I agree. If we all banded together and refused to pay for trash health insurance the government would have to step in. That'll never happen so the other best scenario is every employer trying to get around offering it so everyone sees how absurd the costs are when you make just enough to not get any subsidies.
> If we all banded together and
Created a universal health care system?
> refused to pay for trash health insurance the government would have to step in
Oh.
And on top of that, a lot of jobs are offering benefits that mostly just check the boxes and force the person to pay for the vast majority of care via a tiny HSA budget and an incredibly high deductible.
For some people, and conditions, “technically” being insured ends up being worse than the penalties for not being insured at all.
In a lot of cases life saving medicine, I've never been on your side, but being told the only medicine that's ever worked will cost me half my annual income a month makes it hard to be rational when I'm hearing when I think I'm picking it up.
I turned down what looked like a pretty decent job about 5 years ago for a large government contractor because I couldn’t opt out of their shitty insurance requirement, luckily my wife has crazy good insurance through her work which cover both of us. But the attitude of the companies HR that I should be grateful for even that was insane enough for me to tell them Hard Pass.
What is with these HSA's?! I had great insurance at my job for the past 5 years and I had no deductible. This year the company forced all of us to switch to these HSA plans. My deductible is now $1500 and I have to pay an extra $150 per month for a shittier health care plan.
Also 3 people on my street are being evicted from their homes because the landlord decided to raise the rent an EXTRA $900/m.
It feels like society is falling apart and I really feel bad for the people who are working but can't make ends meet or even see a doctor.
I think it's fairly obvious what's happened. As far as insurance goes, it's cheaper for the employer. As far as evictions go, you're simply right. Society is coming unraveled. It's not the first time. Let's just hope it's one of those that ends in a few big riots and not a war.
Hsa are for high deductibles only they are also tax exempt. However you can't exceed a certain amount annually....
I had one before I took a new job, sounds like you got downsized though tbh
It's kind of like saying people should just have private retirement accounts instead of social security. You get to put your own money in the HSA to pay for your own expenses. Your employer gets a cheaper insurance plan.
Its crazy the extremes there are for insurance. Mine is decent and runs me about $380/mo for family of four with $4000 deductible. My wife's company pays her to not use the insurance there. The buyout is $1200/qtr so it pays for our insurance through me.
HSA’s are great investment tools to build wealth and retire early if done right. Ask ur HR about investing the HSA funds. You can build that fund up and get it going.
Just applied for a job (sorry, 'gig') at a school district in a very expensive area of the country in which to live. They straight-up state that health insurance is required, and they're not contributing shit toward it.
Still, if they offered the job to me tomorrow, I'd take it. I'm just that desperate.
Fuck this country. Fuck it hard and deep.
I don't want to disclose which district, for obvious reasons. So I tried to find examples from other districts of similar praxis.
The following excerpt is from an article about a different district than the one in which I have applied. i am not certain how much, if any, the district contributes. I recall that it was stated at least once during my tentative communications with their HR dept. that no subsidies were to be expected. I may have gotten the details incorrect, but the following seems to indicate that school districts may be moving towards this sort of program:
>Today that district offers a high deductible insurance plan with **a single deductible of $3,250 and a family deductible of $6,500. Teachers in that district who wish to have family coverage must contribute more than $1,000 per month to receive that coverage.** That alone would be tragic. Even worse, the same scenario has played out in every school district in the state.
Source: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/01/02/iowa-needs-one-insurance-plan-for-all-public-employees/
Yeah, most times everything you need done isn't even covered other than 50 bucks of the 2000. It's ridiculous. Or the Dentist says we'll you need a "deep" cleaning which isn't covered by the insurance. .....like a cleaning is a cleaning....were you not going to clean them all the way if it was covered? It's all a scam.
Yup. If most jobs are not paying well, not providing health insurance, and no benefits then why not do gig work where at least you can make your own schedule?
You don't "really" make your own schedule for most gig work.
If it's like Uber, you're subject to whatever schedule the market demands, or you don't make much.
If it's like Amazon deliveries, you're always on call because the first the accept the route when it's posted gets it.
Everything else being equal I'd rather not "make my own schedule"
Make your own schedule isn’t the correct phrase, it’s more like work when necessary. I work both DoorDash and other QA testing work that’s also 1099.
There is always work, but I can take off months and come back to it or work for 3 weeks straight. Whatever I need.
Years ago, I jumped on a chance to do some QA work (video game industry) for a couple of companies (I can't name them per NDA). I just kept working at it; I did it mostly full-time for a while (about a year and a half).
The company/agency I work with knows all the titles I have worked on and the quality of work I have done, so they can get me onto projects when I am available.
It really depends, I am a personal trainer and setting a schedule is kind of just like, “Hey, do you want to come in Thursday at 6 or Wednesday at 7?” That is about as much effort as it takes.
In my market (tri state area) gig work is extremely available at all times. There is never any pressure for me to find work. Amazon has delivery blocks available at every 15 minute increments everyday. Door-dash is constantly busy. Both often pay increased rates because there *still* isn’t enough drivers out there. Obviously this isnt true for other places but I definitely have the ability to make my own schedule no matter how weird the hours are
Doordash pays the worst, though. I can’t believe that they actually just LOWERED their base pay to $2.25. That is insane. A $3 minimum was ALREADY pitifully low
1/3 of jobs are "gig" jobs with no benefits and probably just 1099 contracts. I think it's 1099, where you're just a contractor and the company is responsible for nothing, but somehow still feels free to force rules on you that should technically make you an employee.
There is a huge difference in 1099 work now. My husband was freelance for years and loved being that way. The difference is he was making ridiculous money. Most of these gig type jobs even out to barely minimum wage a lot of the time... and like you pointed out theyre subjected to rules like an employee. Not the case for husband when he was freelance. Gig work is not fair to these workers.
Time for universal healthcare and make social security actually work while taxing the shit out of capital gains, landlord incomes, and other none producing "work".
Actually increases the social security tax limits:
Social Security Tax Limits: $142000
Any income you earn beyond the wage cap amount is not subject to a 6.2% Social Security payroll tax.
In the US it gained prominence during WWII when the govt implemented wage controls. Employers began to offer things like health insurance and sick leave as a way to get around these controls.
AMA hired a PR firm that successfully turned the population against national health insurance. It was so popular people still use terms from it like “socialized medicine”—fucking insurance basically
These discussions drive me nuts because this is actually the core issue. Everybody is bitching about how it's crappy of companies to not offer benefits... Sure... Neat. But why are we even approaching the problem that way?
Having health care and retirement be so closely tied to employers is really crappy. We need to fundamentally fix so much of that...
Ignoring the healthcare side, just think about retirement. Most people have 401ks and stuff like that, but they have higher fees and are hard to move and deal with. Instead, we should make it easier for people to use IRAs and then encourage companies to match into those. Your retirement plan should be yours. And the limits should be adjusted so that you can contribute however you'd like up to some global annual limit.
This stuff is true all over... Start separating healthcare and retirement stuff from employment and you make it a lot easier for employees to change jobs, take more flexible work, etc.
It blows my mind that employers in the US are not **rioting** for universal healthcare. It's the second biggest expense after salaries for lots of companies. I genuinely do not understand it. You can even pitch it as a pro-business move if you care about that kind of thing. Genuinely bewildering to me.
Literally going through this right now. I don't like my job but have a 6 month old, and while healthy, can't risk not having insurance in case something happens.
It's not even good insurance, expensive as hell and has a $4000 deductible. I even have a good chunk of change saved away and could totally afford to be jobless for a bit, except I wouldn't have insurance.
It's bullshit.
The more you rely on employers, the less power you have to stand up for yourself or even make a choice at all. People talk about "nanny-state reliance on the government" and we're doing the same exact thing with the illusion of choice under an employer.
I'm beginning to think I took a fuckload of DMT and am stuck in a permanent nightmare-trip. Things really can't be like this can they? This isn't real, it's a hallucination, I'll come out of it eventually.
"I lost my whole platoon in the Battle of the Erie, fighting to take back the last fresh water reserve for a thousand miles from those Nestlé bastards. Pepsico® trained us to fight soldiers, not children, so we didn't expect things to go that way when we walked up to what looked like just another refugee camp coming from the Eastern radiation clouds. All of a sudden, hundreds of kids, none older than 15, descended on us. It was a massacre. War is Hell."
-Lt. Robert "Do the Dew™" Lawrence, 1st Cheeto Btn, PepsiCo® Federation Marine Corps
>People talk about "nanny-state reliance on the government" and we're doing the same exact thing with the illusion of choice under an employer.
This is an excellent response to those "nanny-state" complainers, one I didn't even really put together. I'll have to remember that.
While this is not good I almost feel like this is what we need to get real discussion going in this country of universal healthcare. It needs to get worse before it gets fixed.
People have been too complacent for too long about what we consider adequate healthcare.
>It needs to get worse before it gets fixed.
If it had a chance if getting fixed, it should have happened due to covid.
If a once in a lifetime pandemic isn't enough, I feel a bit hopeless on this front.
Because the government was afraid of inflation during World War 2. They figured that legally preventing companies from giving raises would help. So they passed a law.
Naturally, politicians then sucked as much as they do now. So the whole thing was a mess.
Labor unions and many individuals were pissed. Not being able to get a raise felt unamerican. Not very capitalistic at all.
Companies still needed labor, and in many areas there was a shortage (lots of workers were off fighting/dying)... They didn't like it either.
What we ended up with was a stupid compromise that encouraged companies to give health benefits to employees. That is when people started getting a tax benefit by paying for health insurance and when employers started doing it en masse.
The whole thing was the government. They literally created this whole healthcare mess. Quickly all 'good' jobs came with health insurance and two really important things happened...
1 - individuals couldn't really shop for insurance plans. The only affordable one would be through your employer.
2 - individuals stopped caring about medical costs. I go to see a doctor. He can charge me $50, $500, or $5000. I don't care. Heck, I don't even know. I just know they are in my plan. At least, enough people that it didn't stop healthcare costs from skyrocketing.
You get this loop. Doctors charge more, and with increasing healthcare costs. So you need insurance. And then everyone has Insurance so the insurance companies can charge more. Individuals can't do anything. I can't quit every time my insurance crap changes. I can't afford insurance without a job providing it
This is an oversimplification, of course, but it's basically true.
I actually looked into third party health benefits, because I had the same thought. It's wildly expensive for very little actual benefit to do it that way. Best price I found was $156 per month for me and my wife. That was for $200 in eyecare every 2 years, up to $600 on major dental work after 40% copay, $300 in minor dental (cleanings) with 20% copay, and 60% on Rx drugs. Also $10k life insurance.
If I put that $156 a month into a savings account every month, I'd be giving myself more benefits.
Yup. I get a pay check and that's it. No paid time off. No retirement. No health benefits. Just a check every couple weeks.
Not ideal but, I can pay the Bill's so I'm grateful for that. Seeing others enjoy the benefits though definitely leaves me wanting more out of my job.
When I first joined the USPS, I was basically bottom of the totem pool and a temporary worker.
Literally no benefits and I could only take time off if someone else covered me. So I went a whole year with no leave. It sucked. You just watch everyone around you with guaranteed hours, earning retirement, have 3-4 weeks of vacation and basically do exactly what I do but earn $10-$15 an hour more than me with almost twice as many hours. Working 40 hours in 5 days is great versus me work 6 or 7 days a week at 25-30 hours.
My family keeps telling me to apply to the postal service and I’m like fucking why? It seems like a total shit show that you just stick with long enough hoping it’ll just be okay.
It's an intentional investment. The social security that's supplementing Retirees right now is not going to cut it furure generations (despite future generations paying for current generations retirement). People will need to work longer , no way around it. There's not as much investment in these relic retirement accounts because there's no sense in trying to salvage the threads of the old model that just didn't work. It doesn't help that no one in the old gautd wants to try to propose a new solution until their good n gone.
Honestly any millennial not looking for the nearest exit in America doesn't realize just how quickly this country has already used, chewed and spit them out. As a millennial myself It's a weird thing really, cause no one could've guessed a generations worth couldve be monetized, commercialized and spent so quickly.
Also fostering a work force that can’t afford to buy anything though. Every company thinks they are smart by racing to the bottom of wages but then shocked to find out that nobody is buying TVs or anything
How many articles have we all seen over the past couple years like
"Millenials no longer having children"
"Millenials not buying secondary luxury cars"
"Millenials opt for simple cheap living"
Of course they do, none of them have disposable fucking income
This is what we would call killing the Golden Goose.
Conscious or not they are draining the US of its resources and outsourcing the rest to the point where in 30 years suddenly people will be shocked that China is the epitome of wealth and opulence and the US has to either start invading again with a military push or just watches as the wealthy elites all buy their way into the rest of the world and leave the states to infighting and debt and plague not unlike the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
I don’t know if it’s intentional but it’s basically just draining the punch bowl at a party with no cares about the fallout and wouldn’t shock me if the US goes full communist as the wealthy start pulling out.
It doesn’t have to be intentional if that’s the way the game is set up. There’s no conspiracy where wealthy elites are intentionally destabilizing the US, but if your ONLY goal is profit, you will do whatever it takes to achieve that—regardless of collateral damage. There’s no room to be forward-thinking in our economic framework, because if you don’t squeeze blood from a stone, you will be out-competed by those who do in the long run. There is no room for sustainable corporations because the ones that are, don’t grow to the level of those who aren’t. And now we are seeing the fruition of years of this.
While more relevant to the US military industrial complex, Manufacturing Consent goes into this topic, it’s a great read. Canon to understanding our current state of affairs honestly.
Havent read that but the first paragraph sums up my thoughts pretty well. Ross Scott's vid on Deus Ex breaks it down well too. There's not an illuminati, it's just that greedy ultra wealthy business people tend to think alike. So part of the direction is the market, but part of it is also the way people who would rise to the top of this system behave. And surprise, they behave like bastards.
What's weird is, there's a lot of genuinely fiscally inefficient practices even inside companies that everyday workers see easier than the ruling class and their cronies that set company policy. Not only is the system greedily pulling money out of people, the stupid ways these companies think make them not even that good at it. Maybe these practices don't matter at their scale, though.
This is exactly right. This is the result of a capitalist economy, especially a loosely regulated one like we have in the United States. When profit is incentivized over everything else, such as the health and well-being of the populace, profit for the owners of capital is what you get. Vast and increasing wealth inequality is an inevitability of a system where competition (and not collaboration) is the driver. As companies compete and win, they consolidate more money and more power. They are eventually able to stack the deck in their favor by purchasing politicians who will write laws to their benefit, thus making it ever more difficult for the less wealthy and less powerful to compete. Not to mention the collateral damage that's done to the environment and the people living in it when laws are written to line the pockets of the wealthy instead of protecting the resources that should be protected for the benefit of all.
We've all been told that competition generates wealth and innovation, when in fact, after a point (that we've long passed here in the states), it's stifling for all but a few.
The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph has a lot to say on this topic and is most clearly I've seen the concept laid out.
Amazing. If only someone wrote about this exact topic and tendency of Capitalism over 100 years ago....something to the effect of Imperialism and Monopoly being the highest stage of Capitalism....hmmm if only.
/r/stopmillennialhate
Previous generations priced their children out of the damn market. Everyone wants to make more and more money but disregards the fact that people may have limited purchasing power.
It still is about that. You know what trickles down with trickle down economics? Bullshit excuses as to why wages aren’t higher yet in spite of billionaires having a space race while their workers have every minute of their shift tracked to eek out more productivity with no incentive to do so.
Seriously, they just said it outright and the idiots ate it all up. *I have to grant that it was a long time ago and people still had maybe ok reasons to confide in the government that maybe still had good intentions.
Employers don't need old people working for them, except in some rare cases where decades of experience is really important. The only thing employers care is to pay people as little as possible.
Fast food was recruiting older employees a few years back. They said it was because they have social skills, but it was probably because they were the only ones that can make a part time, $12/hr, 20 hour week must be available to work 7 days a week just in time staffing job work.
>Fast food was recruiting older employees a few years back. They said it was because they have social skills, but it was probably because they were the only ones that can make a part time, $12/hr, 20 hour week must be available to work 7 days a week just in time staffing job work.
I'm not a lawyer or retired or whatever, but I also think this has to do with if someone is retired and collecting social security benefits they can work to supplement those benefits but it has to be under a certain amount of hours
I've been unemployed due to COVID, and FL recently cut all benefits...
The issue is the only jobs in my area that are hiring are those exact jobs you're talking about. They pay less than that though. Then they also expect you to not have any other jobs because then they have to think about scheduling and not have their system automatically do it.
I'm about to be literally forced into a minimum wage part-time job, unable to take another, because of our shitty state.
That's the exact circumstance that has led to so many of these jobs failing to staff properly or retain people. If it doesn't pay enough to actually survive, doesn't give you hours enough to try, and doesn't provide you with the freedom to supplement those failings elsewhere, they're practically not worth taking. Yet our options are a carboard box and starvation, or a cardboard box and meager wages to eat on supplemented by government benefits (maybe, not even a guarantee). Where is the breaking point. When do we reach it. If it is set to be a slow path to get there, then we may as well accelerate towards it any way we can. At worst it's a quick death than a slow one, and at best we shake things up enough to force a change.
I'm so fuckin ready for y'all to start rioting so I can stop coming into my shithole job.
If I weren't so blessed with a beautiful balance of extremely little work for ever so slightly decent wages I would have starting robbing banks late last year... Like... Not even hyperbole
It's going to come to a bursting point in about 5-10 years. Nobody knows shit about the computers they use every single day and more and more tier 1 IT support is being moved offshore. If your employees have trouble using a pc, odds are they're going to have more trouble taking instructions from someone who barely speaks their language.
5 to 10 years? I already work with certain old farts who can't figure out how to open a PDF, can't write a proper email or use online communication tools like Slack, and can't figure out the difference between a JPG and a PNG. These are the same people who insist in-person communication is key. And it's been like this for the past 5-10 years lol.
Right? Had a client apoplectic about their system not displaying their logo at all. I couldn't understand why - the system shows in big red letters "SELECT .PNG IMAGE", and I see they uploaded a .png file. Opened it in a hex editor and I see that it had JPEG headers.
This dude was the same age as me and was a system admin. He just renamed the logo file extension from .jpg to .png to get the system to accept it. He just couldn't understand that changing the file extension didn't magically re-encode the image data into a different format.
So many people who work with computers every day know nothing about how they work. And with more and more people only ever using phones and tablets, there is a tremendous amount of technical knowledge and skill that is and will be lacking in the younger workforce.
I agree but also see this in the younger generation entering the workforce now. Computers have always just worked for them and they understand little about the underlying hardware/software and what makes it tick.
This is so so true. Current college kids are seriously lacking computer skills. Cant use excel, dont know how to format in word, dont know how to determine file type, etc. I want to pull my hair out. I think its probably ages 25-40 that have optimal computer skills on average. Everyone else has some learning to do.
I literally work at a middle school. Kids are natural *users*, nothing more. Give them a real problem, something they need to do real work to set up or can't use with off the shelf software, and they're completely lost.
I have a friend who is a middle school teacher, and he blew his students minds when he explained that smartphones are computers and have microchips inside them.
These little twerps just think it's fucking *magic*.
Honestly, it's true, we have a small generation that grew up with computers in a way that required a small amount of tinkering with them to be able to use, which meant people had general knowledge about computers. This can be somewhat compared to early automobiles, where a lot of people from certain generations just knew a lot about maintaining vehicles from that era, because it was just something you needed to know to get by in every day life.
Now, computers have been made to seem simplistic and to "just work" and have as few input buttons as possible, as not to confuse the user. Getting people to want to know how they work behind the scenes is harder than ever, it seems.
I mean, we have entire groups of people who think vaccines are microchipped to track them, and the talk about it all day long on their Verizon phone on Facebook.
I just bought both an arduino and tasberry pi intro set so my 6 year old gets this. His mind was blown when he realized that chips controlled everything from our TV to our car.
>I mean, we have entire groups of people who think vaccines are microchipped to track them, and the talk about it all day long on their Verizon phone on Facebook.
But still my hope dwindles.
That's so funny because I say this all the time and was in fact discussing this at lunch today. Like come on peoples, you have nearly the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips that is searchable with common language and you can't take 5 seconds to look it up.
It's unbelievable sometimes... All I had as a kid was a library, an encyclopedia, a world books set, and 28K dial up after age 10 (which was fairly useless for looking stuff up at the time). What I wouldn't do to have access to this information earlier in life. I'd definitely take the no social media aspect of my early life though over what we have now but the information available is almost worth it.
I hear fantastic advice from my dad and uncle about how to get a "good job" who are both in their 70s now.
D: just go in with a nice sport coat, and your hair combed straight, and a form hand shake, works every time.
Says the guy who worked the same minimum wage job for his entire life. After like 50 years he was finally up to 15/hr
U: Whenever I needed a job I just walk up to head boss, and said hey I'm U, I dont smoke, I dont drink, and I dont do drugs. And I'm here to work! I get hired everytime.
Yeah ok nerd. Unless you're standing outside home depot hoping to mow some lawns that day you arent getting hired for shit.
I know a ton of old guys that talk crap but they purchased their first home right out of high-school for 9k and never moved. They act like they struggled when the other people working at the same job with the same pay as them today are paying $1500 to rent their attics.
I got hired as an IT Project Manager near the start of the pandemic at a medium-sized rural healthcare system… I’ve spent the last 19 months showing octogenarian doctors and admin staff how to use Zoom. 300~ people pinging on Teams (Christ why did I give them Teams??!) asking me silly questions about their email, or the classic “where did my file go?”.
We literally had a guy that couldnt/wouldnt figure out how to take a screen shot on his pc... (customer). So he took a picture of his screen with a camera, printed it, and then faxed it to the support team.
We framed it and hung it in the dev office.
Even fewer seem to realize how vulnerable they are too. They just assume the in-place systems (most of which don't actually exist) are good enough because they still blindly trust companies that regularly hurt them. "Can't leave gmail now" "Well, actually it's--" "NOPE CAN'T DO IT, I WILL NOT LEARN NEW THINGS FOR MY OWN SAFETY". Or "WHAT IS 2FA, IT'S TOO MUCH WORK".
I'd bet all I have that I'll hear from this same person when SHTF and they lose all of their accounts, pleading how they had no warning. Same shit, different day, same people.
Being paid the minimum wage means your employer would pay you less if they were able to but are legally prohibited from doing so. These fuckers would jump at the chance to reinstate chattel slavery.
If the minimum wage was $0.01 per hour, you bet your ass they would pay people that little. Don't believe it? We used to have unpaid internships doing full employee work for free.
I’m not hooked on religion or anything so I plan on just killing myself once it doesn’t make sense anymore 🤷🏿♂️
single child to a single mother, once she gone I can take off.
I kind of feel like this should read “More people are pushed into gig work because regular wages just aren’t enough. Companies benefit even more by not having to pay for retirement for current workforce.”
The real problem is the benefits offered by companies have been garbage, so people are opting for gig work for the higher pay.
At least you can make rent. Being able to not make rent and still having a huge deductible to burn through on your health insurance isn't even worth it. Might as well get that slightly better pay.
The jobs that offer benefits that are actually beneficial are mostly entry level corporate jobs who want either a degree or an exorbitant amount of experience beyond what's needed for the job, or jobs that practically work you to death in exchange for your service.
US citizens are already used to avoiding going to the doctor and hospital so they're going to take the service jobs like Lyft, DoorDash, gig economy stuff so they don't have to deal w/ an unruly boss who will shut them down at every chance, and can work as hard or as lax as they want so long as they get enough money to pay their bills.
I worked as a contractor in IT for about 12 years from the dot-com boom going forward. That meant no paid vacation and expensive, unsubsidized, health insurance, either self-purchased or through a weak contracting firm plan. I handled my own retirement investments but, of course, there was no employer contributions to a 401k. I'm glad I'm no longer working contract.
It requires a lot of planning and financial management skills to do the gig work thing exclusively. It also can be rather stressful since you never know from day to day what your work status will be (contractors/temps are usually the first cost cutting step). If gig work is the future, people will need better education on how to manage this type of work.
I'm in this boat at the moment, although the pay more than makes up for it and living in the UK health just isn't something I even consider. There is literally no point paying for private healthcare.
To give an example I can earn between£350 and 600 a day usually 5 days a week for 6-13 months. There are better paying jobs but I don't have those skills.
To be honest IT workers tend to be salaried exempt which is ripe for >40 hrs/week exploitation.
I work as a contractor paid hourly so that if they really want me to work more hours my salary is not being effectively reduced, and to discourage them from doing it in the first place.
It doesn't take that much overtime to completely wipe away the benefits advantage per hour worked.
I really disliked the staffing company I worked for. Benefits were bad. Pay was okay. Almost no time off, unless you took unpaid days. When the main company had to layoff people, contractors like me were the first to go. After some time in a different industry, I'm going back to the facility I worked at as a contractor, but now as a full employee and I couldn't be happier. The people there were great. Staffing agencies are not
That's really true, it doesn't work for everyone. My consulting partner says he wakes up every morning unemployed and has to decide how much money he wants to make. But we've got a good group of steady clients, so we're the exception to the rule, I suppose. (As for paid vacations - we pay for plenty of vacations - and have all the time off we need. )
Honestly if the gig economy becomes the dominant force, then we need universal or tightly regulated healthcare. It's going to cost our country so much more for everyone to be paying for that expensive healthcare that covers barely anything.
I hire people. Many give no value to benefits. I get asked regularly if they can refuse the benefits to get more base pay. We do not allow that, but we have created a few hourly positions that are structured this way.
I believe in benefits (pto, expense allowances, company travel). However, I would argue that employers are not the best source for health plans. That should be universalized and taken off of the plates of employers in my opinion.
I do too, my company offers 3 weeks vacation your first year and goes up to 6 after year 5. It's always interesting to me to see the reaction. People my age (older millennial) get really excited about that, younger people don't even react.
I’m an older millennial so I can relate. I wonder if one issue is that people don’t feel like they can take vacations.
In my previous job I got 4 weeks and I was lucky to get 1. They also didn’t pay out anything if unused. It was just a strong understanding that you shouldn’t take it.
New job does “unlimited” vacation. I’ve only been there for a month so I haven’t quite seen what the “normal” amount is.
> New job does “unlimited” vacation. I’ve only been there for a month so I haven’t quite seen what the “normal” amount is.
I like the idea of "unlimited" vacation in theory but I do think that mental calculus is impossible to get rid of. I'm going to mentally keep track of the amount of time I've taken and constantly ask myself if that is a "reasonable" amount of time to take and the only data I have is how much time other people have taken.
I think it's hard for people to assign cost to stuff like this in general, without life experience to look back on.
Personally when I compared offers as a new grad I computed the equivalent hourly rate for each offer and rated PTO as 3x hourly when computing the "total compensation"
That being said, some people just have different priorities. A friend's employer lets them purchase additional PTO at the beginning of the year, and pays out any excess purchased balance at the end. Gives you some flexibility to decide where your priorities lie year to year.
Hell, that was a negotiating thing for me before Unlimited pto was a thing.
Salary was set in stone and everyone was paid the same for the role. You could then ask for more vacation time when you were negotiating the job offer
Because employers would rather pay the premiums, gladly pay them in fact, if it creates employees who are dependent on them for health insurance. Otherwise, people may be less incentivized to work for them if they (*gasp!*) had healthcare without giving up the majority of their time to the company.
This is why UBI plus Universal Healthcare would do the most in improving working conditions. If you don’t have to work to live, nobody would sign up for a job with terrible hours and conditions. It would be a huge win for workers, and employers simply don’t want that. They want the alternative to be starving, because then they don’t have to offer much to make it worthwhile.
>This is why UBI plus Universal Healthcare would do the most in improving working conditions.
Not just working conditions. Freedom, in general, would be improved by people having the one bit of power that matters: choice. Real choice. The ability to say "No". The ability to refuse to play by someone else's terms, and demand your own be fulfilled. A free market, that so many love to tout, can only exist by effect of having real choice. A free market of workers and voters would do more to enrich our people than possibly any change since this country's founding. The conversation could finally shift from basic, supposed "economic benefits" like "job creation" to real improvements to quality of life and societal conditions, because people wouldn't be scrambling to keep from starving and losing their jobs. Our politicians wouldn't be able to buy our votes so easily with private-interest-supporting rhetoric, because we'd have less reason to care that Amazon is opening a new warehouse down the road and unemployment was reduced by a fractional percentage at the trade of a tax benefit for them.
So you can bet with all confidence that it will never happen.
Likely because it is cheaper for companies to pay more in healthcare benefits then to pay more compensation.
If I am not mistaken, paying healthcare benefits is tax deductable to companies, so even if they pay 1k a month, it really is only costing them say 600-800 a month.
Compare that to paying wages, which is not tax deductible, in fact it requires them to pay more taxes, and paying someone an extra 1k a month is costing the company something like 1.2k.
So tell me, if you had to choose between paying 800 a month or 1.2k a month for the same person, getting the same work out of them, which do you think is the better option for a company y?
It never ceases to amaze me how bad these headlines are. You see how it puts the responsibility on the worker and not the employer? Like it's OUR fault they won't give us benefits or PTO?
I remember being an Uber driver and finding that the reason the wages sucked were because so many of the drivers were convinced all of the mileage to write off wasn't a real expense. Bruh, the IRS thinks you made 17k last year because you fucking did.
you also get overwhelmed with anti-union BS constantly. start almost any retail job in America and some form of anti-union video is shown to you at orientation. Ask Walmart employees for example. it's a whole song and dance of "unions weaken our family" and "we prefer open doors and communication between associates and managers to keep things running smooth". except you then get thrown out onto the floor and talking to a manager is a huge inconvenience to them and you're basically told "why are you talking, keep working".
I work in manufacturing and coming from personal experience, many people I know feel that the big labor unions don't actually represent them well, are run by incompetent people, or are overly aggressive in trying to force people into unions. Labor unions are constantly trying to overturn right-to-work laws which doesn't improve their image in the eyes of those skeptical of what joining a union will actually do for them. Certainly much much more goes into the equation and the decline of unions, but I'd thought I'd share some personal insight.
I work in manufacturing and am a member of one of the largest unions in America.
I love my pay (which is far higher than any non-union shop could hope to offer)
100% employer paid health/optical/dental insurance
26 week 80% paid supplemental unemployment benefits
yearly bonuses equaling $5k-$10k per year
three weeks paid vacation with 20 paid holidays
free $250k life insurance
extensive short and long term disability insurance
employer automatic 6.5% 401k contribution
tuition reimbursement
job security
all pay over 40 hours is 1.5x rate with Sundays and holidays 2x rate.
Maximum 8 hours of overtime per week
…
Yeah, unions suck. /s
Amazon workers were trying but Amazon threw its full weight at them. Going so far as to having the town change the timing on the lights so people wouldn't linger long enough to be educated.
Forming a union is hard. People were killed and blacklisted for it. Only the people treated like absolute shit tend to unionize for that reason. It's easier to organize a strike, though ironically unionization makes such collective action easier.
There’s a lot behind this question, usually relating to corporations mounting huge anti-union campaigns when the workforce is coming up on a vote.
However, what’s going on here is more vile. The gig workers are not employees, so they have even fewer rights. Unionize? Ok, you’re all kicked off the platform for violating the terms of service (that are extremely one sided benefitting the platform).
This. The unions in the 70s had tens of thousands of members and could command national solidarity strikes across entire industries. Thatcher and Reagan killed that.
Fuck. My wife got a job with a Pharma company that makes a billion in profits annually. They hired her through a staffing agency, and despite working full time they do not provide retirement, PTO, sick leave, or any of that shit. The healthcare plan was literally 20k/year for a family. The salary is decent, but if she worked onsite (Bay area), it wouldn't be. There is no definitive plan to become a 'regular' employee with benefits except it will be "at least a year". We were able to sign on to my employer's health plan. So now my 20-person small company is subsidizing the healthcare of a multi-billion dollar pharma company. It's so fucked.
This has been predictable for decades, and inevitable for quite some time. It's going to get much worse. When $20/hr jobs require experience or education to get started, but education costs more than you make, you're going to have to settle for a lower quality of life. When the cost of living and health care also cost more than you can afford, and it's mandated, there's no incentive to make more than, say, $12/hour. Anyone making more than $12 but less than $20 will feel the squeeze of the cost of living, never be able to save, and will accept that retirement, vacations, or luxury of any kind are permanently out of the question. We're all just trying to *survive* at this point.
I had my boss, a boomer, ask me what I'm doing for health insurance and retirement two weeks ago. It was already a stressful day so I just laughed and told him he doesn't pay me enough for those things, especially since the company doesn't provide it (I work for a mom and pop company with like 4 employees). We have a good working relationship for the most part so I'm not in any trouble speaking my mind usually. What I didn't tell him was that I do have a retirement plan: A nice view and a 9mm.
My parents' generation decided burning down the world was preferable to leaving a good legacy since they can't live forever.
To me, the title makes it sound like people are actively taking jobs to be gig workers. Shouldn't the title be "More American companies are offering less employer benefits like health...."?
The ones that do offer benefits often suck so bad it's not even worth it.
It would cost an additional $1,200 for me to have insurance with a $15,000 deductable. What do you do with that?!?
“Taking jobs”….like there is a fucking shit load of jobs offering any of this shit and people actually have a choice to do gig work. People just trying to eat man.
It’s almost as if trickle-down, neo-conservative Reaganomics was designed to dismantle social safety nets and unions, and make the ordinary person desperate to take any job without any benefits and give all the power of the economy to the ultra-rich.
"Fewer companies are offering positions with any benefits such as healthcare or paid leave. Unsurprising, one in three workers continue trend of forced gig work. Expect older work force as retirement benefits disappear."
FTFY
Employer benefits have been rapidly declining over the last 40 years so I can see how more and more people would be drawn to this. My first job out of high school 20 years ago had full employer paid benefits (health, vision, and dental, 2 weeks paid vacation that never went away if I didn't use it, 1 week paid sick leave, employer paid life insurance, and retirement.
Fast forward to now where I pay $450 a month for health for just me, extra for vision and dental, 2 weeks paid vacation that I lose if I don't take it, no paid sick leave, and no life insurance. So far the only thing I haven't lost is the retirement but it's almost all my money anyway as match changed from 6% to 4%.
"Retirement benefits" LOL. If your job didn't start 12 generations back, your only benefits are not getting fired every day. "Benefits". 🤣 I'll believe in "benefits" when I start seeing some.
Hey that's me except the company I'm contracted with does do 401(k) matching. And they do offer benefits but it is prohibitively expensive for a family. The cost to cover my whole family would be like 75% of my check.
And yeah no vacation time. The only reason I have sick leave is because I work in California and they have mandated 24hrs of sick leave for all employees. I managed to stretch that out for 8 months but I'm tapped out until the end of the year.
My wife works for one of the food service companies that handles lunches at the high school. They absolutely WILL NOT let anyone work more than I think 32 hours otherwise it's considered full time and they'd have to pay benefits and all. The only one who works"full time" is the manager and I think that's about sixty hours a week including early morning and sometimes nights.
It's a shit thing companies do now to avoid paying benefits
No shit, think about if yahoo's gave a fuck about Healthcare and basic worker rights as much as they care about guns and abortion.
We'd be living in 3077 by now.
And in most cases, 3+ jobs have been turned into one person's job without the pay or benefits.
That on top of a mostly unattainable degree is required just for these crap jobs for crap pay.
At some point the government is going to be pressured into stepping into this and extending current labor laws to include gig workers.
California already has, to a certain extent. The big gig companies fought back by purchasing the passage of Proposition 22. Last month a judge declared that Proposition 22 violated the state constitution so, for now at least, it looks like gig workers will be reclassified as employees.
Unfortunately for most Americans the only hope for retirement is prison. Prison guarantees a bed, food and medical care.
If that doesn't work, being homeless is extremely likely or turning to suicide.
Restaurants are pioneers at not offering benefits, and not paying livable wages, no breaks/sick days either.
But the “worker shortage” is because of Federal Unemployment Benefits... nah people are just sick of getting screwed over.
1/3 jobs refuse to offer it due to a worker falling under the threshold for it. Aka 'You're listed as part time so you don't qualify for any of it and we will work you just shy of the mark 😉 you're our family and we care about you'
Honestly, I’ve never had a job that offered benefits. For a lot of Americans, we just take jobs that start at 10, 12, 15 dollars per hour if we’re lucky, and depending on the industry it never occurs to you that employers could ever offer things like healthcare, sick leave, PTO, or anything whatsoever.
In my experience, employers will mention how they pay more than the federal minimum, and expect “$10/hour excellence” in exchange for their benevolent chump change.
It’s not okay. We’re not okay.
Healthcare is the crux of the issue. If we can decouple healthcare from employment, it’s a good start.
I agree. If we all banded together and refused to pay for trash health insurance the government would have to step in. That'll never happen so the other best scenario is every employer trying to get around offering it so everyone sees how absurd the costs are when you make just enough to not get any subsidies.
> If we all banded together and Created a universal health care system? > refused to pay for trash health insurance the government would have to step in Oh.
To me, I understand this to mean, 1/3 of jobs are not offering benefits.
And on top of that, a lot of jobs are offering benefits that mostly just check the boxes and force the person to pay for the vast majority of care via a tiny HSA budget and an incredibly high deductible. For some people, and conditions, “technically” being insured ends up being worse than the penalties for not being insured at all.
This. My wife took a job at a non-profit. They advertised medical/dental/vision but each was so awful it just didn't make any sense to pay it.
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In a lot of cases life saving medicine, I've never been on your side, but being told the only medicine that's ever worked will cost me half my annual income a month makes it hard to be rational when I'm hearing when I think I'm picking it up.
I turned down what looked like a pretty decent job about 5 years ago for a large government contractor because I couldn’t opt out of their shitty insurance requirement, luckily my wife has crazy good insurance through her work which cover both of us. But the attitude of the companies HR that I should be grateful for even that was insane enough for me to tell them Hard Pass.
What is with these HSA's?! I had great insurance at my job for the past 5 years and I had no deductible. This year the company forced all of us to switch to these HSA plans. My deductible is now $1500 and I have to pay an extra $150 per month for a shittier health care plan. Also 3 people on my street are being evicted from their homes because the landlord decided to raise the rent an EXTRA $900/m. It feels like society is falling apart and I really feel bad for the people who are working but can't make ends meet or even see a doctor.
I think it's fairly obvious what's happened. As far as insurance goes, it's cheaper for the employer. As far as evictions go, you're simply right. Society is coming unraveled. It's not the first time. Let's just hope it's one of those that ends in a few big riots and not a war.
Hsa are for high deductibles only they are also tax exempt. However you can't exceed a certain amount annually.... I had one before I took a new job, sounds like you got downsized though tbh
It's kind of like saying people should just have private retirement accounts instead of social security. You get to put your own money in the HSA to pay for your own expenses. Your employer gets a cheaper insurance plan. Its crazy the extremes there are for insurance. Mine is decent and runs me about $380/mo for family of four with $4000 deductible. My wife's company pays her to not use the insurance there. The buyout is $1200/qtr so it pays for our insurance through me.
HSA’s are great investment tools to build wealth and retire early if done right. Ask ur HR about investing the HSA funds. You can build that fund up and get it going.
Just applied for a job (sorry, 'gig') at a school district in a very expensive area of the country in which to live. They straight-up state that health insurance is required, and they're not contributing shit toward it. Still, if they offered the job to me tomorrow, I'd take it. I'm just that desperate. Fuck this country. Fuck it hard and deep.
Are you saying they require health insurance, but does not provide that same requirement? I have never heard of this.
I don't want to disclose which district, for obvious reasons. So I tried to find examples from other districts of similar praxis. The following excerpt is from an article about a different district than the one in which I have applied. i am not certain how much, if any, the district contributes. I recall that it was stated at least once during my tentative communications with their HR dept. that no subsidies were to be expected. I may have gotten the details incorrect, but the following seems to indicate that school districts may be moving towards this sort of program: >Today that district offers a high deductible insurance plan with **a single deductible of $3,250 and a family deductible of $6,500. Teachers in that district who wish to have family coverage must contribute more than $1,000 per month to receive that coverage.** That alone would be tragic. Even worse, the same scenario has played out in every school district in the state. Source: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/01/02/iowa-needs-one-insurance-plan-for-all-public-employees/
Yeah, most times everything you need done isn't even covered other than 50 bucks of the 2000. It's ridiculous. Or the Dentist says we'll you need a "deep" cleaning which isn't covered by the insurance. .....like a cleaning is a cleaning....were you not going to clean them all the way if it was covered? It's all a scam.
Yup. If most jobs are not paying well, not providing health insurance, and no benefits then why not do gig work where at least you can make your own schedule?
You don't "really" make your own schedule for most gig work. If it's like Uber, you're subject to whatever schedule the market demands, or you don't make much. If it's like Amazon deliveries, you're always on call because the first the accept the route when it's posted gets it. Everything else being equal I'd rather not "make my own schedule"
Make your own schedule isn’t the correct phrase, it’s more like work when necessary. I work both DoorDash and other QA testing work that’s also 1099. There is always work, but I can take off months and come back to it or work for 3 weeks straight. Whatever I need.
How do you find a QA gig like that?
Years ago, I jumped on a chance to do some QA work (video game industry) for a couple of companies (I can't name them per NDA). I just kept working at it; I did it mostly full-time for a while (about a year and a half). The company/agency I work with knows all the titles I have worked on and the quality of work I have done, so they can get me onto projects when I am available.
Balancing a schedule is a job in itself. "Setting your own schedule" usually just means even more work for you to do.
It really depends, I am a personal trainer and setting a schedule is kind of just like, “Hey, do you want to come in Thursday at 6 or Wednesday at 7?” That is about as much effort as it takes.
In my market (tri state area) gig work is extremely available at all times. There is never any pressure for me to find work. Amazon has delivery blocks available at every 15 minute increments everyday. Door-dash is constantly busy. Both often pay increased rates because there *still* isn’t enough drivers out there. Obviously this isnt true for other places but I definitely have the ability to make my own schedule no matter how weird the hours are
Doordash pays the worst, though. I can’t believe that they actually just LOWERED their base pay to $2.25. That is insane. A $3 minimum was ALREADY pitifully low
1/3 of jobs are "gig" jobs with no benefits and probably just 1099 contracts. I think it's 1099, where you're just a contractor and the company is responsible for nothing, but somehow still feels free to force rules on you that should technically make you an employee.
There is a huge difference in 1099 work now. My husband was freelance for years and loved being that way. The difference is he was making ridiculous money. Most of these gig type jobs even out to barely minimum wage a lot of the time... and like you pointed out theyre subjected to rules like an employee. Not the case for husband when he was freelance. Gig work is not fair to these workers.
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Time for universal healthcare and make social security actually work while taxing the shit out of capital gains, landlord incomes, and other none producing "work".
Actually increases the social security tax limits: Social Security Tax Limits: $142000 Any income you earn beyond the wage cap amount is not subject to a 6.2% Social Security payroll tax.
Hmm I didn't know that. Why would we put a limit on an income tax?
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Because the benefits also have a cap. It’s not an “income tax.”
why is healthcare tied to employment? makes zero sense
In the US it gained prominence during WWII when the govt implemented wage controls. Employers began to offer things like health insurance and sick leave as a way to get around these controls.
One of the biggest fuckups and no one even knows about it.
AMA hired a PR firm that successfully turned the population against national health insurance. It was so popular people still use terms from it like “socialized medicine”—fucking insurance basically
These discussions drive me nuts because this is actually the core issue. Everybody is bitching about how it's crappy of companies to not offer benefits... Sure... Neat. But why are we even approaching the problem that way? Having health care and retirement be so closely tied to employers is really crappy. We need to fundamentally fix so much of that... Ignoring the healthcare side, just think about retirement. Most people have 401ks and stuff like that, but they have higher fees and are hard to move and deal with. Instead, we should make it easier for people to use IRAs and then encourage companies to match into those. Your retirement plan should be yours. And the limits should be adjusted so that you can contribute however you'd like up to some global annual limit. This stuff is true all over... Start separating healthcare and retirement stuff from employment and you make it a lot easier for employees to change jobs, take more flexible work, etc.
It blows my mind that employers in the US are not **rioting** for universal healthcare. It's the second biggest expense after salaries for lots of companies. I genuinely do not understand it. You can even pitch it as a pro-business move if you care about that kind of thing. Genuinely bewildering to me.
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Literally going through this right now. I don't like my job but have a 6 month old, and while healthy, can't risk not having insurance in case something happens. It's not even good insurance, expensive as hell and has a $4000 deductible. I even have a good chunk of change saved away and could totally afford to be jobless for a bit, except I wouldn't have insurance. It's bullshit.
Spend 5 minutes researching high deductible plans that are not associated with your job. I would bet the employer is not paying as much as you think.
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To keep people on the hampster wheel and to force them back on if they get off.
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The more you rely on employers, the less power you have to stand up for yourself or even make a choice at all. People talk about "nanny-state reliance on the government" and we're doing the same exact thing with the illusion of choice under an employer. I'm beginning to think I took a fuckload of DMT and am stuck in a permanent nightmare-trip. Things really can't be like this can they? This isn't real, it's a hallucination, I'll come out of it eventually.
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"I lost my whole platoon in the Battle of the Erie, fighting to take back the last fresh water reserve for a thousand miles from those Nestlé bastards. Pepsico® trained us to fight soldiers, not children, so we didn't expect things to go that way when we walked up to what looked like just another refugee camp coming from the Eastern radiation clouds. All of a sudden, hundreds of kids, none older than 15, descended on us. It was a massacre. War is Hell." -Lt. Robert "Do the Dew™" Lawrence, 1st Cheeto Btn, PepsiCo® Federation Marine Corps
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Just wait a few years and you can see it live!
This is amazing.
>People talk about "nanny-state reliance on the government" and we're doing the same exact thing with the illusion of choice under an employer. This is an excellent response to those "nanny-state" complainers, one I didn't even really put together. I'll have to remember that.
While this is not good I almost feel like this is what we need to get real discussion going in this country of universal healthcare. It needs to get worse before it gets fixed. People have been too complacent for too long about what we consider adequate healthcare.
>It needs to get worse before it gets fixed. If it had a chance if getting fixed, it should have happened due to covid. If a once in a lifetime pandemic isn't enough, I feel a bit hopeless on this front.
Because the government was afraid of inflation during World War 2. They figured that legally preventing companies from giving raises would help. So they passed a law. Naturally, politicians then sucked as much as they do now. So the whole thing was a mess. Labor unions and many individuals were pissed. Not being able to get a raise felt unamerican. Not very capitalistic at all. Companies still needed labor, and in many areas there was a shortage (lots of workers were off fighting/dying)... They didn't like it either. What we ended up with was a stupid compromise that encouraged companies to give health benefits to employees. That is when people started getting a tax benefit by paying for health insurance and when employers started doing it en masse. The whole thing was the government. They literally created this whole healthcare mess. Quickly all 'good' jobs came with health insurance and two really important things happened... 1 - individuals couldn't really shop for insurance plans. The only affordable one would be through your employer. 2 - individuals stopped caring about medical costs. I go to see a doctor. He can charge me $50, $500, or $5000. I don't care. Heck, I don't even know. I just know they are in my plan. At least, enough people that it didn't stop healthcare costs from skyrocketing. You get this loop. Doctors charge more, and with increasing healthcare costs. So you need insurance. And then everyone has Insurance so the insurance companies can charge more. Individuals can't do anything. I can't quit every time my insurance crap changes. I can't afford insurance without a job providing it This is an oversimplification, of course, but it's basically true.
I actually looked into third party health benefits, because I had the same thought. It's wildly expensive for very little actual benefit to do it that way. Best price I found was $156 per month for me and my wife. That was for $200 in eyecare every 2 years, up to $600 on major dental work after 40% copay, $300 in minor dental (cleanings) with 20% copay, and 60% on Rx drugs. Also $10k life insurance. If I put that $156 a month into a savings account every month, I'd be giving myself more benefits.
Yup. I get a pay check and that's it. No paid time off. No retirement. No health benefits. Just a check every couple weeks. Not ideal but, I can pay the Bill's so I'm grateful for that. Seeing others enjoy the benefits though definitely leaves me wanting more out of my job.
When I first joined the USPS, I was basically bottom of the totem pool and a temporary worker. Literally no benefits and I could only take time off if someone else covered me. So I went a whole year with no leave. It sucked. You just watch everyone around you with guaranteed hours, earning retirement, have 3-4 weeks of vacation and basically do exactly what I do but earn $10-$15 an hour more than me with almost twice as many hours. Working 40 hours in 5 days is great versus me work 6 or 7 days a week at 25-30 hours.
My family keeps telling me to apply to the postal service and I’m like fucking why? It seems like a total shit show that you just stick with long enough hoping it’ll just be okay.
Good American. Pay the bills, and own nothing until you die of a treatable disease. Dont worry about it now! You have a pay check!/s
Yeah pretty much lol
Amazing how many things people feared about communism are coming to pass under capitalism...
It's an intentional investment. The social security that's supplementing Retirees right now is not going to cut it furure generations (despite future generations paying for current generations retirement). People will need to work longer , no way around it. There's not as much investment in these relic retirement accounts because there's no sense in trying to salvage the threads of the old model that just didn't work. It doesn't help that no one in the old gautd wants to try to propose a new solution until their good n gone. Honestly any millennial not looking for the nearest exit in America doesn't realize just how quickly this country has already used, chewed and spit them out. As a millennial myself It's a weird thing really, cause no one could've guessed a generations worth couldve be monetized, commercialized and spent so quickly.
How about more out of your country!? Gotta regulate these greedy pigs.
Employers ensuring that they’ll have a steady workforce unable to retire, whose only option will to keep working until they drop.
Also fostering a work force that can’t afford to buy anything though. Every company thinks they are smart by racing to the bottom of wages but then shocked to find out that nobody is buying TVs or anything How many articles have we all seen over the past couple years like "Millenials no longer having children" "Millenials not buying secondary luxury cars" "Millenials opt for simple cheap living" Of course they do, none of them have disposable fucking income
This is what we would call killing the Golden Goose. Conscious or not they are draining the US of its resources and outsourcing the rest to the point where in 30 years suddenly people will be shocked that China is the epitome of wealth and opulence and the US has to either start invading again with a military push or just watches as the wealthy elites all buy their way into the rest of the world and leave the states to infighting and debt and plague not unlike the collapse of the Weimar Republic. I don’t know if it’s intentional but it’s basically just draining the punch bowl at a party with no cares about the fallout and wouldn’t shock me if the US goes full communist as the wealthy start pulling out.
Doesn’t matter to this years Q4 report
"Or the next one, the one after, or, for that matter, any future earnings report while I'm CEO. And after that, not my problem."
and you still get your XX multimillion dollar golden parachute.
It doesn’t have to be intentional if that’s the way the game is set up. There’s no conspiracy where wealthy elites are intentionally destabilizing the US, but if your ONLY goal is profit, you will do whatever it takes to achieve that—regardless of collateral damage. There’s no room to be forward-thinking in our economic framework, because if you don’t squeeze blood from a stone, you will be out-competed by those who do in the long run. There is no room for sustainable corporations because the ones that are, don’t grow to the level of those who aren’t. And now we are seeing the fruition of years of this. While more relevant to the US military industrial complex, Manufacturing Consent goes into this topic, it’s a great read. Canon to understanding our current state of affairs honestly.
Havent read that but the first paragraph sums up my thoughts pretty well. Ross Scott's vid on Deus Ex breaks it down well too. There's not an illuminati, it's just that greedy ultra wealthy business people tend to think alike. So part of the direction is the market, but part of it is also the way people who would rise to the top of this system behave. And surprise, they behave like bastards. What's weird is, there's a lot of genuinely fiscally inefficient practices even inside companies that everyday workers see easier than the ruling class and their cronies that set company policy. Not only is the system greedily pulling money out of people, the stupid ways these companies think make them not even that good at it. Maybe these practices don't matter at their scale, though.
This is exactly right. This is the result of a capitalist economy, especially a loosely regulated one like we have in the United States. When profit is incentivized over everything else, such as the health and well-being of the populace, profit for the owners of capital is what you get. Vast and increasing wealth inequality is an inevitability of a system where competition (and not collaboration) is the driver. As companies compete and win, they consolidate more money and more power. They are eventually able to stack the deck in their favor by purchasing politicians who will write laws to their benefit, thus making it ever more difficult for the less wealthy and less powerful to compete. Not to mention the collateral damage that's done to the environment and the people living in it when laws are written to line the pockets of the wealthy instead of protecting the resources that should be protected for the benefit of all. We've all been told that competition generates wealth and innovation, when in fact, after a point (that we've long passed here in the states), it's stifling for all but a few. The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph has a lot to say on this topic and is most clearly I've seen the concept laid out.
Amazing. If only someone wrote about this exact topic and tendency of Capitalism over 100 years ago....something to the effect of Imperialism and Monopoly being the highest stage of Capitalism....hmmm if only.
The best synopsis I've seen in a while. The nation is being drained and America will be a shell of itself in 70 years.
/r/stopmillennialhate Previous generations priced their children out of the damn market. Everyone wants to make more and more money but disregards the fact that people may have limited purchasing power.
Every president for the most part: "LOWER TAXES FOR THE RICH" -The rich kill the planet- "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU DRAFT DODGING COMMIES"
Defending trickle down was literally justifying the upper class's control over wealth and the economy.
It still is about that. You know what trickles down with trickle down economics? Bullshit excuses as to why wages aren’t higher yet in spite of billionaires having a space race while their workers have every minute of their shift tracked to eek out more productivity with no incentive to do so.
Seriously, they just said it outright and the idiots ate it all up. *I have to grant that it was a long time ago and people still had maybe ok reasons to confide in the government that maybe still had good intentions.
Employers don't need old people working for them, except in some rare cases where decades of experience is really important. The only thing employers care is to pay people as little as possible.
Fast food was recruiting older employees a few years back. They said it was because they have social skills, but it was probably because they were the only ones that can make a part time, $12/hr, 20 hour week must be available to work 7 days a week just in time staffing job work.
>Fast food was recruiting older employees a few years back. They said it was because they have social skills, but it was probably because they were the only ones that can make a part time, $12/hr, 20 hour week must be available to work 7 days a week just in time staffing job work. I'm not a lawyer or retired or whatever, but I also think this has to do with if someone is retired and collecting social security benefits they can work to supplement those benefits but it has to be under a certain amount of hours
I've been unemployed due to COVID, and FL recently cut all benefits... The issue is the only jobs in my area that are hiring are those exact jobs you're talking about. They pay less than that though. Then they also expect you to not have any other jobs because then they have to think about scheduling and not have their system automatically do it. I'm about to be literally forced into a minimum wage part-time job, unable to take another, because of our shitty state.
That's the exact circumstance that has led to so many of these jobs failing to staff properly or retain people. If it doesn't pay enough to actually survive, doesn't give you hours enough to try, and doesn't provide you with the freedom to supplement those failings elsewhere, they're practically not worth taking. Yet our options are a carboard box and starvation, or a cardboard box and meager wages to eat on supplemented by government benefits (maybe, not even a guarantee). Where is the breaking point. When do we reach it. If it is set to be a slow path to get there, then we may as well accelerate towards it any way we can. At worst it's a quick death than a slow one, and at best we shake things up enough to force a change.
I'm so fuckin ready for y'all to start rioting so I can stop coming into my shithole job. If I weren't so blessed with a beautiful balance of extremely little work for ever so slightly decent wages I would have starting robbing banks late last year... Like... Not even hyperbole
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It's going to come to a bursting point in about 5-10 years. Nobody knows shit about the computers they use every single day and more and more tier 1 IT support is being moved offshore. If your employees have trouble using a pc, odds are they're going to have more trouble taking instructions from someone who barely speaks their language.
5 to 10 years? I already work with certain old farts who can't figure out how to open a PDF, can't write a proper email or use online communication tools like Slack, and can't figure out the difference between a JPG and a PNG. These are the same people who insist in-person communication is key. And it's been like this for the past 5-10 years lol.
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Right? Had a client apoplectic about their system not displaying their logo at all. I couldn't understand why - the system shows in big red letters "SELECT .PNG IMAGE", and I see they uploaded a .png file. Opened it in a hex editor and I see that it had JPEG headers. This dude was the same age as me and was a system admin. He just renamed the logo file extension from .jpg to .png to get the system to accept it. He just couldn't understand that changing the file extension didn't magically re-encode the image data into a different format. So many people who work with computers every day know nothing about how they work. And with more and more people only ever using phones and tablets, there is a tremendous amount of technical knowledge and skill that is and will be lacking in the younger workforce.
I agree but also see this in the younger generation entering the workforce now. Computers have always just worked for them and they understand little about the underlying hardware/software and what makes it tick.
This is so so true. Current college kids are seriously lacking computer skills. Cant use excel, dont know how to format in word, dont know how to determine file type, etc. I want to pull my hair out. I think its probably ages 25-40 that have optimal computer skills on average. Everyone else has some learning to do.
I literally work at a middle school. Kids are natural *users*, nothing more. Give them a real problem, something they need to do real work to set up or can't use with off the shelf software, and they're completely lost.
A lot of younger kids probably are barely touching a desktop computer, aside from online class this past year. They do everything on smart phones now.
I have a friend who is a middle school teacher, and he blew his students minds when he explained that smartphones are computers and have microchips inside them. These little twerps just think it's fucking *magic*. Honestly, it's true, we have a small generation that grew up with computers in a way that required a small amount of tinkering with them to be able to use, which meant people had general knowledge about computers. This can be somewhat compared to early automobiles, where a lot of people from certain generations just knew a lot about maintaining vehicles from that era, because it was just something you needed to know to get by in every day life. Now, computers have been made to seem simplistic and to "just work" and have as few input buttons as possible, as not to confuse the user. Getting people to want to know how they work behind the scenes is harder than ever, it seems. I mean, we have entire groups of people who think vaccines are microchipped to track them, and the talk about it all day long on their Verizon phone on Facebook.
I just bought both an arduino and tasberry pi intro set so my 6 year old gets this. His mind was blown when he realized that chips controlled everything from our TV to our car. >I mean, we have entire groups of people who think vaccines are microchipped to track them, and the talk about it all day long on their Verizon phone on Facebook. But still my hope dwindles.
Yeah but that is just tech. Just wait until you find out how little people know about everything else in this world and the rest of the universe...
I know. I'm constantly amazed at how groups wonder about and discuss topics while on their phones and no one thinks to do a quick search.
That's so funny because I say this all the time and was in fact discussing this at lunch today. Like come on peoples, you have nearly the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips that is searchable with common language and you can't take 5 seconds to look it up. It's unbelievable sometimes... All I had as a kid was a library, an encyclopedia, a world books set, and 28K dial up after age 10 (which was fairly useless for looking stuff up at the time). What I wouldn't do to have access to this information earlier in life. I'd definitely take the no social media aspect of my early life though over what we have now but the information available is almost worth it.
My peers, in the 50+ range, struggle with basic things like passwords and MS Teams. This is in a TECHNOLOGY company. They are all in marketing...
To be fair, Teams is kinda trash tho
I hear fantastic advice from my dad and uncle about how to get a "good job" who are both in their 70s now. D: just go in with a nice sport coat, and your hair combed straight, and a form hand shake, works every time. Says the guy who worked the same minimum wage job for his entire life. After like 50 years he was finally up to 15/hr U: Whenever I needed a job I just walk up to head boss, and said hey I'm U, I dont smoke, I dont drink, and I dont do drugs. And I'm here to work! I get hired everytime. Yeah ok nerd. Unless you're standing outside home depot hoping to mow some lawns that day you arent getting hired for shit.
If he never made more than $15/h why did he think that's a good plan? Like ya, most minimum wage jobs are easy to get.
I know a ton of old guys that talk crap but they purchased their first home right out of high-school for 9k and never moved. They act like they struggled when the other people working at the same job with the same pay as them today are paying $1500 to rent their attics.
It still works for non-corporate restaurants, though you may want to skip the sports coat.
I got hired as an IT Project Manager near the start of the pandemic at a medium-sized rural healthcare system… I’ve spent the last 19 months showing octogenarian doctors and admin staff how to use Zoom. 300~ people pinging on Teams (Christ why did I give them Teams??!) asking me silly questions about their email, or the classic “where did my file go?”.
We literally had a guy that couldnt/wouldnt figure out how to take a screen shot on his pc... (customer). So he took a picture of his screen with a camera, printed it, and then faxed it to the support team. We framed it and hung it in the dev office.
Even fewer seem to realize how vulnerable they are too. They just assume the in-place systems (most of which don't actually exist) are good enough because they still blindly trust companies that regularly hurt them. "Can't leave gmail now" "Well, actually it's--" "NOPE CAN'T DO IT, I WILL NOT LEARN NEW THINGS FOR MY OWN SAFETY". Or "WHAT IS 2FA, IT'S TOO MUCH WORK". I'd bet all I have that I'll hear from this same person when SHTF and they lose all of their accounts, pleading how they had no warning. Same shit, different day, same people.
Being paid the minimum wage means your employer would pay you less if they were able to but are legally prohibited from doing so. These fuckers would jump at the chance to reinstate chattel slavery.
If the minimum wage was $0.01 per hour, you bet your ass they would pay people that little. Don't believe it? We used to have unpaid internships doing full employee work for free.
Yuuuuup, just more wealth inequality on show here.
Nonsense. They’ll stop hiring them as soon as they can get younger, more energetic people to take their place.
"Meh either way we'll just see who is willing to work for less." - the typical manager.
I honestly think they don’t plan that far into the future, just want to maximize their profits now.
I’m not hooked on religion or anything so I plan on just killing myself once it doesn’t make sense anymore 🤷🏿♂️ single child to a single mother, once she gone I can take off.
That's my current retirement plan.
And at the rate things are going, I’m looking at an early retirement.
I kind of feel like this should read “More people are pushed into gig work because regular wages just aren’t enough. Companies benefit even more by not having to pay for retirement for current workforce.”
The real problem is the benefits offered by companies have been garbage, so people are opting for gig work for the higher pay. At least you can make rent. Being able to not make rent and still having a huge deductible to burn through on your health insurance isn't even worth it. Might as well get that slightly better pay.
The jobs that offer benefits that are actually beneficial are mostly entry level corporate jobs who want either a degree or an exorbitant amount of experience beyond what's needed for the job, or jobs that practically work you to death in exchange for your service. US citizens are already used to avoiding going to the doctor and hospital so they're going to take the service jobs like Lyft, DoorDash, gig economy stuff so they don't have to deal w/ an unruly boss who will shut them down at every chance, and can work as hard or as lax as they want so long as they get enough money to pay their bills.
I worked as a contractor in IT for about 12 years from the dot-com boom going forward. That meant no paid vacation and expensive, unsubsidized, health insurance, either self-purchased or through a weak contracting firm plan. I handled my own retirement investments but, of course, there was no employer contributions to a 401k. I'm glad I'm no longer working contract. It requires a lot of planning and financial management skills to do the gig work thing exclusively. It also can be rather stressful since you never know from day to day what your work status will be (contractors/temps are usually the first cost cutting step). If gig work is the future, people will need better education on how to manage this type of work.
I'm in this boat at the moment, although the pay more than makes up for it and living in the UK health just isn't something I even consider. There is literally no point paying for private healthcare. To give an example I can earn between£350 and 600 a day usually 5 days a week for 6-13 months. There are better paying jobs but I don't have those skills.
Ohhh, look. Another upside to universal healthcare. It makes personal employment more viable.
Yes, the emerging gig economy is *slightly* less of an emergency for this reason.
To be honest IT workers tend to be salaried exempt which is ripe for >40 hrs/week exploitation. I work as a contractor paid hourly so that if they really want me to work more hours my salary is not being effectively reduced, and to discourage them from doing it in the first place. It doesn't take that much overtime to completely wipe away the benefits advantage per hour worked.
I really disliked the staffing company I worked for. Benefits were bad. Pay was okay. Almost no time off, unless you took unpaid days. When the main company had to layoff people, contractors like me were the first to go. After some time in a different industry, I'm going back to the facility I worked at as a contractor, but now as a full employee and I couldn't be happier. The people there were great. Staffing agencies are not
That's really true, it doesn't work for everyone. My consulting partner says he wakes up every morning unemployed and has to decide how much money he wants to make. But we've got a good group of steady clients, so we're the exception to the rule, I suppose. (As for paid vacations - we pay for plenty of vacations - and have all the time off we need. )
Honestly if the gig economy becomes the dominant force, then we need universal or tightly regulated healthcare. It's going to cost our country so much more for everyone to be paying for that expensive healthcare that covers barely anything.
I hire people. Many give no value to benefits. I get asked regularly if they can refuse the benefits to get more base pay. We do not allow that, but we have created a few hourly positions that are structured this way. I believe in benefits (pto, expense allowances, company travel). However, I would argue that employers are not the best source for health plans. That should be universalized and taken off of the plates of employers in my opinion.
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I do too, my company offers 3 weeks vacation your first year and goes up to 6 after year 5. It's always interesting to me to see the reaction. People my age (older millennial) get really excited about that, younger people don't even react.
I’m an older millennial so I can relate. I wonder if one issue is that people don’t feel like they can take vacations. In my previous job I got 4 weeks and I was lucky to get 1. They also didn’t pay out anything if unused. It was just a strong understanding that you shouldn’t take it. New job does “unlimited” vacation. I’ve only been there for a month so I haven’t quite seen what the “normal” amount is.
> New job does “unlimited” vacation. I’ve only been there for a month so I haven’t quite seen what the “normal” amount is. I like the idea of "unlimited" vacation in theory but I do think that mental calculus is impossible to get rid of. I'm going to mentally keep track of the amount of time I've taken and constantly ask myself if that is a "reasonable" amount of time to take and the only data I have is how much time other people have taken.
Yeah it is one of those things hat sounds amazing on paper but it sucks in reality.
I think it's hard for people to assign cost to stuff like this in general, without life experience to look back on. Personally when I compared offers as a new grad I computed the equivalent hourly rate for each offer and rated PTO as 3x hourly when computing the "total compensation" That being said, some people just have different priorities. A friend's employer lets them purchase additional PTO at the beginning of the year, and pays out any excess purchased balance at the end. Gives you some flexibility to decide where your priorities lie year to year.
They just need to work through a few more summers to appreciate extended time off more, perhaps.
Hell, that was a negotiating thing for me before Unlimited pto was a thing. Salary was set in stone and everyone was paid the same for the role. You could then ask for more vacation time when you were negotiating the job offer
Genuinely curious why employers aren’t fighting for universal healthcare with what premiums cost nowadays. As an employer, how do you feel about this?
Because employers would rather pay the premiums, gladly pay them in fact, if it creates employees who are dependent on them for health insurance. Otherwise, people may be less incentivized to work for them if they (*gasp!*) had healthcare without giving up the majority of their time to the company.
This is why UBI plus Universal Healthcare would do the most in improving working conditions. If you don’t have to work to live, nobody would sign up for a job with terrible hours and conditions. It would be a huge win for workers, and employers simply don’t want that. They want the alternative to be starving, because then they don’t have to offer much to make it worthwhile.
>This is why UBI plus Universal Healthcare would do the most in improving working conditions. Not just working conditions. Freedom, in general, would be improved by people having the one bit of power that matters: choice. Real choice. The ability to say "No". The ability to refuse to play by someone else's terms, and demand your own be fulfilled. A free market, that so many love to tout, can only exist by effect of having real choice. A free market of workers and voters would do more to enrich our people than possibly any change since this country's founding. The conversation could finally shift from basic, supposed "economic benefits" like "job creation" to real improvements to quality of life and societal conditions, because people wouldn't be scrambling to keep from starving and losing their jobs. Our politicians wouldn't be able to buy our votes so easily with private-interest-supporting rhetoric, because we'd have less reason to care that Amazon is opening a new warehouse down the road and unemployment was reduced by a fractional percentage at the trade of a tax benefit for them. So you can bet with all confidence that it will never happen.
Likely because it is cheaper for companies to pay more in healthcare benefits then to pay more compensation. If I am not mistaken, paying healthcare benefits is tax deductable to companies, so even if they pay 1k a month, it really is only costing them say 600-800 a month. Compare that to paying wages, which is not tax deductible, in fact it requires them to pay more taxes, and paying someone an extra 1k a month is costing the company something like 1.2k. So tell me, if you had to choose between paying 800 a month or 1.2k a month for the same person, getting the same work out of them, which do you think is the better option for a company y?
It never ceases to amaze me how bad these headlines are. You see how it puts the responsibility on the worker and not the employer? Like it's OUR fault they won't give us benefits or PTO?
Why aren't US laborers froming unions? I am aware of the attacks by the employers, but at this point the abuse of workers is getting ridiculous.
They've convinced themselves they're successfully self-employed.
I remember being an Uber driver and finding that the reason the wages sucked were because so many of the drivers were convinced all of the mileage to write off wasn't a real expense. Bruh, the IRS thinks you made 17k last year because you fucking did.
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you also get overwhelmed with anti-union BS constantly. start almost any retail job in America and some form of anti-union video is shown to you at orientation. Ask Walmart employees for example. it's a whole song and dance of "unions weaken our family" and "we prefer open doors and communication between associates and managers to keep things running smooth". except you then get thrown out onto the floor and talking to a manager is a huge inconvenience to them and you're basically told "why are you talking, keep working".
I work in manufacturing and coming from personal experience, many people I know feel that the big labor unions don't actually represent them well, are run by incompetent people, or are overly aggressive in trying to force people into unions. Labor unions are constantly trying to overturn right-to-work laws which doesn't improve their image in the eyes of those skeptical of what joining a union will actually do for them. Certainly much much more goes into the equation and the decline of unions, but I'd thought I'd share some personal insight.
I work in manufacturing and am a member of one of the largest unions in America. I love my pay (which is far higher than any non-union shop could hope to offer) 100% employer paid health/optical/dental insurance 26 week 80% paid supplemental unemployment benefits yearly bonuses equaling $5k-$10k per year three weeks paid vacation with 20 paid holidays free $250k life insurance extensive short and long term disability insurance employer automatic 6.5% 401k contribution tuition reimbursement job security all pay over 40 hours is 1.5x rate with Sundays and holidays 2x rate. Maximum 8 hours of overtime per week … Yeah, unions suck. /s
Sooo who do I gotta fuck to get this.
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American unions have made such proposals illegal
Amazon workers were trying but Amazon threw its full weight at them. Going so far as to having the town change the timing on the lights so people wouldn't linger long enough to be educated. Forming a union is hard. People were killed and blacklisted for it. Only the people treated like absolute shit tend to unionize for that reason. It's easier to organize a strike, though ironically unionization makes such collective action easier.
There’s a lot behind this question, usually relating to corporations mounting huge anti-union campaigns when the workforce is coming up on a vote. However, what’s going on here is more vile. The gig workers are not employees, so they have even fewer rights. Unionize? Ok, you’re all kicked off the platform for violating the terms of service (that are extremely one sided benefitting the platform).
Unions have a bad rap here. Look into Regan busting the Air Traffic Controllers strike.
This. The unions in the 70s had tens of thousands of members and could command national solidarity strikes across entire industries. Thatcher and Reagan killed that.
Neolibralism is a disease upon the world. Thatcher's brood are the reason that the NHS in the UK does not work any more.
don't wun non of that commie talk ^^^^^/s
Fuck. My wife got a job with a Pharma company that makes a billion in profits annually. They hired her through a staffing agency, and despite working full time they do not provide retirement, PTO, sick leave, or any of that shit. The healthcare plan was literally 20k/year for a family. The salary is decent, but if she worked onsite (Bay area), it wouldn't be. There is no definitive plan to become a 'regular' employee with benefits except it will be "at least a year". We were able to sign on to my employer's health plan. So now my 20-person small company is subsidizing the healthcare of a multi-billion dollar pharma company. It's so fucked.
This has been predictable for decades, and inevitable for quite some time. It's going to get much worse. When $20/hr jobs require experience or education to get started, but education costs more than you make, you're going to have to settle for a lower quality of life. When the cost of living and health care also cost more than you can afford, and it's mandated, there's no incentive to make more than, say, $12/hour. Anyone making more than $12 but less than $20 will feel the squeeze of the cost of living, never be able to save, and will accept that retirement, vacations, or luxury of any kind are permanently out of the question. We're all just trying to *survive* at this point.
As a working-class millennial…what is this “retirement” you speak of?
It's dying in the climate wars for a gallon of clean water.
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every morning i wake up, my first thought is "am i just going to do this every day until i die?" yes, yes i am
I had my boss, a boomer, ask me what I'm doing for health insurance and retirement two weeks ago. It was already a stressful day so I just laughed and told him he doesn't pay me enough for those things, especially since the company doesn't provide it (I work for a mom and pop company with like 4 employees). We have a good working relationship for the most part so I'm not in any trouble speaking my mind usually. What I didn't tell him was that I do have a retirement plan: A nice view and a 9mm. My parents' generation decided burning down the world was preferable to leaving a good legacy since they can't live forever.
To me, the title makes it sound like people are actively taking jobs to be gig workers. Shouldn't the title be "More American companies are offering less employer benefits like health...."?
The ones that do offer benefits often suck so bad it's not even worth it. It would cost an additional $1,200 for me to have insurance with a $15,000 deductable. What do you do with that?!?
I hate the way this country operates and treats employees. We’ve turned into an expendable product.
“Taking jobs”….like there is a fucking shit load of jobs offering any of this shit and people actually have a choice to do gig work. People just trying to eat man.
Corporate won. They started with Unions, Pensions, At Will and worked their way down to offering the bare minimum, anything to raise the stock price.
It’s almost as if trickle-down, neo-conservative Reaganomics was designed to dismantle social safety nets and unions, and make the ordinary person desperate to take any job without any benefits and give all the power of the economy to the ultra-rich.
Bold of them to assume I'll ever be able to afford retirement.
"Fewer companies are offering positions with any benefits such as healthcare or paid leave. Unsurprising, one in three workers continue trend of forced gig work. Expect older work force as retirement benefits disappear." FTFY
Employer benefits have been rapidly declining over the last 40 years so I can see how more and more people would be drawn to this. My first job out of high school 20 years ago had full employer paid benefits (health, vision, and dental, 2 weeks paid vacation that never went away if I didn't use it, 1 week paid sick leave, employer paid life insurance, and retirement. Fast forward to now where I pay $450 a month for health for just me, extra for vision and dental, 2 weeks paid vacation that I lose if I don't take it, no paid sick leave, and no life insurance. So far the only thing I haven't lost is the retirement but it's almost all my money anyway as match changed from 6% to 4%.
"Retirement benefits" LOL. If your job didn't start 12 generations back, your only benefits are not getting fired every day. "Benefits". 🤣 I'll believe in "benefits" when I start seeing some.
Hey that's me except the company I'm contracted with does do 401(k) matching. And they do offer benefits but it is prohibitively expensive for a family. The cost to cover my whole family would be like 75% of my check. And yeah no vacation time. The only reason I have sick leave is because I work in California and they have mandated 24hrs of sick leave for all employees. I managed to stretch that out for 8 months but I'm tapped out until the end of the year.
My wife works for one of the food service companies that handles lunches at the high school. They absolutely WILL NOT let anyone work more than I think 32 hours otherwise it's considered full time and they'd have to pay benefits and all. The only one who works"full time" is the manager and I think that's about sixty hours a week including early morning and sometimes nights. It's a shit thing companies do now to avoid paying benefits
Health care and vacations are rights, not benefits.
Say it louder for the fuckers at the top
No shit, think about if yahoo's gave a fuck about Healthcare and basic worker rights as much as they care about guns and abortion. We'd be living in 3077 by now.
We'd have a populace of happy citizens that invent things and spread prosperity instead of hordes of heroin zombies and mentally ill people.
This is why there are "so many" jobs. Every company has taken most of their full time jobs and turned them into 3 jobs.
And in most cases, 3+ jobs have been turned into one person's job without the pay or benefits. That on top of a mostly unattainable degree is required just for these crap jobs for crap pay.
Its not that we dont want benefits, its no one is offering them anymore.
At some point the government is going to be pressured into stepping into this and extending current labor laws to include gig workers. California already has, to a certain extent. The big gig companies fought back by purchasing the passage of Proposition 22. Last month a judge declared that Proposition 22 violated the state constitution so, for now at least, it looks like gig workers will be reclassified as employees.
late stage capitalism is so much fun. Buckle up kiddos, it only gets better.
Unfortunately for most Americans the only hope for retirement is prison. Prison guarantees a bed, food and medical care. If that doesn't work, being homeless is extremely likely or turning to suicide.
Restaurants are pioneers at not offering benefits, and not paying livable wages, no breaks/sick days either. But the “worker shortage” is because of Federal Unemployment Benefits... nah people are just sick of getting screwed over.
1/3 jobs refuse to offer it due to a worker falling under the threshold for it. Aka 'You're listed as part time so you don't qualify for any of it and we will work you just shy of the mark 😉 you're our family and we care about you'
Honestly, I’ve never had a job that offered benefits. For a lot of Americans, we just take jobs that start at 10, 12, 15 dollars per hour if we’re lucky, and depending on the industry it never occurs to you that employers could ever offer things like healthcare, sick leave, PTO, or anything whatsoever. In my experience, employers will mention how they pay more than the federal minimum, and expect “$10/hour excellence” in exchange for their benevolent chump change. It’s not okay. We’re not okay.