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 Grundz wrote:
The announced jobs and the quoted jobs are not the same obs

Also 11-13$ an hour is "middle class" as most of the jobs gained during the recovery have been minimum wage.

Confused as to why they would label that as is. Living solo/with a roommate at 35-40k a year area in NJ is "Stable and Survivable Money" with the ability to save 30-40% of my income IMHO. If I had a family/obligations? I wouldn't feel safe at this level even if I didnt save.

Middle class my azz

 Auxellion wrote:

 Grundz wrote:
The announced jobs and the quoted jobs are not the same obs

Also 11-13$ an hour is "middle class" as most of the jobs gained during the recovery have been minimum wage.

Confused as to why they would label that as is.

Because the peasants haven't risen up yet I would assume!
You have congressmen saying that welfare is too much because he was able to (horrifically unhealthily) feed himself on it, nixing all other costs and mcdonalds saying you can live on their salary if you work 72 hours a week, the fact you don't have to murder anyone to feed yourself makes you middle or upper class.

As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

Doubtful, if their complaints of unsustainable workload is true. My grandmother is working a job with a similar "workload" and she's putting in nearly 60 hours a week right now.

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

Yeah not even close, you do cycle through a lot of people because many cant cut it but the ones that stick around get PLENTY of hours.

 Grundz wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

Yeah not even close, you do cycle through a lot of people because many cant cut it but the ones that stick around get PLENTY of hours.

That's been my anecdotal evidence as well...

If you have a family of 4 (wife, two children)--11/hr would put you in the poverty level.

Of course, it's asinine that they list "Above 23,500/annual" as above poverty level. As someone that has a family of 4--I have no idea how you could possibly survive on 23,500/yr--unless you were heavily reliant on social programs.

Back to work my Low Worker Caste minions...BACK TO WORK I SAY!!!

 Alfndrate wrote:
Oh of course, but it's something that most people need to look at. If I make 35k a year and I have to live in crap project housing because the level of debt I have forces me to live in such conditions, I wouldn't consider myself middle class, even though my income might say otherwise. I've said it here on dakka before, I have an 85% debt to income ratio due to the insane amount of loans I have (student and car), and as such I have to change my means of living until it's a smaller beast. I live at home with parents, I pay rent in chores, manual labor (fixing things around the house), and cooking. I have reduced my hobby money to almost nothing, and earn my MAN DOLLIES through earning store credit by volunteering my time, and by volunteering for game companies. I would "barely" consider myself middle class, but with that level of debt, I can't survive on my own (or with a roommate)

I was in a similar situation 5 years back. My first job out of college paid an average of 15 USD per hour, which was pretty damn good considering that I graduated in the middle of the GFC. However, because my annual minimum student loan payments were ~16000 USD I was left with a little less than 9000 USD to live on. I probably could have managed that with a couple roommates, but basically decided that it was more prudent to accelerate payment on the principle balance of my privately held loans while living with my parents.

At that point I only considered myself middle class because I had parents who could afford to cover my immediate cost of living, and the possession of a very expensive college degree.

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

$11 an hour is slightly better than working at McDonald's ($10.25 is minimum wage in BC) how is that middle class lifestyle?

 Cheesecat wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

$11 an hour is slightly better than working at McDonald's ($10.25 is minimum wage in BC) how is that middle class lifestyle?

Because cost of living in BC is outrageous. My father just moved back from there. Lived there for 5 years. Took a 50% cut in pay, and is still living better now then when he was there.

You guys tax the living hell out of everything, and then basic cost of items is significantly higher then what it is in the US.

djones520 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

Doubtful, if their complaints of unsustainable workload is true. My grandmother is working a job with a similar "workload" and she's putting in nearly 60 hours a week right now.

djones520 wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
As others have said, $11 an hour is pretty good. The issue though isn't the pay rate so much as the hours. Who wants to bet most of those warehouse workers are part timers?

$11 an hour is slightly better than working at McDonald's ($10.25 is minimum wage in BC) how is that middle class lifestyle?

Because cost of living in BC is outrageous. My father just moved back from there. Lived there for 5 years. Took a 50% cut in pay, and is still living better now then when he was there.

Vancouver is outrageous. The rest of BC is very cheap, if you're near a city.


That sucks that your grandmother has to work 60 hours a week, man.

 azazel the cat wrote:


That sucks that your grandmother has to work 60 hours a week, man.

Thanks. My grandfather passed away last year, and without his retirement money, making mortgage payments are rough. Thankfully she's got a job that's providing her the hours, but it is wearing her down.

Yeah, lots of people say BC is expensive and I wonder what drives up the cost their so much.

I have a family of four (me, Wife and two kids) only I work. Make a little more than 13 an hour. Its tuff as hell and any little snag that pops up derails everything. I’ve cut back on everything since my wife lost her job. But to be honest I’m very happy. I have a nice place in a nice part of town (by the university) and we do ok. I have to cut back on allot, in fact I haven’t ate out in a very long time!!!! What really sucks is I do not qualify for any government assistance at all. Foods stamps denied me, which would have truly helped. I made like 50 over the limit. My kids do have insurance I never use it. If gas would go down in price that would help lol 4 bucks a gallon for 89.

 djones520 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:


That sucks that your grandmother has to work 60 hours a week, man.

Thanks. My grandfather passed away last year, and without his retirement money, making mortgage payments are rough. Thankfully she's got a job that's providing her the hours, but it is wearing her down.

Hey at least with all that hard work ad menial pay she's rewarded by knowing her bosses boss can afford another house

 Grundz wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:


That sucks that your grandmother has to work 60 hours a week, man.

Thanks. My grandfather passed away last year, and without his retirement money, making mortgage payments are rough. Thankfully she's got a job that's providing her the hours, but it is wearing her down.

Hey at least with all that hard work ad menial pay she's rewarded by knowing her bosses boss can afford another house

Trolly trolly trolly troll. *rolls eyes*

 Grundz wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:


That sucks that your grandmother has to work 60 hours a week, man.

Thanks. My grandfather passed away last year, and without his retirement money, making mortgage payments are rough. Thankfully she's got a job that's providing her the hours, but it is wearing her down.

Hey at least with all that hard work ad menial pay she's rewarded by knowing her bosses boss can afford another house

did that really need to be said? you came off very rude.

I don't think its the ideal pay, for a single person in a low cost of living area, you can survive on $11. I know because I do. It's not the cushiest life style, but I get by. Naturally, if you live in a city (or heaven forbid DC) you're screwed. You need to be able to find liveable apartment locations for less than $600 a month, preferably less than $500. Exactly how many places like that there are in the US I guess I don't really know so maybe spoke to soon.

There is an interesting article here about what it's like to work in one of the warehouses (not as an actual Amazon employee, though). Long read.

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
If you have a family of 4 (wife, two children) would put you in the poverty level.

Corrected your typo

Poverty, at any income stream. Little rugrat vacuums!

Sadly social programs ONLY take into account your gross income, not other factors that play heavily into your finances.

An example would be my rent. In order for me to work where I do, I have to live in a rather pricey area. I pay $1600 a month for a 2 bed condo to house my family of 4. So right there, 60% of my monthly net income is gone. So for the rest of my month I have $1200 to pay for food, utilities, gas, insurance, phones. At the end of my month I'm lucky if I've got $100 left over after everything.

I'm not asking for some crazy handout, but given the cost of living in my area, you'd think that at least food stamps would have more consideration taken into who gets them. I'm not trying to free load, but until I'm able to move elsewhere, I could use some help from the system that I pay into.

Now imagine trying to have a family of 4 on $13/hr when your rent is even something low like $1000/mo. Just because housing is cheaper in TN than it is in CA doesn't mean everything else is.

 Ouze wrote:
There is an interesting article here about what it's like to work in one of the warehouses (not as an actual Amazon employee, though). Long read.

Again thats a different operation, their same day locations are not contracted

I pay 1100 a month that doesnt include electric or gas or even sewer. Plus i have to pay renters insurance thats new to me! Anything below a G a month is straight up hood! NM was nice because cost of living was so low. I paid 750 a month for a 1000SQF apartment in the nice side of town with electric,gas,water and anything else included. Starting pay out there just went up to 10 an hour or 9.

I found an article herethat attempts to figure out where the middle-class starts and ends:

Plenty of smart people have taken a stab at that question. In the past few years, the "middle class" income range has been described as between $32,900 and $64,000 a year (a Pew Charitable Trusts study), between $50,800 and $122,000 (a U.S. Department of Commerce study), and between $20,600 and $102,000 (the U.S. Census Bureau's middle 60% of incomes).

That's a pretty wide spectrum, but 13$ an hour is very, very close to the bottom of even the most generous income range.

The lifestyles of people who make 20k vs 100k are vastly different. About 5x different.

 Aerethan wrote:
The lifestyles of people who make 20k vs 100k are vastly different. About 5x different.

I would say if were are just talking about lifestyle I would think the difference would be even greater than the money alone encompasses. Investing would be an option, vacations can happen, a car (with insurance no less!), ect ect.

Well, just do a thought experiment and live out a month.

Let's say we have the typical American dream family--2 adults, 2 children. Enough that they did their Darwinian contribution and replaced themselves. Let's also assume we are going to Leave it to Beaver style--with the father working full time, the mother tends the home--raises children, etc.

Dad makes a decent wage--middle class income of 50,000/annual. Clears 40,000/annual after taxes. That's around 3300/month. Now let's subtract some bills;


Mortgage: 700/month (assume a 100k home in the Midwest with good credit scores)
Utilities: 225/month (assume summer spike of electricity, winter spike of gas---and a decent energy consuming home--and no heavy water usage)
Health Insurance: 580/month (assume family coverage with dental/eye/I'm not going to go bankrupt if I haven't met my max out of pocket)
Gas: 150/month
Groceries: 500/month (Assume frugal spending here--no eating out)
Phone (Landline or cell): 20/month (I know this is low--but this will hopefully keep the "You don't need a cell phone crowd" away). I do consider cell phone plans (just cheap ones) a necessity for life now. They save lives and I would rather subsidize someone's 20/month phone service then die on their lawn because they can't dial 911.
Trash/Sewer: 25/month
Out of pocket "Life happens" moments: 200/month (Sick kid copay/medication, tire blows out, home window breakage, whatever)

That's 2400/month. That leaves you 800/month to save--if you skip out on cable TV, any luxury activities, retirement pay in, no credit card bills, no travel, no eating out---and assuming you have a 700/month mortgage (which is very likely low). And that's 50,000/year---over twice what they consider poverty level.


So yeah--I don't always agree with "Middle Class" levels--as they tend to include a great deal of families that really aren't. That and I always think of this picture;




/We have a fridge y'all, we're living it up

 Aerethan wrote:
The lifestyles of people who make 20k vs 100k are vastly different. About 5x different.

Actually it's a lot more than that, people at the bottom spend like 90+% of their income on living, people making 100k don't consume 30,000 calories a day or drive cars that consume 100 times more gas. The issue is that inflexible costs, like gas, food, milk, morgage (to a lesser extent) add up just about everything, being able to afford an xbox and a few games with your tax return, once, does not equal a happy lifestyle, the people working a ton of hours also gravitate to gakky food, which makes them lazy and eventually kills them.

In fact if you twist it more, all this scraping along and long hours cause stress and wear people out, hurting their health and eventually killing them, how many people do the rich kill in this way yearly?

Wife and mine income a month.......would make you all want for us to adopt you.....