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The average economy might look good by some metrics, but there are a lot of changes creating various groups of winners and losers, and depending on the people y

The average economy might look good by some metrics, but there are a lot of changes creating various groups of winners and losers, and depending on the people you know you might be in a group of people feeling hammered by the waves right now.

1letterunixname 3y ago
K-shaped recovery applies to individuals. The media hypes their insular bubble near wealth and power while the reality is inflation is impoverishing the lower classes. The reality is the very rich are doing phenomenally well while dollar store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers make chickenfeed.
- prewett 3y ago
  "The reality is the very rich are doing phenomenally well while dollar store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers make chickenfeed" is basically a tautology. If you compare the very rich and the near destitute, yea, it's a pretty big gulf, and it's always going to be that way, by the definition of the words. But I don't think there was ever a time when unskilled retail workers and delivery men got paid well. Minimum wage jobs have always been basically survival level pay as long as I've been alive. O'Henry stories have a vivid portrayal of NYC in 1900, and all the retail workers there were young, single women living in shared housing. Before that the unskilled work was factory work, and before that the closest comparison I can think of was apprentices. All of the stories I've read that include those people describe a standard of living no better than minimum wage work, and sometimes worse. (Note that the farther back you go, shopkeepers tended to be owners, not employees, which is obviously very different than modern minimum wage retail work. Some, but not all, of them are described as wealthy.)
  - lacrimacida 3y ago
    > But I don't think there was ever a time when unskilled retail workers and delivery men got paid well. Minimum wage jobs have always been basically survival level pay as long as I've been alive. The thing is that survival part has become a larger problem now even for people who have a full time jobs or two. Many live in their cars. When has that been the case historically to have such high housing costs? Has life been so hard for so many excluding during the great depression? Are we under one at the moment? It certainly looks like for more and more and I not only not see anything improving, I see things getting worse. Of course the winners don’t see it the same way and like to tell eachother stories

1letterunixname 3y ago

K-shaped recovery applies to individuals. The media hypes their insular bubble near wealth and power while the reality is inflation is impoverishing the lower classes. The reality is the very rich are doing phenomenally well while dollar store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers make chickenfeed.

prewett 3y ago
"The reality is the very rich are doing phenomenally well while dollar store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers make chickenfeed" is basically a tautology. If you compare the very rich and the near destitute, yea, it's a pretty big gulf, and it's always going to be that way, by the definition of the words. But I don't think there was ever a time when unskilled retail workers and delivery men got paid well. Minimum wage jobs have always been basically survival level pay as long as I've been alive. O'Henry stories have a vivid portrayal of NYC in 1900, and all the retail workers there were young, single women living in shared housing. Before that the unskilled work was factory work, and before that the closest comparison I can think of was apprentices. All of the stories I've read that include those people describe a standard of living no better than minimum wage work, and sometimes worse. (Note that the farther back you go, shopkeepers tended to be owners, not employees, which is obviously very different than modern minimum wage retail work. Some, but not all, of them are described as wealthy.)
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  > But I don't think there was ever a time when unskilled retail workers and delivery men got paid well. Minimum wage jobs have always been basically survival level pay as long as I've been alive. The thing is that survival part has become a larger problem now even for people who have a full time jobs or two. Many live in their cars. When has that been the case historically to have such high housing costs? Has life been so hard for so many excluding during the great depression? Are we under one at the moment? It certainly looks like for more and more and I not only not see anything improving, I see things getting worse. Of course the winners don’t see it the same way and like to tell eachother stories