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Edited on Fri Oct-19-07 04:18 PM by haele
Probably around $2600 a year, here in San Diego just due to inflation. Most working people won't see more than a 2 to 5% pay raise a year, which for me was around $1570 last year. (I make around average for this area, $48K a year) So just this year, I've seen a loss in income of around $1030.
I'm not even going to touch on the loss of good paying, middle class professional and skilled labor jobs, people who are now working for a good $10K - $20K less than they were even two years ago.
That breaks down to about a $1.25 an hour for a 40 hour week. Of course we haven't started seeing the utility rate increases that have been approved on both city water/sewer and SDGE, so that will probably add another 10 cents an hour on top of that. Also, public transportation is probably due to rise again, so that will affect those who are trying to save gas money by taking the bus.
It's probably not so bad if you're making $40 an hour plus and all your vehicles are paid off, you only have one kid in college, and about $100K left to pay on your home, but if you're making the mean wage - which is about what, $16.50 an hour - it's very, very painful to raise a family. If your making just above the poverty line on all 3 of your part-time jobs you have to have to work to just to pay the rent, it can be even worse with all the commutting between jobs.
And of course, that's going to trickle down and affect all the small specialty businesses and most mom and pop stores - who's going to have the money to spend on small businesses, no matter how good the product is, when the choice is between cheap import crap at the dollar stores that will fill the need "now" or something a bit more expensive with higher quality and/or might last a bit longer.
Example - if your teen desperately need boots for the historical rainy season and only have $200 a month left over after housing, bill paying and groceries, are you going to pay $150 for a pair of long lasting, well-fitting boots from the local shoe seller/cobbler that will last a couple years, or will you pay $25 for the el cheapo knock-off boots that come close to fitting and might last the month or so you think she'll need them that year before the seams give out and the soles start cracking apart.
You'll probably convince her to put up with a bit of pain for the month and perhaps bribe her with a $15 ITunes card later on when you feel guilty that they are falling apart before the rainy season is over. Either that, or you'll just let her squish around in old wet chucks because you know none of the boots you can afford will last long enough so you should just go ahead and spend the $25 for the doctor's visit/perscription fungicide after the rainy season is over.
Now multiply that by the amount of working and middle class teenagers in the area.
So not only does that very good family shoe store get the fall and winter sales that might keep them going through the next year, the kids don't learn to recognise value and take care of what they need to survive, like investing in good shoes and good jackets that they won't have to replace for years to come. And everything becomes wastage, "use once, then throw away and get another one" - and you end up spending twice as much money buying several variants of the same cheap item over the years than you would buying the one good version.
So WalMart wins the working-class wars again, and the small expert businesses dwindle from the area.
And the kids never learn that no matter how hard you work for your spending dollars, be it one job or three, it is still not worth it buying fashionable junk.
Thus endeth the rant.
Haele
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