SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Common Dreams reports
[On November 22, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of Texas] halted an Obama administration rule that would have expanded overtime pay for millions of workers, a decision that was slammed by employees' rights advocates.
The U.S. Department of Labor rule, which was set to go into effect on December 1, would have made overtime pay available to full-time salaried employees making up to $47,476 a year. It was expected to touch every nearly every sector [1] in the U.S. economy. The threshold for overtime pay was previously set at $23,660, and had been updated once in 40 years--meaning any full-time employees who earned more than $23,600 were not eligible for time-and-a-half when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
[...] Workers' rights advocates reacted with dismay and outrage. David Levine, CEO and co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council, mourned the ruling, saying the opponents were "operating from short-sighted, out-moded thinking".
"The employees who will be hurt the most and the economies that will suffer the most are in the American heartland, where wages are already low", Levine said. "When employers pay a fair wage, they benefit from more productive, loyal, and motivated employees. That's good for a business' bottom line and for growing the middle class that our nation's economy depends on. High road businesses understand that better compensation helps build a better work culture."
[...] Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), noted [2] that the rule would have impacted up to 12.5 million workers, citing research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
"The business trade associations and Republican-led states that filed the litigation in Texas opposing the rules have won today, but will not ultimately prevail in their attempt to take away a long-overdue pay raise for America's workers", she said. "Unfortunately, for the time being, workers will continue to work longer hours for less pay thanks to this obstructionist litigation."
[1][2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by keick on Monday November 28 2016, @07:21PM
I keep hearing folks like yourself beat this drum, and I did as well for a time. I've even put my own time and money into trying to help those in need in the some of the poorest counties in the Unites States (Areas around Boone, and Nada KY for example). After 4 years of spending a couple weeks a summer there building houses, repairing houses, etc. I came to a realization.
That realization was that no matter what condition they were living in, they don't realize it nor want it changed. They wont tell you that, in fact they'll tell you (and flat out expect) the exact opposite. Example: One couple didn't have running water in their house, and instead used an outhouse that drained into a local creek. We build them a detached (government rules) addition to their house, which contained a full bathroom and living area (heated and everything). They were very excited about it, and thanked us while simultaneously all but saying "it's about time someone did this for us". Kinda bummed about the whole thing, but I was off to other projects. When I came back one year later, the new addition was trashed inside and out... They were still using the outhouse, and were all up demanding we renovate their addition. We left. They didn't care for anything they owned, not matter how nice, and expected others (government, local churches, etc) to do it for them.
I'll share another experience from the same area, because I think it sums up the general sentiment nicely (and very unfortunately). We sat down with a 10-12 year old boy to chat while taking a drink break from fixing his parents roof. We asked him about school, and what not, and then someone asked him what he'd like to do when he grows up. His answer was scary and insightful; "I'm going to do what every one else does, get on Welfare and do what I want.". Upon reflection of his words, it really put my previous 4 years of experiences in that region into alignment; Nearly every male I had ever run across had never lifted a finger to help with our projects on their own houses. And it's not like they had a job, they were always there... But instead they just kind of hung around on the front porch watching, or stayed inside taking care of the TV.
So that brings me to why I'm even here commenting, which is something called the Pareto principle (or the principle of factor sparsity). Basically almost everything that is countable seems to fall into the 80-20 rule, 80% of the effect is caused by 20% of the causes. This has been shown to also apply to wealth distributions across nearly every country in the world, with 20% of the population holding 80% of the money. It isn't some great conspiracy of the rich, its just an interesting power-law distribution that seems to always apply.
20% of the carpet in your office gets 80% of the wear; 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients; 80% of software defects is due to 20% of the code. There is nothing FAIR about it. I certainly wish all my clients contributed equally to my income, but that ain't gonna happen.
We can try to distribute the money across the poorest people, but if the Pareto Principle holds most likely it wont change a thing.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday November 28 2016, @09:59PM
So what exactly is your point? Are you suggesting that 80% of humanity should just roll over and die already? Or that who is a real contributor and who isn't can and should be determined by what sort of person your dad was?
I agree there are some lazy people and moochers out there. I know several myself. I'm not willing to condemn them to death for it, especially when the alternative is cutting back on the dick-measuring contest among mindbogglingly rich people that has absolutely zero impact to their actual livelihoods.
Also, for all you know, that 12-year-old might someday aspire to be more than what his daddy was.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Monday November 28 2016, @11:50PM
You have to be careful not to let anecdotes shape your opinions. There will always be examples of shitty human behavior, but don't become jaded unless it really is the vast majority. In this case it sounds like you helped out some pretty "bleh" type people, but I'm sure there are plenty of others who really appreciate the help.
Poverty traps are real, and communities can quickly go downhill when people don't have any hope. I would argue that the welfare mentality is the result of runaway capitalism. Wall street squeezes and cheats every dime they can, these welfare people are simply doing the same with the resources available. Perhaps if minimum wage was actually a livable rate then you'd see people going to work instead of living off welfare. Asking people to work full time and have a harder time paying the bills than if they stayed on welfare is... dumb. Basic risk/reward keeps these people where they are, and the answer is for some type of wealth normalization so that even the poorest people can afford food/shelter/entertainment as well as save some money regularly.
Without some normalization these problems will get worse. The system IS the problem, welfare and such are bandaids to try and keep society moving along but what we really need is serious surgery.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:59AM
So, yes, there are a certain number of impoverished people who do nothing but expect handouts, just as there are a certain number of C-level employees who expect nothing but bonuses and raises no matter how badly they lead their division of a corporation that is losing money.
What this particular law is about isn't about handouts for the poor, quite the opposite, it's about making it more expensive for employers to work individual employees more than 40 hours a week. On the face of it, to me, this means hiring more people to do the same job instead of working the ones you've got into oblivion while leaving the rest unemployed.
If I were a Presidential candidate and I were going to "fix" unemployment, I'd move push for legislation to move this mandatory 1.5x pay overtime down from 40 hours a week, one hour per year, until we have an "acceptable" decrease in unemployment. While we are at it, start 2x pay at 60 hours a week, and similarly squeeze that down until virtually nobody is working their employees 60 hours a week or more.
There is life outside work, families that are "living the American Dream" with 2.1 kids in a 3 bed 2 bath home in the burbs, in the majority of jobs (>50%) have both parents working... and even if only one is forced into 60 and 70 hour work weeks, that's significant stress on the household, things that need taking care of that aren't, and things that must be taken care of being done inefficiently because they can't afford to jeopardize their crappy employment situation.
If you want to break the welfare state and teaching people that handouts are to be expected, make it easier to get a job, not harder.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:06AM
They didn't care for anything they owned, not matter how nice, and expected others (government, local churches, etc) to do it for them.
This is likely an entrenched behaviour that is difficult to erase, but consider where it comes from: growing up not able to afford to own anything of value. I grew up in a fairly comfortable middle-class household with both parents working. This meant that I was conditioned from an early age to believe that things that we owned were the result of hard work and that they were worth looking after because they could only be replaced by more hard work, and replacing something would mean not being able to afford something else. Now consider the two extremes from this:
If you grow up in a household where you've inherited a large amount of wealth, it's difficult to value things because anything that you break can be easily replaced with no perceptible cost. There's no expectation that quality of life is tied to effort.
If you grow up in a household where there are no jobs available for your parents and you're reliant on government handouts, then you're going to be trained that anything that you own is given to you and that you're entitled to it. Other people are responsible for you and there's no point in working because there's no correlation between working and quality of life.
Just giving more stuff to people in this situation won't help get them out of poverty, you need to give them the opportunities to see benefits from the results of their labour. A big part of this is to ensure that the welfare system always rewards work: If you are able to work one hour a week, then you should be better off than someone who doesn't work. Historically, we've been very bad at this, which makes it very difficult to transition from surviving on handouts to actively contributing to society. UBI would help here: everyone gets a basic subsistence level income, irrespective of what they do, but any paid work increases take-home income.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:16PM
I'm sorry, what did you expect to "change?" It sound like the change you expect is a change in human nature - that all people everywhere will suddenly become altruistic and charitable. Or that people upon receiving free handouts will put it into its proper perspective and then want to do things for themselves. Which is a noble sentiment and idea, and does in fact occur in some cases. But not nearly all.
It has nothing to do with the fact that the wealth distribution in this country is such that NO human being in this country needs to live below the poverty line. The numbers say this is not the way it has to be. Yet many do live below the poverty line. No human being in this country should have to worry - EVER - about having basic shelter from weather, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and clothes on backs. Because the resources exist to make sure this never happens. Yet they do.
I very much respect the service you put in for that many years trying to assist others. But yes, if you did it from the motive that people deserve that based on who they are, and not what they are (a human being,) then you set yourself up for disappointment.
When it comes to the most basic elements: Food, shelter, clothing, there is no excuse for not allocating enough resources to make sure nobody goes without these things. In the United States, at this time, when it comes to basic needs, fuck the Pareto Principle.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:04PM
And I once met this guy who decided that millions of people working more than 40 hours a week don't deserve a living wage because of two asshole, non-working, adults and a 10 year old.