Employment in America....To work or not to work?

Originally posted by ldyserenity

Does the OP honestly think four minimum wage jobs would pay for anything other than in the ghetto to live in NYC?

Screw all that BS take what you can get mantra, or else pretty soon we are china and our kids are back in factories!

Fair enough on the cost of living and another reply mentioned that as well. First, I'm with you in saying that I wouldn't choose to live in New York City with the cost of living. Driving a truck in and out was quite enough at a couple hundred for tolls and $20 per bridge (it's been awhile) to just get to the City Limits sign.

I'd checked the apartment costs at the same time I was looking into employment figures and frankly, it almost made me rethink my position in posting this with NYC as the example. However, given the inspiration for the thread came from things said about the Protesters and the vast majority of those in pictures appear to be in the 19/20 to mind 20's range, I looked again. Now local NYC folk can explain how I may be wrong, but this is how it looked to me.

Apartments for those starting in life looked to be in the $1,200 to $1,500 range. (Source) One can't be too particular starting out. I did see where the average for a comfortable HOME as opposed to a place to simply live early in life ran far closer to $2,000 to $3,000 on apartment rent. As you note though, no one is working min. wage jobs to be particularly comfy in life.

New York Min. is the Federal at $7.25 an hour. (Source) So, 40 hours a week has our example person bringing home $1,160 a month on one job. Hmm.. That isn't going to get an apartment all to one's self to be sure.. Although, living in a park down off Wall Street seems quite acceptable for some, so I'd have to think those $1,500 apartments beat starlight and police floods on concrete.

Two jobs, as my post assumes would really be necessary for independent and half way decent standards of life in the City itself ought to work. Would I choose that life? Nope. We already established I wouldn't live in the pressure cooker of NYC though. To those who do choose it, the sacrifices are real, but obviously acceptable in the trade off or NYC wouldn't be home to millions.

In the end, it's a question of whether jobs exist and can people find work? I believe it's a definite yes...however unhappy the work might make someone. At least in that area, and in the age ranges I had in mind while researching.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


So the solution is to change minimum wage to the real minimum wage. If it costs 1200 dollars a month for a one bedroom apt in new york and 500 a month in detroit. Let the state set minimum wage? Would that be a solution?

We all know it costs more to live in LA rather than Memphis. Should minimum wage be set by state?

Just looking for solutions, economy is awesome to think about and solve. (I'm weird).

woops, never mind...I repeated a link that the OP shared above as a source for minimum wage - sorry. .

reply to post by litterbaux


Minimum wage is already set by the state but must be equal or above the national minimum wage.

As for the OP there's 8.1 millon residents in NY city. If half make up the work force and the unemployment rate is 8.3% that would be over 330,000 people out of work. I don't think 1500 or twice that on CL would make a dent in that unemployment rate.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by litterbaux

 

Minimum wage is already set by the state but must be equal or above the national minimum wage.

As for the OP there's 8.1 millon residents in NY city. If half make up the work force and the unemployment rate is 8.3% that would be over 330,000 people out of work. I don't think 1500 or twice that on CL would make a dent in that unemployment rate.

edit on 4-10-2011 by daskakik because: (no reason given)

On that, I believe you are precisely correct. 1,500 listings per day on CL would not make much difference. However, I believe the fact there were 15 pages of job listings for just Monday the 3rd is precisely the problem. If 8.3% were out in even a small way and taking whatever was available to make or supplement their living, the listings would never be that numerous on a daily basis.

Incidentally, it may have been lost in the text, but 1,500 listings is just where I chose to stop. That wasn't the whole list. I have no idea how many pages beyond that it actually went. Perhaps someone else will come along and tell us how it only went 1 additional page to 16, but I had thought that myself when I got to page 10 and 1,000 listings. I'll guess 15% total were obvious junk or repeats by the title alone. Add as many that would be once opened and looked at..to be fair on that.

70% still means there are a lot of employers out there scratching their heads and wondering why they can't get or keep a job filled. If we want to get crazy, I'll even pull 20% out of thin air (That figuring works for Uncle Sam) to account for postings there that have other issues making them less than viable. Where I stopped looking still leaves 750 who started their Monday morning with a job opening and scratching their heads over why they had to go to craigslist to get it filled.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well if what summer5 said is true it would seem that many of those ads are not legit.

You could also have a case where both employers and workers are being picky because of the cost of living. Worker needs enough to live on and employers can't offer much because they need enough profit to live on. Bad news for both workers and small businesses.

Reality check, we have lost more jobs that has been crated, most of job created are no the higher pay income jobs that were lost.

So in the US we are having a new trend of a class named the working poor, where you may hold a job but still depend on welfare.

The government will do anything for the people to not understand the difference of jobs that will maintain a middle class status and jobs that perpetuate a welfare status, because all they want is to show that is job growth.

Economics UnboundA Lost Decade for Jobs

www.businessweek.com...

More and more employers refuse to hire the unemployed. There have been numerous news articles about it.

The unemployed can fill out an application for everything on craigslist, but that does not mean the employer is going to choose them.

You cannot just go into an employer's place of business and demand he/she hire you. You fill out the application, and the employer decides whether or not you get the job. That is how it works. And you will be competing against thousands of other people for that one job.

I would say many, if not most, of the craigslist job listings are scams. And then the scammer has your name, address, and social security number (if scammer had you fill out an application instead of sending in a resume). Identity theives probably love craigslist. Millions of desperate people looking for anything, sending in their personal information to a complete stranger must be nice for them.

I have done everything short of having sex with someone or putting a gun into someone's face for a job, yet I am still unemployed. I am now on disability.

Employers also don't want to hire someone with a lot of health problems. That's just the way it is. If you were born with health problems or acquired them somehow later in life, you are just totally screwed these days.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I call BULL SHT on your thread . . . I even made a thread about it.

2011 College Graduates Find Job Market Bleak (56% down from 90%)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling
www.nytimes.com...

2011 College Grads Moving Home In Record Numbers, Saddled With Historic Levels Of Student Loan Debt
www.huffingtonpost.com...

reply to post by Jessicamsa


Yes, After the 2008 economic crash many businesses are trying to maintain profits death lines any way the can, that means working with less to make more.

Can you blame small businesses from doing this? see while the big corrupted institutions crash the markets with their shady deals they got bailout, small businesses get bankrupted.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Wow that's just awful for NY'ers damn I live in an area you can get a apartment if you're single and still young for $500/month (thats one bedroom, it's cheaper for a studio) and our minimum wage is $7.70/ hr so our cost of living = lower but our minimum wage = higher. There is a giant problem with that. As far as jobs go no there are definately not enough for the amount of unemployed who wish to work. There are tens of thousands applying for that same job just look at the amount of jobs offered and compare the amount of people looking for a job and you can see that.

ETA: I have also seen places I interviewed and applied for relist their openings the following months over and over again, so obviously they had applicants (for I was one) and they weren't good enough. That is the businesses' fault not that no one is applying.

Originally posted by MasterGemini
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

I call BULL SHT on your thread . . . I even made a thread about it.

2011 College Graduates Find Job Market Bleak (56% down from 90%)
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling
www.nytimes.com...

2011 College Grads Moving Home In Record Numbers, Saddled With Historic Levels Of Student Loan Debt
www.huffingtonpost.com...

Well, no one can say you don't speak your mind. Although, I'd sure appreciate something more than links to other places in coming down that hard on a thread I've made. Perhaps a little explanation of why I'm full of it, beyond simply linking out to other locations?

I don't believe I can recall ever attacking an OP without some foundation and support explained in the same message and certainly not with such a direct and fighting approach. Oh well...Just my thoughts. I can't reply to what I can't read the thought process and reasoning behind.

reply to post by Jessicamsa

Very good points. The unemployed issue is of particular concern as so many openly state their CHOICE to sit on and run out unemployment benefits rather than take a job they don't like. I've heard this said, personally, by people I know who are playing the benefit game. Notice I didn't say friends. Statements like that certainly put distance into what might otherwise have developed into a friendship.

The health issue situation is a problem I'm really not sure how society addresses. A place I worked for years did that and really didn't make much point of hiding it, either. Never enough to be sued...but no one with chronic health issues of any kind was ever hired for any position whatever while I worked for them. That certainly does leave some very capable people with other problems out in the cold and in a chronic way.

Perhaps when Washington is out of Socialist hands, we can all take a look at how to address some of these issues. I made the thread with able bodied 19-25yr olds in mind and the protesters in particular. You raise some very important points on those who aren't young and full of pep though and unless society plans to support these citizens indefinitely, we have to examine WHY health issues cause them to be blackballed almost on sight.

Perhaps if employers weren't looking at being forced to care for and support any health issue their employees have, at whatever % and cost Washington deems appropriate, they wouldn't be so quick to trash their applications out of hand. It's interesting that many companies offered benefits to attract people....but under legal requirement to do that, the whole game changes. Perhaps I'm wrong. That is why society needs to look at the issue, IMHO.

I am an asst manager. I do the primary interviews for a position so the manager doesn't waste his time on non- condidates.

We have a full time position available...we have advertised on various local job site. We have had many responses. The ones we have called in seem simply uninterested in working for the most part. There are very few resumes, no one even dresses to impress for the first interview... in fact some dress as if they are headede out to dig ditches or prime tobbacco or go hang with their bros... unshaven, NASCAR T-shirts, no foot work on even knowing what our business is or who we serve.

Hey, it is not a great job, but it is a job... and in this economy that is what counts for the time being. So if you go for an interview...do the following:
- Do some research on the company you are applying to...show some interest.
- Hide the tattoos...I am not against them, but the company may be conservative and frown upon them... it's not what I believe..it's what HQ believes
- Dress up...a little, a tie goes a long way in today's market. One thing I learned a long time ago...you can never over dress, but you can always underdress.
- Display some common sense, ...be polite, confident, and be honest...I'd rather have a former inmate that tells the truth than a traffic offender that lied to me.
- Go to night school and learn computers... even the basics... really..it is good for something besides porn and the weather.
- Pretrend you are in the Army...Yes Sir...Yes Mam...No Sir...No Mam.. Thank You.... Please.

Just some simple tips that go along way when today's standard is mediocrity.