Comment 38225

By Meredith (registered) - website | Posted February 19, 2010 at 14:18:46

Yup.. it's here now, fill it....

And as far as working in an unskilled job and making a wage like you were in a skilled job... that's pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird, and it's not going to come back. That's why skills are important.

I remember family of mine who worked at the Sterling plant in St. Thomas, making ridiculously high amounts of money for work they didn't need education or skill for. So they only worked a few hours a week to make enough to live on.

When it closed their choice had to be - work more hours, or get more skill. But crying for the return of a job where you're paid several times as much as minimum wage for unskilled work is ridiculous.

The rate of compensation has to correspond to the level of skill. And I've worked more than enough minimum wage jobs to know that most don't require a lot of skill!

Thankfully we do live in a city where you can do a lot of things on minimum wage - eat well, pay rent well within the correct percentage of your income, buy a house. $9.50 now/$10.25 (as of March) is pretty darn good for that.

Benefits are somewhat harder to come by, and often more important than the dollar amount one makes... even in skilled jobs, the amount of permanent "contract", part-time, and temp work that goes on to avoid paying benefits is unbelievable.

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose... being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." - G.B. Shaw

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