Jade, I don't think he quite gets it, because he's under the same understanding that it's okay for everyone else to pay into the free tuition fund for him. Spread the burden around to everyone else so they don't have to be responsible for themselves. That is the theme this political cycle.
I have a small experience from the last go around of the min wage increase...
When they did the last go 'rounds of the min-wage increase a few years back, I purposely took notes of the menu prices and Lloyd center food court immediately saw price increases across the board for many standard lunch items. I know, because I've been working in the same area for the last 12 years, so I was a frequent lunch diner at the Lloyd Center; I've since switched to bringing my own lunch, because you guessed it, shit is to damn expensive for a daily meal.
Minimum wage jobs aren't meant to be a career. They are a stepping stone. Not sure why or how this ever changed.
Me neither. Somewhere along the line, something changed. And if I had the answer to this problem, I'd gladly give it.
In my father's day, he worked because he had a family to support. In the 70s, he hitchhiked back and forth to Texas from the Bay Area to work as a sheet-rock layer in Construction. Then he married his first wife, who drowned in the ocean one day while they were at a beach. Then he met my mother in....I want to say 1980?
In the 80s, he had to move out of his MIL's house because my mother was expecting her second child (my sister), and he had bills to pay. He was in recovery from cocaine addiction and alcohol addiction, and my mother followed him there herself shortly after he sobered up.
So he moved us into a one-room apartment in San Jose, and lived there for 5 years while he started from the very bottom once again at a new company. Then we moved into a 5 bedroom house. Then he got a job transfer in the mid 90s to a higher paying position, and he moved the family here to Vancouver.
Now he's Vice President of a company, owns 3 houses (one paid off), and 4 cars. He has a patent, and also holds more Salesman awards and President's Club awards than anyone at his old company. In the next 4 or 5 years, he'll retire a millionaire.
Not bad for a guy who never went to college.
But he did what he HAD to do, and nobody gave him a fucking hand out. He's NEVER been on welfare. There weren't the kinds of services in the Bay Area during the 80s that there is now. Or if there were, they weren't widely known. Remember: no internet back then.
Today, you've got people who are trying to make ends meet in menial jobs to fund....IPhones. Or car stereos. Or other pointless bullshit that our "Give Me First" and instant gratification society has taught them is somehow okay, rather than putting food on the table and working towards a better future.
Like you, I don't know where it went wrong, and I don't have all the answers for it. But I have a feeling much of it has to do with how far technology has advanced in this country, and the job skills required to get them have changed dramatically as well.
When my father was starting over, he was put in charge of a job that, literally, all he had to do was plug a small chip into a light bulb and watch it light up. That told him the chip was okay.
That's it. That's all he had to do. A drunk monkey could do it.
Today, you have companies requiring serious college JUST to get into apprenticeship programs. And that has left many people behind, because that part of our society just hasn't caught up with the times yet. Because many people get out of high school and have bills to pay; never mind having time to go to college.
Mind you....this is merely speculation on my part.
So then they get stuck in the same menial jobs for years and years. It happened to me. When I got out of High School, I was on my own. Had problems with my parents, and they weren't interested in supporting me. So I did 7 years of hourly-wage Security work, which I have absolutely nothing to show for it. There were many times where I slept in my fucking car on job sites because of the hours I worked.
Now I'm having to start over with another kind of career that pays more, and is far more flexible with better opportunities.
Those who HAVE to work to pay the bills know the true value of wealth, because they see what they need at the end of the tunnel to be successful and prosperous in our society. The rest focus on what's in front of them and live day by day.
My father knew he wanted a better life, and drove himself to many grey hairs, month-long business trips to foreign countries, and had to make hard sacrifices that effected our family greatly; both positively and negatively.
I guess it was just a different time?
So I don't have all the answers. And what I posted above is merely MY speculation of why society moved on from the rest of us: I believe the overwhelming technology boom we have today has played a huge part in what jobs are like in this country.
But I do know hard work pays off, and you're right: minimum wage jobs were never meant to be careers.
Sorry about the life-story, by the way. I rarely ever talk about my family to anyone except my shrink, but it feels good to do so once in a while. I love my parents to death, and I'm very proud of my father's accomplishments.
