Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
The No Insurance Club is the creation of an Arizona physician. The annual individual membership fee is $480 for up to 12 physician visits ($680 covers up to 16 visits per family). Most services during the office visits are free, including immunizations. Generic prescriptions are $4 or less.
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
64 Comments:
I would be concerned that this will attract MDs hungry for business and who aren't the best and the brightest
KJ, I read that twice to be sure it was as remarkably stupid as it seemed the first time.
I would be concerned that this will attract MDs ... who aren't the best and the brightest
No, that's called the Obama plan. The Democrats are determined to make medicine completely unattractive to talented people. They've nearly succeeded with primary care physicians. But, heh, give them time, their just getting started. Soon the health care in Cuba really will be better than here.
And this is affordable to minimum wage workers how?
KJ said:
I would be concerned that this will attract MDs hungry for business and who aren't the best and the brightest
Not to worry. The professor seeks a plan which attracts the leaders and best.
We would have to pay almost four thousand dollars a year to join my husband's employer's health plan - and we are rarely sick! We have three kids under ten, but the last time we went to the doctor was last fall. We probably could use a catastrophic illness policy, but to waste all that money on insurance that you rarely use is robbery. We have been utilizing the Health Department for immunizations and checkups - it's a lot cheaper, because these are done by nurse practitioners and not doctors. We earn too much for our state's version of Medicaid, but we don't earn so much that we wouldn't miss four thousand dollars. We will definitely be checking out this "No Insurance" deal.
A similar program in Rhode Island that I have utilized in the past:
http://www.healthaccessri.com/
The care was uniformly excellent.
Private insurers have a profit motive to limit choices and access to health care. Private insurers have a profit motive to layer health care costs with administrative fees and luxurious salaries. Anytime you can eliminate overhead like insurance companies there is a savings.
Poor Boomer: Not to worry. Nobody makes minimum wage for more than about 6 months unless it is that person's choice. If the work they do is valuable they get paid more or they go find another job where they maximize their utility to an employer and earn more.
Locally even with the down economy you can't make less than about $9 to do a job and we have really low cost of living so that $9 probably goes as far as $16 in a big town like NYC or Boston.
Anonymous said:
Poor Boomer: Not to worry. Nobody makes minimum wage for more than about 6 months unless it is that person's choice. If the work they do is valuable they get paid more or they go find another job where they maximize their utility to an employer and earn more.
Um, exactly WhereTF did you get that idea?
I work for an employer with several convenience stores. All of the hourly employees earn within 20 cents of minimum wage. (A joke circulating among employees last year suggested that if the managers did not get a raise by the time minimum wage was scheduled to go up, the managers would then earn an hourly rate below minimum.)
The employees earning more than minimum wage have all worked here for more than five years.
There are no benchmarks or performance evaluations at the workplace, but we understand that superior performance won't get you a raise.
Do you think ALL of our employees are worth no more than 20 cents per hour above minimum?
The official unemployment rate here is 10 percent. The two owners of a just-opened local Japanese restaurant were interviewed in a newspaper the other day. One of them said they received ONE THOUSAND replies in 72 hours to a hiring ad they posted on Craigslist.
Now tell us again about how easy it is for someone earning minimum wage to find another job where they maximize their utility.
Poor Boomer,
Then quit working at a convenience store, go get another fucking job, and quit bitching about how you're so poor and society doesn't give you a break. Really dude...it's getting old. Take a tip from Cassius in Julius Caesar:
"Man at some time are masters of their fate. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."
We probably could use a catastrophic illness policy, but to waste all that money on insurance that you rarely use is robbery.
This is exactly why Republicans started HSA's (Health Savings Accounts). You get a tax deferred savings account, similar to an IRA, married to a catastrophic health insurance policy. You can make withdrawals, tax free, to pay for any health related expense, including dental. If you stay healthy, you get to keep the money you've saved and even pass it on in your will. This really is the way for most people to go.
Of course, the Democrats have been trying to kill these plans because they interfere with their plan for socializing the system. You think that health insurance is expensive now, wait until it's "free".
Private insurers have a profit motive to limit choices and access to health care.
So, what's the motive for this? Or, this. And this
Of course, the leftists will promise you everything. But the truth is, they'll just keep you waiting
Anonymous said:
Then quit working at a convenience store, go get another fucking job, and quit bitching about how you're so poor and society doesn't give you a break.
I presume that you are familiar with the concept of a wage slave. I also presume you've read the bit about a new restaurant receivine ONE THOUSAND replies to an online job posting.
Now I'd like to try self-employment, and I have several ideas, but no money to get started, so I'm stuck for now with the wage slavery gig.
So, just who are the uninsured in America anyway? Watch this.
This solution will only work if you can get catastrophic insurance. In states that have mandated levels of insurance coverage you can't get catastrophic insurance, it's all or none. It becomes to risky to have just a plan with your doctor but no way of covering injuries or unexpected illness.
Private insurers have a profit motive to limit choices and access to health care.
Colette Mills has been condemned to death by the NHS. We should pay attention to her story now, because one day it could very well be our own.
Mrs Mills, a former nurse who has breast cancer, was told back in September that her local hospital trust would not pay for Avastin, a drug which would double the time her disease was kept under control.
Link
More than 30,000 hospital beds have been lost since Labour came to power, with record cuts in NHS wards last year.
The cutbacks mean increasing numbers of hospitals are going on "black alert" – which involves closing their doors to new patients because they are full.
Patients' groups described the loss of the beds, at a time when overcrowded wards have seen soaring rates of killer infections, as "a national scandal".
Link
A pregnant woman was forced to give birth in a hospital corridor after being turned away from two other hospitals when she went into labour.
Humiliated new mother Emma Johnson gave birth in a hallway at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, West Sussex.
She plans to make an official complaint to NHS bosses after staff at two hospitals refused to admit her because there were no beds available.
Link
More than 400 Canadians in the full throes of a heart attack or other cardiac emergency have been sent to the United States because no hospital can provide the lifesaving care they require here.
Most of the heart patients who have been sent south since 2003 typically show up in Ontario hospitals, where they are given clot-busting drugs. If those drugs fail to open their clogged arteries, the scramble to locate angioplasty in the United States begins.
Link
Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.
Patients “cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs,” the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament.
“That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.,” Mr. Johnson said.
Link
More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors' group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan. The problem has peaked, with British Columbia and Ontario each sending a record number of women to U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Specifically, 80 B.C. women have been sent to U.S.
Link
Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.
Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.
Link
A 75-year-old man was forced to spend his life savings on a vital hip operation after the NHS cancelled his appointments four times.
Edward Crane claims he has nothing left after clearing out his bank account for the £9000 private surgery after waiting more than six months for a consultation at his local hospital.
The pensioner, from Rainham, Essex, said he felt he had "no choice" but to shell out the cash after suffering months of agony.
Link
There are thousands of stories, just like these, about the nightmare of socialized medicine. The media, in the U.S., has done everything they can to hide these stories and stifle the debate. Don't be misled by promises of "free, unlimited care", it's a lie. Our system isn't perfect, but it is the most perfect. It could be much better, and much cheaper, if leftists would stop hindering innovation and restricting competition. The left has done everything in their power to drive up costs and create a sense of crisis in an effort to move us towards socialized care.
The one positive for a Canadian style health care system in the U.S. is that it will wipe that superior smirk off their faces when they lose the U.S. as a safety valve for care they don't provide and a source for technology and drugs they don't develop for themselves. The last major drug discovery out of Canada was insulin. Certainly that is significant. It was discovered in 1926. Nothing since then but crickets.
Thank you, President Obama!! He thinks of everything.
"I would be concerned that this will attract MDs hungry for business and who aren't the best and the brightest"...
Good point! Really, a great point in fact...
Imagine an outfit that ends up attracting bottom feeder type physicians, you know the kind that supported Obama... These physicians weren't smart enough to discern the fact that Obama is a commie... Do YOU really want someone like that laying hands on you?
"And this is affordable to minimum wage workers how?"...
Who cares about these societal parasites?
"Do you think ALL of our employees are worth no more than 20 cents per hour above minimum?"...
Hmmm, these employees are worth considerably less than 20 cents per hour in the first place...
I mean if their dumb enough to stick around with that sort of employer than they're aren't smart enough to go anywhere else...
"In states that have mandated levels of insurance coverage you can't get catastrophic insurance"...
Aren't these the same states that are losing businesses too?
1 said:
Who cares about these societal parasites?
Societal parasites in what way? I produce income and wealth for my employer and my landlord. I produce yet live frugally, on far far less than you would ever contemplate.
I mean if their (sic) dumb enough to stick around with that sort of employer than they're aren't smart enough to go anywhere else...
Um, what part of 'wage slavery' do you not get, or the part about ONE THOUSAND people replying to a blind hiring ad for a new restaurant?
PLEASE tell me what better option(s) I have.
Poor Boomer:
Move someplace else. My wife and I have moved three times in less than seven years to increase our incomes. We now make about double what we did before the three moves. I know you say you don't make much money, but double the money certainly would help, wouldn't it? I don't understand the mentality of living a life that is broken and doing nothing to fix it.
Fix it. Only you can. Nobody else is going to do it for you.
Anonymous said:
Move someplace else. My wife and I have moved three times in less than seven years to increase our incomes. We now make about double what we did before the three moves. I know you say you don't make much money, but double the money certainly would help, wouldn't it? I don't understand the mentality of living a life that is broken and doing nothing to fix it.
Alas, I don't think there is anything I can do. As I am broke and have only my labor power to sell, I can't even afford to move across town top a cheaper room, how can I move to a different area?
I have a student loan garnishment which makes it impossible for me to save up any money on my minimum wage income; the existing Reaganite student loan collection policies make NO provision for activities which allow me to save or spend money short-term in order to become better off long-term.
Conservatives often attribute short-term financial behavior to the poor, but its epitome can be found in Reaganism.reo
Poor boomer, you have student loans, so I assume you went to college... and yet you work in a convenience store? Something does not add up.
However, if that is your situation, what do you suggest? Health care costs what it costs; if you cannot afford it, do you suggest I should pay for your health care? You can "donate" (i.e. sell) blood, or even just blood plasma for 6 months, and that should save you enough money for a move - I did it in college, when money was a problem. You can wallow all you want in "wage slavery" self-pity, or think outside the box a little. I knew a middle-age couple who came to this country from Eastern Europe a few years ago, with crappy English and university degrees that were useless here. The guy started in Boston market at minimum wage, and the woman as a custodian in a hotel. Five years later, the guy is a manager, and the girl is front desk manager. Which of these can you not do?
Plamen:
Yes I have a college degree; so do 20 percent of my convenience store minimum wage co-workers. Minimum wage isn't just for teens and dropouts any more!
I'm medically ineligible to donate/sell plasma. I can't become a manager (appearance deficits) so I need to find a way to make money without a job.
It should be obvious to everyone by now that "poor boomer" is a fraud. Don't respond to his nonsense. He'll find his way back to Michael Moore's website.
Anonymous said:
It should be obvious to everyone by now that "poor boomer" is a fraud. Don't respond to his nonsense. He'll find his way back to Michael Moore's website.
Please elaborate on the "obvious" fraud(s), none are obvious to me!
I've never been to Michael Moore's website so I can hardly find my way back there.
You sound like you're in denial of the reality that people like me exist in this country and that we actually the sort of life I describe here.
Poor Boomer said:
Please elaborate on the "obvious" fraud(s), none are obvious to me!
Boomer, you could reassure us all with some bona fides. Such as where you live, where you work, how you could possibly look worse than many managers we have all seen.
poor boomer: how do you get on the internet? the library or yur own computer?
$480 a year, or $40/visit, for 12 visits to No Insurance Club.
About the cost of one month of basic cable, or threee large pizzas, or two tanks of gas for a mid-sized sedan.
Anybody accessing the internet to read and comment on this blog must be paying something to get on the internet unless they are going to the library. I suppose poor boomer could be stealing his neighbor's wireless, so he gets to surf for free.
Although I doubt that poor boomer is at the library at 4:04am - the time of his last comment.
So poor boomer, how do you afford internet but can't (won't) spring $40 for a doctor visit?
So people from all over South America and Mexico find a way to get to virtually every city in the U.S., but poor boomer can't find a way to get out of town. Yeah right. I say Bulls*#!.
xcaverx said:
Boomer, you could reassure us all with some bona fides. Such as where you live, where you work, how you could possibly look worse than many managers we have all seen.
Well I certainly don't intend to tell you where I work, other than it's at a convenience store and it's in Portland.
But I can tell you I'm old, balding, overweight, and in obvious need of dental work.
Anonymous said:
poor boomer: how do you get on the internet? the library or yur own computer?
I just turn on my computer, fire up my browser, and - voila! - I'm on the internet.
I earned my refurb Linux box by volunteering at a local non-profit that refurbs and recycles computers and other electronic gadgetry.
I rent a room in a house from a homeowner who rents out all the spare bedrooms; high-speed internet and cable TV are included in the rent and getting rid of them wouldn't reduce the rent.
Anonymous said:
Anybody accessing the internet to read and comment on this blog must be paying something to get on the internet unless they are going to the library. I suppose poor boomer could be stealing his neighbor's wireless, so he gets to surf for free.
I'm renting a room in a house from a homeowner who rents out all the spare bedrooms, and the house wireless is included in the rent, so marginal cost is zero, but with the high rent, I wouldn't exactly say I'm getting it for free.
Anonymous said:
So people from all over South America and Mexico find a way to get to virtually every city in the U.S., but poor boomer can't find a way to get out of town. Yeah right. I say Bulls*#!.
That does raise an interesting question, namely, how DO those people manage to do it. Obviously there are coyotes for those who can afford them, but I imagine the vast majority get here on their own.
But there's no way I could travel to any destination I couldn't reach in a weekend, since I'm more or less tied to a dialysis machine three times a week. And you can't just hit the road on Friday and walk into the nearest dialysis clinic on Monday, you have to make prior arrangements well in advance, so you need a specific itinerary and can't just hit the road wandering.
Well I certainly don't intend to tell you where I work, other than it's at a convenience store and it's in Portland.
But I can tell you I'm old, balding, overweight, and in obvious need of dental work.
First, Oregon has the second highest minimum wage in the entire country.
Second, they have an extremely generous state health plan for low income workers. And while they can't help with your baldness, you can contact any school of dentistry and they will steer you to free dental care. Maybe you should use that internet connection for something other than porn and trolling.
Third, I live in California and have several friends who live in Portland. Portland is a progressive nightmare. There are so many programs and handouts for people like "boomer" that he could achieve the standard of living he claims to have without ever having to work.
You say that you have a college degree and have worked at minimum wage for years. Bullshit. For years the unemployment rate in Portland was barely over 5 percent. We used to call that "full employment". No competent person works at minimum wage for years, not even 16 year olds. Further, If any of this were true, you could have moved almost anywhere along the coast and found better paying employment.
The emperor has no clothes.
Anonymous said:
First, Oregon has the second highest minimum wage in the entire country.
And the cost of living here is high as well. (Think the two just MIGHT be related?) I pay $650 to rent a room, and after rent, health insurance, and my student loan garnishment, I live on approx $100 plus some food stamps.
Second, they have an extremely generous state health plan for low income workers.
If you had bothered to actually read the content at the link, you would have read this:
To qualify for OHP/Medicaid:
Individuals or families must have a gross income of less than 100% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
My gross income is not less than 100% of FPL, so I don't qualify.
Anonymous said:
Third, I live in California and have several friends who live in Portland. Portland is a progressive nightmare. There are so many programs and handouts for people like "boomer" that he could achieve the standard of living he claims to have without ever having to work.
While I agree that Portland is a progressive nightmare, I'm not seeing the "so many programs and handouts" part.
There is a lot of working poverty in Portland which has moved en masse in the last few years to the outer east side. (Historically black parts of North Portland have gentrified, pushing poor renters to the new pocket of poverty.)
While I am on some waiting lists for affordable housing, those waiting lists are so long it could be a very long time before I make it to the top. Section 8? Forgetaboutit, you can't even get ON the waiting list.
> And this is affordable to minimum wage workers how?
Simple -- instead of buying the latest Supa Dupa Nintendo and six games, they actually pay for health care instead.
Glad I could explain that for ya, it being so unobvious and all that.
> The care was uniformly excellent.
boomer and KJ beg to differ.
> The employees earning more than minimum wage have all worked here for more than five years.
If you're working at a convenience store making within 10% of minimum for five years then:
a) you are a congenital idiot still living with his parents
b) a borderline congenital idiot with no capacity for learning anything actually useful to society... and still living with your parents
c) A useless lazy slug too stupid to actually gain a skill that makes you able to earn more than minimum.
All a minimum wage should be doing for you is to give you a work history for a year or so that makes most other employers willing to make the effort to train you at some vaguely intelligent job that will earn you around half-again as much. And that's without any college. Add an AA and you should be able, for the most part, to get a job earning double minimum, IF you actually got an AA in anything vaguely useful. Get a degree in something relatively in demand (i.e., the medical field) and you can do a lot better.
I will guarantee you that you can do almost any clerical job and earn, after a year, in excess of $12 an hour.
And I've for more than a year on only $12k a year at least two or three times in the past. And that's an average of around $6/hr take home. Not in NYC, not in Cali. If you can't make more than that there, then, as noted in other threads -- MOVE.
> Do you think ALL of our employees are worth no more than 20 cents per hour above minimum?
No, but apparently each of you do, since you're still working there for up to five years.
Until YOU decide to do something more, you don't get to steal money from people who've actually done the work needed to make more, just because you're not willing to go out and find something better.
.
.
.
.
> The official unemployment rate here is 10 percent.
MM............MM...OOOO...VV....VV..EEEEEEE
MMMM....MMMM..OO..OO..VV....VV..EE
MM.MM..MM.MM..OO..OO..VV....VV..EE
MM...MMM...MM..OO..OO..VV....VV..EEEE
MM............MM..OO..OO...VV..VV...EE
MM............MM..OO..OO....VVVV....EE
MM............MM...OOOO......VV......EEEEEEE
Not sure how one can spell it out any better.
STOP WHINING AND DEMANDING SOMEONE ELSE SOLVE YOUR PUNKASS PROBLEM.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR your own SITUATION
And do something about it for yourself.
OBloodyHell indeed!
Until YOU decide to do something more, you don't get to steal money from people who've actually done the work needed to make more, just because you're not willing to go out and find something better.
WHat part of "ONE THOUSAND people replied to a blind Craigslist restaurant job ad in 72 hours" do you not understand?
Doing the work needed to make more is NOT a unilateral decision! Just ask any of the 990 people who were not hired by the restautant.
OBloodyHell again:
Simple -- instead of buying the latest Supa Dupa Nintendo and six games, they actually pay for health care instead.
Glad I could explain that for ya, it being so unobvious and all that.
Did you miss the part where I said that after paying for rent (for a room in a house with eight people), health insurance, and a student loan garnishment, I live on $100 per month plus some food stamps?
> Now I'd like to try self-employment, and I have several ideas, but no money to get started, so I'm stuck for now with the wage slavery gig.
No, you're not. And self-employment means you have to work up enough money to "have money to get started".
There are several ways to do that, one of which clearly even applies even to you.
1) Know people. Probably not an option for you.
2) Have a track record so that others will consider backing you even though they don't know you personally. Also probably not (yet) an option for you.
3) BUST YOUR ASS TO MAKE THE EXTRA MONEY. Certainly an option for you.
You work two, even three jobs. Take on additional work in the form of odd jobs. Take the extra money and SET IT ASIDE until you DO have the money to try the things you have in mind. Maybe they work out, maybe they don't. And each time, you learn a little bit more about why some things work and others don't. And that's the kind of knowledge that employers like to see in employees, and you get a chance -- at the least -- to do the kind of job that pays two or three times minimum wage.
In short, you give up your current slack time in the hope of gaining greater rewards later. It's how those rich bastard M.D.s did things -- they give up free time in school, college, and med school so that later they'll get the reward of lots of money and free time to work as much as they feel like and get paid really well for it.
The term for this is "Delayed Gratification", and, unless you're lucky enough to INHERIT lots of money, it's often the only way in which ANYONE actually improves their lot, short of Stupid Wild-Ass Luck and winning the Lottery.
But you don't grasp that. You think everyone gets to do whatever they please, and the Great Money Fairy comes along and dinks them in their sleep.
CLUE: for the most part, the Great Money Fairy only dinks those who've been impressing the Hard Work Fairy for at least several years, after which time she calls up her friend the Great Money Fairy and gives her your name -- and it's only then she (but not always even then) comes and dinks you.
This is how it works with the Great Money Fairy and the Hard Work Fairy.
Now go to sleep, little one, and dream of sugar plums...
Anonymous said:
You say that you have a college degree and have worked at minimum wage for years. Bullshit. For years the unemployment rate in Portland was barely over 5 percent. We used to call that "full employment". No competent person works at minimum wage for years, not even 16 year olds. Further, If any of this were true, you could have moved almost anywhere along the coast and found better paying employment.
To the best of my knowledge, the unemployment rate in Portland has never been 5 percent during the time I have been here. (I came here in 2002, brought here by family because I was unable to work for a year and couldn't keep paying rent without an income.)
Appeox 20 percent of my co-workers at the convenience store have had college degrees. Young college graduates move to Portland hoping to enjoy the local indie music scene or get 'green' jobs, and often wind up serving coffee.
OBloodyHell said:
You work two, even three jobs. Take on additional work in the form of odd jobs.
It would be nice if I could actually GET two, even three jobs, but in this economy, that appears extremely unlikely. (You know, one thousand people applied for ten restaurant jobs...)
Considering I have one job, no car, and a date with a dialysis machine three days a week, fitting in a second job seems dubious.
I'm working on the "odd jobs" gigs but it seems every other unemployed person is doing the same, as Craigslist has become very crowded with these people. (236 local posts to "household services" on Friday)
> Did you miss the part where I said that after paying for rent
Well, clearly you DID NOT get the part where I said "MOVE".
Not sure how you missed it, but such obliviousness does make it increasingly obvious how it is that you're stuck working at minimum wage for all this time.
If you're living in a house with eight people and just barely paying the bills, then YOU ARE LIVING IN A REALLY STUPID PLACE TO LIVE.
I repeat: FUCKING MOVE.
In many parts of Florida, just as an example, you can live on $12k a year -- $1,000 a month. And that's with a 700sq foot, one-bedroom apartment all to yourself, Basic cable TV, broadband internet, and electricity.
1) You don't get to eat out a lot.
2) You do get to have a car but not a car payment (adjust as needed if you want a car that much). But you can certainly do without a car for long enough to get one, if you want to, if you live in the correct town.
3) You don't get to party a lot. That's not what we're talking about.
Get yourself one or two roommates and a two or three bedroom place, and you can cut your living expenses substantially. Either make car payment, or sock the extra away, or both.
Now, 1000 a month is LESS than minimum wage (160*7=1120). Use a bit more for extra living expenses and taxes, and you have an adequate lifestyle that ALREADY sounds better than what you've got.
Take on another part-time, 20-hr-a-week job and you can be putting away another $500 EACH MONTH towards whatever goal you think you can do with self-employment after a time.
Yeah, that's living-for-work. For NOW. But ask yourself how much you need for this "self-employed" idea you want to do -- $5000? less than a year. $10000? well under two.
OR GO TO COLLEGE --- and get a USEFUL degree. Not "English". Not "History".
Cripes, if you have any natural talent for languages, you can pick up three or four and make damned good money as a translator. Just being fluent in both Spanish and English alone is worth an additional $5000 to $10000 a year in the right places (yeah, you have to actually seek those places)
There are so many ways you can get ANYTHING that's better than a fucking convenience store job it's downright pitiful.
I am dead serious -- unless you are dead fucking stupid you can easily find, within a reasonable time, something that pays, or shortly will, better than minimum wage. Especially if you keep looking while you're making that minumum.
IT'S ON YOU -- not someone else -- to improve your lot in life.
That's ALWAYS been the case, boomer.
The difference is, people used to get taught that early.
Nowadays, it's something you have to actually learn for yourself.
You're completely right. Convenience store jobs SUCK. There is NO CHANCE for advancement. Even managers make jack shit.
Convenience store jobs are for students who aren't on a career path yet.
They're for people with limited intelligence and ability to develop themselves.
Just from some of your writing it seems improbable that you classify as either of those two.
SO WHY IS IT YOUR CAREER?
Friggin' A, man -- even WAITERS at APPLEBEES make more than minimum. And they can get jobs as crew chiefs and management. No, not great money, but one hell of a lot better than minumum -- 30k to 45k is quite reasonable even in low-relative-income areas. YOU CAN LIVE COMFORTABLY ON THAT, especially if you don't have kids. Get good experience as a manager and then you can apply for jobs at specialty places that pay a lot better than that -- a good maitre d' or head waiter or cook at a fancy restaurant can make well into the high five figures and more, depending on where you're at (six figures, I'd bet, in NY, Chicago, LA).
Get a job as a bag boy at a Publix shopping center here in Florida, and yeah, you're getting minimum. But when one of the other jobs comes open in meat, or the deli, or whatever, if the manager is impressed you work hard and act responsible, that means you're in like Flynn on a job with more potential. And again you have a clear career path that can end with you making 30-45k easily.
And note that I'm picking jobs that have no initial skill or educational requirement AT ALL.
"Convenience store" is a dead end at the start, and always has been.
Pick yourself a job path with an upward goal. If you perceive that the job itself doesn't have an upward path (i.e., that specific restaurant doesn't pay jack shit) then you use it as a springboard getting experience that will get you a job at a similar place which DOES pay better.
Again -- stop waiting for the Good Money Fairy to come and Dink you.
She doesn't visit convenience stores very much, she doesn't like the smell of frozen microwave burritos getting microwaved.
It's called "ambition". And you clearly don't have any. You need to work on that.
Mind you, moving RIGHT NOW isn't as ideal as it would have been two years ago, but even there, there's always places to move TO if you're willing to actually work at it. Get on the internet, get on various craigs' lists -- especially if you can find places with relatives and friends who might put up with you for a few weeks until you find a place of your own and have some extra cash.
Use the Craig's list to get an idea what it costs for a roommate (or an apartment for yourself), make sure that that's within the range of a budget (I'm assuming you can actually MAKE a budget even if you don't currently have one -- DO SO, based on full-time minumum wage after taxes you need to do this reasonably carefully).
Having narrowed it down to several places with a reasonable number of job offerings and cost-of-living, start applying for jobs. Indicate you're interested in moving to the area, and would like to conduct a phone interview, with the result that they hire you immediately if you show up for a final face-to-face job interview and pass it, if you actually take the time to come there. Some people will say no, but what you are doing shows both initiative and drive and some employers are smart enough to actually like that.
If you can't find a place with friends or relatives you can crash with, you're going to need a little help -- in this case, probably check with various churches in the town of interest, indicate your situation, and seek any help finding a low-cost place to stay for a few weeks if you get a job there -- again, you're showing drive and initiative which most people in such situations appreciate and respond to.
Again -- the goal here is to expose yourself to the minumum risk needed -- even if the job you get sucks, it's probably no worse than the one you had, you're in a place with more job options, and you can start looking "locally" rather than at a distance.
College towns are generally very good. They are filled with younger people, usually have a good number of low-skilled jobs, and a fairly inexpensive standard of living. Hunt up a list of towns with 50-250k people, preferably with a college of some substance nearby. In Florida, there is, at the least, Gainesville and Tallahassee, with definite possibilities in Ocala, Daytona, Deland, and Pensacola. Probably others, but I know those fit the cost-of-living and size reqs, and most have either schools or substantial JuCos to draw young people. That's one state. I will almost guarantee you that you can find at least two significant towns in every state outside of New England and Cali. At least a couple of those -- probably a dozen or more are probably doing a lot better than most of the rest of the country, and a lot better than Florida, Nevada, Cali, and Arizona (which have been hit the hardest by the housing bubble).
It's your responsibility, no one elses. If life sucks, it's up to you -- and only you -- to take the risks needed to make things better. Either do so or quit whining. They are your choices. It's your life.
> It would be nice if I could actually GET two, even three jobs,
M
M
MO
MO
MOO
MOO
MOOOO
MOOOOOOO
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE.
Last time I'm gonna fucking say it.
After this, I'm just gonna call you by your correct name, "Whiny Little Bitch".
.
> Appeox 20 percent of my co-workers at the convenience store have had college degrees. Young college graduates move to Portland hoping to enjoy the local indie music scene or get 'green' jobs, and often wind up serving coffee.
WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY THAT'S A FUCKING STUPID PLACE TO LIVE YOU STUPID DUMBASS IMBECILE.
It's got an excess of similarly skill-less, untalented losers who can't actually be bothered to develop a worthwhile skill because they're too busy "suffering" for their music. Even when someone moves out, some other equally zero-skill idiot comes there to take their place.
Geez, can you be any more oblivious to blatant common sense?
Take the Amityville Horror Challenge: "For God's Sake, Get Out!"
Sorry -- "Whiney Little Bitch", it is...
Do you and your co-workers deserve to be earning only 20 cents more than minumum after five years?
The answer is "Yes".
Because every single one of you is "too dumb to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel".
Geez.
> and a student loan garnishment
There's this thing you can get with regards to your student loans, it's called a hardship deferment.
For the most part, it isn't worth the trouble for them to go after you unless you're making better than minumum wage. And if you don't hold the exact same job for a long time, they aren't going to really have time to notice how much you're making at a low-wage job like that, so, until you have a better job, you blow them off, one way or another --either get them to accept virtually nothing as a payment or just don't bother paying them. If they garnish your wages, change jobs. At worst, you'll get bad credit. Wooo. It sounds like credit won't do you that much good anyway.
Now, more importantly -- like I said
MOVE, YOU DROOLING IDIOT.
In short, you give up your current slack time in the hope of gaining greater rewards later. It's how those rich bastard M.D.s did things -- they give up free time in school, college, and med school so that later they'll get the reward of lots of money and free time to work as much as they feel like and get paid really well for it.
Yeah, I know about that; I did it as a kid. I started shoveling snow around town at ten and had my first paper route at twelve. I had saved up the equivalent of $20K by the time I graduated high school...then I blew it all on college.
Actually I have been researching a narrow collectible niche with a price guide in mind. (There are a few existing price guides but all are at least ten years old and can hardly be considered current. One of the existing price guides is under consideration for an update, and I hope to beat them to it.)
I am learning firsthand that there is a LOT of delayed gratification in researching and writing a book
> Nothing since then but crickets.
Do they have crickets that far north?
I'm sure they have mosquitos, though. And lots of those.
> While I am on some waiting lists for affordable housing, those waiting lists are so long it could be a very long time before I make it to the top. Section 8? Forgetaboutit, you can't even get ON the waiting list.
I apologize.
...For this:
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahhahahhahaaaaa!!!
You fucking DUMBASS.
You probably don't even earn the 20 cents above minumum they do give you.
> I am learning firsthand that there is a LOT of delayed gratification in researching and writing a book
And yet you do it in one of the more stupidly idiotic places you could do it in.
OR GO TO COLLEGE --- and get a USEFUL degree. Not "English". Not "History".
Student loan garnishment + minimum wage = no money for college + cannot get financial aid.
And $1120/mo after taxes is what, 1000/mo? (no FL income tax, but sales tax plus FIT)
Even managers make jack shit.
Yeah, we know...we've had jokes circulating among employees about how if the managers don't get a raise by the next minimum wage increase, the managers will be working for less than minimum.
Health care reform will be the topic of News Talk Online on Paltalk.com Thursday March 5 at 5 PM New York time.
You can connect to the conversation via my blog at http://www.garybaumgarten.com
Thanks,
Gary
This "No Insurance Club" reminds me of a WSJ article a few years ago about physicians who refused to take insurance, and were able to charge ~$35 per visit because they had no overhead related to billing.
"And this is affordable to minimum wage workers how?"
If you're only making minimum wage, wouldn't you qualify for Medicaid?
"Societal parasites in what way? I produce income and wealth for my employer and my landlord. I produce yet live frugally, on far far less than you would ever contemplate'...
Are you sure?
Let me guess, you also think you deserve SS, Medicare, and so on right?
Yet you like me probably haven't paid your fair share of the costs of the socialist nanny state programs, right?
"Um, what part of 'wage slavery' do you not get, or the part about ONE THOUSAND people replying to a blind hiring ad for a new restaurant?"...
The part that it doesn't exist in this country... You DON'T have to work there regardless of your whining attempt at rationlizing why you do...
"PLEASE tell me what better option(s) I have"...
Get a real job or maybe better yet do taxes for Rangel, Daschle, and Geitner...
What is interesting is the number of suggestions that have been put forward ie.
getting a roommate
contacting local church about low income accommodation
getting a second job
moving
researching on the internet for a community that would provide a job
researching government assistance programs
getting a hardship deferral of student loan payments
looking for an organization that has advancement potential
seeking a business loan or financial backing from friends
temporarily living with friends or relatives
To this, would add one additional idea. Boomer, you have suggested a book of auction values of collectibles. Instead of a book, you might consider an online service with an annual subscription. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, you could partner with an existing software company or a techno-geek to handle the web interface and hardware while you could provide the content. Breaking into the traditional publishing field is very difficult. If I recall correctly, Perly's had to self-publish their first guide.
What we have done here is develop a model for problem solving. ie. Define the problem, brainstorm potential solutions, use the internet to leverage one's ability to find information to help develop realistic solutions, set life goals and decide what steps will be needed to achieve these goals.
In a sense, this blog has acted as a form of networking albeit with an occassional swipe at boomer's defeatism and sense of powerlessness.
Boomer, you have lots of choices. One is to reject everything here as hypercritical, unsympathetic, etc. I do not believe that would be in your best interest. Sometimes, people tell us things we don't want to hear.
My fellow posters have not been very patient with your ability to "find a problem for every solution". It is my impression that you need to find areas in your life over which you have control and set goals. A place to start may be on your "appearance deficit". A deficit is a net loss and this word choice I find disturbing. Even a small thing like losing 5% of your body mass would improve the way you see yourself.
Having suffereed a major health crisis in 2000, I can feel for you. A crisis, however, is also an opportunity to grow and develop in new and surprising ways. How many people only get their lives in balance after they suffer a heart attack?
Good luck in your travels.
Wow, women are amazing.
> And $1120/mo after taxes is what, 1000/mo? (no FL income tax, but sales tax plus FIT)
Yes. And you can live on that and do so fairly comfortably.
I have done it, and done it for an extended time (>12 months) in the not that distant past (i.e., recently enough that it still applies)
A single bedroom with a paid off car, or a shared apt with a car payment.
No, not a lot of "partying money", not a lot of spare money for building your "personal infrastructure", Not much money for investing, but that's not what we're discussing.
More money is certainly nicer, but your baseline cost of living for a single person can easily be about 12k per year, which is close enough to minumum wage that it's adequate.
P.S., QT:
:-)
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