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This started out as a comment on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
symian's post about the dog-whistle myth about those lazy, shiftless food stamp recipients. He began with the standard debunking-
- but then added this observation to the discussion about these Fox-News-addicted sheep:
What they don't understand is that everything they buy, from food to clothes to electronics, from fast food to investments and stocks, to whatever, is due in great part to people earning a low wage. If you make $50,000 a year the tax cost to you to provide food stamps is about $36 a year. For that small amount of money you save many thousands of dollars on the cost of items and services. If everyone earned enough that no one needed food stamps, say goodbye to your cable, your I-Phone, your ROKU, your vacation and more, because you would not be able to afford it at your current salary. You'd quickly realize that you are not making enough money, you just think you are.
People don't notice what they don't see. It's not just the low wages paid to the providers of goods and services; it's the number of people being underpaid.
I had a fasting blood draw before 8 a.m. last week. There was one guy working in the whole place, with always at least three people waiting. Their solution to the lack of labour? A sign at the check-in:
Two things about that: their suite has no customer wifi, and all the wifi in the rest of the building is secured, so you can't just check the other sites for appointment and waiting times. Also, I'm pretty sure that the owners of these two locations have yet a third site, just a mile further to the west- and probably with an easel and picture in THAT backed-up venue.
It begs the question, and boggles the mind: why three understaffed locations in a two-mile stretch? Probably because they merged their competition out of existence, and while leases can't be fired, essential personnel can. The two biggest local office supply retailers recently merged (and are in talks to merge with one of the other big ones), resulting in locations often under a mile apart from each other. Try finding ONE person not holding down a register in one of them for any kind of useful help.
The result is higher prices and more aggravation. Quest, you might recall, is the outfit that's charging Eleanor for four disputed lab tests of almost $600 a pop that, for the uninsured at a cheaper alternative, cost $15. But they can't afford a receptionist. Nope; they'd have to pay HER healthcare. How ironic.
----
Once Bill the Friendly Phlebotomist finally got to me, he was fine, but I had no time for a sit-down breakfast by then; it's an indulgence I usually reserve for road trips and ass-early appointments. So I decided to treat myself to a do-over the next morning, getting to a local breakfast place you've heard of (its name perhaps even hidden in this paragraph;) just past 8 a.m.
I stood there at the HOSTESS WILL SEAT YOU sign for a good five minutes. HOSTESS was nowhere to be seen. Neither was anybody else on the payroll. The place had only two customers sitting at one table, with a pot of coffee left for them. Other than those two, I never saw a soul the whole time, and walked out foodless for the second day in a row.
But profits are at an all-time high. Yay.
symian's post about the dog-whistle myth about those lazy, shiftless food stamp recipients. He began with the standard debunking-- but then added this observation to the discussion about these Fox-News-addicted sheep:
What they don't understand is that everything they buy, from food to clothes to electronics, from fast food to investments and stocks, to whatever, is due in great part to people earning a low wage. If you make $50,000 a year the tax cost to you to provide food stamps is about $36 a year. For that small amount of money you save many thousands of dollars on the cost of items and services. If everyone earned enough that no one needed food stamps, say goodbye to your cable, your I-Phone, your ROKU, your vacation and more, because you would not be able to afford it at your current salary. You'd quickly realize that you are not making enough money, you just think you are.
People don't notice what they don't see. It's not just the low wages paid to the providers of goods and services; it's the number of people being underpaid.
I had a fasting blood draw before 8 a.m. last week. There was one guy working in the whole place, with always at least three people waiting. Their solution to the lack of labour? A sign at the check-in:
Two things about that: their suite has no customer wifi, and all the wifi in the rest of the building is secured, so you can't just check the other sites for appointment and waiting times. Also, I'm pretty sure that the owners of these two locations have yet a third site, just a mile further to the west- and probably with an easel and picture in THAT backed-up venue.
It begs the question, and boggles the mind: why three understaffed locations in a two-mile stretch? Probably because they merged their competition out of existence, and while leases can't be fired, essential personnel can. The two biggest local office supply retailers recently merged (and are in talks to merge with one of the other big ones), resulting in locations often under a mile apart from each other. Try finding ONE person not holding down a register in one of them for any kind of useful help.
The result is higher prices and more aggravation. Quest, you might recall, is the outfit that's charging Eleanor for four disputed lab tests of almost $600 a pop that, for the uninsured at a cheaper alternative, cost $15. But they can't afford a receptionist. Nope; they'd have to pay HER healthcare. How ironic.
----
Once Bill the Friendly Phlebotomist finally got to me, he was fine, but I had no time for a sit-down breakfast by then; it's an indulgence I usually reserve for road trips and ass-early appointments. So I decided to treat myself to a do-over the next morning, getting to a local breakfast place you've heard of (its name perhaps even hidden in this paragraph;) just past 8 a.m.
I stood there at the HOSTESS WILL SEAT YOU sign for a good five minutes. HOSTESS was nowhere to be seen. Neither was anybody else on the payroll. The place had only two customers sitting at one table, with a pot of coffee left for them. Other than those two, I never saw a soul the whole time, and walked out foodless for the second day in a row.
But profits are at an all-time high. Yay.