First off, there is NO WAY IN HELL you made $12.50 an hour in 1981 as a 'stock boy'.
The rest is, of course, just as much bullshit as the first part.
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Star Member gopiscrap (19,385 posts)
2. it was ****ing Ronald Reagan
$3.35 an hour
On January 1st in 1981, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation raising the federal minimum wage from $2.30 to $3.35 an hour.
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Star Member Martin Eden (9,199 posts)
51. Reagan Democrats bought into his con
... and got screwed by the Republican Party.
36 years later far too many blue collar types fell for a more obvious con man, and we're all getting screwed again.
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Star Member GetRidOfThem (760 posts)
72. I agree, it was the Ronald Reagan era...
I remember when all of my kid friends were all of the sudden nuts about Anne Ryand, and were barfing all of that liberterian (sp?) crap out of their mouths. They all came across as pretentious, all knowing, and arrogant.
They are all liberals adn democrats now, even my best friend.
Something went seriously awry in that period. I will never forget...
****, you don't even know what it was, let alone forgetting...
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Joe941 (2,167 posts)
3. Ronand Reagan started us down a path we are paying for even to this day.
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DemocracyMouse (1,874 posts)
16. I remember wondering why anyone would vote for such a moral hazard. And do it again.
I've despised American voters since then. Wish I didn't.
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Caliman73 (5,029 posts)
45. That is on purpose.
If people were steeped in the actual history of America rather than on the mythology, we would have movements like they do in France and England with people marching in droves to protest and voting in the 80% and 90% instead of just about 54%. I took accelerated and Advanced Placement history in high school but was still in for minor shock when I took history courses in college. I cannot imagine what they don't teach you in regular old history in grade school and high school.
who's been running education for the last 50 years?
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Star Member Doc_Technical (2,776 posts)
10. Gen. X, Gen Y, etc.
are very angry (and rightly so) for the mess they have inherited.
Some of them direct their wrath toward individual old farts when it
was the system that was slowly grinding down the middle class.
All of us Boomers are, to some degree, complicit.
We caught the tail end of the "good times" and didn't concern ourselves
with the younger generations. It was a case of "I got mine...".
oh, that will go over well...
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llmart (8,282 posts)
12. All of us boomers are NOT complicit!
I did not vote for Reagan. I actively campaigned against him and yes, I was in the minority on that. I was always willing to pay my taxes to support the older generation, aka the WWII generation as they aged. So did a lot of my friends and all of my family.
I despised Reagan. I despised how the GOP treated the less fortunate in our society.
Again, I have never voted for a Republican in my entire voting life and I'm 70 years old.
Stop blaming all boomers for this.
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Star Member Blue_true (17,122 posts)
22. Too many boomers looked the other way.
I am a member of that generation. I remember vividly what the conduct of older boomers was like, it was all about them, **** society. Reagan appealed to them and they put and kept him in office as he broke shit.
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Caliman73 (5,029 posts)
60. They were faced with a choice...
Jimmy Carter made the "Crisis of Confidence" speech in which he put a choice to America to do some introspection and change course toward becoming the nation of our ideals or to give in to consumerism and empty pleasures.
Reagan presented the "sunshine up your butt" message saying that America was the best and that we don't apologize for anything and that the troubles of the past were over without us really having to do anything about it. Oh, except that Black people on welfare (which to him and Republicans was like 100% of who was on welfare) were lazy and needed to be punished.
Naturally Americans went with the "we're the best" message and thus began the descent into what is going on today with Trump.
He did have a talent for being on camera, and a certain charisma.
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Star Member cate94 (1,266 posts)
53. Not true.
The “greatest generation” voted for Reagan in droves, as did their parents. About 50 % of boomers got sucked in. I don’t really think it fair to categorize an entire generation for the Republican debacle. It was, and continues to be, a problem Republicans caused.
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dawg day (3,313 posts)
70. You know, many/most Boomer women never had "the good times"
Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2019, 09:18 PM - Edit history (1)
It's not true that Boomers are rich. Some are, but then, so are some Gen Xers (the Google guys, innumerable hedge fund bros, JayZ), and some millennials (Zuckerberg, Serena's husband).
Now look at Boomer women, who unlike women who came of age after 1980 were limited in educational options and then legally restricted in career opportunities. (Thank you, boomer women, for paving the way for younger women to have some equal opportunity.) I, for example, took 7 years to graduate, because I had to keep dropping out to earn money for tuition. Graduated during the first modern great recession (1980)-- 15% unemployment in my state. Took a "woman's job" because that's the job women could get then without professional graduate degrees. That is, I became a teacher. Never made much money, got laid off when my school system closed our school (white flight). Started teaching adjunct at a university. Well, I am now quite well-paid for that work. That is, I make about $18 an hour. I have to work till 68 to get my pension, which will then be $422 a month (and I'm LUCKY-- most women in my situation never got vested in a pension).
I don't want to whine, but seriously, I've got friends near retirement age who cannot get hired (age discrimination starts at about 45 now) at a good job they'd be good at, who have no pensions (many companies stopped giving pensions long ago, and anyway, every time you leave a job before vesting, you lose the pension). They might have chronic health issues-- almost everyone over 60 does-- and uncertain health insurance. I knew someone who died of breast cancer because she had crap insurance (Before ACA) and she was 9 months too young for Medicare.
And despite this, many of us are helping our GenY and GenZ kids with their bills, or letting them live rent-free, or sharing our car with them so they can get to work.
This idea that boomers got the last of the "good times"... really? Which boomers are you talking about? Not most of the ones I know. Yeah, when you're 60, you might have equity in your home and some $ in your retirement account, but that's mostly just a function of having worked for 40 years straight. But a whole lot of boomers do NOT have home equity and retirement funds, and many of us assume we'll work till we're 75 because we have to. We're the ones who are looking forward to 66, when we will be allowed to collect our $1100 a month social security AND still earn money from our job! We'll feel so rich!
Don't let the GOP try to pit generations against each other. There are rich people in every generation, but more poor people than that. And women and minorities are more likely to be on the poor side in every generation, and working class men also. That's where the solidarity should be, not confined to some arbitrary age range.
Sorry to go on so long, but I heard my own GenY child say something like this the day after I paid her rent, and I refrained then from taking the check back and ripping it up. Because love, you know. Give some back.
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DENVERPOPS (388 posts)
96. I remember the time clearly.
In 1980 I began a Union apprenticeship to become an electrician. Several of my friends were Journeymen and were making 19.00 an hour and 26% fringe.....ie: health insurance for the entire family, holidays, two weeks of vacation, enough money to buy a house and send the kids thru college.
The PATCO trashing by Reagan set the tune of what was to be. That was like 1981? Four weeks later, the Denver Electrical Union and other trade unions were decimated with the contractors following Reagan's lead.......My friends, who had already "turned out" and were making respectable livings as a solid member of the middle class, suddenly, overnight, found themselves making 12.00 an hour with NO FRINGE.
Needless to say, I bailed out and pursued another career path..........
**** RONALD REAGAN, HW BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, WOLFOWITZ, PEARLE, ETC ETC ETC AND ALL THE REPUBLICANS SINCE.......
$19.00 an hour for starting electrician... when the minimum wage (in 1980) was $3.10 an hour. with benefits...
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Star Member Blue_true (17,122 posts)
20. What happened?
Reagan.
He came in with a plan to viciously attack Unions at any chance. He managed to split off the more conservative ones like Truckers, Longshoremen, Firefighters and Police, while he attacked the rest with a vengeance. The country has been paying since.
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Star Member erronis (6,791 posts)
25. For everyone blaming Reagan: He was an actor who knew how to read lines.
And pretend to be real.
Maxrandb - this is an excellent account of what happened to you and to many of us.
Some of us were lucky and moved forward/upwards. Others weren't.
The underlying cause of the rotten structure was pure capitalism, favoritism, increasing greed ---
and increasing sense of entitlement along with a stronger classism.
Reagan (and dump) were just figger-heads for the corruption that the kleptocrats have installed and enabled.
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Johnny2X2X (5,628 posts)
46. Unreal, WOW!
http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1981?amount=12.61People go crazy about $15 an hour, well we used to pay Grocery Stock Clerks $35 an hour.
And you know what, white collar jobs aren't much different. I am engineer with some experience now, I am doing OK and am pleased with my salary. But when looking it up, entry level engineers were making double in 1981 (in 2019 dollars) than I am with 10 years of experience. And I am sure their benefit were better than mine are now.
They convinced the entire country that they don't deserve a decent living.
In 1981 I was working as a stock clerk at the small grocery in town. Working part-time (as I was still in High School) I maybe made $2.50 an hour. There was no ****ing way someone was making 4 times that much working as a stockist. As Joe Biden says, "Come on, Man!"
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Star Member Baitball Blogger (32,350 posts)
55. I have no doubt that if Trump serves another term, he will find a way to dip in military pensions.
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Star Member MaryMagdaline (4,126 posts)
59. I realized our country was falling apart when a client told me
He had no health insurance. Don’t you work for Winn Dixie as a janitor? Yes but they outsourced the cleaning jobs and called us independent contractors. They work us 30 hours per week, but stretched over 7 days. We’re not considered full time and we no longer get benefits.
That’s when we lost our country. This was the early 90’s.
Ask yourself why they did that? Could it be they couldn't afford to hire full time employees? I won't why that happened?
Let's look at it this way;
I work as a paraeducator at the local elementary school at $11.50 an hour (part time = 39.5 hours a week plus extra time for assisting with sports events (paid out of a different funding line)). I have my Bachelors in Education and a Masters in History while working on a second Masters in Special Education. The school district has already told me they can't afford to bring me on as a full time teacher... I'm too far up the pay-grade education wise for them to make it affordable. The just hired a brand new out of college teacher for High School history at a third it would have cost them to hire me.
Why?
The Teacher's Unions have made it so you can't have a masters degree (for pay) affordable unless you are already tenured. The district doesn't really want teachers with lots of education because they can't afford it.
Now- I have a full pension via the military (retired O5 over 30) so, I am not hurting because I am unhireable. I enjoy working with the kids and as a para don't have to put up with the political shit the school is full of. They piss me off I go back to working at the local gas station for $14.00 an hour.
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Star Member backtoblue (8,033 posts)
65. In 1980, a friend was making 38k a year as an embalmer
I worked at the same place.
When I started in 2005, my salary was....27k.
(College Degree plus 2 year apprenticeship and two board licensing exams)
My salary in 2016, as a general manager of a funeral home was 35k. (As a licensed embalmer and funeral director)
Granted, this is in a rural area. But, the cost of funerals has gone up in the extreme since the 80s.
Men still make more in this area. In the national funeral home book, listed next to certain establishments is a letter B. That means a black funeral service. (This business is still widely segregated)
Progress is slowly being made as more women enter the field, but...very very slow.
27K a year? Let's see, at full time (40 hours a week) is 2080 hours a year. That's just under $13.00 an hour for a trained mortician (College Degree plus 2 year apprenticeship and two board licensing exams) Not too shabby, really.
in 2016 you are pulling in $16.89 an hour. Eh... although you admit it's in a rural area... BUT- lets google search it...
According to wikimortician (yea... really...) the median salary is $55.800 in my home state. That's about $26.80 an hour (assuming you are punching the clock for a 40 hour week, 53 weeks a year, no time off)
https://www.wikiprofessional.org/wiki/mortician-salary/Quote
Star Member Skittles (123,501 posts)
68. that seems like a lot of money for a grocery store in 1981
I was a computer operator and I made about 7 bucks an hour
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Star Member maxrandb (9,335 posts)
85. It was Big Bear Groceries
I started part-time in 1976 as a cashier. I think that started at $5.50. Went full-time in 1978. Worked bread for a couple years, then went full-time stock clerk. Worked at the Carl Rd store off of 161 Dublin-Granville Rd.
So, I had been there for 5 years by the time I reached $12.60.
Funny thing. My birthday happens to be on a holiday. One time, my manager scheduled me to work on my birthday...he didn't know that. Anyway, I got double-time for working the holiday, 8 hours pay because it was a holiday, and 8 hours for birthday pay. So, for one 8 hour day, I got 32 hours of pay.
He never scheduled me for my birthday again, but I drank well that week.
all that, and you gave it up for the Navy? GTFOOH...
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DENVERPOPS (388 posts)
106. Reagan was already
Regan was already suffering mentally when he was appointed president.
It was Daddy Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz Pearle, Rumsfeld, etc etc etc etc They were all there during Reagan's years.
Then there for Daddy Bush's term. Many of Reagan's minions were convicted, Daddy Bush pardoned them and welcomed them back into his administration......
Then the GRAND SLAM, "W" was unconstitutionally appointed, suffering from serious mental deficiencies from years of alcohol and coke, and that same crowd ran his administration for yet another eight years.
BY THE WAY.......has anyone heard from Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al these past few years? Where are they hold up and who the hell do you think is directing alot of the crap that is being done by the Repub Senate behind Trump's smoke screen which diverts everyone's attention away from what they are doing/?????????????
One of the biggest travesties ever. Cheney, by guide lines, too old to get a heart transplant, and at the bottom of the list, got an immediate heart while some other good soul died.................
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TimeToGo (973 posts)
82. $12.60 in 1981?
I mean --
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No shit....
Star Member Mosby (10,354 posts)
98. In 1981 I made 3.35 per hour.
yup.
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Star Member maxrandb (9,335 posts)
104. Big Bear was a Columbus Ohio institution
Folks would kill to work there.
I quit to join the Navy, but was delayed for a couple of months.
I got a part-time job at a thrift store. My job was to match the shoes that were donated and staple them together.
No shit, they would dump this huge bin of shoes out and I would find the matching pairs and staple them together.
Worst frickin job I ever had, and that includes being on a void Tiger Team as an E1 in the Navy.
Even that job paid me $5.75 an hour.
Too bad the Navy worked out for me... I had a future as a shoe sorter
A thrift store paid a part time shoe sorter almost twice the minimum wage... in 1981...
"Come on, Man!"