Minimum Wage & Inequality

[Bact PhD]

(Migrated from the old board)
The $2.5 Trillion Theft:

www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1

It isn't exactly like RAND is some wild-eyed commie outfit, either.

Just how far has the working class been left behind by the winner-take-all economy? A new analysis by the RAND Corporation examines what rising inequality has cost Americans in lost income—and the results are stunning.

[LFC]

The Amazon unionization vote may be going down in flames.

In case you’re not following it, the union organizing drive at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama seems to be going down to a blow out defeat. Out of 3,215 votes cast the current tally is Yes: 294, No: 691. In other words, rejected so far by more than a 2 to 1 margin. I don’t have enough experience with this to know whether there are factors that can make early votes different from late votes or if that concept even applies here. But this rough proportion has been very consistent since the first couple hundred votes were counted. So it seems like the organizers didn’t even come close.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 9, 2021 14:42:33 GMT LFC said:

The Amazon unionization vote may be going down in flames.

In case you’re not following it, the union organizing drive at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama seems to be going down to a blow out defeat. Out of 3,215 votes cast the current tally is Yes: 294, No: 691. In other words, rejected so far by more than a 2 to 1 margin. I don’t have enough experience with this to know whether there are factors that can make early votes different from late votes or if that concept even applies here. But this rough proportion has been very consistent since the first couple hundred votes were counted. So it seems like the organizers didn’t even come close.

That enterprise struck me as a bit quixotic, anyway. We are talking about Alabama, after all. Had it been somewhere where organized labor had been prevalent in earlier decades, say in the Midwest, the organizing effort might have stood a chance.

[LFC]

A TPM reader who has some experience with unionization drives did not expect it to succeed.

I hesitate to comment before the votes are in. But I would be surprised if the RWSDU won the election. Based on my former experiences as a union organizer (including one campaign in Alabama,) I believe there are three reasons–

First, there’s a reason companies place factories–and this is a factory, in internal organization if not in name–in rural areas, especially in the South: The pay and benefits are so much better than anything else in the area. These are good jobs, relatively speaking.

Second, Amazon ran an intense, by-the-book anti-union campaign, focused on one major theme: Employees could lose that level of pay and benefits through union negotiations. Of course, this is extremely unlikely. But it is a potent threat for people who may be earning twice what they’ve ever earned in their lives.

Third, from what I can tell, the RWDSU ran a by-the-book organizing campaign. There was a lot of media attention paid to organizers plopping themselves at an intersection and handing flyers to and chatting with workers as they left the warehouse. That could only be impressive to someone who’s never seen a standard union campaign. Usually, organizers stand outside a factory gate and do the same thing. Throw in home visits, meetings with current RWDSU members and visits by well-known pols (we used to bring in Jesse Jackson), and you have the usual effort unions have run–usually unsuccessfully–for decades. The only new twist appears to have been a lot of text messages sent to cell phones.

I would not even begin to claim to know how unions could do things differently to produce better outcomes. All I can say is, from firsthand experience, I know the RWDSU campaign is not a winning blueprint. Really, the shock would have been if it had succeeded.

The UAW has not been able to organize any of the auto plants built by companies based in Japan, Korea and Germany in the South. Sadly, it’s rather unlikely another union will organize any of the warehouse “plants” built there by Amazon and like global corporations.

[LFC]

Biden is going to raise the minimum wage for government contractors to $15/hr.

President Joe Biden will issue an executive order on Tuesday raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour, according to a White House statement.

The new minimum raises an hourly wage minimum of $10.95 set under an order by former President Barack Obama signed in 2014. Biden’s order which will also require that the new minmum wage rise with inflation, is expected to take effect next year, the White House said in a statement Tuesday.

The executive order “ensures that hundreds of thousands of workers no longer have to work full time and still live in poverty. It will improve the economic security of families and make progress toward reversing decades of income inequality,” the White House said.

Tuesday’s measure follows an executive order Biden signed shortly after taking office aimed at protecting the federal workforce that called for recommendations to promote a $15/hour minimum wage for federal employees.

The White House has argued that the increase will not lead to significant job losses and that it was unlikely to cost taxpayers more money. It has also said that the higher wage would lead to greater productivity and lower turnover.

[LFC]

This is as good a place as any to put this.

The Biden administration is likely celebrating a better-than-expected jobs report, which showed surging employment and wages. However, for millions of working Americans, being employed doesn’t guarantee a living income.

As scholars interested in the well-being of workers, we believe that the economy runs better when people aren’t forced to choose between paying rent, buying food or getting medicine. Yet too many are compelled to do just that.

Determining just how many workers struggle to make ends meet is a complicated task. A worker’s minimum survival budget can vary considerably based on where the person lives and how many people are in the family.

Take Rochester, New York. It has a cost of living that’s closest to the national average across 509 U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the City Cost of Living Index compiled by the research firm AdvisorSmith.

MIT’s living wage calculator shows that a single adult living in Rochester needs at least US$30,000 a year to cover the cost of housing, food, transportation and other basic needs.

But in San Francisco, which AdvisorSmith data indicate is the U.S. city with the highest cost of living, affording just the basics costs $47,587, mainly due to significantly higher taxes and rents.

The city with the lowest cost of living is Beckley, West Virginia. Even there, a childless worker still needs to earn about $28,200 to make essential ends meet. Again, the average American city has a cost of living of around $30,000 a year for a single person.

Of course, costs add up quickly for households with more than one person. Two adults in Rochester need over $48,000 a year, while a single parent with one child needs more than $63,000. In San Francisco, a single parent would need to earn $101,000 a year just to scrape by.

So that’s what it takes to survive in today’s America. About $30,000 a year for a single person without dependents in the average city – a little less in some cities, and much, much more for families and anyone who lives in a major city like San Francisco or New York.

But we estimate that at least 27 million U.S. workers don’t earn enough to hit that very low threshold of $30,000, based on the latest occupation wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency, from May 2020. We believe this is a conservative estimate and that the number of people with jobs who earn less than what’s necessary to afford the necessities of life is likely much higher.

[AnBr]

How about retitling this thread to something like "Minimum Wage and Inequality"? It has been delving into more than just minimum wage.

[AnBr]

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Attachments:

[Bact PhD]

Oct 20, 2021 0:31:42 GMT AnBr said:

How about retitling this thread to something like "Minimum Wage and Inequality"? It has been delving into more than just minimum wage.

Good point; done.

[Bact PhD]

This piece from Business Insider puts a different spin on the labor shortage. The investigator conceded that it’s an “n” of one, in one community, but it’s still interesting.

www.businessinsider.com/worker-applied-to-60-jobs-got-one-interview-labor-shortage-2021-10

So Holz, a former food-service worker and charter-boat crewman, decided to run an experiment.

On September 1, he sent job applications to a pair of restaurants that had been particularly public about their staffing challenges.

Then, he widened the test and spent the remainder of the month applying to jobs — mostly at employers vocal about a lack of workers — and tracking his journey in a spreadsheet.

[snip]

Holz said he wasn't applying for any roles he didn't qualify for.

Some jobs "wanted a high-school diploma," he said. "Some wanted retail experience," he added. "Most of them either said 'willing to train' or 'minimum experience,' and none of them were over $12 an hour."

[snip]

By the end of September, Holz had sent out 60 applications, received 16 email responses, four follow-up phone calls, and the solitary interview. He shared a pie chart showing his results.

[AnBr]

[AnBr]

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Attachments:

[LFC]

Companies ditching employees for large-scale "private contractor" work forces which they then repeatedly extract concessions from is a real problem. Charter Communications is just the latest example.

Just as the U.S. barreled toward 2 million confirmed covid-19 cases in mid-2020, Charter Communications gave a carefully worded pat on the back to its “employees” who kept the country connected in dire times. “They’ve been asked to go well above and beyond the regular duties and they’ve delivered easing the strain for millions of families,” CEO Thomas Rutledge said in a press release, which also cheered the company’s disbursement of PPE to its “employees.” For many technicians, who went from house to house during pandemic surges, the whole thing was a spit in the eye. These technicians are not Charter employees, they’re contractors, and as such, they say they didn’t receive PPE. Worse, the company effectively picked their pockets for profit under the guise of social distancing.

Like countless other corporations, Charter amassed new pandemic-era wealth— $3.2 billion, nearly double the previous year. Charter did so, in part, by widely expanding its “self-install” program, which it touted as a major “cost-saving” measure. But contract workers say the “savings” came straight out of their pockets through a systematic scheme to mislabel their jobs as lower-paying emergency fixes.

Eighteen current and former contract workers, most from Florida, pointed to Charter subsidiary Spectrum’s self-install program, which allows customers to receive equipment in the mail and hook it up themselves, hypothetically saving them a technician visit. (This is now common across the industry—Comcast, Cox Communications, Optimum, and Mediacom all promote the kits.) People routinely opt for self-installs and can’t or don’t actually install the equipment. So Spectrum sends a technician to do all the work but labels it a cheaper “trouble call.” Techs often arrive to find equipment left unopened on the floor; when they try to contact Spectrum, there’s no way to get the job reclassified at the higher, correct rate.

“I want to say about 80 percent of the stuff that they mail out we still have to come and do,” Rob, a longtime Florida contract technician, told Gizmodo. (Rob and most sources for this story requested that Gizmodo use pseudonyms, for fear of employer retribution.)

“Self-install” is more than just a billing misnomer, contractors said—it’s often practically impossible for a customer to complete. Florida contractor “William” told Gizmodo that a self-install “trouble call” can involve up to three-hour installation jobs involving dropping new lines through the walls, installing outlets, hooking up a TV, phone, and wifi.

“They expected the customer to be able to crawl through their own attic, run a line, bury the line that’s cut outside,” he said. A Spectrum spokesperson said that it doesn’t send self-install kits to customers who’ve never had cable installed, but contractors repeatedly said this simply isn’t true.

Under William’s contract company, a TV, phone, and wireless hookup for Spectrum would normally pay a contractor about $64. But the same job reclassified as a self-install pays around $35 through his contract company. He and fellow contractors sent their managers emails with photos showing that they’d done four or five hour jobs for only $35, but it didn’t change a thing. William said that he’s lost 60% of his pay since Spectrum took over his local market five years ago.

[AnBr]

The origin of America's deficit obsession

The deficit isn’t the core economic problem. The bigger problem is that the earnings of half of the American workforce have been stagnant or declining for years. This should have been what we focused on at today’s meeting. We should have discussed how to increase public investments in education, job-training, healthcare, and everything else that American workers need. And how to encourage corporations to share more of their profits with their workers.

I’m as guilty as anyone. More guilty. After all, I’m supposed to be in charge of this process. Instead, I succumbed to the deficit obsession.

[LFC]

Nov 24, 2021 3:13:32 GMT AnBr said:

The origin of America's deficit obsession

And I repeat, Jude Wanniski and the Two Santa Clause Theory.

[LFC]

Congressional workers are looking to unionized.

A group of congressional staffers on Friday announced an effort to unionize the Capitol’s press officers, policy wonks and constituent case workers, saying it was time to give staffers a voice in the workplace.

The Congressional Workers Union announced its organizing effort amid rising discontent with congressional staffers’ pay and working conditions.

“After more than a year of organizing as a volunteer group of congressional staff, we are proud to publicly announce our efforts to unionize the personal offices and committees of Congress, in solidarity with our fellow workers across the United States and the world,” a statement from the group read.

“While not all offices and committees face the same working conditions, we strongly believe that to better serve our constituents will require meaningful changes to improve retention, equity, diversity, and inclusion on Capitol Hill. That starts with having a voice in the workplace. We call on all congressional stuff to join the effort to unionize, and look forward to meeting management at the table.”

The announcement noted a recent survey from the Congressional Progressive Staff Association that found that 91% of congressional staff respondents, including management staff, “would like to see more protections to give them a voice at work.”

The same survey found that half of non-management respondents reported struggling to pay bills, and that over a quarter of non-management staff, or 109 respondents, reported not having at least one month’s rent saved in case of an emergency.

Public support from Democratic members of Congress for a unionization effort has built in recent days.

[LFC]

Kevin McCarthy tells congressional staffers who don't want to work for dirt wages to f*** off. He's not the only Republican.

Days after a group of congressional staffers announced their efforts to unionize, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made clear — unsurprisingly — that he is not enthusiastic about the idea.

“No. I don’t think it would be productive for the government,” McCarthy told Punchbowl News on Monday.

The House and Senate would both need to pass resolutions greenlighting staffers’ unionization. In the Senate, it would likely go through regular order, requiring at least 10 Republicans, as well as all Democrats, to support it.

Although he currently heads the minority caucus of the House, McCarthy’s opposition to congressional staffers’ unionization efforts could carry heavier weight if Republicans take back the majority in the midterm elections later this year and lead an effort to block or overturn the effort.

Senior Republicans also stated their opposition to congressional staffers to unionize in recent days.

“I’m not for it,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is viewed as a potential successor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as GOP leader, told Politico on Monday.

And we have at least one Democrat against it. Anybody care to guess? Hint: They're from a state known for busting unions and heads at coal mines.

It might not only be Republicans who would stand in the way of unionizing Senate staffers — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) didn’t back the effort right off the bat when asked about it on Tuesday.

Manchin first told reporters he hadn’t heard of the unionizing effort, before seeming to discuss the concept of “at-will” employment.

“I’m here at the will and pleasure of the people. They have a chance to change and things of that sort,” Manchin said. “So we got to make sure we’re doing it and doing it right. My greatest thing is to have the best staff I possibly can to serve the people of West Virginia.”

Manchin added if there are any staffers who are being treated “unfairly,” then “that should be looked into and taken care of.”

Manchin then offered that he was a “big supporter” of unions and the right to unionize, but argued that people who are “working for tax dollars” are also “at the will and pleasure of the people.”

“They have a chance to change and things of that sort so we’ve got to make sure we’re doing it and doing it right,” Manchin said.

Thanks for the clarification, mush-mouth.

[LFC]

Teachers and would-be teachers have had enough of being shit on and it's beginning to show. Too many state and local governments have balanced their budgets on teachers' backs. Pensions are woefully underfunded because states simply refuse to provide the money. MAGAt politicians want them to risk their lives to COVID rather than safeguarding classrooms. Now they're being demonized by ignorant parents and are facing crazed teaching restrictions and even a surveillance law in Florida. Who the hell would want to deal with that crap? Bold mine.

Oklahoma City University officials announced they were suspending the programs in 2020 after a worrying pattern of declining enrollment -- one that's part of a national trend.

US teacher prep programs have reported shrinking enrollment numbers over at least the past decade. Experts are sounding the alarm: The educator profession -- a critical cornerstone of American life -- is in crisis.

"As more and more teachers retire, we need to have others fill that role and right now, the numbers are not looking good for us," said Heather Sparks, director of Teacher Education at Oklahoma City University. "It's heartbreaking to watch."

The pandemic exacerbated the existing problems. Fears of catching Covid-19 and enforcing pandemic protocols are additions to the long list of challenges teachers face daily -- from low pay and often little regard from their communities, to growing numbers of school shootings and legislative requirements about what and how to teach. Many educators have walked away in recent years and amid a dire shortage, few people want to fill their spots.

"I was driven almost because of that," Reynolds, 29, said. "I want to do right by our kids."

While some say it's too early to know the specific impacts of the pandemic, Lynn Gangone, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) told CNN the numbers already show Covid-19 further dissuaded Americans from going into teaching. In fall 2020 and 2021, about 20% of institutions surveyed by AACTE reported the pandemic resulted in a decline of new undergraduate enrollment of at least 11%. Roughly 13% of institutions reported "significant" declines in the number of new graduate students. Regional state colleges and smaller private institutions -- often found in rural communities -- have seen the steepest declines.

"I don't know how bad it's going to have to get before we realize as a country that if we don't invest in education ... we will not have anyone in the classrooms to teach our children," Gangone said.

Compensation is a major problem, especially Look which states pay the worst. What a shock. I remember the recent fights in other states where salaries in some were running under $40,000.

Research from the National Education Association found the average classroom teacher salary during the 2020-2021 school year was just over $65,000. Some of the lowest paying states -- offering an average salary of less than $50,000 -- include Florida, Mississippi and South Dakota, according to the research. California, Massachusetts and New York, the highest paying states, offered an average of more than $85,000.

The little compensation remains among the biggest challenges in recruiting future teachers, especially when combined with the costs of acquiring the necessary credentials added on to student loans.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 9, 2022 18:09:08 GMT LFC said:

Teachers and would-be teachers have had enough of being shit on and it's beginning to show. Too many state and local governments have balanced their budgets on teachers' backs. Pensions are woefully underfunded because states simply refuse to provide the money. MAGAt politicians want them to risk their lives to COVID rather than safeguarding classrooms. Now they're being demonized by ignorant parents and are facing crazed teaching restrictions and even a surveillance law in Florida. Who the hell would want to deal with that crap? Bold mine.

Yup, my oldest kid spent her long college life preparing to be a teacher. To get the "good " salaries, California requires a teacher to complete a teacher credentialing program.  But when COVID hit and she was to start applying to teacher credential programs in summer 2020 she decided against it.  In addition to COVID making the 2 semester into a 3 semester program due to needing in class teaching time, it also made applying for teaching jobs impossible for about 6 months. Her experience teaching dance during COVID opened her eyes to the extreme unreasonableness of parents.  And she saw former classmates who were a year ahead of her struggle with shifting to online teaching as brand new teachers.  None of them got any support or guidance for it and all were struggling with parental behavior as well as student behavior. It's too bad, but no teaching job is paying enough for the aggravation.  

[LFC]

Elon Musk is reversing his anti-union stance.

It’s no secret that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is annoyed with President Joe Biden. The president frequently fails to mention Tesla when discussing electric vehicle production in the US, instead referring to Ford’s and GM’s comparatively nascent efforts. Musk, who has a tendency to hurl juvenile insults, has called Biden a “damp sock puppet” for the repeated slights.

Now, having gotten nowhere with insults, Musk appears to be trying a different tack.

Biden has made it obvious that he would like to see EVs made in the US by union labor. His administration is pushing for union- and American-made EVs to receive an additional $4,500 tax credit above the $7,500 offered for others. Ford, GM, and Stellantis (which now owns Chrysler) all have unionized factories. Tesla does not.

That might explain Musk’s sudden reversal of his previous anti-union stance. “I’d like hereby to invite UAW [United Auto Workers] to hold a union vote at their convenience,” he tweeted last night. “Tesla will do nothing to stop them.”

The National Labor Relations Board found that both Musk and Tesla violated the law on multiple occasions by interfering with union organizing at its Fremont, California, assembly plant. Musk was ordered to delete a tweet that suggested employees would no longer receive stock options if they voted in favor of forming a union.

“Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union,” Musk tweeted in 2018. “Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?” (Tesla appealed the ruling to delete the tweet, which is why it’s still posted.)

The NLRB also ordered Tesla to rehire a worker it had fired and give back pay to another, both of whom had been disciplined for protected union-related activity. An administrative law judge also found that Tesla illegally prevented employees from handing out pro-union leaflets in Tesla’s Fremont factory parking lot.

Since the last union-organizing drive at the Fremont plant in 2017, lawsuits and investigations have revealed a workplace that’s allegedly toxic for women and people of color.

[AnBr]

Robert Reich's Wealth & Poverty:

robertreich.substack.com/p/wealth-and-poverty-week-1?s=r

robertreich.substack.com/p/wealth-and-poverty-week-2?s=r

robertreich.substack.com/p/wealth-and-poverty-week-3?s=r

robertreich.substack.com/p/wealth-and-poverty-week-4?s=r

[LFC]

There's a major case coming up before partisan hack SCOTUS that could rebalance the power dynamic between an employee and employer.

Laws mean nothing if they cannot be enforced against people who violate them, which is why there is an entire branch of government — the judiciary — whose job is supposed to be applying the law to individual cases. But at least when it comes to employment law, the Supreme Court has spent the last two decades permitting most employers to immunize themselves from lawsuits through a practice known as “forced arbitration.”

Forced arbitration allows an employer to order its workers to sign away their right to sue the company, or lose their jobs. Instead, any disputes must be resolved in a private arbitration process that gives extraordinary advantages to corporate parties over individuals. (Forced arbitration is also very common in ordinary consumer transactions, but your bank or cellphone company can only refuse to do business with you if you refuse arbitration. Your boss can most likely fire you.)

In the final two weeks of March, the Supreme Court will hear three cases asking just how much power companies have to force their workers into arbitration.

The first two, Morgan v. Sundance and Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, are fairly narrow. But the third case, Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, involves one of the original sins of the Court’s forced arbitration jurisprudence. The Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, the statute the Court relies on in forced arbitration cases, explicitly exempts “workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” But, in Circuit City v. Adams (2001), a 5-4 Court held that most workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce can be forced into arbitration.

The issue now before the Court in Saxon is whether workers who load and unload cargo from airplanes count among the rare workers who are not vulnerable to forced arbitration under Circuit City. Under existing law, answering this question is needlessly complicated — although it is worth noting that a Trump-appointed judge wrote the lower court’s opinion holding that these workers are not subject to forced arbitration.

But if the Court actually followed the text of the Arbitration Act, then this wouldn’t be a difficult case at all. Indeed, if the Court cared about what the Arbitration Act actually says, none of its decisions enabling forced arbitration would apply to workers.

Here's the impact of forced arbitration.

Looking at those who created this situation in the first place I don't hold out even a shred of hope. (Thomas is still on the court.)

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined, and in which Souter, J., joined as to Parts II and III, post, p. 124. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 133.

Roberts has been a regular defender of the rights of authority and corporations over the rights of people. The other 5 clowns rarely even pretend to actually care about the rights of people. They probably know what their decision is already in fitting with their belief in being a results oriented court ... as long as they rule it.

[LFC]

Nearly 1/3 of Americans make less than $15/hr.

Nearly 52 million workers -- or almost one-third of the nation's labor force -- earn less than $15 an hour, according to a study released Tuesday by Oxfam America, an anti-poverty advocacy group.
These workers, whose annual income is less than $31,200, are disproportionately women and people of color, the study found.
Some 47% of Black workers and 46% of Hispanic workers make less than $15 an hour, compared with 26% of White workers. Some 40% of female workers earn less than that threshold, compared with 25% of male workers.

Half of the women of color in the workforce make less than $15 an hour, as do nearly 58% of single parents.

"It's shameful that at a time when many US companies are boasting record profits, some of the hardest working people in this country -- especially people who keep our economy and society functioning -- are struggling to get by and falling behind," said Kaitlyn Henderson, the study's author and senior research adviser at Oxfam America.

The report is one of the latest efforts to push for raising the federal minimum wage above the current $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009. Many worker advocates would like to see the threshold increased to $15 an hour, which they say is a first step to creating a more livable wage.
Soaring inflation, which has pushed up the prices of food, housing, gasoline and other necessities, has made it even more difficult for lower-income families to survive on their wages, Oxfam America said.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 22, 2022 18:59:56 GMT LFC said:

Nearly 1/3 of Americans make less than $15/hr.

Nearly 52 million workers -- or almost one-third of the nation's labor force -- earn less than $15 an hour, according to a study released Tuesday by Oxfam America, an anti-poverty advocacy group.
These workers, whose annual income is less than $31,200, are disproportionately women and people of color, the study found.
Some 47% of Black workers and 46% of Hispanic workers make less than $15 an hour, compared with 26% of White workers. Some 40% of female workers earn less than that threshold, compared with 25% of male workers.

Half of the women of color in the workforce make less than $15 an hour, as do nearly 58% of single parents.

"It's shameful that at a time when many US companies are boasting record profits, some of the hardest working people in this country -- especially people who keep our economy and society functioning -- are struggling to get by and falling behind," said Kaitlyn Henderson, the study's author and senior research adviser at Oxfam America.

The report is one of the latest efforts to push for raising the federal minimum wage above the current $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009. Many worker advocates would like to see the threshold increased to $15 an hour, which they say is a first step to creating a more livable wage.
Soaring inflation, which has pushed up the prices of food, housing, gasoline and other necessities, has made it even more difficult for lower-income families to survive on their wages, Oxfam America said.

This makes me think of the 2011 book Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in American.  Things have not improved.  You'd think the recent success with Covid relief putting money into pockets of people would be a good illustration of how the problem with being poor is lack of money, not lack of will but no.  We cling hard to our comfortable myths.

[LFC]

Samsung is forcing commission based sales employees to handle customer service via chat, something they don't get paid for and often has no chance of leading to a sale. That's just shitty.

Customer service chat is a staple of most online retailers. Rather than pulling up a phone app, figuring out what number to dial, and waiting on hold for hours, the response time of a chat system is usually much quicker. The design of these systems can be pretty awful for the workers behind them, and The Verge recently published an exposé on what it's like to work as a chat rep for Samsung.com. The story paints a picture of an exploitative system that pressures employees to work for free.

At the top of this article, you can see what Samsung's chat system looks like. After just a few seconds on the homepage of Samsung.com, a "Chat with an expert" box pops up, and with a single click, you get connected to a person. This pop-up appears on nearly every page on Samsung's website, and at a glance, it seems like a customer service line. The Verge's report says this is actually a system exclusively full of salespeople who are "commission-only, with no hourly rate." If they don't make a sale, they don't get paid. Upon closer inspection, the wording "Chat with an expert for our best offers" lightly communicates the sales intention behind this pop-up. Still, it's not hard to imagine that most users will see it as a customer service line, especially given it's ubiquitous on Samsung's site.

These employees technically aren't supposed to handle customer support queries, aren't trained in customer support, and won't get paid for doing a customer support chat. None of the people visiting Samsung.com know that, though. The official documents instruct salespeople not to respond to customer service requests and instead direct people to Samsung's support page and close the chat. The catch is, customers can also rate the salespeople after this interaction. Employees tell The Verge that not doing customer service for free leads to lower satisfaction scores, and low satisfaction scores lead to being fired. The employees say they are also encouraged to do these free customer support calls by both Samsung and its partner in this chat enterprise, a company called "Ibbu."