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It really feels like the COVID bubble briefly leveled the playing field a bit, and the CEO class has been foaming at the mouth rabidly mad about it ever since.

It really feels like the COVID bubble briefly leveled the playing field a bit, and the CEO class has been foaming at the mouth rabidly mad about it ever since. "I can't believe we hired so many of you / had to pay you more / let you WFH.. ". At least in the US, we had some of the greatest strides in terms of increases in relative wages for the middle class as we've had in a generation. And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up so we need to vote the bums out and take a turn towards the party of the CEO class. Not a lot of great lessons to take from that politically or economically in terms of giving people what they ask for end being punished for it.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 2y ago
> And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up This comment seems very out of touch. Grocery prices don't affect Meta engineers much, but they affect ordinary people a lot. I wouldn't even call Meta engineers "middle class". They're typically in the upper class. I'm not saying the new administration is the solution, but it's perfectly understandable why people are hurt by inflation, unhappy about it, and wanted a change.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Real wages (inflation adjusted) for the lower 50% went up faster than they have since pre-Reagan era. So while inflation hurts the bottom more than the top, because they spend a higher % of income, they were compensated for it. The problem is that across the spectrum, when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" and when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". Sort of like all the stimulus, payroll protection, unemployment benefit increases/extensions, rent/mortgage/student loan moratoriums during COVID that went on well past the point where economy was at risk, and people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC. The amounts of money and different ways money was thrown at people by the government 2020-2021 was historically abnormal and we got more mass unrest than when huge swathes of country were losing their homes and out of a job for years during GFC. It makes me wonder what a government can actually do that doesn't lead to backlash.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > they were compensated for it. That's a very questionable assumption. Many people have criticized the CPI and inflation rate as an inaccurate measure of the cost of living. Housing prices are crazy in many areas. I think you're exaggerating about the affect of egg prices specifically on voter behavior. And with any average or median, there are often vastly different outcomes for different people who are not exactly average. > when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" This feels like a straw man. > when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". This also feels like a straw man, and the phrasing is quite condescending. > people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC Did they? After all, the 2008 Presidential election during the financial crisis was kind of a blowout in favor of the opposition party against the incumbent party. Whereas 2020 and 2024 were closer elections.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      Where were the mass demonstrations in 2008-2010? Sure OWS happened, and I was able to see it up close.. but this was nothing compared to summer 2020. Why did no one storm the capitol in 2008/2012? Why didn't crime shoot up and stay up for 2-3 years then? Etc.
      - lapcat 2y ago
        I'm at a loss here, because these all seem like red herrings. What do the George Floyd protests and the Capitol storming have to do with inflation, employment, and the cost of living?
        steveBK123 2y ago
        It speaks to the mass anger, on both sides of the political spectrum, in the same 6-12 month period. None of which we saw the likes of in US during the deeper, longer, more impactful near-depression of 2008.
        2y ago
- airstrike 2y ago
  Egg prices went up because of the bird flu causing a supply chain disruption.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Egg prices are a great litmus test because there were supply chain disruptions (for different reasons!) under Joe & Orange but depending on which color hat you wear, you gave/are giving one a pass and get/got mad at the other.
    - amenhotep 2y ago
      Nobody is actually mad at orange for egg prices, though. Exasperatedly calling out hypocrisy is not the same thing.
      - bamboozled 2y ago
        It’s wild to me how much time and money he has spent on doing everything but lowering the price of eggs. He has taken it as far as going to the Super Bowl and NASCAR in AF 1 …on tax payer money. Not sure what he’s thinking…
        malfist 2y ago
        He's thinking what he's always been thinking "me, me, me, me, me" He doesn't care about egg prices, he just wants to crown himself King and make himself even richer
      - notyourwork 2y ago
        Yes, one is given a pass and the other not.
      - malfist 2y ago
        It's a common refrain, it's just dishonest discourse. Remember when Obama was relentlessly criticized for golfing when he golfed less than and recent presidents, and certainly less than Trump did? Remember when Obama was criticized for running up the deficit when Bush added more to the national debt than he did? And then Trump came along and nearly doubled the national debt? Remember when Al Franklin resigned over an inappropriate image with a woman, and Trump brags on tape about grabbing women by the genitals? Remember when Hillary spent years being investigated for having a private email server, just like Bush had? And today DOGE does too. Remember when Trump accused remote workers of "only playing golf" during the workday, while Trump was on the golf course during a workday? There's a whole lot more examples but I'm tired of typing them and they make me angry thinking about them.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Comment though was about people choosing the fire to the frying pan. That kind of change.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    Unfortunately, that's how it always is in our political duopoly. If people want a change, the only choice is to pivot back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.
phd514 2y ago
I work for a mid-sized, publicly-traded tech company that has been inching towards profitability but the last couple quarterly earnings results have been disappointing (and rank-and-file bonuses were slashed to 25% of target) and the company had its first-ever round of layoffs last October. The CEO's last two years of comp were $20M and $10M which is obviously completely incongruous with the size, profitability, and stock performance of the company. It seems that there is a distortion in the market forces around executive compensation that functions in a similar way to venture capital -- investors are willing to pump outsized cash amounts into either funding rounds or executive comp since the occasional home run can result in stock returns that cover losses in other companies. It seems inefficient and certainly demoralizing, but I would prefer that solutions to the problem were driven by market forces and innovation rather than regulation or employee backlash.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  > It seems inefficient and certainly demoralizing, but I would prefer that solutions to the problem were driven by market forces and innovation rather than regulation or employee backlash. I ask this as a person who takes market forces very seriously: why? I think it's pretty obvious at this point that these forces are not producing very good outcomes for the population (even if they are on paper efficient in the market-efficiency sense), or at least, that the public doesn't feel like they are. That's causing massive social instability that is threatening nearly the entire developed world. That instability poses a pretty high threat to the approach you're arguing for. Neither protectionist reactionaries, nor leftists, are very well aligned with free-market philosophy, and those ideologies are ascendant nearly everywhere right now. Isn't that a greater threat to free-market economics than relatively mild welfare-state and workers-rights stuff? (Full disclosure: I am very much pro-labor and pro-regulation, so this is arguing for things I support, but even with your views it seems pretty clear to me that the status quo is dead no matter what you do. Wouldn't you rather have reforms that make the existing system work for the public than a revolution that destroys it entirely?)
  - phd514 2y ago
    Fair question and I don't think there are easy answers to the problem. I think the actions you suggest tend to result in a market environment like Europe's where there are more regulations but businesses are generally less competitive than US businesses and wages tend to be lower than in the US.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
Saw someone recently post, "Greatest regret: not committing PPP fraud." Lest we forget that little giveaway to the boss-class.
- e40 2y ago
  PPP funds had to be used on employee salaries, and not just highly paid employees.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    The company I worked for at the time took a large PPP loan. They never shut down, never sent anyone home, and business that year broke records. So sure, they used it to pay employees, but they also pocketed what they would have used to pay employees.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      Sure and some of this was only obvious in retrospect though. There were companies that would have laid off more people, earlier, for longer. And that wouldn’t have had sales during covid to support the jobs they spent PPP money on. But also huge fraud which was by design. A suboptimal but net positive program. What more could you expect from orange man.
    - e40 2y ago
      My company took the funds and didn't die because of it. 100% went to employees.
      - JKCalhoun 2y ago
        That's good to hear.
  - vasco 2y ago
    They sure did: > Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations. > They came into their riches by participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters — as NBC News reported last year. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program. > https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-...
prng2021 2y ago
Leveled the playing field? Strides in relative wages? See the chart here under the section labeled "Inflation Adjusted Reality" and you'll see how incorrect your statements are: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/01/09/u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/01/0... We still live in a country where federal minimum wage doesn't change for decades. You should also research the concept of subminimum wages and I think you'll be shocked. If you already knew about all of the above and still think there was anything close to a leveling of the playing field, you're choosing to ignore facts.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > We still live in a country where federal minimum wage doesn't change for decades. Very few people make minimum wage. It’s basically impossible to find a minimum wage job in my city because even the post office and fast food restaurants are paying $19/hr or more, and they advertise it on signs out front. I don’t even live in a HCOL city. The focus on federal minimum wage has become a red herring.
  - prng2021 2y ago
    I see multiple posts making your same claim and it's sad to see how many people live in a wealth bubble and haven't researched the facts at all. When I was young worked in the restaurant industry in a state that has a tipped minimum wage. The hourly pay for waiters and waitresses was and still is under $3/hr in that state. The rest of your pay is completely dependent on tips. This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch. This page has a table of the many states that have a shockingly low tipped minimum wage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
    - Aurornis 2y ago
      > haven't researched the facts at all. I have researched the facts. The percentage of people working minimum wage jobs is around 1% as of 2023. Likely under 1% now if the trend holds: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2023/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2023/ > When I was young… We’re talking about wages in 2025, not when you were young. The point is that the wage landscape has changed a lot from what you’re remembering. > This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch. No, I’m not talking about salaried jobs. I’m specifically talking about hourly wage jobs As for tipped jobs: Many efforts to eliminate tipped jobs have floundered specifically because the people in tipped jobs prefer their earnings with tips included. This is partially due to the way that tip earnings are underreported significantly on taxes when people pay in cash (untracked by computer systems) so actual tipped earnings are higher. Regardless, looking at tipped minimum wages is very dishonest because the entire definition is that these people are also getting tips. Employers are obligated to make up any difference if their tips do not bring them up to the minimum wage. Tipped minimum wage doesn’t literally mean someone can earn $3/hour. It’s right there in the first paragraph of that Wikipedia page you linked.
addicted 2y ago
Unfortunately American white collar workers responded to the brief period of relative power increase by pushing for remote work rather than consolidating that power or asking for better pay. We are seeing the results now with white collar work being outsourced to countries in LATAM. If people aren’t gonna be physically collocated why pay more for someone to work from the U.S. when you can pay a fraction for someone to work in the same time zone in central and South America. I strongly suspect we will Look back at this period similarly to how we look back at the 80s when blue collar workers voted to have their jobs outsource to China, except this time it’s white collar workers pushing to essentially make their jobs easier to outsource to the rest of the world.
- tdeck 2y ago
  Employers could always have outsourced white collar work. I remember in 2002 when "all the programmer jobs were going to India". Coming together to push for better working conditions you care about is exactly what building power looks like for any group of workers. The problem is not pushing for remote work, it's that most people do it individually so they aren't creating any kind of social structure that helps them keep some of that power when the pendulum swings back.
- socksy 2y ago
  I think contextually what one has to remember when analysing behaviours during this time of power shift to the employee due to a global pandemic, is that while that was happening there was also a global pandemic taking place...
user3939382 2y ago
> Party of the CEO class Sorry who crushed the railroad strike? Do you see the campaign contributions for every candidate and politician in the DNC? You think they don’t represent Wall Street? This characterization has been dead at least since Bill Clinton.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  Now instead of campaign contributions, we have the government run by actual billionaires.
  - quantified 2y ago
    Oh the elected officials took enormous quantities of contributions and spent none of their own money.
- FFFXXX 2y ago
  Compare the average republican sentiment to this regarding the railway strike / paid sick days: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/2306... I don't think you can simply hand-wave the differences between your two parties. There do seem to be substantially different outcomes for the people affected by these issues.
pseudocomposer 2y ago
You’re definitely right that the CEO class was furious about the social progress made by working people. But in terms of purchasing power, I think you’re wrong about working people making appreciable financial progress. Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class; our only choice is between covert and overt subservience. Finally, you should be aware that flippantly dismissing egg prices - or really any humans’ food security - makes you come across as privileged and out of touch.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  >Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class; Every time someone says or implies that “both parties are the same” a hungry child gets called a parasite and kicked out of a free and/or reduced price school lunch program.
  - chongli 2y ago
    One is the good cop and the other the bad cop. They operate by different methods but inequality continues to rise unabated.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    >> Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class > Every time someone says or implies that “both parties are the same” Those aren't the same claims. Rather, the claim is that the party differences, to the extent that they are different, reflect differences among the wealthy political donor class who control the politicians and the policies. There are differences of opinion and approaches among the donor class.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  The statistics about real wage growth are likely enough to be true. That doesn't mean you don't have lots of people in high cost of living areas that lost purchasing power due to cost of housing or whatever. It just means that the aggregate effect is likely enough to have been an increase.
- Aurornis 2y ago
LightBug1 2y ago
And this is why you enshrine worker rights in law, and don't leave in the hands of a "benevolent" C-Suite ...
ulfw 2y ago
Oh please. No one got hired during Covid out of the sheer goodness of anyone's heart. CEOs are sheep. They all do the same thing and run in the same direction. Your competitors are hiring, you're hiring. You can't be left behind. Your competitors are firing, you're firing. You won't be the odd man out who has to explain to the board and shareholders why you're not cleaning house when others do. Rinse and repeat
- steveBK123 2y ago
  I'm not saying they hired because they were nice, and became not nice. They over-hired and now they are going to over-fire, and they pay themselves well the whole way thru. I am saying they are rabidly resentful of the hiring they did. You can see it in leaked comments like JPM's Dimon at a local town hall where he said something to the effect of "we hired 50k people during COVID because people aren't doing their jobs and what's why none of you can WFH anymore" lol. The way CEOs talk about now vs then is like some Old Testament fire & brimstone stuff. Like its everyones fault that he over-hired and now they should all get back to the office or face eternal damnation.
cyanydeez 2y ago
I think it reminded CEOs and middle management that most of their work is not integral to the products and you could weekend at bernies most of them with few low level employees affected. Their only value tends to be self referential via class integretation (eg, they get contracts by golfing with other managers, which if there was just some contract directory they are left with little value) However, anecdotes are how the keep justifying their salaries
pushcx 2y ago
A useful term here is "labor share" and the included chart of the last ~80y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_share
Whatarethese 2y ago
It seems like everyone always underestimates stupidity and just apathy.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lapcat 2y ago

> And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up This comment seems very out of touch. Grocery prices don't affect Meta engineers much, but they affect ordinary people a lot. I wouldn't even call Meta engineers "middle class". They're typically in the upper class. I'm not saying the new administration is the solution, but it's perfectly understandable why people are hurt by inflation, unhappy about it, and wanted a change.

steveBK123 2y ago
Real wages (inflation adjusted) for the lower 50% went up faster than they have since pre-Reagan era. So while inflation hurts the bottom more than the top, because they spend a higher % of income, they were compensated for it. The problem is that across the spectrum, when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" and when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". Sort of like all the stimulus, payroll protection, unemployment benefit increases/extensions, rent/mortgage/student loan moratoriums during COVID that went on well past the point where economy was at risk, and people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC. The amounts of money and different ways money was thrown at people by the government 2020-2021 was historically abnormal and we got more mass unrest than when huge swathes of country were losing their homes and out of a job for years during GFC. It makes me wonder what a government can actually do that doesn't lead to backlash.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > they were compensated for it. That's a very questionable assumption. Many people have criticized the CPI and inflation rate as an inaccurate measure of the cost of living. Housing prices are crazy in many areas. I think you're exaggerating about the affect of egg prices specifically on voter behavior. And with any average or median, there are often vastly different outcomes for different people who are not exactly average. > when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" This feels like a straw man. > when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". This also feels like a straw man, and the phrasing is quite condescending. > people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC Did they? After all, the 2008 Presidential election during the financial crisis was kind of a blowout in favor of the opposition party against the incumbent party. Whereas 2020 and 2024 were closer elections.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Where were the mass demonstrations in 2008-2010? Sure OWS happened, and I was able to see it up close.. but this was nothing compared to summer 2020. Why did no one storm the capitol in 2008/2012? Why didn't crime shoot up and stay up for 2-3 years then? Etc.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      I'm at a loss here, because these all seem like red herrings. What do the George Floyd protests and the Capitol storming have to do with inflation, employment, and the cost of living?
      - steveBK123 2y ago
        It speaks to the mass anger, on both sides of the political spectrum, in the same 6-12 month period. None of which we saw the likes of in US during the deeper, longer, more impactful near-depression of 2008.
        2y ago
airstrike 2y ago
Egg prices went up because of the bird flu causing a supply chain disruption.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Egg prices are a great litmus test because there were supply chain disruptions (for different reasons!) under Joe & Orange but depending on which color hat you wear, you gave/are giving one a pass and get/got mad at the other.
  - amenhotep 2y ago
    Nobody is actually mad at orange for egg prices, though. Exasperatedly calling out hypocrisy is not the same thing.
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      It’s wild to me how much time and money he has spent on doing everything but lowering the price of eggs. He has taken it as far as going to the Super Bowl and NASCAR in AF 1 …on tax payer money. Not sure what he’s thinking…
      - malfist 2y ago
        He's thinking what he's always been thinking "me, me, me, me, me" He doesn't care about egg prices, he just wants to crown himself King and make himself even richer
    - notyourwork 2y ago
      Yes, one is given a pass and the other not.
    - malfist 2y ago
      It's a common refrain, it's just dishonest discourse. Remember when Obama was relentlessly criticized for golfing when he golfed less than and recent presidents, and certainly less than Trump did? Remember when Obama was criticized for running up the deficit when Bush added more to the national debt than he did? And then Trump came along and nearly doubled the national debt? Remember when Al Franklin resigned over an inappropriate image with a woman, and Trump brags on tape about grabbing women by the genitals? Remember when Hillary spent years being investigated for having a private email server, just like Bush had? And today DOGE does too. Remember when Trump accused remote workers of "only playing golf" during the workday, while Trump was on the golf course during a workday? There's a whole lot more examples but I'm tired of typing them and they make me angry thinking about them.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
Comment though was about people choosing the fire to the frying pan. That kind of change.
- lapcat 2y ago
  Unfortunately, that's how it always is in our political duopoly. If people want a change, the only choice is to pivot back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.

phd514 2y ago

I work for a mid-sized, publicly-traded tech company that has been inching towards profitability but the last couple quarterly earnings results have been disappointing (and rank-and-file bonuses were slashed to 25% of target) and the company had its first-ever round of layoffs last October. The CEO's last two years of comp were $20M and $10M which is obviously completely incongruous with the size, profitability, and stock performance of the company. It seems that there is a distortion in the market forces around executive compensation that functions in a similar way to venture capital -- investors are willing to pump outsized cash amounts into either funding rounds or executive comp since the occasional home run can result in stock returns that cover losses in other companies. It seems inefficient and certainly demoralizing, but I would prefer that solutions to the problem were driven by market forces and innovation rather than regulation or employee backlash.

rachofsunshine 2y ago
> It seems inefficient and certainly demoralizing, but I would prefer that solutions to the problem were driven by market forces and innovation rather than regulation or employee backlash. I ask this as a person who takes market forces very seriously: why? I think it's pretty obvious at this point that these forces are not producing very good outcomes for the population (even if they are on paper efficient in the market-efficiency sense), or at least, that the public doesn't feel like they are. That's causing massive social instability that is threatening nearly the entire developed world. That instability poses a pretty high threat to the approach you're arguing for. Neither protectionist reactionaries, nor leftists, are very well aligned with free-market philosophy, and those ideologies are ascendant nearly everywhere right now. Isn't that a greater threat to free-market economics than relatively mild welfare-state and workers-rights stuff? (Full disclosure: I am very much pro-labor and pro-regulation, so this is arguing for things I support, but even with your views it seems pretty clear to me that the status quo is dead no matter what you do. Wouldn't you rather have reforms that make the existing system work for the public than a revolution that destroys it entirely?)
- phd514 2y ago
  Fair question and I don't think there are easy answers to the problem. I think the actions you suggest tend to result in a market environment like Europe's where there are more regulations but businesses are generally less competitive than US businesses and wages tend to be lower than in the US.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

Saw someone recently post, "Greatest regret: not committing PPP fraud." Lest we forget that little giveaway to the boss-class.

e40 2y ago
PPP funds had to be used on employee salaries, and not just highly paid employees.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  The company I worked for at the time took a large PPP loan. They never shut down, never sent anyone home, and business that year broke records. So sure, they used it to pay employees, but they also pocketed what they would have used to pay employees.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Sure and some of this was only obvious in retrospect though. There were companies that would have laid off more people, earlier, for longer. And that wouldn’t have had sales during covid to support the jobs they spent PPP money on. But also huge fraud which was by design. A suboptimal but net positive program. What more could you expect from orange man.
  - e40 2y ago
    My company took the funds and didn't die because of it. 100% went to employees.
    - JKCalhoun 2y ago
      That's good to hear.
- vasco 2y ago
  They sure did: > Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations. > They came into their riches by participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters — as NBC News reported last year. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program. > https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-fraud-generation-looting-covid-relief-program-known-ppp-n1279664 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/biggest-...

prng2021 2y ago

Leveled the playing field? Strides in relative wages? See the chart here under the section labeled "Inflation Adjusted Reality" and you'll see how incorrect your statements are: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/01/09/u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2025/01/0... We still live in a country where federal minimum wage doesn't change for decades. You should also research the concept of subminimum wages and I think you'll be shocked. If you already knew about all of the above and still think there was anything close to a leveling of the playing field, you're choosing to ignore facts.

Aurornis 2y ago
> We still live in a country where federal minimum wage doesn't change for decades. Very few people make minimum wage. It’s basically impossible to find a minimum wage job in my city because even the post office and fast food restaurants are paying $19/hr or more, and they advertise it on signs out front. I don’t even live in a HCOL city. The focus on federal minimum wage has become a red herring.
- prng2021 2y ago
  I see multiple posts making your same claim and it's sad to see how many people live in a wealth bubble and haven't researched the facts at all. When I was young worked in the restaurant industry in a state that has a tipped minimum wage. The hourly pay for waiters and waitresses was and still is under $3/hr in that state. The rest of your pay is completely dependent on tips. This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch. This page has a table of the many states that have a shockingly low tipped minimum wage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
  - Aurornis 2y ago
    > haven't researched the facts at all. I have researched the facts. The percentage of people working minimum wage jobs is around 1% as of 2023. Likely under 1% now if the trend holds: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2023/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2023/ > When I was young… We’re talking about wages in 2025, not when you were young. The point is that the wage landscape has changed a lot from what you’re remembering. > This is the reality folks. Not the tech company that gives you free catered lunch. No, I’m not talking about salaried jobs. I’m specifically talking about hourly wage jobs As for tipped jobs: Many efforts to eliminate tipped jobs have floundered specifically because the people in tipped jobs prefer their earnings with tips included. This is partially due to the way that tip earnings are underreported significantly on taxes when people pay in cash (untracked by computer systems) so actual tipped earnings are higher. Regardless, looking at tipped minimum wages is very dishonest because the entire definition is that these people are also getting tips. Employers are obligated to make up any difference if their tips do not bring them up to the minimum wage. Tipped minimum wage doesn’t literally mean someone can earn $3/hour. It’s right there in the first paragraph of that Wikipedia page you linked.

addicted 2y ago

Unfortunately American white collar workers responded to the brief period of relative power increase by pushing for remote work rather than consolidating that power or asking for better pay. We are seeing the results now with white collar work being outsourced to countries in LATAM. If people aren’t gonna be physically collocated why pay more for someone to work from the U.S. when you can pay a fraction for someone to work in the same time zone in central and South America. I strongly suspect we will Look back at this period similarly to how we look back at the 80s when blue collar workers voted to have their jobs outsource to China, except this time it’s white collar workers pushing to essentially make their jobs easier to outsource to the rest of the world.

tdeck 2y ago
Employers could always have outsourced white collar work. I remember in 2002 when "all the programmer jobs were going to India". Coming together to push for better working conditions you care about is exactly what building power looks like for any group of workers. The problem is not pushing for remote work, it's that most people do it individually so they aren't creating any kind of social structure that helps them keep some of that power when the pendulum swings back.
socksy 2y ago
I think contextually what one has to remember when analysing behaviours during this time of power shift to the employee due to a global pandemic, is that while that was happening there was also a global pandemic taking place...

user3939382 2y ago

> Party of the CEO class Sorry who crushed the railroad strike? Do you see the campaign contributions for every candidate and politician in the DNC? You think they don’t represent Wall Street? This characterization has been dead at least since Bill Clinton.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
Now instead of campaign contributions, we have the government run by actual billionaires.
- quantified 2y ago
  Oh the elected officials took enormous quantities of contributions and spent none of their own money.
FFFXXX 2y ago
Compare the average republican sentiment to this regarding the railway strike / paid sick days: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/2306... I don't think you can simply hand-wave the differences between your two parties. There do seem to be substantially different outcomes for the people affected by these issues.

pseudocomposer 2y ago

You’re definitely right that the CEO class was furious about the social progress made by working people. But in terms of purchasing power, I think you’re wrong about working people making appreciable financial progress. Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class; our only choice is between covert and overt subservience. Finally, you should be aware that flippantly dismissing egg prices - or really any humans’ food security - makes you come across as privileged and out of touch.

snakeyjake 2y ago
>Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class; Every time someone says or implies that “both parties are the same” a hungry child gets called a parasite and kicked out of a free and/or reduced price school lunch program.
- chongli 2y ago
  One is the good cop and the other the bad cop. They operate by different methods but inequality continues to rise unabated.
- lapcat 2y ago
  >> Secondly, both major US parties serve the CEO class > Every time someone says or implies that “both parties are the same” Those aren't the same claims. Rather, the claim is that the party differences, to the extent that they are different, reflect differences among the wealthy political donor class who control the politicians and the policies. There are differences of opinion and approaches among the donor class.
maxerickson 2y ago
The statistics about real wage growth are likely enough to be true. That doesn't mean you don't have lots of people in high cost of living areas that lost purchasing power due to cost of housing or whatever. It just means that the aggregate effect is likely enough to have been an increase.
Aurornis 2y ago

LightBug1 2y ago

And this is why you enshrine worker rights in law, and don't leave in the hands of a "benevolent" C-Suite ...

ulfw 2y ago

Oh please. No one got hired during Covid out of the sheer goodness of anyone's heart. CEOs are sheep. They all do the same thing and run in the same direction. Your competitors are hiring, you're hiring. You can't be left behind. Your competitors are firing, you're firing. You won't be the odd man out who has to explain to the board and shareholders why you're not cleaning house when others do. Rinse and repeat

steveBK123 2y ago
I'm not saying they hired because they were nice, and became not nice. They over-hired and now they are going to over-fire, and they pay themselves well the whole way thru. I am saying they are rabidly resentful of the hiring they did. You can see it in leaked comments like JPM's Dimon at a local town hall where he said something to the effect of "we hired 50k people during COVID because people aren't doing their jobs and what's why none of you can WFH anymore" lol. The way CEOs talk about now vs then is like some Old Testament fire & brimstone stuff. Like its everyones fault that he over-hired and now they should all get back to the office or face eternal damnation.

cyanydeez 2y ago

I think it reminded CEOs and middle management that most of their work is not integral to the products and you could weekend at bernies most of them with few low level employees affected. Their only value tends to be self referential via class integretation (eg, they get contracts by golfing with other managers, which if there was just some contract directory they are left with little value) However, anecdotes are how the keep justifying their salaries

pushcx 2y ago

A useful term here is "labor share" and the included chart of the last ~80y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_share

Whatarethese 2y ago

It seems like everyone always underestimates stupidity and just apathy.