American Workers make Part-Time Living.

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You know, I've worked in pizza joints off and on for years, and you see a surprising cross section of people working there. There are your "moonlighters, teenagers and students", but there were also a lot of gypsies by choice, pizza lifers who actually love the work, people with other full-time work picking up extra evening hours, and guys like me who were happy to make full time money on part time work while pursuing other projects. I used to be able to pull $2500/mo on 30-ish hours a week slinging pizza in Seattle, which paid the bills and left me plenty of time to hunt down used machine tools and build gun stuff in my shop. Who are you to call me a loser for doing that? Who are you to call any of my co-workers over the years losers for doing that work? Is the guy slinging pizza to pay the bills more of a "loser" than the guy with the advanced degree refusing to take that job and living at home?

Waiters and bartenders can do way better than I ever did, my brother nets $4000/mo on 25 hours a week waiting tables at a wine bar, and that's after he's tipped out his whole back of the house staff over $100 a night. With that experience, he could land a similar job almost anywhere he chose to move, and if he wanted to make a career of it there are plenty of opportunities to move up to nicer places with higher volume and make even more money, comparable to many professional careers. As to the owner of the business that makes that career possible, he's lucky to make a dime on a dollar, 5-6 cents is more typical, and he's got hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in overhead and leases, not to mention all the headaches that come with managing a frenetic business with a number of employees. Who would you say is getting the better deal in that situation?

^^^I’m not criticizing people for the type of work they CHOOSE to do. I’m criticizing the sh***y service/small business economy we have in America today and the type of work people are FORCED to do.

If you can make plenty of money and provide for yourself and your family by making pizza or waiting tables, that’s fantastic. Do it!

You have some great anecdotes about how people can make a good living doing small business/service jobs…. Fine.


Reality is that most people working for small businesses and in service jobs aren’t so lucky. My region of the country is dominated by small business/service jobs and the cold, hard numbers, 6.1% unemployment and 20% poverty rate, tell a different story.

Here we have huge problems with homelessness, hunger, access to health care… Most families depend on Medicaid, wic, food stamps, and the earned income tax credit, just to get by. This is not sustainable, not just, and certainly not the basis for a desirable economy.

Let me say it again, as a matter of public policy, this is not something that government should promote.

Government policy, both Democrat and Republic is largely responsible for the fix we are in.

ruveyn

Yea. I don't doubt you can make good money cooking or waiting tables in a place like Seattle. It's an upscale area with a lot of professional jobs and good paying tech jobs. Thus there's a lot of people with enough money to go out to eat frequently at middle to high end restaurants. The thing is the restaurants don't create the wealth. They are able to do good business due to the strong middle class already in place. It just isn't like that in poorer areas of the country where most of what you find are the basic chains and not much else.

Last edited by marshall on 16 Nov 2012, 6:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Another reason I stress the unemployment rate and poverty level is because it shows that the basic premise held by the right, "if you're willing to work, you can make it on your own" is patently false.

My neighbors go to work and work hard everyday--every minute they can-- but many still cannot make ends meet without government help...

In a country as rich as the US, that is just wrong.

Another problem is our stupid culture. People could get by with less if people lived more communally. Our culture discourages this. The nuclear family is the only valid ideal.

The extended family is better still and is more natural.

ruveyn

The wage for employment used to make sense, back when it was payment, plus food, shelter, clothing, as it was in rural life. Early company towns did the same, providing housing, schools, food, because the working places were far away. Slaves did not get paid, but got the food, shelter, clothing.

The current problem is speculation has driven up prices for all the basics, and marketing has created wants that have become needs. Houses have become larger, then have to be heated, airconditioned, and you need stuff to fill the space.

I am not one to talk, I have stuff.

Labor really is getting more than all the ages before, but with rising costs, eating and not dying over the winter, no longer satisfies labor.

While Malthus was wrong about food, production went up, the shortage caused by too many humans is work, employment in particular. The Luddites were right, the spinning and weaving machines will take human jobs. They would have done more than throw their wooden shoes, sabots, into the computer, they would have burned it at the stake, but now labor wants an ipad. It tracks thier every move,reports on their purchases, and each has a Number!

Labor did it. Employ people for more than so many hours, they now get heath care, retirement, cannot be fired, and can sue for saying Good Morning, or failing to say Good Morning.

Temps, less than full time, are in response to labor who wanted more out of life than work, flex time, a summer job, holiday extra cash, and a few years back, finding any staff was so hard, people were doing job interviews in the prisons.

Employment models were developed that allowed the hire of someone who only wanted to work four hours several times a week. Before Class, just till the kids get out of school, employers adapted.

Some jobs would call up workers before their shift and ask if they could come in early, because the City Hall was on fire, and the Department had some exrtra work. Maybe the saw mill had to fill a train car by Monday morning, so they called the retired, everybody who had applied for work, and I have had jobs where I worked six twelves.

Now that demand for labor is down, those who work the gift wrap kiosk at the mall in the morning during the holidays, want equal pay with those who work full time, benefits, paid vacation, 401K matches, Health Care.

Employers do try to spread the work around, like water in the lifeboat. Everyone has a busy season, people get sick, take vacations, you have to have labor waiting in the wings.

Like food service, there is no way to tell when the fish will be biting, but when they are, it is time to feed them. It can go from half staffed, to double staffed in a couple of hours. It is when the money is flowing, and staff makes more than the house. When the rush is on there is some great money in tips for food and drink. No notice, throw on some clothes, yes I know you, now get down here and grab some of this cash!

Now full time often works half time, just becauses we have to keep the doors open. Somebody has to stand at the cash register, when there are no customers. And how many times have you been the only customer?

One clerk in retail, the cost per hour is about $25 to keep the doors open. Food service, kitchen, waits, cashier, $70 an hour. It takes some good days to make up for most days.

The business view is we work for the landlord, the staff, and the tax man.

I am quite willing to share with you in the losses.

Around here retail died, lots of empty storefronts. First it was the Department Stores, then the Malls, then Walmart. Build a local business, and someone will open a national chain next door to grab your customer base.

Small business cannot answer the problem of too few jobs, low wages, short hours, or staying in business. For that we need a spending middle class, a tax code that rewards keeping production in the country, and breaks up pools of capital used for speculation.

I do not get heard in Washington, and my last donation to politics was a single raised finger directed to Washington, to be shared between the parties.

A lot on the right seem to take it a step further than that. They blame people who are dependent on government for creating the problem in the first place. According to the right, too many people being a burden on the tax-paying "job creators" reducing jobs. You even have some right-wing economists inventing the notion of "Ricardian equivalence" to explain how even deficit funded welfare will hurt business. Even with no tax hikes "job creators" still refuse to hire because in a regime of deficit spending they anticipate future tax hikes.

The right seems to believe that if the poor can just temporarily forgo all government assistance and take on for the home team, so to speak, the economy will just bounce back and everyone will be happy again. Nevermind that this isn't happening in austerity ridden parts of Europe. Instead private GDP is contracting in many countries and the Euro itself will probably collapse. So the honest conservative message should not be false optimism. It should be that we are simply doomed no matter what.

Its worse than that, even. Right-wingers criticize anyone who is anything short of of a Dr., lawyer, or millionaire/billionaire (and they hate the first two for other reasons) for not working hard enough to improve their own position in life. Meaning that the solution to all these problems is for everyone to put in the effort and become millionaires. Which in and of itself sounds great, until you realize that our current economic system won't work if everyone is rich - its impossible by definition unless there are an abundance of resources and all labor becomes automated.

Yeah, well a lot of people are having their hours cut or are being laid off due to Obamacare.

Fact of the matter is, the "rich" aren't throwing a tantrum, the reality is that the cost of Obamacare exceeds the current net profit of a lot of small businesses, which forces them to hike their prices and lay people off.

Here’s another fact…. Healthcare before “obamacare” was/is a millstone around the economy’s neck.

The fact of the matter is, we already had universal healthcare via the emergency room—the most inefficient and expensive way to provide it. And it has been bankrupting people and businesses for years.

The fact of the matter is, obamacare has got to be better and cheaper than what we’ve been doing.

The right needs to get over the butthurt and get with the program. Or just come out and say people who cannot pay for care should be turned away from the hospital and left to die in the streets, because that is the only other practical option.

My fly by comment:

I don't have an issue with a business realizing that part time workers meet its needs best. I DO have an issue with a business making their part time offering incompatible with the employee also finding another part time offering, should that be what the employee wants (some of us only want to work part time, but that isn't true for everyone, as the article makes clear). There isn't enough tangible economic payback from being so demanding to justify making the scheduling and requests that difficult for your people, and to make it that difficult for them to support themselves and their families. It is downright punitive, and designed to get your employees battling it out like rabid dogs. That isn't good business, and I can't understand how these companies can feel it is. People are a companies most valuable resource, and the best employees are those who love their jobs. Hard to love your job when you are treated like crap.

Given that this article CLEARLY shows the trend has been increasing for DECADES, I see all the claims about reducing hours due to Obamacare as ringing false; they were going to do it anyway. All the new law may be doing is altering the timing a smidge and providing a convenient excuse. No smart business shoots itself in the foot by reducing the hours of its employees unless it already fits its business model. This article featured a very specific type of business for a reason: those industries have always benefited by hiring workers on something shorter than a traditional 8 hour day schedule.

A lot like when my dad quite smoking to protest a new cigarette tax. A few months after his first grandchild was born. What do we think the real reason was?

When you see law firms, CPA firms and other technical specialties cutting back below 30 hours a week year round, THEN we'll talk.

How can you say small businesses don't produce good jobs? Every good business started as ... a small business. Small business is the heart and soul of innovation and change in this country.

Small businesses are, of course, as varied as the people who live in this country, and some produce good jobs, and some don't. Some drive the economic engine forward, and some serve as a disappointing life lesson to their owners. Some have owners who are good to their people, and some don't. But more often than not small business owners, in my experience, do care about their people for the simple reason that in the smaller environment they KNOW their people. They'll compromise to meet employees in the middle: if they only need workers part time, they'll try to make it possible for those workers to also hold other jobs. Which is unlike a chain like Walmart.

I agree that there needs to be some variation on this. Many "good" businesses do some variation by choice, as part of the agreement they have with their workforce; it is part of how they get employees to agree to it. Others ... not so much. And to offer nothing but penalties is, in my eyes, unethical. To stake a claim on time that is not compensated for in any way is simply inappropriate. It is unsustainable.

Note it doesn't have to be direct; sometimes it is as simple as offering above market wages for the time that is worked, with a promise of some minimum level. I have seen many variations. The key is finding something that your employees can feel good about.