Queer Bookworm
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*busts through the wall* i heard someone talking shit about cartoons
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REWATCHING COMMUNITY BECAUSE WHY NOT, RIGHT?
S01E12: Comparative Religion -
cosmo tip #676
if he believes in the friend zone then you should put him in it
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giving myself a rage aneurysm reading about matthew’s racist ass friends on facebook like hahahahh oh wow how racist do you even have to be just to...
Outrageous: David Cay Johnston Explains How Big Corporations Withhold Your Taxes and Then Pocket Them | Alternet (via vicster)
And one in four children in this country is now at the risk of hunger. Food banks in cities such as Philadelphia routinely run out of stock, leaving people hungry.
How is this acceptable?
(via oldenough2burmom)
BUT TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS TOTALLY WORKS.
(via bemusedlybespectacled)(via bemusedlybespectacled)
- Have a medical issue and no insurance. Nothing life threatening but something that could mean an ER visit.
- Ante up on that, be bleeding, be in major pain, know that you cannot miss work and you cannot afford drugs.
- Be prepared not to be treated or given a 1500$ aspirin.
- Injure yourself. Hurt you back or neck. Understand that you cannot take time off. You cannot get continual treatment. Deal with it.
- Have shady collections agencies calling where you work and your home threatening you when you know you have 20$ in the bank to last you for another week.
- Have 20$ and realize as your period starts you have no supplies and only ramen. Also continue to have to work.
- Deal with the emotional stress of debt, having to talk about that debt. Deal with the emotional stress of dealing with constant judgement from people who don’t know you. Deal with being talked shitty to if you buy a candy bar with your foodstamps because you just need enough energy to make it to your next meal.
- Buy something organic or “fancy” or “healthy” with your foodstamps and listen to what people in your neighborhood say about you.
- Deal with extensive awful coverage of people in your situation on the news and in print.
- Deal with the feelings of guilt when you cannot provide for yourself or a family. Even small things like a nice pair of tights vs a pair of knee highs from the dollar store.
- Go to a job interview in a shabby but clean outfit. Feel people look down their nose at you.
- Do your budget and understand that unless you pay a bill late, you will have no cash or money for small items for three weeks.
- Go without small items for three weeks.
- Etc.
I am so done with people trying to put themselves into the shoes of poor and vulnerable people and only understanding that they are hungry or thankful
Fuck that.
Understand that when one is poor for a long time it goes so much deeper than having a shitty breakfast. It impacts EVERYTHING in your life. And if you do happen to get very depressed, or stressed there’s nothing you can do but keep working or trying to work because you want to survive.
If people want to know about these things so bad, how about shutting the fuck up about poor people and listening to what we have to say.
I hate, HATE bleeding heart tourism. If you need to know so bad ask and listen. You don’t get cookies for coming to the conclusion that the life you already have is nice and that being poor sucks.
Ugh.
(via manjolras)
you will never understand poverty, tom hiddleston
you will never understand what it’s like to sit at your kitchen table, and see bills, bills, bills, and still have no money to eat
you will never know what it’s like to choose between healthcare and groceries
to choose between eating today, or eating tomorrow
to choose between toilet paper or a sandwich
to have no basic necessities, to be forced to pay your bills late and receive letters from your bank every week because they want money that you don’t have
it’s not just about food.
it’s everything. it’s everything at once. it’s food and bills and clothes and transportation and selling cans to get bus fare and selling things you love for just enough to pay your friend back
poverty isn’t “i can only eat two eggs today”
it’s
“if i eat these eggs i won’t have dinner or lunch tomorrow, should i eat them by themselves, or see if i can make something larger with them that will last longer? can i make a plate of scrambled eggs last two days?”
(via alasmypetticoats)
The answer is NO.
The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”
(via sunfoundation)
this bullshit fills me with a very specific kind of rage. so, TIME TO DEBUNK!
- that meal from mcdonalds takes virtually no time to acquire AND is available almost anywhere.
- the second meal? that “salad” is lettuce … with nothing else, not even dressing unless its just olive oil or some milk i guess? gross.
- also thats the price of each serving, not an entire loaf of bread, a bottle of olive oil, etc. that stuff adds up which means you have to have a lot of money at one time to buy it all.
- that meal probably took an hour and a half to make, which is a long fucking time when you work multiple jobs or are caring for a lot of people or dont have help! seriously, if you are a single parent of three who works, is spending an hour and a half every night preparing a meal a likely option?
- same with beans and rice! also, you know whats a fucking bummer? eating beans and rice every night because you are poor. ask any person who has done it and they will tell you (you can start with me).
- there is a “nutrition” argument here that lacks a follow up: poor people are more likely to be doing physical labor and need more than 571 calories per meal.
- you know who is less likely to know how to bake or prepare a chicken? people without access to the internet, or libraries, or who werent taught how to by their parents because their parents worked all the time. access to healthy foods is a classist issue and classism is cyclical, you fucking morons.
- seriously, these sorts of infographics make me want to fucking flip tables. do you know why people don’t eat more fresh fruits and vegetables? because fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, because they take a long time to prepare, because they dont live near a grocery store that has a decent produce section, because they dont have reliable transportation to get groceries to and from the grocery store, because they dont have the energy to plan all of the shit that is involved in making healthy, intentional, filling, balanced meals. basically: poor people get fucked, and then we get BLAMED for being lazy.
- eating “healthy”, aka access to fresh fruits and vegetables, is a privilege, first, foremost, always. so fuck you new york times and your ignorant goddamn infographic.
- there are SYSTEMATIC REASONS that we do not have equal access to fresh fruits and vegetables. they are very REAL problems. besides, you know, systematic poverty in america, the total mis-distribution of farm subsidies is a perfect place to start. read about that, then either get bent or start working on the actual problem.
this is why i love alithea. she just took the goddamn NYT to school.
(via bellatrixissexy)
basically anyone who really shames people for buying their kids shoes or for buying themselves a manicure while poor doesnt understand poverty
poor people often have a lot of disposable income, more than you think, cause they live on cash
they often do not have any means of transforming that cash into assets or into longterm wealth
so yes i had a lot of toys and nice things as a poor kid because you can buy toys at the dollar store too
and like you can pay a lady 10 dollars in cash to do your nails professionally
but you really cannot scrimp, at least not anymore (maybe decades ago you could) to buy yourself a house or to invest in stocks or other things that guarantee financial protection
poor people are liquid- thats why they may have material goods including nice cell phones but they broke ass will always be broke
hell, even banks and financiers EXPLOIT the liquidity of poor people; cash advance places in the hood and the proven empirical facts that cash deposits from banks in low-income neighborhood go towards major investments and are used as liquid assets by big businesses
keeping poor people in cash and banks in poor neighborhoods are major transfers of wealth in this economy
so please spare me your policing of some lady who decided to get some shoes
I once lived in a neighborhood that had five cash advance/payday loan places within five blocks ON THE SAME STREET.
Exactly.
(via fuchsimeon)
“Walmart’s First-Ever Retail Worker Strike Spreads To 12 Cities”
$89.5 billion, or as much as the bottom 41.5 percent of Americans combined.
$89.5 billion, or as much as the bottom 41.5 percent of Americans combined.
$89.5 billion, or as much as the bottom 41.5 percent of Americans combined.
(via mswyrr)
(via manjolras)
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they’re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there’s not an $800 car in America that’s worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn’t mind when you ask for help.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.
Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she’ll probably just laugh at your clothes.
Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.
Being poor is making sure you don’t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Being poor is running in place.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
By John Scalzi
This is so poignant, it brings tears to my eyes.
I don’t usually reblog these but, like, motherfuck almost all of these are real as hell. I think a lot about what I benefited from living as an “only child” when it meant that my mom lost a daughter and never recovered from it. There were just two of us, I can’t imagine what would have happened if my sister lived with us. It’s when you hear “broken home” you think of cracked windows faulty furnace no doorknobs a faucet you have to turn on with pliers a sink that only runs cold running the bathtub into the toilet exposed flooring no lightbulbs. It’s hoarding Crayola when they’re twenty-five cents in September.
(via alasmypetticoats)
If you’re so poor, why do you have a laptop? If you’re so poor, why do you have a phone? A fridge? A cat? A television? Why aren’t you working? Why are you working so little? Why do you eat out? Why don’t you cook more? Why do you spend anything on yourself? Why don’t you get an education? Why don’t you get a better job?
Listen to me: if you don’t know everything about someone’s situation, you are not in a position to judge anyone else.
Do you know what’s required to function at the level that we routinely expect people to function??
The mental strength that is required to endure endless amounts of penury and hardship, to deny yourself all pleasures in service of achieving your goal, to be able to work that hard each day and keep it together enough to wake up the next morning and do it all over again? What it takes to endure that life if you don’t have that mental strength, but you have to do it anyway for the sake of your own survival — for the survival of the people who depend on you?
The absolute fortitude it takes to simply exist when you are facing the hardships that we routinely foist on poor people, in this society? How dare we judge someone for not being able to thrive, when they already are so burdened?
Poverty means not ever having known the feeling of living in safety. Knowing that whatever you have might be ripped out from under you at any time.
Poverty means having to live without the protections that more well-do-to people have the means to access — it means not having a guaranteed roof over your head, not knowing where your next meal is coming from, not knowing where to go if you fall ill, not being able to rely on anyone for help if something drastic happens.
Poverty often means that everyone else you know is poor, too. Which means you likely know someone worse off than you, and you are probably helping them out with any extra cash you have, if you ever have any. Which means that it is nearly impossible to save any money — which means that you can very easily find yourself destitute.
Poverty means that you are living with about fifty times the stress of a person who has always felt safe, sheltered, and protected — that you can’t help but feel powerless, because experience has taught you that there’s very little you can do if life decides to slap you around.
And that stress means that you are much less able to do all those great glorious grand things that an ignorant bystander suggests that you do to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. That level of stress means that there are things that you might not be able to deny yourself, even if you don’t have the means to have them. Rest and relaxation are not luxuries; they are necessities. Even a person without means deserves a chance to do something that calms their nerves. A person who is terrified every night that their next paycheck might not cover the cost of groceries — well, even they have a right to watch a damn movie, once in a while, if it helps take their mind off things for an hour.
Mental health is a prerequisite for living in this world, do you hear me?
Don’t ever judge anyone for doing what they need to do to feel sane, in an insane situation.
(via manjolras)
Melissa Harris-Perry: Nothing is riskier than being poor in America [full video]
This video is SO AMAZING and you need to watch it right now.
Ugh, my dad was listening to Sean Hannity in the car earlier, and he was talking about this. It’s utterly disgusting and mind-boggling how ignorant my dad can be. He agreed with Hannity’s assertion that being poor is a “mental disease” and added that “it’s an attitude.” I was this close to screaming and beating my head against the dashboard.
(via stfuconservatives)
![bemusedlybespectacled:
head-of-cabbage:
inflateablefilth:
vinabean:
awesome-everyday:
shorterexcerpts:
thecallus:
theatlantic:
The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?
What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.
Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]
It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?
IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!
Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.
My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.
So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.
Prices of prices went up.
We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.
We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.
Most of us can’t afford to:
Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
Buy a house
Buy a new car
PLAN to have children
Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.
Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.
So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young lack and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.
anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.
Yeah, I seriously want a car and I’d love to be able to own somewhere to live with my husband but I have never had the money. I might be able to manage soon enough because I’ve been lucky enough to get a job that pays well above pretty much everything else someone of my age and work experience could get. But generally, everyone my age just does not have the spare cash sitting around.
Who the fuck can afford to buy a house? Not only do I not have the cash for a house or a car, but with the economy being so unstable, buying a house would be more of a liability. I looked for a job in my home county in California for 2 years and couldn’t get a stable job. I had to be able to pick up and move 2400 miles to get to a place where I had stable housing and the chance at a good job and even now my job isn’t stable enough that I would be at all comfortable tying myself down to a piece of property. If I lost my job and couldn’t find another one in this county in a reasonable amount of time, you could bet your ass I’d be picking up and moving again. I’ve got to go where there’s money to be made and owning a house would limit my range of work.
Fucking reblogging this again.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m97qpaHmvN1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?
What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.
Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]
It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?
IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!
Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.
My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.
So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.
Prices of prices went up.
We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.
We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.
Most of us can’t afford to:
- Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
- Buy a house
- Buy a new car
- PLAN to have children
- Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.
Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.
So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young lack and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.
anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.
Yeah, I seriously want a car and I’d love to be able to own somewhere to live with my husband but I have never had the money. I might be able to manage soon enough because I’ve been lucky enough to get a job that pays well above pretty much everything else someone of my age and work experience could get. But generally, everyone my age just does not have the spare cash sitting around.
Who the fuck can afford to buy a house? Not only do I not have the cash for a house or a car, but with the economy being so unstable, buying a house would be more of a liability. I looked for a job in my home county in California for 2 years and couldn’t get a stable job. I had to be able to pick up and move 2400 miles to get to a place where I had stable housing and the chance at a good job and even now my job isn’t stable enough that I would be at all comfortable tying myself down to a piece of property. If I lost my job and couldn’t find another one in this county in a reasonable amount of time, you could bet your ass I’d be picking up and moving again. I’ve got to go where there’s money to be made and owning a house would limit my range of work.
Fucking reblogging this again.
Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy
HAHA NO MONAY!!!!!
Maybe our generation aren’t buying houses and cars because EVERYTHING IS SO FUCKED
You want us to actually talk to bank people and get home loans and auto loans? They are still fucking us! Any time I go into a bank, I feel disgusted. You want me to do MORE business with the who want to charge me 5 dollars for every single swipe of my debit card? Get fucked!
You think I’m gonna buy a car? A car? Where am I gonna get the money for a car and the insurance and the insurance against the insurance company if God forbid they decide to do the same things they did to the poor Fisher family and countless others? And fucking GAS? Are you crazy? The planet is dying, and you want me to buy gas at $FUCK.YOU/gallon?
In the past 5 years since the economy fell apart, we’ve been adapting. We’ve been listening to countless horror stories of those who made the risk. Those who saved and did it right, and still ended up with an inferior product with inferior service that RUINS YOUR LIFE. It’s not like ordering a pizza, and instead of sausage, you get cheese. It’s like ordering a pizza and then your credit is ruined and you are flat broke. The pains of acquisition aren’t worth it if it can all be taken away like a bureaucratic fart in the bathtub. It would be smarter to save our money for tickets to god-damn Mars than to invest in these hideous, broken systems.
We aren’t cheap. We fucking hate doing business with you people.
All these pieces on Millennials are so mired in confusion since we don’t even trust journalists any more. The news, our entire lives, has been scary. Think about being 8 and processing the deaths of abortion doctors or homegrown terrorism. Now try to process the news when every asshole on camera just lies. The news hasn’t had an ounce of truth in it for 10 years. Can you not understand how much we don’t trust anyone who is older than us? How can you trust anybody when the president and vice-president of the United States lied to the Secretary of State so they could START THE WRONG WAR!
Fucking seriously.
Also, that graphic? Is that what you think we all look like? Are you fucking kidding me, Atlantic?
I hope they never find out how to market to us. I hope we splinter so much that companies like Ford will have to make a decent product instead of asking the Vomit Spouts that created Jersey Shore how to create MORE fantasies about how great THINGS will make your life. We don’t attach to things because things break. We saw everything break.
But, that’s just me.
seriously though fuck the atlantic for reporting how corporations are dealing with not making the trillions they’re used to instead of literally anything else
Also maybe if ford didn’t think a fucking taurus was THIRTY THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS they would be making more money!!
ALL OF FUCKING THIS
IT’S NOT A FUCKING CHOICE
IT’S A SURVIVAL TACTIC
I plan to get an apartment, I dream of getting a house. I know damn well this is a dream that is not going to come true for a very long time, unless my dream of becoming a super famous, super rich author also comes true. If I get a car any time soon, it will be because my parents let me have sole use of our old station wagon.
![timekiller-s:
pantslessprogressive:
“I own a house in the city, two children, wife, we have car payments, we have house payments. We have utility bills. We have to pay them all, and it’s not going to be easy to do on this kind of money.”
Robert Pugliese has worked for the Department of Public Works in Scranton, PA for 26 years. He made $19/hour. Now he makes $7.25/hour.
Every city employee in Scranton, including police and firefighters, saw their paychecks slashed to minimum wage last Friday. Mayor Chris Doherty says the city’s financial situation is so dire that the town only had $5,000 even after paying their employees minimum wage. Doherty has indicated he wants to raise taxes to bring in more revenue, but the City Council blocked his proposal.
To put the wage cut into perspective, Robert would make more money from unemployment benefits than his current paycheck, according to the CBS report.
Last week, a judge ordered the town to continue paying full wages to the town employees. The mayor violated the judge’s order; a lawyer representing three unions is now filing a motion to hold the mayor in contempt.
The bottom 60 percent of households have actually lost income since 1983 (while the top five percent of households took in 82 percent of all the income gains since 1983).
Adjusting for inflation, minimum wage earnings now are lower than they were in 1968.
At $7.25 an hour, your pre-tax income is $15,080/year. The federal poverty level for a family of four, like Robert’s family, is $23,050/year. If Robert is the sole provider for his family, his employer of 26 years has just put him and his family in poverty.
This is why unions exist. Workers need a resource to stand up for fair compensation. 62 percent of Robert’s income is now gone. Scranton has been “financial distressed” for the past 20 years. These draconian wage cuts are nothing but a band-aid for the town’s woes. [photo via CBS News]
I fear this will be a trend that will be experienced by public sector employees on all levels soon.
Mayor says he wants to raise taxes (I assume sales taxes here), but what good is a sales tax when no one has any money to buy anything?
There was a brief blurb about this on Ed Schultz’ show last night and I think he mentioned the gent pictured above will be a guest tonight.
Remember, Pennsylvania is also the state that may disenfranchise multitudes of voters with new laws. You have to wonder what’s going on there.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6z6e5pOdY1qzr73ro1_500.png)
“I own a house in the city, two children, wife, we have car payments, we have house payments. We have utility bills. We have to pay them all, and it’s not going to be easy to do on this kind of money.”
Robert Pugliese has worked for the Department of Public Works in Scranton, PA for 26 years. He made $19/hour. Now he makes $7.25/hour.
Every city employee in Scranton, including police and firefighters, saw their paychecks slashed to minimum wage last Friday. Mayor Chris Doherty says the city’s financial situation is so dire that the town only had $5,000 even after paying their employees minimum wage. Doherty has indicated he wants to raise taxes to bring in more revenue, but the City Council blocked his proposal.
To put the wage cut into perspective, Robert would make more money from unemployment benefits than his current paycheck, according to the CBS report.
Last week, a judge ordered the town to continue paying full wages to the town employees. The mayor violated the judge’s order; a lawyer representing three unions is now filing a motion to hold the mayor in contempt.
The bottom 60 percent of households have actually lost income since 1983 (while the top five percent of households took in 82 percent of all the income gains since 1983).
Adjusting for inflation, minimum wage earnings now are lower than they were in 1968.
At $7.25 an hour, your pre-tax income is $15,080/year. The federal poverty level for a family of four, like Robert’s family, is $23,050/year. If Robert is the sole provider for his family, his employer of 26 years has just put him and his family in poverty.
This is why unions exist. Workers need a resource to stand up for fair compensation. 62 percent of Robert’s income is now gone. Scranton has been “financial distressed” for the past 20 years. These draconian wage cuts are nothing but a band-aid for the town’s woes. [photo via CBS News]
I fear this will be a trend that will be experienced by public sector employees on all levels soon.
Mayor says he wants to raise taxes (I assume sales taxes here), but what good is a sales tax when no one has any money to buy anything?
There was a brief blurb about this on Ed Schultz’ show last night and I think he mentioned the gent pictured above will be a guest tonight.
Remember, Pennsylvania is also the state that may disenfranchise multitudes of voters with new laws. You have to wonder what’s going on there.
(via stfuconservatives)
Rachel Maddow is a fucking genius and I love her.
