I mean the fed said the other week that they don't want higher wage expectations to be a long-term thing in the economy. All this labor progress we've seen happening has happened only because it was allowed to happen. It was happening under the pretense that it is temporary and wages will not continue to go up very much. The general 'they' were fine with that idea. Because what has actually changed in labor politics since the pandemic? Are people more organized than before? Not really. We get hopeful and want to chock it up to a sudden rise in militancy and finding our footing, but I don't think that's the case. They want wages to rise at the rate of current inflation, not catch up on decades of stale wages. In other words they want min wage to go from $7.50 or whatever to $8.50, not from $7.50 to $15. They will pay $15 or $16 or $18 temporarily, but they won't tolerate it for long. Because that is cutting into their profits even if you consider increased buying power (and therefore consumption) of the poor. The increased buying power is a bad thing to them because it means a feedback loop of people demanding to be paid more because the cost of goods is higher and that raises the cost of goods which causes more demand for higher pay to match the cost of living.
They know consumption is the engine of the economy but they don't want consumption to grow too fast because it adds to the cost of doing business. We can all disagree with this idea or how it works, but it's how capitalists right now are thinking. They're going to act on how they think. So yes, they're going to beat wages flat again even if it means bringing on a recession or whatever. This is even the view of your benevolent wonky "government intervention is good actually" liberals. At the end of the day they realize that paying people more on their terms will weaken capitalism's hold on the country. Even if they don't express it in those terms or can't articulate the feeling at all. That's what is happening.
I'm not trying to be doomer and shit on the recent labor victories. It's just that we have to realize that we're still not quite at a level of organization we need to be to counter this. And there is no reform to change it because this is the reform. Now it's militant labor action or it's nothing because they're just going to beat everyone back again and things will go back to an acceptable level of liberalism.
To me al lot of the comments coming from economists have been pretty mask-off "if we boil the water too quickly, the frog will jump out of the pot."
It's also important to note that a lot of companies only raised wages with "pandemic bonuses". They never actually raised wages in most cases, they just gave a top-up which they won't continue.
Capital is assuming that their comfy status quo with America on top is going to last more than another decade or so. When they no longer run the currency standard they might have to put forth EFFORT. Golly.
We were literally better off with Trump wtf I hate this country so much how was he less bad
Trump could give a fuck about passing anything so long as he could shitpost on Twitter. He bit the hand that fed him in McConnell and the dark money that ran his 2016 campaign.
Biden meanwhile is slavishly beholden to the folk who dark moneyed his win and other centrists in 2020. Biden is an egoless conduit for the donor class and the DNC establishment.
Biden in one year has nominated more TV talking heads and former lobbyists to positions of power than Trump did in two. Only thing Biden hasn't done is outright familial nepotism.
Only thing Biden hasn’t done is outright familial nepotism.
And honestly as far as corruption styles go, familial nepotism is pretty low on my priority list. At least that only helps a handful of minor ghouls who got their position by being related to someone evil, rather than by being as personally evil as possible themselves. I’d much rather Ivanka Trump than someone from fucking Raytheon or Lockheed
And with someone as incompetent and stupid as Trump, his family tends to be just as moronic and incompetent
Brandon did more damage in one year than Trump four. Amazing achievement
It’s honestly baffling. I knew he was gonna suck but I did think he was gonna be marginally better than Trump. My worry was that whoever followed would be an even worse backlash, like DeSantis. Turns out he’s worse in the moment and in the future!
Oh we're still going to get the backlash. Chuds have gained no ground on the culture war and they are ready as ever to punish their enemies. We'll have book burnings within the decade.
Oh 100%. At this point I’m convinced that unless the democrats do a sudden about-face (which seems unlikely) in 2024 the best case scenario is a second Trump term. Otherwise we’re getting DeSantis or someone else way more evil than Trump
I genuinely don’t understand why anyone would ever like DeSantis unless they are, like him, an absolutely irredeemable demon who deserves nothing but :pit:
Like, Trump I understood. He didn’t talk like a politician (because he was a moron). He was genuinely funny (despite being a monster). He had personality, even if it was one I didn’t enjoy. I don’t think every Trump supporter is a full on foaming at the mouth Nazi.
But DeSantis? He is the most disgusting, evil, soulless ghoul I’ve ever seen. There’s no personality, no humor, he doesn’t even own the libs in a fun way. He scares me to my core. I believe there’s a very good chance that DeSantis will be the one to bring real fascism to America
Trump gave them the vaccines. DeSantis told them they didn't need to wear masks and workers dont matter. Everybody is going to Florida. Not hard to figure out
I’m convinced that unless the democrats do a sudden about-face (which seems unlikely) in 2024
to what?
Now THIS is the kind of bipartisan compromise we can all get behind
Accelerationists sobbing over a cake that says "we were right."
Accelerationism isn't real. It is even more meaningless than "tankie" or "stalinist." When you tell somebody things are going to get worse before they get better, you are telling them things are going to accelerate. If you advocate for any form of class struggle whatsoever, you are pouring fuel on the fire and therefore accelerating the crisis. It's not like leftists are the ones leveling homeless encampments, depressing wages, stoking imperial conflicts, or spreading poverty just so they can have their bloody revolution a few weeks earlier. The concept is pure radlib cope.
Under this paradigm, the only way to avoid being an accelerationist is to remain in denial that any impending crisis even exists or that any action should be taken to confront it. The word itself reeks of Langley.
No, no, no, you see TECHNICALLY this isn't slavery, you're just forced to either work or starve. You can choose!
What's that? Too many bills for a minimum wage job to support?
CONGRATS! YOU UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN THIRD OPTION! WORK AND STARVE!
"This is insulting to actual slaves." - a white guy whose family fortune was built on slavery
Applebee's can barely keep operating anyway, the entire staff turns over every couple weeks
It's almost like it's a shitty company that deserves to shut down
You say that, but without their Quesadilla Explosion Burgers and $1 Mountain Dewgaritas, who would feed the honkies and their ilk?
They're half water, don't fall for their evil my friend!
Just do what I do, make a margarita like normal except you add Mountain Dew to it
Makes for good sippin in the summer months
Taco Bell was applying for a liqour license in my city to sell Baja Blast Margaritas. It was the primary issue on my cities subreddit that they kept getting denied.
One day, after the Fast Food Wars, we'll all be able to sit at a Taco Bell getting drunk off frosty liquor slushes
Oh no, you can do it now. The mayor holding it back ran for governor and finished dead last in the primary out of like a dozen people then tried to hop back into the mayor race which was going in the same season and lost. This guy had been mayor for over two decades and just fucking blew it.
Now the undergrads can get shitfaced at the taco bell.
Alternate version: Luckily for Applebee's managment, a microwave oven can't quit.
in my experience this is most retail or chain restaurant jobs
"require workers to take lower paying jobs or lose benefits" Look, does the job even pay enough to afford rent? Because at a certain point, if jobs pay so badly you're just going to end up homeless anyway, why the fuck would you want to give some pukes your labor?
Fuck America, and fuck Biden and the Democrats in particular. My life was unironically better under Trump, and that's fucking low.
"The real minimum wage is Zero!" I scream, over the phone, at my employee who can't afford gas money.
What do they mean exactly by “requiring workers to take lower paying jobs?” Is that them saying that unemployment benefits only extend to a certain income level and they’re accidentally saying the quiet part loud by admitting it’s meant to incentivize people taking lower paying work rather than just increasing wages?
Sounds to me like an industrial plant can lay off their entire workforce, put up new job listings at a 30% pay cut, and the state will force you to accept these terms.
Don't they already do that though? Just currently they do it with ICE instead, since most of the workforce at those plants are immigrants from South and Central America?
We had something similar introduced recently in Australia. It basically means you have to search for work and take any job you are offered or your unemployment will be stopped.
I've noticed that a lot of things get tested in the US-allied countries first or around the same time. It might be good to keep an eye on the politics in other 5 eyes countries to get an idea of what direction policies are going.
Jesus the downward mobility slope has turned into a cliff and now they’re trying to grease it
Use an alternate name on your resume and put in your experience that you helped organize workplace or tenants unions lol
If you get an interview anyway make it very clear that you're all about workers rights and will immediately try to unionize without saying it.
Maybe you can claim you're a liberation theologist to your unemployment worker.
Nurse internet buddy of mine has a theory that long covid is knocking way more workers out than the media would ever admit to.
I'm always proud of the fact I've never been to an Applebee's.
theory that long covid is knocking way more workers out than the media would ever admit to.
scary if true, but I guess there is no way to know
It's Boomer retirements, which they knew were coming for years and low-to-zero immigration. So many businesses have had to backfill, and it's trickled down to no one having to work crappy $10/hr jobs with customers. So many other businesses relied on an underpaid person born in 1959 who hasn't had a raise in 20 years because they were content, and now that person is gone and those businesses want someone with the same level of expertise and the same or lower wages.
That’s me praying every day for my elderly MAGA co-worker to finally quit and force the manager to find another slow, poky, arthritic cashier to silently judge every customer with blue hair.
Aside from the obvious ghoulishness, will this even remotely work as intended? Cutting the benefits last year barely moved the needle.
No because the majority of the labour shortage is a scam, companies are still doing the same bullshit 143681967988961 years of experience for entry level bullshit and they refuse to raise pay enough to make a difference. I think I already saw so many posts on social media last year of people applying for 50 jobs and getting maybe 3-4 responses let alone an interview, or random shit like this.
Currently experiencing that. Makes zero sense, even like "menial" low paying jobs are just ignoring my applications so far as I can tell
HR (or lack thereof) plays a big role in this.
People will post jobs and then just kinda forget about them. Or they'll post jobs and get a deluge of applications that don't fit, and just stop looking at the new listings. The whole online job listing process is a mess.
i've seen a few posts on antiwork that theorize that many of those postings are either PPP loan loop holes (look! we're hiring but no one is taking the job!) or they're fake job listings entirely as a way to harvest and sell data.
Holy fuck. Absolutely doomed country, the rot is so much deeper than I thought
I interpreted >proposed house bill as “you will have to have permanent residence to qualify for unemployment” and was completely unsurprised. Im really hoping it means a bill that has been proposed to the House part of the legislative branch
Not an American so I don't understand this. "Cut unemployment benefits to 16 weeks". Do you not continually receive welfare if you're out of work? Is there a time limit?
Do you not continually receive welfare if you’re out of work?
No. You don't automatically get anything in Canada, either
