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$15 an hour is more than you can get in almost any place in Europe or the world for unskilled labor, what are you talking about?
by flavius29663 6y ago
$15 an hour is more than you can get in almost any place in Europe or the world for unskilled labor, what are you talking about?
- specialist 6y agoWhy are you comparing absolute dollar amounts? Is the cost of living the same every where?
- rayiner 6y agoCost of living in the middle of nowhere in the US is almost certainly less than nearly anywhere in Western Europe. The media home value in Bessemer is like $90,000.
- specialist 6y agoGo on... Food? Health care? Transportation?
- DC1350 6y agoFood and housing is extremely cheap in America. Americans have an extremely low cost of living and low taxes compared to every other wealthy country. Also higher wages for similar jobs.
- astrange 6y agoOne reason everyone thinks it's bad is journalists are 1. naturally neurotic people 2. all have student debt 3. all live in expensive cities like NYC and 4. their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago. Similar for some other activist classes, though not all.
- astrange 6y ago> their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago has fewer people and they earn less, not fewer people who earn less.
- musingsole 6y agoIf you have a counterpoint, make it. I'll try for you: the cohesive view of cost of living would show these rubes to be peasants to the unskilled European's millionaire. Interesting point, where's your data?
- specialist 6y ago> Interesting point, where's your data? Exactly. Why would u/flavorous make a drive-by comment and not cite any data? I expected something like this, for international comparisons: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-liv...
- musingsole 6y agorayiner did give a data point. Just not a source. And that's because they were indulging you. That link and your refrains about data are signs of flailing due to lack of rhetorical content. Your argument is Europe good; US bad.
- whimsicalism 6y agoThe COL in Bessemer is going to be less than in Western Europe. Do you live in America? You're right that healthcare could be more expensive, but there is also employer-covered health insurance.
- rayiner 6y agoHealthcare is likely less expensive at that income level. An ACA silver plan in Alabama for a single person making $30,000/year is expected to cost $85/month with subsidies: https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ That’s 3.4% of income, lower than the typical health insurance tax in European counties.
- rayiner 6y agoFood in America is cheap. Transportation is pretty cheap because gas is cheap and old Japanese cars are low maintenance. At $15/hour healthcare is cheap because everywhere in the US has subsidized healthcare through the ACA.
- benmller313 6y agoI think the cost of living in Small town Alabama is going to compare pretty favorably to anywhere in Europe.
- asdff 6y agoUntil you get sick and/or can't work that is.
- lazide 6y agoUp thread there were claims of reasonable (by broken American healthcare system standard) zero cost insurance plans offered by Amazon. Was that true or false?
- lotsofpulp 6y agoasdff's point is that if you're unable to work, you no longer have access to those benefits since you will no longer have a job.
- lazide 6y agoEvery state I’m aware of has workers comp, federally everyone gets COBRA, Medicare, Medicaid, SS disability, short and long term disability- these are all things. Are they perfect? No. Pretending the systems flaws are somehow Amazon being evil vs the American medical and safety net being a morass of bureaucracy and bullshit is just wrong though.
- fearling 6y agoGood point, it's even cheaper in Bessemer AL than basically anywhere in Europe, too
- flavius29663 6y agoenergy is cheaper in the US: electricity and gasoline (half price or cheaper). Groceries are significantly cheaper (food is of lower quality, but at least cheaper). Sales tax is around 20% in Europe vs 4% in Alabama. Property tax is a quarter of what it is generally in Europe...I can go on and on. If you are not a felon, you own a car and are healthy, life is pretty easy in the US, even for a low wage worker.
- sofixa 6y agoYou should include car costs ( + gasoline, maintenance, insurance) vs walking/biking/public transit. And healthcare costs, and education costs, and social safety net ( meaning that you need less of a savings account to be able to avoid disaster ). I'm certain that a small town in Italy or Spain could come out cheaper.
- specialist 6y agoDitto life expectancy, suicide rates, and other happiness index stuff. Apropos of nothing: Much pedantry about wages in a blighted area. Crickets about billionaires sharing some of their cheddar with the peons.
- sofixa 6y agoCrap, i also forgot time off, maternity/paternity leave, "sick days", etc. It's hard to put a price on 30 days of paid vacation per year.
- radicalbyte 6y agoIf the post above about average houses costing $90k there are true, then the Amazon workers are earning about $26k a year, that's around 3.5x salary to house cost. I live in the middle of The Netherlands; the average house price is 360k and the average wage is 36k, that's around 10x salary to house cost. One important point: in almost all cases in NL both partners work, the general rule is that women work part time and increasingly couples under 40 both work full time. That's how the insane house market is propped up. Healthcare costs are around 200 EUR / person / month at the limit (you pay ~110 and the deductible is about 900 EUR a year).
- kolinko 6y agoYou need to add costs of education, which is free in Netherlands, and multiple other social services (like public transit).
- radicalbyte 6y agoEducation is most certainly not free here. It would cost me 20k to do a Masters, and my wife took on debts of ~80k to pay for her education.
- quijoteuniv 6y agoWhile that might be right,You are not taking into account that in Europe you get free healthcare & education.
- fearling 6y agoEducation is free up til college in the US and the healthcare for Amazon warehouse workers is the same as for their engineers and Jeff Bezos.
- nathanappere 6y agoYou mean costs the same and as a result is entirely a function of how well you're paid in order to be able to afford better coverage?
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt means the employer has to offer a sufficiently generous benefit so that enough of the company’s lower income employees sign up for it, such that it passes non discrimination testing rules. Which means the health insurance benefit must be good enough that even the lower paid employees find it makes sense to sign up for it.
- dlp211 6y agoThis ignores that health insurance is generally pretty inelastic in its demand.
- bhupy 6y agoNo, exactly the opposite. ERISA is a Federal law that strictly regulates how plan fiduciaries can operate employer-sponsored health plans. A key element of ERISA is that an employer cannot offer more generous benefits to some employers over other; everyone in the company must be offered the same plans, and within each plan, every beneficiary must be treated the same.
- 6y ago
- slantedview 6y agoIn Europe, workers have workplace safety protections that these Amazon warehouse workers don't have. Amazon workers are treated as disposable, and unlike Europeans, their healthcare benefits don't extend beyond their usefulness to Amazon: https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/ https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-cri...
- tittenfick 6y agoNah, most jobs in super markets would net you the same (if you have no experience.) Germany here.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoMy wife was working at a Starbucks in Munich and started at 10 EUR/hour, which is like 12 USD.
- karaterobot 6y agoMinimum wage in Germany was €9.35 in 2020, which is about $11 USD.
- tw04 6y agoThere are plenty of jobs in western Europe that will pay similar and won't force you to pee in a bottle or your pants. That's ignoring the whole healthcare situation... which I think you're leaving out of the equation. 30 seconds of searching indicates the average grocery store clerk in the UK makes 8.80GPB/hr. Add on healthcare and they're coming out far ahead of an amazon warehouse worker. https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Industry=Grocery_Store_or_Supermarket/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Industry=Grocery_Store_...
- Grimm1 6y agoAmazon Warehouse workers have medical coverage here too. So they're leaps and bounds ahead if you want to go ahead and say that. Of course the US healthcare system is broken so I know what you're getting at but I don't know that I want Amazon to pay their workers > $15 to subsidize a broken healthcare system for their workers I just want a functional healthcare system and for them to continue to make $15/hr.
- tw04 6y ago>Amazon Warehouse workers have medical coverage here too. So they're leaps and bounds ahead if you want to go ahead and say that. Sorry, are you seriously trying to claim an HSA is better than universal healthcare? >Of course the US healthcare system is broken so I know what you're getting at but I don't know that I want Amazon to pay their workers > $15 to subsidize a broken healthcare system for their workers I just want a functional healthcare system and for them to continue to make $15/hr. I'm not even sure where you're going with this. The original claim was that $15/hr was better than you can get in Europe. I pointed out the hourly wage actually isn't much better, and oh by the way, that wage doesn't include healthcare (which it doesn't). If you want healthcare coverage you have a monthly fee, plus your co-pay and deductible. Not even REMOTELY competitive to western Europe unless you're one of the lucky few who literally never gets in an accident and never gets sick (as well as your entire family).
- Grimm1 6y agoI said it pretty clearly, it's not Amazon's fault that US healthcare is broken. Comparing EU to US for wages is thus largely fruitless. Fix our healthcare then your comparison might be useful. I was attempting to nicely dismiss your comparison.
- stonogo 6y agoHave you lived in Alabama on European unskilled-labor wages? I don't think it's a good idea.
- Justsignedup 6y agoIn Europe there are a lot of social benefits that mitigate this. - Health care - Worker protections - Required time off - Sick time - Maternity leave etc. Here its $15. And you're on your fucking own. If you compare it to completely underdeveloped or dictatorial economies... Sure I guess its way better. But the US shouldn't be comparing comparing itself to that. Its like saying "This engineer is horrible, but he's not as bad as this drug addict that is yelling all day outside our front door!"
- resto49 6y agoNo objection that most of EU is better than the US in these regards, but Amazon warehouse workers get some of the best healthcare insurance that I’ve ever seen in the US. Similar to what the top-level-commenter pointed out, I guarantee that the warehouse jobs in Bessemer provide among the best healthcare available in the town. The US as a whole is awful at providing healthcare, but healthcare is a particular area where Amazon actually is going way above what is normal and is provided astonishingly well for its workers.
- motardo 6y agoI'm an Amazon warehouse worker in North Carolina. As far as health insurance, I pay 100% of the first $1500, then 10% of the next $15,000 (so $3000 total), then 0% of anything over $16,500. I wouldn't call that astonishing, but it is the minimum $0 monthly premium plan. Also, I'm generally happy at work. I basically feel well paid and well treated.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hhjinks 6y agoI made what translates to roughly $14 doing gallup calls as a teen in Europe.
- Viliam1234 6y ago$15 an hour is what you get in Eastern Europe as a senior software developer. But yes, it comes with affordable healthcare, free education, longer vacation, and maternity leave.
- avs733 6y agoI love the label unskilled. I don't think most of my colleagues in academia could physically complete a shift in an Amazon warehouse. Is that a skill? The labels unskilled and entry level are used to depress wage expectations not accurately represent the requirements of the work performed because the work is deemed to be of low economic value.
- bluGill 6y agoMost of your peers in academia could build up the needed physical fitness in a few days and within a week be just as productive as someone else who has been there for years (assuming similar body - obviously someone who is physically disabled can't compete). By contrast it would take the warehouse workers years of study to write software that is any good.
- lazide 6y agoIt is called unskilled because there is no particular set of unusual credentials, rare talents, or uncommon training required. The entry bar is very low in that respect. It doesn’t mean, and has never meant it was easy work or anyone could survive doing it for long - rather that the necessary skills (for the majority of the population who doesn’t already have them by dint of existing) can be taught in about 5 minutes by someone not trained in teaching it to you. Ditch digging is ‘unskilled’ because anyone who can figure out a shovel can do it, and theoretically any random passerby could do it (for a time) to a competent degree. This is unlike a ‘skilled’ trade, or craft such as electrical work, surveying, etc. It’s something very few people could actually sustain for very long - I spent a week ditch digging before when I was younger - but part of why the pay is terrible and the work is hard is because any rando who needs some cash this week can do it. There is a ton of competition keeping prices low and conditions hard.
- dfadsadsf 6y agoI did tour of Amazon warehouse (they used to run public tours) and most workers there did not look particularly fit or athletic. I would say that people in typical tech office looks more fit. Also Amazon gives you time to ramp up - while your collegues in academia may struggle first week, they will shape up pretty fast.
- backtoyoujim 6y agoThat the labor conditions being just as one would imagine for a near-trillionaire's empire creeping on the distressed poverty of a white supremacist soul devouring harvester. Why ... what did you think that the subject was, dear ?
- el-salvador 6y ago$15 x 8h x 20 days = $2400 monthly would place you in the top 5% earners where I live.
- francilien 6y agoLidl in Germany has a minimum starting salary of 12,50€ per hour. With other benefits like 30 days of vacation. https://jobs.lidl.de/lidl-als-arbeitgeber/mindesteinstiegslohn https://jobs.lidl.de/lidl-als-arbeitgeber/mindesteinstiegslo...
- flavius29663 6y agoso...that's about 15 dollars. Do you consider them to be slaves too?
- tangjurine 6y ago30 days of vacation... With that many their effective hourly wage goes up 10-15%. How many vacation days do you think amazon workers get? The parent post might consider amazon warehouse workers to be slaves, but that is likely more due to the harsh working conditions rather than their pay.
- blablabla123 6y agoYou can earn 15 €/h (18 $) on average for cleaning in Munich. Minimum wage is at 9.50 €/h (11.30 $) though in Germany.
- dfadsadsf 6y agoMunich is one of the most expensive cities in Europe - cost of living in Bessemer is probably 30% of Munich. You can buy 3bdrm 1500 sq ft house is Bessemer for 60k. You will pay in one year that much to just rent comparable house in Munch. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2414-6th-Ave-N-Bessemer-AL-35020/1043394_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2414-6th-Ave-N-Bessemer-A...