11 ms·

>We have an embarrassing wealth of food, technology, and luxury But we still have a significant portion of the population that has to work 2+ jobs to survive.

• eronhp 11y ago
  France also has double digit unemployment rates.
  • x5n1 11y ago
    Life expectancy rates are also falling for middle aged people.
  • lagadu 11y ago
    Yes but the EU standard (which only Spain doesn't follow IIRC) for measuring unemployment is a more inclusive than the US one.[1] edit: which isn't to say that France doesn't have higher (comparable) unemployment rates than the US, I believe it does but different government types have different tolerances and expectations for unemployment levels naturally. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#Measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#Measurement
  • rtpg 11y ago
    double digits, but barely (10.8%). And there are some safety nets, like basic income, housing aids, and gracious help if you have children, that make underemployment slightly less awful. I bet a hell of a lot less people go hungry in France compared to the US.
    • refurb 11y ago
      Do you have any evidence to back that up or is it just a hunch? The US has a pretty solid safety net as well including unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, child and mother nutrition programs, Medicaid coverage, etc.
      • wavefunction 11y ago
        Food stamps are not very solid. I know because my father had to temporarily avail himself of the program a few years back. If I recall correctly he received about $80 a month for a single person which is not enough to even purchase the necessities of a healthy and balanced diet, really. I was paying his mortgage and he was fortunate that he had siblings who could supplement his meager allotment until he could find employment far below his education level and previous salary. He had lost his job due to, from what I could tell, the early onset of Parkinson's and a heartless employer who would rather dosh a loyal employee of 20+ years than accept the continued employment of an employee with the condition.
      • cryoshon 11y ago
        Hah, you mean the unemployment insurance that has all sorts of loopholes that employers will use to prevent you from being able to claim it? You mean the welfare which expires under certain circumstances? The food stamps that got cut during the last budget? The nutrition programs that pay for slop lunches at school? Medicaid, which still doesn't prevent people from going bankrupt from medical fees? The US safety net is about as solid as a paper bag.
        • marknutter 11y ago
          Which is probably why we have a lower unemployment rate, because people are incentivized to find work (any work) sooner rather than sit around waiting for the job they would prefer to have.
  • toyg 11y ago
    Complete feudalism had 0% unemployment. Best system ever! Honestly, I'm a bit tired of the "create jobs!" mantra. Jobs for job-numbers' sake has little point, in practice it's just further enslaving the population. The government has an incentive in keeping unemployment down and cut spending, so it forces people to work shitty jobs by taking away subsidies, which in turn drives down salaries and only helps high-manpower low-skill enterprises like burger-flipping. Is that good for society as a whole? People working two jobs (great for employment numbers!) are not bettering themselves, they're just producing more surplus for owners, often not even by choice. It doesn't really matter if you have 0% unemployment but everyone is forced to do stuff they don't like in order to survive.
    • marknutter 11y ago
      Nobody is forced to work any job, at least not here in the U.S. No more than a lion is "forced" to hunt and kill antelope.
      • toyg 11y ago
        A vegetarian lion could technically survive. A human being needs food (which he cannot grow anywhere, due to property laws) and shelter (which he cannot build anywhere, due to property laws). Does the US government hand out free food and shelter for all? If not, you are forced to work. You can choose what to work on, but that's about it. Even something as passive as investing capital or extracting rent requires some work. Being homeless is a full-time job asking others for money. Whenever you'll get free food and free shelter (we can argue about clothes), then you won't be forced to work.
        • marknutter 11y ago
          > Whenever you'll get free food and free shelter (we can argue about clothes), then you won't be forced to work. And to provide that, others will be forced to work. So no matter what we end up with some people being "forced to work", which I don't agree is even a thing. Even if you could just live off the land you'd be "forced" to work a hell of a lot harder to survive than you would getting any minimum wage job. You are perhaps underestimating how bad life sucked before modern society took root.
• randomsearch 11y ago
  > but pretty much everyone will get 3 meals a day there. Incorrect. Whilst I am still shocked by the way America treats homeless people and those at the bottom of society, the UK is headed down the same path. Over a million people used food banks in the UK last year. These are essentially "last resort" facilities run by charities where people can get food parcels if referred by social services or a doctor. The main reason for using them is having welfare benefits withdrawn.
  • stevetrewick 11y ago
    >* Incorrect* Is it ? >Over a million people used food banks in the UK last year. ~1.6% of the UK's ~60M population, seems to fit 'most everyone' even if those FB users didn't get three squares for themselves and their family, which thanks to the work of the food banks, they do. Apropos the parent's point, the food banks exist. Which means that you live in a society that values you so highly that it will step in to protect you even when the universal welfare system that is supposed to look after you fails to do so and you slip through the cracks. You are therefore one of the luckiest people on the planet. Meta : Incidentally, that 'over a million' figure is only from Trussell Trust, there are other food banks around the UK that do not operate under their umbrella, and as for 'the main reason', meh, certainly the largest single reason reported by users at a shade under 30% which means that 70% of food bank use is for other reasons (though this includes 13% 'benefit changes'). Trussell Trust's reported stats can be found here http://www.trusselltrust.org/stats http://www.trusselltrust.org/stats
  • tlarkworthy 11y ago
    You have made his point, food banks are giving those that can't afford food, food.
    • DanBC 11y ago
      But those foodbanks are provided by charities, not by the state. They exist because the state is quick to put people on benefits suspension (a temporary withdrawal of benefits while they seek more information) or sanctions (a temporary or permanent loss of benefits as a punishment for breaking one of the very many rules (which is easy to do because there are so many rules and it's impossible to get advice about whether an action is rule-breaking or not)). This is a change in the current / last government. Previous governments would have had the sanctions, but provided emergency loans for people to buy food. These changes have seen an increase in suicides among people claiming benefits.
• marknutter 11y ago
  Having two jobs is not expected, unless by two jobs you mean one job for you and one job for your partner. We had women flood into the workforce at the same time jobs were being outsourced to developing nations, so yeah, we get paid less for the same work because the labor pool has increased dramatically. The caveat is that goods are now far cheaper to manufacture than they used to be, which is passed onto us as consumers. I think we Americans work as hard as we do because we are in heavy denial that our standard of living is slowly being brought into alignment with the rest of the world.
  • mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
    If you work one job at minimum wage, you are likely not able to afford rent, food, and health care. Thus the implied "expectation" for working two jobs.
    • marknutter 11y ago
      How on earth are immigrants who are clamoring to get into our country pulling it off then? And while still being able to send money home while they're at it? And without the benefit of our social safety nets (if here illegally)? Is their standard of living in-line with the expectations of the average American? Certainly not. Yet, they choose to risk life and limb to come here all the same. The problem, as it usually is, boils down to a gross lack of perspective. I'll stop short of calling it entitlement, but it's certainly naiveté.
      • crpatino 11y ago
        Basically, those 2 populations exist in different economies, even if they share the same physical space: 1. US tax code makes very expensive to have people in the payroll. This was originally intended to incentivize mechanization and later automation, but shady employers can exploit the rules by paying cash-only to illegal immigrants and save a lot of money, even if their take home pay is equal or better than that of citizens. 2. It is very expensive to raise a family while complying with US rules. You can have your children taken away if you fail to comply with any of that. Many illegal immigrants shortcut through that issue by leaving their families behind and living like frugal single men. Even those that immigrate as full families are already used to breaking the rules, and since they already face deportation if caught they do not fear doing without with "necessities" like cars, up-to-code housing, child care, etc. 3. Communities matter a lot. Poor citizens are every man for his own more often than not. Arriving illegal immigrants, typically in their teens or early twenties, usually can count on having relatives or former neighbors take care of their needs (which amount to little beyond room&board) while they find their footing in the country. They will later pay it forward.
• Rexxar 11y ago
  (hell, in France it's illegal to have two jobs). I don't think so: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1945 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1945
  • rtpg 11y ago
    It's illegal to have two full-time jobs, because a person is only allowed to work up to 48 hours a week/10 hours a day.
• cryoshon 11y ago
  Yeah, I am 100% ashamed to be American, but most of that stems from the (violent, brutal, inconsistent) way the US treats the rest of the world. Sure, the empire treats its own citizens poorly as the pillaged wealth is sent to the fat cats, but that's their own fault for not demanding more.
  • marknutter 11y ago
    > Yeah, I am 100% ashamed to be American This is also another disturbing trend I'm witnessing in my generation. Sure, ok, you're not happy with some of the stuff that happened. DO something about it.
    • collyw 11y ago
      What do you suggest?
    • cryoshon 11y ago
      Pfft, easier said than done, which is the critical problem. My experience is that voting in every election and writing your politicians does nothing. Contributing to their campaigns does nothing, because you don't contribute nearly enough to matter. Protesting in the streets does nothing; nobody cares, and then the cops stop you from protesting. Raising awareness does nothing, everyone is aware of the largest problems. Organizing the public does nothing; they are powerless. Reducing apathy does nothing; refer to the inability to do anything even when voting/writing/protesting. Rioting in the streets does nothing except ruin the areas people live in and make a strong backlash against whatever issue. The citizenry are fully disenfranchised from making changes. I get it, I haven't tried starting a company to fix the USA's smorgasboard of problems yet. Maybe that's the ticket. There's also the other problem of bad things being done in your name, even when you speak out. Millions of people protested the Iraq war, and look what we got for it. There is far too large of a disconnect between the public will and the government's execution of that will.
      • crpatino 11y ago
        You can do something. That something will not change much, and not at all overnight, but to think there is nothing to be done... that's exactly what they want you to think. Look around you, there is always people working against your values and people supporting your values. You can do worse than withdrawing your labor and your money from the former and prefer to do business with the later. You say raising awareness does nothing. That's because hard facts are mostly irrelevant. People live by narratives, and the current mainstream narrative tells them to ignore your facts as irrelevant. You can use creativity to paint a more compelling narrative that will make them want to look for the facts themselves. You say organizing the public does nothing. That's because what passes for organization nowadays is naive stupidity. Not every opinion is equal, or even valuable. Go learn some how to organize people for real, then get some practice with no more than a handful of friends working in small scale stuff. You could also do worse than that!