THE PAY IS TOO DAMN LOW
BY JAMES SUROWIECKI
A few weeks ago, Washington, D.C., passed a living-wage bill designed to make Walmart pay its workers a minimum of $12.50 an hour. Then President Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage (which is currently $7.25 an hour). McDonald’s was widely derided for releasing a budget to help its employees plan financially, since that only underscored how brutally hard it is to live on a McDonald’s wage. And last week fast-food workers across the country staged walkouts, calling for an increase in their pay to fifteen dollars an hour. Low-wage earners have long been the hardest workers to organize and the easiest to ignore. Now they’re front-page news.
The workers’ grievances are simple: low wages, few (if any) benefits, and little full-time work. In inflation-adjusted terms, the minimum wage, though higher than it was a decade ago, is still well below its 1968 peak (when it was worth about $10.70 an hour in today’s dollars), and it’s still poverty-level pay. To make matters worse, most fast-food and retail work is part time, and the weak job market has eroded what little bargaining power low-wage workers had: their earnings actually fell between 2009 and last year, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Still, the reason this has become a big political issue is not that the jobs have changed; it’s that the people doing the jobs have. Historically, low-wage work tended to be done either by the young or by women looking for part-time jobs to supplement family income. As the historian Bethany Moreton has shown, Walmart in its early days sought explicitly to hire underemployed married women. Fast-food workforces, meanwhile, were dominated by teen-agers. Now, though, plenty of family breadwinners are stuck in these jobs. That’s because, over the past three decades, the U.S. economy has done a poor job of creating good middle-class jobs; five of the six fastest-growing job categories today pay less than the median wage. That’s why, as a recent study by the economists John Schmitt and Janelle Jones has shown, low-wage workers are older and better educated than ever. More important, more of them are relying on their paychecks not for pin money or to pay for Friday-night dates but, rather, to support families. Forty years ago, there was no expectation that fast-food or discount-retail jobs would provide a living wage, because these were not jobs that, in the main, adult heads of household did. Today, low-wage workers provide forty-six per cent of their family’s income. It is that change which is driving the demand for higher pay.
The situation is the result of a tectonic shift in the American economy. In 1960, the country’s biggest employer, General Motors, was also its most profitable company and one of its best-paying. It had high profit margins and real pricing power, even as it was paying its workers union wages. And it was not alone: firms like Ford, Standard Oil, and Bethlehem Steel employed huge numbers of well-paid workers while earning big profits. Today, the country’s biggest employers are retailers and fast-food chains, almost all of which have built their businesses on low pay—they’ve striven to keep wages down and unions out—and low prices.
much more
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/08/12/130812ta_talk_surowiecki
= new reply since forum marked as read
you are supposed to travel overseas to find it ... be happy with your .25 per hour!
The last year before I retired, I kept getting calls from headhunters; they usually asked: "What kind of visa you on, Thomas?" The accent gave away the fact they were calling from somewhere like Bangalore, India.
Actually, I still get calls and emails; the name on the email is always Indian.
I even got to one phone interview; no callback.
These companies know they need to say they've interviewed American workers and can't find anyone with "the needed skillset." I had 17+ years in TPF programming and did my best to keep up with changes in the industry. "Not the right skillset", my ass!!!!! 
It's a good gig if you can sustain it, but similar to management jobs, there's only so much sustainable independent contractor work.
And if you aren't a niche specialist, there's always someone trying to break into the business who will undercut you and get your customers - no matter how good your reputation and work is.
Without a serious cushion for the first few years (successful working spouse or savings in the upper five to six figure at least), you can end up pawning your tools just to keep the lights on or feed your kids between jobs.
I've known too many technical/engineering contractors that have, after five or ten years of chasing contracts, had to either throw in the towel and get into more secure work.
Most either take a job at an established corporation for lower wages or get together and try to incorporate to protect themselves and get the capital investments to keep going over the lean times. (Small businesses that start like this have their own pitfalls and from experiance, usually ends up with the business becoming a subsidiary/subcontractor to a bigger corporation that suckes the profits off the top, or in bankruptcy to all partners, because one of the partners is stupid with money and uses the company as an ATM).
But again, if you can survive long enough to make a consistant living off independent contracting, great.
I couldn't, similar to most people who get into contracting go in with the usual little financial cushion (on average starting with $5K - $20K savings, equity loan, or gift; and if lucky, an established customer base, vehicle, and tool collection).
Sadly for most contractors, for the first few years, contracting income is the same (or less) than hobby jobs; pretty much just a bit more than it takes to cover the expenses one has just getting and doing the work.
Not everyone has the talent or temprement to last that period out and build a stronger base or take the financial hits.
So for those many people who need to have consistancy in life; to pay bills, put a roof over the head, food on the table, and raise kids, and "grow the economy"
as it were), there needs to be a significant number of reliable jobs with steady wages that are compensitory for the skills and labor these people are giving the employer in trade for those wages.
Haele
Response to n2doc (Original post)
He does the gardening and handyman tasks. I give him absolute flexibility and he comes whenever he can each week. He's worked for me for 7 years and makes $15/hr now.
He's illiterate, speaks very little english, worked 40 years in a steady factory job. Raised 3 lovely children all of whom went to college. I credit him with being our "leader" of the staff. My other guys revere him, my clients love him even though most of them have trouble communicating - he just radiates dignity and good humour (which he has in spades). I trust him implicitly. I have no idea who I will ever find to replace him if he decides to stop working for me.
Of course I pay him well. I don't want him to leave. Neither does anyone else.
I agree with most of what you say. Our "minimum" wage is disgusting and needs revision immediately. I'm not so sure of the rest of your post but I AM sure to say welcome to DU!
Response to dman85 (Reply #46)
... they still think, and say, that service jobs and other low-level jobs are "supposed to be entry level," and therefore not only don't need to pay a living wage, but shouldn't pay a living wage. They will not or cannot assimilate that there is no place for many of these workers to "move on to." The farthest they will go is to grumble that government interference discourages the "job creators," which is patently false.
I think Mr Obama shares some of this illusion, too. When he maunders on about how we have "lost faith in the American Dream," he appears not to recognize that the fault lies not in the dreamer, but in the dream that has died. (I'd love someday to write a book called "Field of Broken Dreams."
It's rather hard to believe that being a hard-working, law-abiding citizen will allow one to progress when all around we can see the falsity of that proposition.
The problem is also one of perspective, I think. For the most part, those who have had success have worked hard and obeyed the laws. If it worked for them, it must work for everybody. Ergo, those who do not find success must be neither hard-working nor law-abiding. To believe otherwise would be to give up the illusion that we have control over our lives, which lies at the heart of the Western mythos.
-- Mal
but you probably understood that.
I am beyond rage and despair, but I don't think I can call it not caring yet. I don't know what these emotions are anymore. I honestly never in my life thought I would see my country come to this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023422158
and everyone knows that the criminally wealthy prefer the lower classes to know their place. Without a desperate working class the criminal wealthy cannot force workers to do the job of 3 employees while accepting pay-cuts, denigration of labor rights and reduced or eliminated benefits.
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Eating the rich would be unpleasant- couldn't we just cook 'em and keep the left-overs in the freezer? (not to be taken seriously as a threat to cook the rich)
$9 per hour? 
Workers need to organize. A Union provides not only good pay but benefits, tolerable work rules and job security.
