"Cost Of Living"

What is the cost of living? Explain what that cost covers if you're able. Also what is the cost of your current living if you dont mind me asking?

Why don't employers just build housing for its employees to keep so as long as those employee work for them? Then the employers could pay their employees less for doing at least that much for them.

It be cool if upon landing a job you also land a house suited for you if you're single or with a family of your own.

If I were an employer I'd provide housing for my employees as apart of what comes with the job when you come to work for me. It is already that some employers provide company cars for their employees. Well, the same should be done with housing, don't you think?

Originally posted by Tormentations
What is the cost of living? Explain what that cost covers if you're able. Also what is the cost of your current living if you dont mind me asking?

The cost of living is what it takes to survive. Anything over and above that is a luxury. Current cost of living for essentials is about $600.00 a month, not including the luxuries.

Why don't employers just build housing for its employees to keep so as long as those employee work for them? Then the employers could pay their employees less for doing at least that much for them.

No way.......you'd never own anything for yourself, and would lose out on tax benefits!

It be cool if upon landing a job you also land a house suited for you if you're single or with a family of your own.

No way, you'd still have a landord that would tell you what rules you have to abide by, in their space!

If I were an employer I'd provide housing for my employees as apart of what comes with the job when you come to work for me. It is already that some employers provide company cars for their employees. Well, the same should be done with housing, don't you think?

Some companies already do this. I have a friend that got housing through an employer while working out of state. The employer did an unnanounced visit, which cause my friend to lose their job, because they had a friend living there with them. Also, many employees get per diems, which go towards the cost of hotel rooms, etc.

[edit on 12-5-2010 by Blanca Rose]

Originally posted by Tormentations

Why don't employers just build housing for its employees to keep so as long as those employee work for them? Then the employers could pay their employees less for doing at least that much for them.

That's not really a bad idea.

If these multi-national corporations were smart they would use taxpayer bailout money and government subsidies to buy up the millions of empty homes out on the market at foreclosure pricing and then turn around and rent them out to thier employees.

They could pay thier employees less (To cover operating exspenses) and also make a tidy profit on the backend from the employees rental. If they were really smart they would also open up a company store and run any other retail competition out of town.

[edit on 12-5-2010 by In nothing we trust]

The cost of living depends upon where you live, and can vary greatly. The previous poster's assertion that it is $600 a month might be correct for their locality, but it certainly would leave a Californian homeless.

It covers food, shelter, electricity, fuel or other transportation costs, clothing, insurance, medical necessities, dental care, and a small surplus to save or use for entertainment. It must include all things required by law or regulation, i.e., insurance and maintenance for vehicles, clothing standards, etc.

When I was teaching, one of my project teams calcuted the local cost of living and the minimum wage required to represent a "living wage" as defined above. Here, it turned out to be $15.81 an hour for a 40 hour week if I recall correctly. That was about ten years ago.

Company stores and company housing has already been tried, and nearly every time has led to abuse of the employees.

Miners resented the company store for three reasons: prices were much higher than those charged by independent retail stores, their grocery and supply bills were checked off their earnings even before they received their pay, and trading was compulsory. It hurt the miner's pride to know that he was being robbed in the "pluck-me,'' his term for the company store. Responsibility for budgeting family income was shifted from the housewife, where it was in normal households, to the company store manager. Moreover, the debts which a miner piled up in the store bound him as securely to his employer as miners were bound to feudal barons in medieval Scotland....

Many coal corporations issued their own money, which for all purposes took the place of United States currency. This phony money, called scrip, took various forms such as pasteboards, coupon books, paper bills called shinplasters, brass checks, and metal discs with holes through them like Turkish piasters.... In states where the law barred the issuance of scrip, coal companies distributed wage advances or store orders, but the miners regarded them as just another form of scrip.... Chronic layoffs, part-time work, and low wages made the ground fertile for scrip as its purpose was to tide over the miner from one payday to another.

When an operator was unable to expand his mining capacity or the volume of his sales, he would increase the number of his miners. This would so cut each man's working time and earnings that it left no surplus to spend outside the camp. Because of monopoly, there was no limit to the height to which a company store could hike its prices. John McBride, president of the United Mine Workers of America (1892-1894), related how an Ohio coal operator of his acquaintance worked two mines for thirteen months and made a profit of only $287. During the same period his store, which without the mines would have been worth nothing, earned him a net profit of $22,000.

An unscrupulous store-keeping coal operator who sought to undersell the market could do so simply by cutting the price of coal below cost and making up his operating losses out of company-store receipts. It was a competitive device often resorted to, especially in the South, where non-union operators thereby were enabled to take business away from Northern operators.

www.folkarchive.de...

Company provided housing ties an employee to an employer, since losing your job also costs you your housing. If the employee is paid less, he or she is in a much worse position to rent or buy a new one.

Meanwhile, the company will turn the homes into profit centers, use them as colleratal for gambling, and party, party, party on the increased profits.

You didn't think they would lower prices, did you?

Naturally your cost of living is the total expense of housing, food, utilities, clothing and entertainment. People usually calculate this as monthly total. The majority expense as you guessed is housing. Myself, I rent and water is part of that rent and am single so that expense is $355/mo for a studio apartment. What I consider my utilities are electric and insurance, roughly $100-$150 per month (electric heat and cooking, so there is variation). Entertainment (things that can be done without): gasoline $30/mo (company car is why so low), phone $50, cable and internet $100. Then comes food which is roughly $200-$250. So total estimated expenses is $800-$900 per month depending on extravagance and any clothes I happen to buy.

Now a minimum wage job, with no overtime has a take home pay of about $970/mo on average ($7.50/hour x 40 x 4.2 weeks x .77 (taxes) = $970.20. Would a better paying job fix that? Sure but there would be an added expense of additional gasoline costs which fluctuate due to pump prices.

And for the record, companies providing housing and a place to purchase goods and services did exist and were quite common in the early 20th Century as this song illustrates.

There was also a slightly different form of "employer provided benefits" that ended after a large war in 1865.

Things are that much better across the pond either. Sure there is "government provided healthcare" (you pay through the nose in taxes on everything especially gasoline--hence gas costs $7-$8/gallon or more in Europe). Have severely limited freedoms (just try to purchase a gun for home defense in England or purchase/do anything not caught on camera somewhere). I suppose it is better than the old system of fiefdom/serfdom. But really isn't much different when you really look at it.

In fact in all these systems of life, there is a commonality to them all. They are all pretty much slavery in one form or another, it is just we the dupes then to think of ourselves as being free because we can make limited choices that ultimately do not matter one way or another.

Politics is a good example. You can vote for any approved candidate on the ballot or even write in one of your own (in some places). Or automobiles, buy any car that you like, unless you have the money to buy outright you will have to finance through any bank you want (that are all connected to the Fed in way or another) it just means you are not going to be moving away anytime soon (for most people) until that debt is paid.

But it does mean you will be working to pay off that debt for the next 5-6 years depending on the loan. And since income tax is about 25% of your pay on average for minimum wage earners (that already cannot afford a new car--see living expenses above). In fact do some quick easy math there on that 25%, 1 out of every 5 years of income goes directly to good old Uncle Sam.

1 in 5 years or if you think of it this way, from 18 to 68 (retirement with full benefits from Social Security) is 50 years pay, 10 of which go directly to the government without you ever holding it. Now, buy a house on a 30 year loan at good rate would be another 10 years gone. Assuming a new car every 10 years would be another 10 years gone in those payments. So where does the remaining 20 years pay end up? Food, Clothing, Utilities and Entertainment.

Still wondering if you are a slave or not now?