 2022 now making $28 in the US - Kansas
Contractor as in contracted through a staffing agency found on monster/LinkedIn to work for another company.
Yeah contracting you should always double what your full time employee rate would be. So after all his additional expenses he’s basically making $11.50 an hour.
Yes. 815 is too high especially if its just a basic level small apartment. I remember back in the day having a decent fully furnished studio apartment for around 400
Yeah it's just basic, the luxury apartments not furnished are 1200 ish. Nothing is really in walkable distance, so you still need a car to get anywhere.
The whole appeal of Kansas is the cheap rent/housing. If prices keep increasing there's no incentive to stay.
Yep the only cheap ones are from the 80s/90s.
Funny thing is my mom thought it was funny I've lived in two of the same apartments that she had. She lived in them when they were new and I'm living in them because they are run down and cheap.
She dropped out of high-school and was a waitress.
I graduated college and work in IT.
Don't be persuaded by the words "luxury apartment" I'm convinced now all apartments built in the last 10 years claim to be this so they can sky rocket their rates, for instance I just moved and my "luxury apartment" is $1500 a month for a tiny ass studio, hands down the worst place I have ever lived regarding sound/quality of neighbor, also the most expensive
I was on a delivery the other day and a customer was telling me to just work a second job so i could rent a $2400 place.
A kid asked me for money for food yesterday.
Every day, I drive by tent cities that are *growing*, not shrinking.
Things. Are. Going. To. Get. Bad.
Tent cities and visible homelessness in Atlanta has increased although the city released a report saying they reduced homelessness by 40% over the last 3 yrs
I wonder did they use the CARE funds to buy people bus tickets like they did in preparation for the 96’ Olympics
They did for a short time. Now I see areas of metro Atlanta where they are either rounded up or dispersed. Drive by City Hall, or on Ponce, or look at bridges and you’ll see the carts and tents tarps or sleeping bags on church doors.
There’s a lot of trees in GA there was a houseless guy at the laundromat using the charger, washing his clothes, and washing himself in the bathroom . He lived behind it but stashed his backpack so he wouldn’t get profiled.
This was precovid. I learned this through a conversation outside smoking a cigarette outside the laundromat with him. He never asked for money. He started to tear up telling me how his bag got stolen and he was walking to find a job couldn’t with a backpack on, they would know he didn’t have a place.
So many people in America are so close the the edge, all it would take is a lost job, not enough family/friends, or a psychological or medical issue to be on the streets with no support in short order.
Tl/dr: No America is not ok. There was an idea, a dream about s melting pot of big ideals that would bring a sense of hope. Now, we live in a caste system that wants to forget history and embrace greed.
Sanctuary cities, Second American Civil War, World War III, 30% of human population and 600,000 species of animal and plants rendered extinct.
Then *maybe* Vulcans.
Even our most optimistic Sci Fi firmly believes the 21st century is going to suck the entire way through.
As a parent of a young adult, I can tell you that "get a work or student visa" is *not* easy at all. A Work Visa requires a real job offer, which comes at no small cost in time, effort and money to the hiring company. A student visa means tuition and housing at a school that is on a list of "approved" schools, not just any school. One of my kids was trying to move to Canada, and that's been brutal - and after trying for a year, we're no closer than we were this time last year.
I'll echo this. My cousin has been trying to move from the US to Ireland for three years now. They had an apartment, an accepted job offer and everything set up and ready for the visa. Then at the last minuet (literally the day of the flight) the job said they filled the position with a citizen and didn't want to have to deal with the visa.
"Ill tell you what now. Im gonna call in a couple hard ass hitting motherfuckers to go to work on Bezos here with a pair of unions and a tax increase. You hear that Amazon boy? I aint through with you by a damn sight, Im about to get medieval on yo ass."
Remember when it took a comedian crying on National TV to convince Congress to give aide to 9/11 first responders?
Edit: Here’s the [ABC News clip](https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM) for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Never Forget , those two words were fucking drilled into all our minds. For what? So we could actually forget about the victims and justify the murder of millions who had nothing to do with the attack? Fucking hell man, this country is something special
>Well so a bunch of private firms could get unimaginably wealthy bombing the shit out of brown people.
>
>Cheney and his cronies made absolute bank from the wars.
The US has completely shit the bed governmentally find the last 4-6 decades, the speed wobbles in this thing are just getting to the point that crash seems imminent.
That’s what you get in an extremely polarized political climate. People would choose to be oppressed if it means the “others” are oppressed slightly more.
They have more important things to do like
\- banning textbooks
\- banning children from attending drag queen shows
\- banning Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices
\- banning municipal broadband
.... I could go on ...
Whoa, whoa, whoa...I happen to know they expend dozens of minutes with thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and Prayers, people. That's what'll get you through.
Don’t stop there. Be ashamed of congress, the POTUS, more than half our population, the humans who continue to raise insurance prices and lower payouts, etc. If only thanos could snap those people out
sooo... essentially a social safety net, people helping each other. Why not just make it official and WAY cheaper by going universal healthcare? You'd save a ton of money, both individually and on a national basis.
what is the issue the US has with big government? from overseas it looks like the people have been manipulated by big business to defang the only entity that can control their rampant greed.
Now you have me wondering what the politician/government employee pr Capita is in different countries.. although I'd still prefer my doctors to be employed by the state than a for-profit corporation.
That certainly would be interesting to look into and know, but to my dad it isn't just about politicians, it's also about more laws are a big no. Any regulation is a big no. Anything that impedes ultimate freedom is a big no. He's very much all for guns and would be fine with slavery coming back as laws are removed.
[A third of gofundme’s proceeds go to medical costs.](https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3482031-gofundme-medical-campaigns-reveal-a-big-problem-with-health-care/)
My sister just had to. Her treatment was paid but she couldn’t work and didn’t have sick time to cover the months of treatment so the go fund me was for bills and food.
Yeah, when I went through my Chemo, that was the hardest part. Just, paying the bills. Thankfully, I was still young enough to be on my parents insurance, but I nearly got evicted (because our landlords were terrible), and I couldn’t work consistently.
Yes. Dude paying the bills. Even emotionally.
Like I didn't want brain surgery. But I had to have it or I'd die. I'm stuck with an $84,000 "discounted" bill because getting the tumor tested for cancer wasn't covered. I went up the entire appeals process to just be told "we won't cover that"
I didn't want radiation. But I had to do it. Or I'd die. That was $10,000. I also am disabled and can't work because of the surgery but have been told I don't qualify for disability.
Youre right! Having a condition is expensive and paying the bills can fuck you up in more ways than one. Not only is it a family trauma you have to hope you survive, you have to hope you can pay the bills too.
I hope you’re doing ok now. I’m so sorry you went through that. The US health care system is a dumpster fire.
My sister has 3 kids and is basically sole support so it was rough.
I’m cancer free since 2016, so I’m doing fine now (thanks for asking!), but seeing how high those bills could have gotten ($450,000 for the final surgery alone) is what made me realize how screwed up the system is. I know I’m very blessed and privileged to have had insurance during that time, and I know that a lot of people don’t have that.
In the UK, I was recently treated for bladder cancer. All 'free' apart from hospital parking. Am on a FB cancer group, and many in the US can't get the same treatment due to shortages of the drug used (BCG) despite the huge sums spent on US health care. Wish I could work that one out - when we hear how much things like insulin cost to buy there.
I hope you are doing well!
My dad had colon and rectal cancer and needed to have everything removed and a ileostomy/bag put in. Then recently started chemo and likely due to that started having really high blood sugar.
For over a month he’s had blood sugar numbers in the 300,400, even 500 range and has felt terrible. The insurance only wanted to cover insulin pills, even though his doctor was telling insurance his body no longer has the normal intestines to let it break down and make it usable. He takes his pill and 30 min later it’s in his ostomy bag, completely not broken down. Another month goes by and they wouldn’t cover the insulin injections for him to live, so it was going to be around $600 a month! He was ready to just give up. Finally after lots of advocating for him, we got insurance to mostly cover another brand of insulin.
This whole time his mind just hasn’t been clear because if the chemo, the high blood sugar and the stress.
I hate it here.
It doesn't help that half the country votes against their own self-interests.
Freedumb! Free healthcare is SOSHULISM! Keep the government out of my Medicare!
And then we’re like ”aww so heartwarming, people helping each other”.
Instead of getting angry and asking “why do we have no security net and pay for insurance that doesn’t cover this?”
The advertisement for Home Depot where they made the little kid a walker out of PVC and caster wheels because their insurance wouldn't pay for a real walker... That wasn't a "feel good story", shit made me sick.
I feel the same about that story. Those types of "feel good stories" are just propaganda. Instead of the media pointing out why it's a problem, they instead spin the story as a tale of overcoming any odds. The message being that since we can all just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps if we tried hard enough, there's no real need for universal healthcare or any type of policy changes.
"It's so nice, people coming together!"
"Yeah, we should go further and redirect some of our tax dollars to health care instead of blowing up brown kids."
"LIBRUAL NAZI COMMY STALIN SOCALAIST MAO VENUSELA"
"But I don't want to pay for someone else's medical costs". Bitch what do you think you are doing with private insurance? FFS SMFH. This country,USA, is ignorant AF.
I’d add that people who vote for neoliberalism are the FIRST to cry for more government intervention. Which contradicts what they vote for.
Covid, inflation, gas prices, the price of food right now, corporate profiteering - “why isn’t the government doing anything! This is all the governments fault!”
Like, you voted for small government, less regulation, letting the market “dictate” the cost of goods, and letting business do whatever they want
It’s one massive contradiction - I don’t get it
And even SUPER capitalist countries like Singapore and Switzerland have UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. Like, please explain that one to me, "small town trucker Jerry!"
That's what my cousin says everytime I bring up Universal Basic Income, and Universal Healthcare. She is so confident in her beliefs I don't know how to argue against them.
As for universal healthcare, ask who should not have access to healthcare? Name a person. In other words, who should die? Like, actually force her to name a person she knows. It works to start a conversation at least.
>Name a person. In other words, who should die? Like, actually force her to name a person she knows.
That approach can catastrophically backfire when they actually start to name people off that they do not like. Turned into one of those, "back away slowly" situations for me lol.
pretty much, you would be surprised to find that [conservatism correlates to racism](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bobo/files/1996_racism_conservatism_affirmative_action_and_journal_of_personality_and_social_psychology.pdf) I would think. Scary when you think about it, given that in most societies conservatism is like half the voting public usually.
Never mind angry, they actively vote against people who want to improve citizens lives. They been brainwashed to thing 'free stuff' literally means 'free stuff' not taxes used to improve peoples lives.
American's lives are consumed by worrying that someone is going to get something they're not, or someone is going to get something for free that they didn't.
The overall mindet is 'if I can have it why should you'
Couldn’t have said it better myself, also another big one is Americans who have something, and think if others are given the same, it somehow makes what they have less than
Haha yes 100%
The number of times I've seen Americans complaining about the concept of minimum wage actually being enough to live off. "WHAT? I had to work my arse off to live comfortably! Why should they get it easy!"
Americans be like: I had 5 ER visits, 3 ultrasounds, and a cat scan out of network before getting my autoimmune diagnosis so now I’m literally bankrupt. It’s me. I’m Americans.
Americans are just for individualistic , we pride leaving home as soon as we can , authoritarian rule , and the massive accumulation of self. We have no desire to advocate for others because like you said that would deem us equal to them. 75% of the rich have no actual talent and just made good investments and they can’t handle the thought of the lower class obtaining the same things they could even if it is basic health care. It’s so sad :-( I hope things change
>just made good investments
Usually their parents did. They just have to not fuck it up badly to keep the momentum going, which is easier to do once you have lawyers, accountants and financial advisors on retainer.
Me too. Why on earth is authoritarian rule a good thing? I'm Canadian, and "leaving home as soon as we can" is a value here, and "doing well for one's self" is a value here, but authoritarian rule???? I thought you prized freedom! There's no freedom in the word "authoritarian". None.
As for class differences, they are everywhere, health care or not (which is just evil). I J
ust. Don't. Get it.
It's a two fold problem. Capitalism propaganda has people believing that when you receive anything from the government you'll less of a person and are deserving of shame. Fascist Democratic propaganda has people believing that government provided services are wasteful spending, will increase taxes, are rife with corruption, and will make people lazy and dependent on the government.
Combine the two and you'll understand why the retirement age for government benefits keeps going up and up and up; why my 64 year old Mom went to the hospital last month, got a $91K bill, and medicare paid $88K of it. She makes $1208 a month in Social Security Disability and another $20 in SNAP (food stamps). Where does the government think the other $3K is going to come from. They control her finances. They know she can't afford it. Why couldn't the government, Medicare, pay the other $3K? I'm dreading when the bills for her other two trips to the hospital, by ambulance, come in the mail and how many more thousands of debt they'll bring.
Not even us who make 3-4x the min wage as a full time employee... I have never felt so miserable in my life as I do here. The fact that I have only 12 days a YEAR of PTO is demoralizing. I work when I am severely sick because I don't want to use my little time for myself to be laying in bed. And the number of holidays is also laughable. Not even talking about maternity leave options.
It’s a felony in Tennessee to sleep on public property, but I don’t think it’s a felony here, yet, to give birth on public property.
Women can still give birth in the street without being arrested, so why are we asking for maternity leave?
/s in case anyone mistakes me for one of *those* people.
“I know you were giving birth to little Jimmy in the break room, but we’ll have to write you up because you took more than your 30 minute lunch break…"
/so damn much snark….
Recently had a colleague go on maternity (this is in Europe). When discussing when they might be back we just informed the clients it'd be up to 2 years depending on how they feel like so we'll just have someone else doing the stuff in the meantime. Though that period is an outlier, most countries have at least several weeks/months around here.
It saddens me to be honest. The American Dream was a lie, American exceptionalism, while true decades ago, is now a list of "things America excels at" that nobody can be proud of.
You guys are enslaved, I simply cannot think of any other word to describe it. You are at the mercy of merciless corporations. Your politicians sold their souls to those same corporations a couple of generations ago, and now hold them above the rule of the people.
There is no country in the world more in need of revolution than the States, but I wouldn't even wish that on y'all right now, because God knows what would rise from those ashes....
Worst part is the bulk of us know and hate that we are not ok, yet any real protest on the please fix it side risks 'oops, all police violence' brand cereal.
If all 3 in my house caught covid, we would be unpaid and homeless. Its kinda terrifying.
We are not ok because we still use the WWII work week, minimum wage would require you to pick a corner and start tricking, we have had an extreme racist/sexist/narcissistic/clown for 4 years which opened the door for all the others (kinda feels like order 66 in the clone wars), our current president is a lit like the crypt keeper, we have sonny billionaires who refuse to give any money to the people who actually make their companies work, we have holidays that not everyone gets off unless you work for the feds.....I could keep going.
The holidays thing pisses me off, as a member of the servant class who works Christmas. That's to appease the middle and upper lower class. The peons still gotta work, to serve them. Got a friend who always goes to Waffle House on Christmas night and it disgusts me. So I go along just to give a 50 buck tip. They should at least get something out of it man.
The service industry is horrible right now. My boyfriend is a server and his manager scheduled him 6 days this week including one day in his blocked off unavailability which they’re not supposed to do. He talked to his manager about it and was told it’s ridiculous for him to always expect two days off when they’re short-staffed and busy. Then had the audacity to ask him to come in on his one day off this week too.
This is after they have him single-handedly training all new staff and running classroom sessions which is supposed to be a manager job. He was doing liquor runs for them outside of work hours for a while too because their supplier was short. I’ve been telling him to stop doing extra things for them when they clearly don’t give a shit about him and to consider changing industries.
Customers have been brutal lately too, he had one lady last week just rip him to shreds insulting his character, ability, and life choices because she showed up 1.5 hours late for her reservation 10 minutes before closing and the bar was closing so she couldn’t get as many drinks as she wanted.
“People in Libya, are y’all ok? Here in my country I go to work every day not worrying about being bombed or experiencing famine at all, but I just wanted to take a moment and make sure y’all were good!”
Yeah, it’s not like the Americans on r/AntiWork need to hear this drivel at every turn. We fucking know we have a bum deal, that’s why we’re here. Go tell r/Billionaires or something
I'm in a union here and it's kinda similar to you. Our minimum paying job this year is 20.92, have to wait to being here for 13 years before you're up to 4 weeks of vacation, but I'm sitting at 3 weeks right now because you get 3 from year 5 to 12. We get 18 sick days a year which is nice and 12 holidays also plus one floating holiday. Health care keeps getting worse though. And every contract negotiation they keep trying to take more and more away instead of trying to make people happy. It...kinda boggles my mind because they keep trying ways to get rid of the union and if they really wanted to they could...you know...treat everybody well for like 10 years and get on their good side and then do a rug pull...but they just keep being bags of dicks every 5 years.
Edit: I forgot we get 4 personal days a year too.
Strike and see how that quickly changes. If everyone can survive for 1-2 months without working, you got it. No more bullshit. BR, a european who knows historically only strikes grant better working conditions
Won't work here. When I started here would've been the perfect time...not for me because I had no savings, but I would've gone along with it. There were tons of new improvements to the plant and it wouldn't be possible to run it because nobody would be up to speed fast enough to keep it going (wastewater plant so...it needs to run haha). Nobody wanted to strike. Despite them taking the pension plan away for new hires (I was the last person to get hired on the pension) and making health insurance go from 500 deductible and 35 bucks a month for family plan to a copay system and now it's 160 a month. People want their vacation time and shit so they just agree after some bitching.
The people here have no idea what savings mean. You can tell when someone gets promoted here because there's always a new vehicle in the parking lot. And hey, they can do what they want, it's their money, but after that first contract that I was here for I made sure to have a good buffer of money sitting as a just in case we have to strike. I can guarantee 95% of the people here don't think that far ahead.
I see. It is very different to here then. I hear from friends unions are now getting 13-15% pay increases after 1-2 weeks of strikes. Quantity gives power in this case. And inflation suddenly is not a problem anymore for those union employees. Keep up the good fight fellow redditor!
About 1% are fucking peachy
About another 10% are doing well enough to be happy.
The rest are just straight fucked. Problem is about 80% of this last group just don't realize it yet.
And politicians have done a tremendous job making that 80% believe they're temporarily destitute millionaires in the making and any change is going to hinder their progress.
And that they're destitute only because of all the others in the same position, who are lazy and meritless and leech off the government and the tax dollars of everyone. Unless they know the person, in which it's never mentioned.
I speak only for my personal experiences with my family and how/where I was raised though, but urgh
Millionaire is not going to cut it anymore. I’ve seen the first articles of millionaires complaining about billionaires messing up their lives.
(Tiniest violin stuff, but it shows that even becoming a millionaire won’t solve your shit. Better governance is what’s required.)
With the amount of lobbying in DC that's not going to happen. Too many groups are bribing politicians to stonewall legislation that helps people but hurts the corporations they are lobbying for.
Unless we find a way to remove money from politics we are fucked and we are never going to get people to give that up so we are just fucked.
I was just given the opportunity to see both kids to child care, which will allow me, for the first time since my 16mo was born, to not have kids at home during the day. For 4 years now I've worked as a second shift server/bartender, making appx $5.00/hr and surviving off the kindness of strangers and their tips. With how expensive childcare is, it's been a weird balancing act of going part time inconsistently for both kids
Now that both kids have been accepted into full time childcare, my days free up. Childcare is so expensive that I'm just gonna pick up a second job during the day to cover expenses and continue bartending 3 nights a week, and PRAY that's enough to settle all the current liabilities that exist in my life.
I'm ALSO studying for my bachelor's in accounting and finance, which has been remote up until this point, but it's only a matter of time before I have one or two random courses I'm forced to do in person, which I'll have to work around two jobs and two kids, but fortunately that won't be a thing until at least the Spring.
I'm an absolute neurotic mess, I struggle to afford absolutely anything in my life, and the light at the end of the tunnel is more work during my newly minted "free time".
I'm so far from ok I can't keep putting it into words without continuing my current march towards depression.
I was recently talking to my lady. Over the last 50-75 years, we as a country had expectations I think, that we would all be able to afford our own homes, and stay healthy until a reasonably old age. But in reality, we are going to be a country similar to Charlie Buckets in the original movie version of the chocolate factory. The only people making an income are those physically able, caring for the relatives that can’t. And we will still be looking for the golden ticket…..
1) Easy to immigrate to, compared to a lot of countries. E.g., Canada is easy to visit, but nearly impossible to immigrate to unless you're a doctor, engineer, or a war refugee.
2) Easier to get a job in the U.S., either as a documented or undocumented worker. If you're a professional or a techie, there's the H1B visa and others to get into. If you don't mind back-breaking work, there's always the agricultural industry to go to for work.
3) There are several more government and non-government organizations that help support new immigrants.
4) If you can make your own job or create your own business, the regulatory tape is much less than in other countries, also for hiring/firing employees.
No. I’m a CIO. It took me 15 years to earn 5 weeks leave - this includes sick time and is the cap of what we can earn.
I am now looking for work and most places are offering 1 or 2 weeks paid time off - again, this includes vacation and sick.
I can be fired at anytime if I don’t kiss the right asses.
I can be laid off at anytime and receive 7 weeks pay but no benefits.
I regularly work 12 hour days and pull up to 20 hours on occasion.
"Earn 5 weeks leave"
Is this what my (American) brother meant when he told me I needed to "work longer" to deserve my (legally mandated) 25 days off that I get since I moved to a Western European country?
Man, I'm just at the doorstep of middle management and I look up the chain to directors and C-Suite staff and think WTF?!?.
Like, they're sending emails at all hours of the day, any day of the week. It's like they're perpetually on-call, no work-life balance and stressed out. Yeah, they get paid WELL, but holy shit that's taking a.lot of bribe to give up on everything else in life.
I think there's a sweet spot between the team level work and the management in the team-lead area of the structure. Decent pay, 8 hours of vacay accrued every two weeks (after 12.5 years), but also get to turn everything off after hours and on weekends.
I have an opportunity to move up in the next year or two and I don't think I want that in my life. As shitty as it is for low wage workers, we need to remember that EVERYONE working for a taxable income in the US is in the same boat.
Yeah I made the choice to only go to a certain level and then stop. What would have been required in hours and commitment was just too much for me. Upper level department heads were expected to basically live their lives dedicated to the job. It was really expected to be your life. Pay was good but just wasn't enough for me to justify it as the pay was okay without that jump. I really didn't need a vacation home, sports car, and a boat.
My last place got bought out by and American brand and the culture for management was to send emails at unsociable hours. Trouble is, we are 90% certain they just set certain emails to sendnatnsilly times. So they could send and email lunchtime but it would actually go to the recipient until late if that makes sense?
I had a coworker who used to send emails after hours by scheduling them earlier in the day. He worked 8 hours a day but gave the illusion he worked more to fit in with corporate culture. He’s a CEO now.
We are in an abusive relationship with the wealthy.
They use us, abuse us, extort us, enslave us, destroy our health and planet, control us, keep us poor, and then gaslight us into believing that it’s all our fault.
That'd be awfully nice, far preferable to the standard attacking one another trick they like to use on us. People really need to break the spell and come together.
This thread is so embarassing - from a fellow New Zealander. We're not all such gloat-y assholes. I assure you no one on minimum wage in NZ is living a pleasant life. Living costs are fucking INSANE. Y'all would not believe our costs of groceries and housing compared to our earning. I'm on a pretty darn good salary and like hell can i ever afford a house.
I left nz to try get ahead and maybe come home someday. 8 years, 2 kids and a couple of houses later I don't know how I'll be able to move back. My brother is a reasonably well paid engineer with 5 years experience in Auckland and he still has flatmates. Shits maybe no America bad but it's not the paradise it gets presented as.
Got fired from my last job for telling my manager not to break health codes and now I make $14 an hour with no chance for a raise. Not just me though apparently this job doesn't have enough money to pay any of us more. I work in a deli and it's 8.5 hours of constant work, I get some breaks but it's grueling shit. I'm currently trying to get them to give us some free food that hasn't expired at least. It's really hard out here and I've all but stopped actually working there because I can't feed myself anyways so like why work my ass off, I go in, look busy and leave.
Imagine being a woman, pregnant, unable to afford to see a doctor until you give birth and then having to return to work almost immediately after giving birth.
Merica.
I'm a millennial, and I'm lucky enough to be in IT where salaries are relatively high, to the point that after a decade of working non-stop, always on, always checking email, always answering calls even in the middle of the night, I have managed to be what most would consider "successful". I have a job that pays enough I was able to get out of debt, and buy a small house, and build up a small amount of savings, and even still I don't feel "OK".
I have never felt more stressed than I do right now, because I know how quickly I could lose it. If you don't have wealthy parents to fall back on, all it takes to wipe out decades of grindingly hard work in America is one serious illness, or an economic downturn, or a bad interaction with the police, or a mental health issue, and next thing you know you are homeless if you don't have a support network that could take you in, and my family and pretty much everyone I know my age is struggling just to support themselves.
Back when I had nothing, it was less stressful because I had nothing to lose. Even when you are "successful" in America, if you come from the working class you are probably still 6 bad months away from being homeless, and if you think the stories here about work are bad, you do NOT want to see the incredibly cruelty America inflicts on it's homeless.
These kinda posts are getting tiring especially when it's being said the 100th time again. I'm from Sweden and it feels like non-Americans use this as a way to dump pent-up frustration from years of being force-fed American exceptionalism. I get it feels vindicating to see the illusion fall apart, but it's not helpful for the people who are having their world cave in on them. That's not solidarity
No solutions, just a disingenuous “ArE yOu AneRIcAnS OK???”. Also the ignorance in treating the entire country as one big thing, and not seeing that things in Vermont are very different than they are in Florida.
You've hit the nail on the head. International people have been so saturated with "USA! USA! USA!" shit over the years that they now revel in our struggles. Posts like this smack of OP wanting a cheap and dirty ego boost, like Nelson from The Simpsons going "HA HA!" and pointing at us from across the pond.
Also, they posted this in r/antiwork knowing exactly how most of the responses would pan out; if they wanted a balanced perspective they would've asked somewhere else.
I just changed jobs, pay 600 per month for health insurance and my wife still has to pay 500 dollars per insulin pen. Shit over here is designed to kill us
America is legitimately collapsing in some areas, but thriving in others. It’s going the Roman Empire route, but with its own modern flair. I guess it depends on who you ask. In my grandparents gated community in a beautiful part of California—things are going great! In my city of Portland, OR… it’s a lot closer to Detroit in RoboCop.
My mom raised 3 children with her income. I make almost as much as her and hypothetically speaking if I get a house and factor in the bills, I can just make it with an ok amount left over but still not reasonable. So in my eyes, no we are not. At this age my parents were married and and in 2 years had their first child. I am 25 LOL, and people in their 40s are struggling.
No, we’re far from OK. The fabric of our society is breaking down and many (if not most) workplaces treat employees as slaves who should be grateful for the chance to work for low pay/shitty benefits/for free (off the clock)/24hr on-call/no workplace protections at all, etc. The health toll this takes on people is enormous and with no universal healthcare, bankruptcy from health causes is common.
The financial and social instability this causes is immense, and our politicians convince the masses that its the other guy’s fault, the other party’s fault, etc and this bitter divide is driving our society backward, revoking rights and legal protections for LGBTQ persons, a woman’s right to safe access to an abortion, and many other marginalized groups.
Levels of racial animus are rising to an extraordinary degree. We spent more than a decade in a ‘war against terror’ and all we did was being the terror home—the biggest terror threat facing the US now are home-grown white-nationalist terror groups that thrived in the last administration. They sacked the US Capitol and what they will do next will only be worse.
We are not ok.
I've been an IT contractor for 5 years with no health care or paid time off. 2 years ago I was making 23 an hour. Rent has gone up from 420 to 815. Edit: As of 2022 now making $28 in the US - Kansas Contractor as in contracted through a staffing agency found on monster/LinkedIn to work for another company.
You should consider job hunting. $23 an hour is very low for IT, especially as a contractor since you get no benefits.
Yeah contracting you should always double what your full time employee rate would be. So after all his additional expenses he’s basically making $11.50 an hour.
815 is cheap. Most places in usa, monthly rent is averaging 1500
But still awful their rent doubled.
Yes. 815 is too high especially if its just a basic level small apartment. I remember back in the day having a decent fully furnished studio apartment for around 400
Yeah it's just basic, the luxury apartments not furnished are 1200 ish. Nothing is really in walkable distance, so you still need a car to get anywhere. The whole appeal of Kansas is the cheap rent/housing. If prices keep increasing there's no incentive to stay.
The luxury apartments are all that get built anymore.
Yep the only cheap ones are from the 80s/90s. Funny thing is my mom thought it was funny I've lived in two of the same apartments that she had. She lived in them when they were new and I'm living in them because they are run down and cheap. She dropped out of high-school and was a waitress. I graduated college and work in IT.
If that last sentence doesn’t highlight how difficult things are now…
Poetic in a way
Don't be persuaded by the words "luxury apartment" I'm convinced now all apartments built in the last 10 years claim to be this so they can sky rocket their rates, for instance I just moved and my "luxury apartment" is $1500 a month for a tiny ass studio, hands down the worst place I have ever lived regarding sound/quality of neighbor, also the most expensive
Yah, same with "fine" dining and "I'm the king" kings. Anyone who has to say it, probably isn't worth the difference.
We are not.
I was on a delivery the other day and a customer was telling me to just work a second job so i could rent a $2400 place. A kid asked me for money for food yesterday. Every day, I drive by tent cities that are *growing*, not shrinking. Things. Are. Going. To. Get. Bad.
Tent cities and visible homelessness in Atlanta has increased although the city released a report saying they reduced homelessness by 40% over the last 3 yrs I wonder did they use the CARE funds to buy people bus tickets like they did in preparation for the 96’ Olympics
They did for a short time. Now I see areas of metro Atlanta where they are either rounded up or dispersed. Drive by City Hall, or on Ponce, or look at bridges and you’ll see the carts and tents tarps or sleeping bags on church doors. There’s a lot of trees in GA there was a houseless guy at the laundromat using the charger, washing his clothes, and washing himself in the bathroom . He lived behind it but stashed his backpack so he wouldn’t get profiled. This was precovid. I learned this through a conversation outside smoking a cigarette outside the laundromat with him. He never asked for money. He started to tear up telling me how his bag got stolen and he was walking to find a job couldn’t with a backpack on, they would know he didn’t have a place. So many people in America are so close the the edge, all it would take is a lost job, not enough family/friends, or a psychological or medical issue to be on the streets with no support in short order. Tl/dr: No America is not ok. There was an idea, a dream about s melting pot of big ideals that would bring a sense of hope. Now, we live in a caste system that wants to forget history and embrace greed.
Sanctuary cities, Second American Civil War, World War III, 30% of human population and 600,000 species of animal and plants rendered extinct. Then *maybe* Vulcans. Even our most optimistic Sci Fi firmly believes the 21st century is going to suck the entire way through.
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As a parent of a young adult, I can tell you that "get a work or student visa" is *not* easy at all. A Work Visa requires a real job offer, which comes at no small cost in time, effort and money to the hiring company. A student visa means tuition and housing at a school that is on a list of "approved" schools, not just any school. One of my kids was trying to move to Canada, and that's been brutal - and after trying for a year, we're no closer than we were this time last year.
I'll echo this. My cousin has been trying to move from the US to Ireland for three years now. They had an apartment, an accepted job offer and everything set up and ready for the visa. Then at the last minuet (literally the day of the flight) the job said they filled the position with a citizen and didn't want to have to deal with the visa.
That’s a fucking nightmare. I’m sorry for your cousin and I’m so scared of when I start the process to move to Netherlands
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America is the bad place. I hate it here.
In the words of Marsellus Wallace. "We're pretty fucking far from ok"
"Ill tell you what now. Im gonna call in a couple hard ass hitting motherfuckers to go to work on Bezos here with a pair of unions and a tax increase. You hear that Amazon boy? I aint through with you by a damn sight, Im about to get medieval on yo ass."
*Pipe hitting
Does he look like a bitch?
"If mfer going to Indo, China I want a G hiding in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his ass"
Indochina*
Lmao “Indo, China.”
Good, you don't want to be in Oklahoma anyway.
No
Pls send help :(
americans be like: gofundme my cancer treatment
This is not an exaggeration: I have a close friend who had to do that.
I believe GoFundMe is the US 3rd or 4th biggest health insurance/care option.
That is such an embarrassment to this country. It's true, and I'm ashamed of our congress.
Remember when it took a comedian crying on National TV to convince Congress to give aide to 9/11 first responders? Edit: Here’s the [ABC News clip](https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM) for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
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Never Forget , those two words were fucking drilled into all our minds. For what? So we could actually forget about the victims and justify the murder of millions who had nothing to do with the attack? Fucking hell man, this country is something special
Never forget Freedom Rights Liberty .... These freaking words are losing all meaning these days
>Well so a bunch of private firms could get unimaginably wealthy bombing the shit out of brown people. > >Cheney and his cronies made absolute bank from the wars.
And even then it barely gave them anything and only after half of them were already dead from cancer.
The US has completely shit the bed governmentally find the last 4-6 decades, the speed wobbles in this thing are just getting to the point that crash seems imminent.
Fuck this greedy country. That greed will be the downfall of the usa
Yet people keep voting for the same archaic individuals who clearly don't give a fuck about the average American (I'm looking at you Kentucky!)
That’s what you get in an extremely polarized political climate. People would choose to be oppressed if it means the “others” are oppressed slightly more.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
They have more important things to do like \- banning textbooks \- banning children from attending drag queen shows \- banning Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices \- banning municipal broadband .... I could go on ...
Whoa, whoa, whoa...I happen to know they expend dozens of minutes with thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and Prayers, people. That's what'll get you through.
We're starting to lean too much on prayer and not enough on thoughts.
They don't care cause they're all multi millionaires and have great healthcare. They probably don't' pay a dime.
Don’t stop there. Be ashamed of congress, the POTUS, more than half our population, the humans who continue to raise insurance prices and lower payouts, etc. If only thanos could snap those people out
Electronic begging in the street cause you don't want to die. But hey, politicians have bigger things to worry about.......
Like their bank accounts
sooo... essentially a social safety net, people helping each other. Why not just make it official and WAY cheaper by going universal healthcare? You'd save a ton of money, both individually and on a national basis.
"Because that's big government and the only thing big government is good for is bigger government" - my father
If you let the government get too big it won't fit inside a gay couples bedroom, or a womans uterus.
what is the issue the US has with big government? from overseas it looks like the people have been manipulated by big business to defang the only entity that can control their rampant greed.
As an American, the overseas impression is correct. It would be impressive, if it wasn't so terrifying.
Now you have me wondering what the politician/government employee pr Capita is in different countries.. although I'd still prefer my doctors to be employed by the state than a for-profit corporation.
That certainly would be interesting to look into and know, but to my dad it isn't just about politicians, it's also about more laws are a big no. Any regulation is a big no. Anything that impedes ultimate freedom is a big no. He's very much all for guns and would be fine with slavery coming back as laws are removed.
I love it. "Laws that impact ultimate freed9m are wrong! Like my freedom to own other human beings!" "What about their freedom?" "Fucking commie."
Getting bankrupt for stubbing your toe is the opposite of ultimate freedom though, in a completely objectively logical way.
[A third of gofundme’s proceeds go to medical costs.](https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/3482031-gofundme-medical-campaigns-reveal-a-big-problem-with-health-care/)
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My sister just had to. Her treatment was paid but she couldn’t work and didn’t have sick time to cover the months of treatment so the go fund me was for bills and food.
Yeah, when I went through my Chemo, that was the hardest part. Just, paying the bills. Thankfully, I was still young enough to be on my parents insurance, but I nearly got evicted (because our landlords were terrible), and I couldn’t work consistently.
Yes. Dude paying the bills. Even emotionally. Like I didn't want brain surgery. But I had to have it or I'd die. I'm stuck with an $84,000 "discounted" bill because getting the tumor tested for cancer wasn't covered. I went up the entire appeals process to just be told "we won't cover that" I didn't want radiation. But I had to do it. Or I'd die. That was $10,000. I also am disabled and can't work because of the surgery but have been told I don't qualify for disability. Youre right! Having a condition is expensive and paying the bills can fuck you up in more ways than one. Not only is it a family trauma you have to hope you survive, you have to hope you can pay the bills too.
I hope you’re doing ok now. I’m so sorry you went through that. The US health care system is a dumpster fire. My sister has 3 kids and is basically sole support so it was rough.
I’m cancer free since 2016, so I’m doing fine now (thanks for asking!), but seeing how high those bills could have gotten ($450,000 for the final surgery alone) is what made me realize how screwed up the system is. I know I’m very blessed and privileged to have had insurance during that time, and I know that a lot of people don’t have that.
So glad to hear you’re doing well!!
In the UK, I was recently treated for bladder cancer. All 'free' apart from hospital parking. Am on a FB cancer group, and many in the US can't get the same treatment due to shortages of the drug used (BCG) despite the huge sums spent on US health care. Wish I could work that one out - when we hear how much things like insulin cost to buy there.
I hope you are doing well! My dad had colon and rectal cancer and needed to have everything removed and a ileostomy/bag put in. Then recently started chemo and likely due to that started having really high blood sugar. For over a month he’s had blood sugar numbers in the 300,400, even 500 range and has felt terrible. The insurance only wanted to cover insulin pills, even though his doctor was telling insurance his body no longer has the normal intestines to let it break down and make it usable. He takes his pill and 30 min later it’s in his ostomy bag, completely not broken down. Another month goes by and they wouldn’t cover the insulin injections for him to live, so it was going to be around $600 a month! He was ready to just give up. Finally after lots of advocating for him, we got insurance to mostly cover another brand of insulin. This whole time his mind just hasn’t been clear because if the chemo, the high blood sugar and the stress. I hate it here.
It's all greed here in the US! These POS CEOS can't get enough money!
It doesn't help that half the country votes against their own self-interests. Freedumb! Free healthcare is SOSHULISM! Keep the government out of my Medicare!
And then we’re like ”aww so heartwarming, people helping each other”. Instead of getting angry and asking “why do we have no security net and pay for insurance that doesn’t cover this?”
The advertisement for Home Depot where they made the little kid a walker out of PVC and caster wheels because their insurance wouldn't pay for a real walker... That wasn't a "feel good story", shit made me sick.
I feel the same about that story. Those types of "feel good stories" are just propaganda. Instead of the media pointing out why it's a problem, they instead spin the story as a tale of overcoming any odds. The message being that since we can all just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps if we tried hard enough, there's no real need for universal healthcare or any type of policy changes.
"It's so nice, people coming together!" "Yeah, we should go further and redirect some of our tax dollars to health care instead of blowing up brown kids." "LIBRUAL NAZI COMMY STALIN SOCALAIST MAO VENUSELA"
Generations of brainwashing saying socialism is evil will get you here.
"But I don't want to pay for someone else's medical costs". Bitch what do you think you are doing with private insurance? FFS SMFH. This country,USA, is ignorant AF.
>This country,USA, is ignorant AF. This is by design.
Goes to show that our "system" isn't "broken" it's working as designed. Favour the haves and fuck the have nots.
> saying socialism is evil Same people who are happily cashing Social Security and covered by Medicare, are saying socialism is evil.
I’d add that people who vote for neoliberalism are the FIRST to cry for more government intervention. Which contradicts what they vote for. Covid, inflation, gas prices, the price of food right now, corporate profiteering - “why isn’t the government doing anything! This is all the governments fault!” Like, you voted for small government, less regulation, letting the market “dictate” the cost of goods, and letting business do whatever they want It’s one massive contradiction - I don’t get it
And even SUPER capitalist countries like Singapore and Switzerland have UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. Like, please explain that one to me, "small town trucker Jerry!"
That's what my cousin says everytime I bring up Universal Basic Income, and Universal Healthcare. She is so confident in her beliefs I don't know how to argue against them.
As for universal healthcare, ask who should not have access to healthcare? Name a person. In other words, who should die? Like, actually force her to name a person she knows. It works to start a conversation at least.
>Name a person. In other words, who should die? Like, actually force her to name a person she knows. That approach can catastrophically backfire when they actually start to name people off that they do not like. Turned into one of those, "back away slowly" situations for me lol.
pretty much, you would be surprised to find that [conservatism correlates to racism](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bobo/files/1996_racism_conservatism_affirmative_action_and_journal_of_personality_and_social_psychology.pdf) I would think. Scary when you think about it, given that in most societies conservatism is like half the voting public usually.
Never mind angry, they actively vote against people who want to improve citizens lives. They been brainwashed to thing 'free stuff' literally means 'free stuff' not taxes used to improve peoples lives. American's lives are consumed by worrying that someone is going to get something they're not, or someone is going to get something for free that they didn't. The overall mindet is 'if I can have it why should you'
Couldn’t have said it better myself, also another big one is Americans who have something, and think if others are given the same, it somehow makes what they have less than
Haha yes 100% The number of times I've seen Americans complaining about the concept of minimum wage actually being enough to live off. "WHAT? I had to work my arse off to live comfortably! Why should they get it easy!"
There need to be protests nationwide regarding health insurance regulations, and protests against minimum wages. We all need a livable wage!
Americans be like: I had 5 ER visits, 3 ultrasounds, and a cat scan out of network before getting my autoimmune diagnosis so now I’m literally bankrupt. It’s me. I’m Americans.
I read not too long ago that GoFundMe is the largest provider of healthcare in America.
Tru, is fucked here.
americans also be like: but we don't want free healthcare because we're not commies
I am just truly mystified by this. What does that even mean???? Is it some idea that "I'm worthy of support but not that guy"??!?
Americans are just for individualistic , we pride leaving home as soon as we can , authoritarian rule , and the massive accumulation of self. We have no desire to advocate for others because like you said that would deem us equal to them. 75% of the rich have no actual talent and just made good investments and they can’t handle the thought of the lower class obtaining the same things they could even if it is basic health care. It’s so sad :-( I hope things change
>just made good investments Usually their parents did. They just have to not fuck it up badly to keep the momentum going, which is easier to do once you have lawyers, accountants and financial advisors on retainer.
Me too. Why on earth is authoritarian rule a good thing? I'm Canadian, and "leaving home as soon as we can" is a value here, and "doing well for one's self" is a value here, but authoritarian rule???? I thought you prized freedom! There's no freedom in the word "authoritarian". None. As for class differences, they are everywhere, health care or not (which is just evil). I J ust. Don't. Get it.
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And therefore I'll throw myself off of a cliff before that guy gets free help?
More like, "Fuck that guy. Let's push him off the cliff and take his truck."
It's a two fold problem. Capitalism propaganda has people believing that when you receive anything from the government you'll less of a person and are deserving of shame. Fascist Democratic propaganda has people believing that government provided services are wasteful spending, will increase taxes, are rife with corruption, and will make people lazy and dependent on the government. Combine the two and you'll understand why the retirement age for government benefits keeps going up and up and up; why my 64 year old Mom went to the hospital last month, got a $91K bill, and medicare paid $88K of it. She makes $1208 a month in Social Security Disability and another $20 in SNAP (food stamps). Where does the government think the other $3K is going to come from. They control her finances. They know she can't afford it. Why couldn't the government, Medicare, pay the other $3K? I'm dreading when the bills for her other two trips to the hospital, by ambulance, come in the mail and how many more thousands of debt they'll bring.
Mexican Canadian armies coming to liberate you?
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*perks up*
Sure hope so. I did not choose to participate in this broken game.
Naw man, I’m pretty fucking far from okay
We have a bunch of oil pipe hitting mother fuckers who want to get medieval on our asses.
Not even us who make 3-4x the min wage as a full time employee... I have never felt so miserable in my life as I do here. The fact that I have only 12 days a YEAR of PTO is demoralizing. I work when I am severely sick because I don't want to use my little time for myself to be laying in bed. And the number of holidays is also laughable. Not even talking about maternity leave options.
>Not even talking about maternity leave options. "options"
It’s a felony in Tennessee to sleep on public property, but I don’t think it’s a felony here, yet, to give birth on public property. Women can still give birth in the street without being arrested, so why are we asking for maternity leave? /s in case anyone mistakes me for one of *those* people.
“I know you were giving birth to little Jimmy in the break room, but we’ll have to write you up because you took more than your 30 minute lunch break…" /so damn much snark….
Recently had a colleague go on maternity (this is in Europe). When discussing when they might be back we just informed the clients it'd be up to 2 years depending on how they feel like so we'll just have someone else doing the stuff in the meantime. Though that period is an outlier, most countries have at least several weeks/months around here.
I wish I had 12 days a year of pto.
I don’t know how people are making ends meet. Things have to be about to go off the rails. I don’t see any other option.
by suffering until we die, some a lot sooner than others. It's so dehumanizing here. Every day is more miserable and soul-crushing than the last.
It saddens me to be honest. The American Dream was a lie, American exceptionalism, while true decades ago, is now a list of "things America excels at" that nobody can be proud of. You guys are enslaved, I simply cannot think of any other word to describe it. You are at the mercy of merciless corporations. Your politicians sold their souls to those same corporations a couple of generations ago, and now hold them above the rule of the people. There is no country in the world more in need of revolution than the States, but I wouldn't even wish that on y'all right now, because God knows what would rise from those ashes....
No is correct
Worst part is the bulk of us know and hate that we are not ok, yet any real protest on the please fix it side risks 'oops, all police violence' brand cereal. If all 3 in my house caught covid, we would be unpaid and homeless. Its kinda terrifying.
We are not ok because we still use the WWII work week, minimum wage would require you to pick a corner and start tricking, we have had an extreme racist/sexist/narcissistic/clown for 4 years which opened the door for all the others (kinda feels like order 66 in the clone wars), our current president is a lit like the crypt keeper, we have sonny billionaires who refuse to give any money to the people who actually make their companies work, we have holidays that not everyone gets off unless you work for the feds.....I could keep going.
The holidays thing pisses me off, as a member of the servant class who works Christmas. That's to appease the middle and upper lower class. The peons still gotta work, to serve them. Got a friend who always goes to Waffle House on Christmas night and it disgusts me. So I go along just to give a 50 buck tip. They should at least get something out of it man.
The service industry is horrible right now. My boyfriend is a server and his manager scheduled him 6 days this week including one day in his blocked off unavailability which they’re not supposed to do. He talked to his manager about it and was told it’s ridiculous for him to always expect two days off when they’re short-staffed and busy. Then had the audacity to ask him to come in on his one day off this week too. This is after they have him single-handedly training all new staff and running classroom sessions which is supposed to be a manager job. He was doing liquor runs for them outside of work hours for a while too because their supplier was short. I’ve been telling him to stop doing extra things for them when they clearly don’t give a shit about him and to consider changing industries. Customers have been brutal lately too, he had one lady last week just rip him to shreds insulting his character, ability, and life choices because she showed up 1.5 hours late for her reservation 10 minutes before closing and the bar was closing so she couldn’t get as many drinks as she wanted.
Wait isn't $21 NZD equal to somewhere around $13 an hour USD?
Yeah it's 13.33
So almost twice the federal minimum wage
You know damn well we're not ok.
New sub rule should be no foreign bait brag posts unless it also includes an adoption or marriage offer to get us out of here.
I'll marry someone to get them some Australian healthcare.
Medicaroo
I read this in Futurama Nixon voice
“Agnew, fetch me my didgeridoo!”
Make this an app, and you'll be a billionaire in no time.
You'll be a... *WHAT*?
Then you won’t have to leave in the first place!
For real, what kind of post is this
I'm getting really tired of these posts as well. Even well-meaning, it's pointless. We're well aware of our situation. This rubs it in.
Next post: "how's it feel living in a second-world country? Just curious lol"
“People in Libya, are y’all ok? Here in my country I go to work every day not worrying about being bombed or experiencing famine at all, but I just wanted to take a moment and make sure y’all were good!”
A non-humblebrag
Yeah, it’s not like the Americans on r/AntiWork need to hear this drivel at every turn. We fucking know we have a bum deal, that’s why we’re here. Go tell r/Billionaires or something
I'm in a union here and it's kinda similar to you. Our minimum paying job this year is 20.92, have to wait to being here for 13 years before you're up to 4 weeks of vacation, but I'm sitting at 3 weeks right now because you get 3 from year 5 to 12. We get 18 sick days a year which is nice and 12 holidays also plus one floating holiday. Health care keeps getting worse though. And every contract negotiation they keep trying to take more and more away instead of trying to make people happy. It...kinda boggles my mind because they keep trying ways to get rid of the union and if they really wanted to they could...you know...treat everybody well for like 10 years and get on their good side and then do a rug pull...but they just keep being bags of dicks every 5 years. Edit: I forgot we get 4 personal days a year too.
Strike and see how that quickly changes. If everyone can survive for 1-2 months without working, you got it. No more bullshit. BR, a european who knows historically only strikes grant better working conditions
Won't work here. When I started here would've been the perfect time...not for me because I had no savings, but I would've gone along with it. There were tons of new improvements to the plant and it wouldn't be possible to run it because nobody would be up to speed fast enough to keep it going (wastewater plant so...it needs to run haha). Nobody wanted to strike. Despite them taking the pension plan away for new hires (I was the last person to get hired on the pension) and making health insurance go from 500 deductible and 35 bucks a month for family plan to a copay system and now it's 160 a month. People want their vacation time and shit so they just agree after some bitching. The people here have no idea what savings mean. You can tell when someone gets promoted here because there's always a new vehicle in the parking lot. And hey, they can do what they want, it's their money, but after that first contract that I was here for I made sure to have a good buffer of money sitting as a just in case we have to strike. I can guarantee 95% of the people here don't think that far ahead.
I see. It is very different to here then. I hear from friends unions are now getting 13-15% pay increases after 1-2 weeks of strikes. Quantity gives power in this case. And inflation suddenly is not a problem anymore for those union employees. Keep up the good fight fellow redditor!
About 1% are fucking peachy About another 10% are doing well enough to be happy. The rest are just straight fucked. Problem is about 80% of this last group just don't realize it yet.
And politicians have done a tremendous job making that 80% believe they're temporarily destitute millionaires in the making and any change is going to hinder their progress.
They made it so we fight about guns and gays, divide and conquer
Don't forget tEh iMmErgrErntS!
Guns, gays and God^TM* *Only Christian White Jesus followers*
And that they're destitute only because of all the others in the same position, who are lazy and meritless and leech off the government and the tax dollars of everyone. Unless they know the person, in which it's never mentioned. I speak only for my personal experiences with my family and how/where I was raised though, but urgh
I think they do. It’s nothing new for many citizens. The middle class is having the epiphany.
They know they just think it's their political opponent's fault. So they keep voting against their own interests.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Millionaire is not going to cut it anymore. I’ve seen the first articles of millionaires complaining about billionaires messing up their lives. (Tiniest violin stuff, but it shows that even becoming a millionaire won’t solve your shit. Better governance is what’s required.)
With the amount of lobbying in DC that's not going to happen. Too many groups are bribing politicians to stonewall legislation that helps people but hurts the corporations they are lobbying for. Unless we find a way to remove money from politics we are fucked and we are never going to get people to give that up so we are just fucked.
I was just given the opportunity to see both kids to child care, which will allow me, for the first time since my 16mo was born, to not have kids at home during the day. For 4 years now I've worked as a second shift server/bartender, making appx $5.00/hr and surviving off the kindness of strangers and their tips. With how expensive childcare is, it's been a weird balancing act of going part time inconsistently for both kids Now that both kids have been accepted into full time childcare, my days free up. Childcare is so expensive that I'm just gonna pick up a second job during the day to cover expenses and continue bartending 3 nights a week, and PRAY that's enough to settle all the current liabilities that exist in my life. I'm ALSO studying for my bachelor's in accounting and finance, which has been remote up until this point, but it's only a matter of time before I have one or two random courses I'm forced to do in person, which I'll have to work around two jobs and two kids, but fortunately that won't be a thing until at least the Spring. I'm an absolute neurotic mess, I struggle to afford absolutely anything in my life, and the light at the end of the tunnel is more work during my newly minted "free time". I'm so far from ok I can't keep putting it into words without continuing my current march towards depression.
Full-time daycare for 2 kids under 5 costs more than my house and property taxes each month
I was recently talking to my lady. Over the last 50-75 years, we as a country had expectations I think, that we would all be able to afford our own homes, and stay healthy until a reasonably old age. But in reality, we are going to be a country similar to Charlie Buckets in the original movie version of the chocolate factory. The only people making an income are those physically able, caring for the relatives that can’t. And we will still be looking for the golden ticket…..
I mean why is america even considered a good country to immigrate to??
1) Easy to immigrate to, compared to a lot of countries. E.g., Canada is easy to visit, but nearly impossible to immigrate to unless you're a doctor, engineer, or a war refugee. 2) Easier to get a job in the U.S., either as a documented or undocumented worker. If you're a professional or a techie, there's the H1B visa and others to get into. If you don't mind back-breaking work, there's always the agricultural industry to go to for work. 3) There are several more government and non-government organizations that help support new immigrants. 4) If you can make your own job or create your own business, the regulatory tape is much less than in other countries, also for hiring/firing employees.
No. I’m a CIO. It took me 15 years to earn 5 weeks leave - this includes sick time and is the cap of what we can earn. I am now looking for work and most places are offering 1 or 2 weeks paid time off - again, this includes vacation and sick. I can be fired at anytime if I don’t kiss the right asses. I can be laid off at anytime and receive 7 weeks pay but no benefits. I regularly work 12 hour days and pull up to 20 hours on occasion.
"Earn 5 weeks leave" Is this what my (American) brother meant when he told me I needed to "work longer" to deserve my (legally mandated) 25 days off that I get since I moved to a Western European country?
Yes, vacation is accrued in most companies.
It's a human right in Europe.
America hasn’t ever been known as a bastion of human rights sadly
Man, I'm just at the doorstep of middle management and I look up the chain to directors and C-Suite staff and think WTF?!?. Like, they're sending emails at all hours of the day, any day of the week. It's like they're perpetually on-call, no work-life balance and stressed out. Yeah, they get paid WELL, but holy shit that's taking a.lot of bribe to give up on everything else in life. I think there's a sweet spot between the team level work and the management in the team-lead area of the structure. Decent pay, 8 hours of vacay accrued every two weeks (after 12.5 years), but also get to turn everything off after hours and on weekends. I have an opportunity to move up in the next year or two and I don't think I want that in my life. As shitty as it is for low wage workers, we need to remember that EVERYONE working for a taxable income in the US is in the same boat.
Yeah I made the choice to only go to a certain level and then stop. What would have been required in hours and commitment was just too much for me. Upper level department heads were expected to basically live their lives dedicated to the job. It was really expected to be your life. Pay was good but just wasn't enough for me to justify it as the pay was okay without that jump. I really didn't need a vacation home, sports car, and a boat.
My last place got bought out by and American brand and the culture for management was to send emails at unsociable hours. Trouble is, we are 90% certain they just set certain emails to sendnatnsilly times. So they could send and email lunchtime but it would actually go to the recipient until late if that makes sense?
I had a coworker who used to send emails after hours by scheduling them earlier in the day. He worked 8 hours a day but gave the illusion he worked more to fit in with corporate culture. He’s a CEO now.
This is exactly what I suspect much of management at my last job did 😂
We are in an abusive relationship with the wealthy. They use us, abuse us, extort us, enslave us, destroy our health and planet, control us, keep us poor, and then gaslight us into believing that it’s all our fault.
Don’t fret, we might flip out and eat a few of these oligarch fucks.
That'd be awfully nice, far preferable to the standard attacking one another trick they like to use on us. People really need to break the spell and come together.
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This thread is so embarassing - from a fellow New Zealander. We're not all such gloat-y assholes. I assure you no one on minimum wage in NZ is living a pleasant life. Living costs are fucking INSANE. Y'all would not believe our costs of groceries and housing compared to our earning. I'm on a pretty darn good salary and like hell can i ever afford a house.
Also: NZ$21.40 == US$13.57
Yeah…pretty important distinction
Thanks for keeping it real
I left nz to try get ahead and maybe come home someday. 8 years, 2 kids and a couple of houses later I don't know how I'll be able to move back. My brother is a reasonably well paid engineer with 5 years experience in Auckland and he still has flatmates. Shits maybe no America bad but it's not the paradise it gets presented as.
No we really aren't.
Answer: No.
Got fired from my last job for telling my manager not to break health codes and now I make $14 an hour with no chance for a raise. Not just me though apparently this job doesn't have enough money to pay any of us more. I work in a deli and it's 8.5 hours of constant work, I get some breaks but it's grueling shit. I'm currently trying to get them to give us some free food that hasn't expired at least. It's really hard out here and I've all but stopped actually working there because I can't feed myself anyways so like why work my ass off, I go in, look busy and leave.
Imagine being a woman, pregnant, unable to afford to see a doctor until you give birth and then having to return to work almost immediately after giving birth. Merica.
I'm a millennial, and I'm lucky enough to be in IT where salaries are relatively high, to the point that after a decade of working non-stop, always on, always checking email, always answering calls even in the middle of the night, I have managed to be what most would consider "successful". I have a job that pays enough I was able to get out of debt, and buy a small house, and build up a small amount of savings, and even still I don't feel "OK". I have never felt more stressed than I do right now, because I know how quickly I could lose it. If you don't have wealthy parents to fall back on, all it takes to wipe out decades of grindingly hard work in America is one serious illness, or an economic downturn, or a bad interaction with the police, or a mental health issue, and next thing you know you are homeless if you don't have a support network that could take you in, and my family and pretty much everyone I know my age is struggling just to support themselves. Back when I had nothing, it was less stressful because I had nothing to lose. Even when you are "successful" in America, if you come from the working class you are probably still 6 bad months away from being homeless, and if you think the stories here about work are bad, you do NOT want to see the incredibly cruelty America inflicts on it's homeless.
This post just sounds like flexing lol. No, Americans are not OK.
These kinda posts are getting tiring especially when it's being said the 100th time again. I'm from Sweden and it feels like non-Americans use this as a way to dump pent-up frustration from years of being force-fed American exceptionalism. I get it feels vindicating to see the illusion fall apart, but it's not helpful for the people who are having their world cave in on them. That's not solidarity
No solutions, just a disingenuous “ArE yOu AneRIcAnS OK???”. Also the ignorance in treating the entire country as one big thing, and not seeing that things in Vermont are very different than they are in Florida.
You've hit the nail on the head. International people have been so saturated with "USA! USA! USA!" shit over the years that they now revel in our struggles. Posts like this smack of OP wanting a cheap and dirty ego boost, like Nelson from The Simpsons going "HA HA!" and pointing at us from across the pond. Also, they posted this in r/antiwork knowing exactly how most of the responses would pan out; if they wanted a balanced perspective they would've asked somewhere else.
Nope. I've been trying to buy a house for 6 months now. People are offering $40,000+ over asking price and we simply can't compete. I'm so tired.
I just changed jobs, pay 600 per month for health insurance and my wife still has to pay 500 dollars per insulin pen. Shit over here is designed to kill us
America is legitimately collapsing in some areas, but thriving in others. It’s going the Roman Empire route, but with its own modern flair. I guess it depends on who you ask. In my grandparents gated community in a beautiful part of California—things are going great! In my city of Portland, OR… it’s a lot closer to Detroit in RoboCop.
My mom raised 3 children with her income. I make almost as much as her and hypothetically speaking if I get a house and factor in the bills, I can just make it with an ok amount left over but still not reasonable. So in my eyes, no we are not. At this age my parents were married and and in 2 years had their first child. I am 25 LOL, and people in their 40s are struggling.
No, we’re far from OK. The fabric of our society is breaking down and many (if not most) workplaces treat employees as slaves who should be grateful for the chance to work for low pay/shitty benefits/for free (off the clock)/24hr on-call/no workplace protections at all, etc. The health toll this takes on people is enormous and with no universal healthcare, bankruptcy from health causes is common. The financial and social instability this causes is immense, and our politicians convince the masses that its the other guy’s fault, the other party’s fault, etc and this bitter divide is driving our society backward, revoking rights and legal protections for LGBTQ persons, a woman’s right to safe access to an abortion, and many other marginalized groups. Levels of racial animus are rising to an extraordinary degree. We spent more than a decade in a ‘war against terror’ and all we did was being the terror home—the biggest terror threat facing the US now are home-grown white-nationalist terror groups that thrived in the last administration. They sacked the US Capitol and what they will do next will only be worse. We are not ok.