The Republicans can’t find anything to say “yes” to, can they? This BS that raising the minimum wage will hurt jobs and business is killing me. Research by the tons indicates that raising the minimum wage – particularly by the small amount the President is calling for – not only helps the worker, but also helps the economy. If the economy is better, business is better. Although, the frickin’ DOW is through the roof and businesses are making profits like nobody’s business. Shamefully, worker productivity has risen a hundredfold over the last several decades, while their wages have remained flat. Profits are huge and CEO salaries have gone up by more than 400% – that’s right, 400%. The other excuse is that workers don’t have the skills for higher paying jobs. While that may be true in small pockets of industry, every friend that I know that has been looking for work over the last couple of years keeps hearing, “Sorry, you’re OVERQUALIFIED.” Something is not right here. Either employers are using that excuse to avoid hiring the candidate and trying to give them a misguided compliment, OR someone is full of it.
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Maybe writing about it will help. Just get it all out there. There is nothing quite like feeling utterly alone. I wish my family didn’t live so far away….they truly are all I have. In the 12+ years since my divorce, my life has spiraled downhill, and it’s gone by at an amazing speed. I look back and find very few days of happiness since then. Not only did I lose someone I loved, but things sort of piled on after that. I found myself, like most women, in a state of near poverty. They say that it takes the average woman more than 10 years to recover financially from a divorce. Does that make me above or below average since I’m still struggling? Friends I had during my marriage – even those that were only my friends – slowly pulled away from me. What is it about people that make them run when you need them most? So many people just don’t want to be around someone with problems, I guess. What happened to real friendship?
Over the course of these years, I also lost three jobs. One to downsizing, one to I wish I knew what and one because I could no longer take working for an unethical tyrant. In each situation, because I have no “back up” at home, I had to take the best job I could find as quickly as possible. Because of that, I am now making less money than I was making 13 years ago….and without a second income and inflation and companies giving minimal (and I do mean minimal) raises….well, you do the math. Unfortunately, one of the times I lost a job, I was out of work for six months and had to survive on my retirement savings.
Y’all should know how quickly you can lose what you have. I once had a secure marriage, a growing 401(k) and a Roth IRA, a stock portfolio and enough money to make repairs to my home and car and more than enough to buy clothing, travel…my needs were met. Nothing extravagant, but I had what I needed. Now I have none of that. None of it. These days, each payday I have to decide which bills I can pay and how much I have to spend on food. I know I’m not alone. I know that more Americans than I can comprehend are in this same situation. I feel stuck. I don’t have enough money to move and the market is too bad to put a home that needs repair on the market. Every time I take a step forward, I get pushed back at least two.
A lot of people, like me, have good jobs, jobs they enjoy. But I still live in fear daily that the next day will be the day I lose my job. In this market, employers have the advantage. You need them much more than they need you. There are so many people looking for work that you can be replaced oh so quickly. The daily worry, the stress, the living in need all the time has taken a toll on me. A toll on my physical health, a toll on my mental health, and a toll on how I relate to other human beings. I trust no one. No one, except my mother and sister. And both of them are struggling to make it these days as well. They have both tried their best to help me when they can. My mother lives on a fixed retirement income and my sister is paid next to nothing by an employer she does everything for….life is passing so many people by when all they can do is hope to survive the day, the week, the month.
Thanks for listening, dear blogosphere.
AIG was the worst of the worst offenders in the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, no executive is in jail, no executive has been indicted. In fact, many who caused the crisis and destroyed the lives of millions of middle class Americans are still in key positions on Wall Street. And now they are considering whether to sue the US Government? After the taxpayers and the Government bailed them out of their own mismanagement?? If you still do business with this organization, you are nothing but a fool.
I’m tired of hearing politicians and the media calling for “entitlement” cuts. First of all, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not “entitlements.” We’ve paid for those benefits. We need to make responsible cuts to the defense budget and stop subsidizing corporations and BOOM! We save trillions and slash the deficit. I can’t believe we have so few politicians (Bernie Sanders is one) that actually see the common sense in this. And maybe we should pay Congress only for the days they work. The right likes to complain that the President doesn’t build relationships with them….hmmm….maybe if you jerkoffs got back to actually working in Washington 5 days a week, 48-50 weeks of the year instead of 2 day workweeks 40 or less weeks of the year, there might be an opportunity to build relationships.
