Ms. Ed made $15 an hour back during the Reagan, Bush Prosperty

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2252711

Oh my.

Ms. Ed, the unappellated eohippus:

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 03:52 PM
Original message
 
In 1989, I made $15.00/hour as a nurses aide.

I just saw a job posting for the same position paying $7.25/hour...LESS than half 22 years later.

This is what the 1% are doing to your wages.

Coming soon to a profession near you!

This really saddened me because nurses aides are so underpaid and undervalued and the work they do is very hard and very taxing. And now, completely unappreciated.

NNN0LHI  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-06-11 04:00 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. It was a lot better when everyone's wages were patterned after union workers

Seemed like a lot of people couldn't understand that simple concept.

Don

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 04:06 PM
Response to Reply #1
 
6. I was raising two kids and going to school and we made it without any government assistance.

I daresay that wouldn't be possible these days.

You are so correct. Unions lift us ALL up, whether we are members or not.

Yep, that's the way it was, during the Great Reagan-Bush Prosperity of 1981-1993; people could do things like that without governmental assistance.

One wonders what changed after 1993.

MineralMan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 04:04 PM
Response to Original message
 
4. Being a nurses aide sucks. The only way I'd do it would be if 

I was concurrently taking the one-year course to become an LPN. Then, while working as an LPN, I'd be working on becoming an RN. Every community college around here offers an LPN program. Affordable training that has direct results on pay. The RN thing is more expensive, but doable in stages while you're working as an LPN.

RKP5637  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-06-11 04:05 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. I have friends that used to make over $100k/yr. Their job now goes for about $40k/yr to people desperate to work, and others went to other countries for a fraction of the US labor. Yep, this affects all professions. I can't recall the source now, but someone was saying those feeling secure in their jobs in some professional positions had best realize they will eventually fall too, because there will be none under them propping them up for their services.

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 04:12 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
9. Yep. As far as I can tell there is NO income security in professions these days.

They are using this as a tool to break down the unions (preaching to the choir, I know).

madrchsod  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 04:33 PM
Response to Original message
 
15. i was making anywhere from 10-12 (without over time) in the early 70`s with...cost of living every three months,paid dental and health care, could miss 10% of hours worked every three months and two weeks vacation.

i worked at a UNION steel drop forge shop that was hotter than hell in the summer and cold as the north pole in the winter.

i worked for a UNION STEEL mill that paid 8.50 to start then went up to 12-13 depending where i worked. good benefits and vacation plan.

the next forge shop i worked for in the mid 90`s was NON UNION and paid 10-12. had to pay for insurance,two weeks vacation,and that`s it. that place was even hotter and colder.

the first two employers are out of business because of south east asian labor costs. the third one has cut production in half.

UNIONS raised everyone's wages and trade agreements were friendly to AMERICANS

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #15
 
16. I had a friend that worked for Bethlehem Pennsylvania Shipyard in the early 80's

I don't know how much he made, but he made a nice living...but no doubt, he worked hard.

He lived like a rock star and looked like Bob Seger when he had long hair,lol.

We lost track, but I know the yard closed in 1989.

Yo_Mama (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-06-11 04:55 PM
Response to Original message
 
22. It's what immigration is doing to your wages.

Seriously, all jobs which immigrant labor can perform have dropped wages sharply. Roofers, drywallers and the like made double what they make now in real terms when I was young. Casual labor, landscaping - it's all the same.

We have too much immigration for our economy.

(And before the accusations start, I am married to a Central American naturalized immigrant, so no, it is not prejudice. And he says the same thing.)

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 05:01 PM
Response to Reply #22
 
24. I 100% disagree.

K8-EEE  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 05:31 PM
Response to Original message
 
28. Gas was $1.19 a gallon -- the cost of everything has doubled & tripled while wages decline

THAT is really what is killing the middle class....the cost of NECESSITIES - housing, food, fuel, health care + the decline of wages and benefits.

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 05:36 PM
Response to Reply #28
 
29. Just an aside

Years ago, I remember that when you complained about the price of gas, people would remind you that milk was so much higher per gallon....Of course, this was during the Reagan years when he was busy busting down the remaining truly family farms...

Nowadays...the cost of milk and gas? It's almost the same, at least in my area.

FWIW and what that old metaphor was intended to mean.

Reagan "busted down" the "remaining truly family farms?"

That's news out here in farming country.

I always thought the tax system did that.

[BattleHymn]

NNN0LHI  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-06-11 04:00 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. It was a lot better when everyone's wages were patterned after union workers

Seemed like a lot of people couldn't understand that simple concept.

Don

Does Don feel the same way about union workers making over $50K a year?

[JohnnyReb]

"Illegal aliens do it cheaper".....and vote democrat....

Sounds like a good campaign slogan to me.

[diesel driver]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2252711

Reagan "busted down" the "remaining truly family farms?"

That's news out here in farming country.

I always thought the tax system did that.

That's news to me, too.

Back in the Carter years, we had to declare bankruptcy because of his ASSinine farm policies, among other things, like 18% interest, double-digit inflation, etc.   

Welcome to Carter II, aka Barack Hussein Obama.

May his defeat be as glorious as "Massa Jimma's" was.

[franksolich]

That's news to me, too.

Back in the Carter years, we had to declare bankruptcy because of his ASSinine farm policies, among other things, like 18% interest, double-digit inflation, etc.   

Welcome to Carter II, aka Barack Hussein Obama.

May his defeat be as glorious as "Massa Jimma's" was.

You know, sir, that always cracks me up when the primitives wax nostalgic about the old family farms.

We can have the old family farms back, like it used to be.

But that would require a major change in our tax system, back to the way the tax system was when family farms flourished and prospered.

And somehow, I don't think the primitives would want to go back to that era of low taxes, because it would mean less welfare, less wasteful governmental spending.

We can have the old family farms back, but the primitives don't want to pay the "price" for it.

[GOBUCKS]

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 03:52 PM
Original message
 
In 1989, I made $15.00/hour as a nurses aide.

Now she makes $15.00/dick. Tax the rich.

[zeitgeist]

That's news to me, too.

Back in the Carter years, we had to declare bankruptcy because of his ASSinine farm policies, among other things, like 18% interest, double-digit inflation, etc.   

Welcome to Carter II, aka Barack Hussein Obama.

May his defeat be as glorious as "Massa Jimma's" was.

Ya know I was trying to remember when all the programs were on about farmers losing it and it seemed to me it was the Carter era.  Things like high fuel prices, rampant inflation, double digit interest rates.  The peanut farmer sure did a number on the everyone.

Welcome Back Horshack.

[GOBUCKS]

The best democrat farm plan was when Michael Dukakis suggested to strapped Iowa corn farmers that they switch to Belgian endive.

[franksolich]

Ya know I was trying to remember when all the programs were on about farmers losing it and it seemed to me it was the Carter era.  Things like high fuel prices, rampant inflation, double digit interest rates.  The peanut farmer sure did a number on the everyone.

Welcome Back Horshack.

People in farming lost their asses during the late 1970s.

It was difficult to remember the peanut farmer himself was a farmer.

But somehow he managed to do okay.

[Chris_]

The Decline of Unions: President Jimmy Carter, The Union-Buster

Unions have never represented a majority of the American workforce. However, to listen to today’s union bosses, one might be led to believe that they did. Ever since their peak, in 1945, when unions represented a total of 35.5 percent of the workforce unions in the private-sector have been on an almost steady decline. The common fallacy is that the union decline is due to the Reagan Era. That, however, is a false narrative.

Despite the myth that Reagan is the one that devastated private-sector unions, no amount of so-called “union-busting” that Reagan allegedly did matches the amount of devastation that President Jimmy Carter did to unions by crushing their monopolies in the Air, Rail Telephone and Trucking industries. Though the narrative is a convenient one, it is misleading.

Labor Union Report

[Tucker]

At least she admits that she's a professional bedpan DUmper, as suspected, and not a RN/LPN.

[diesel driver]

Ya know I was trying to remember when all the programs were on about farmers losing it and it seemed to me it was the Carter era.  Things like high fuel prices, rampant inflation, double digit interest rates.  The peanut farmer sure did a number on the everyone.

Welcome Back Horshack.

It was Carter's PIK (Payment In Kind) program to increase corn prices by decreasing supply that hit us the hardest.

Seem he (and everyone else at USDA) didn't mention the fact the corn we got from the government would have to be PAID FOR if the price actually hit their target price (it did.) 

It also didn't help we had to leave our corn land fallow that year.  We couldn't plant an alternative crop, hell, we couldn't even pasture it.  Never mind the fact none of the corn we grew made it to market.  We grew/fed it to our dairy cows.

Carter came into office 2 months before I turned 18, so I never got to vote in that election.  BUT Reagan got my vote twice, along with my dad's, who was a diehard Democrat until Carter.

[NHSparky]

In 1989, I made $15.00/hour as a nurses aide.

I just saw a job posting for the same position paying $7.25/hour...LESS than half 22 years later.

http://www.lpn123.com/

I call horseshit.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/CNA.html

I call double horseshit.

Seriously, horse--you think Democrats are the only ones who work in healthcare?  I know some folks who are RN's who do quite well, if you're willing to work--and she doesn't have her BSN yet, although she's going to start on it this year.  And if you're willing to do travel nursing, you're looking at a six-figure salary.

[Erasmus]

I'm calling BS on the $15 per hour wages for nurses' aids 22 years ago.  I was an orderly/nurses' aid for a summer job one summer while in college 12 years ago and I made about $6 an hour.  Not an exhaustive salary survey of course, but I have a hard time believing the numbers.  The position requires essentially no training or qualifications whatsoever.

[BattleHymn]

Horse with no Name  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-06-11 03:52 PM
Original message
 
In 1989, I made $15.00/hour as a nurses aide.

I just saw a job posting for the same position paying $7.25/hour...LESS than half 22 years later.

This is what the 1% are doing to your wages.

Coming soon to a profession near you!

This really saddened me because nurses aides are so underpaid and undervalued and the work they do is very hard and very taxing. And now, completely unappreciated.

Ms. Ed is speaking in code.  Only the names of the profession have been changed:

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/646871

[diesel driver]

Given the DUmmies' inability to use math for any useful purpose, especially the purpose for which it is designed for, I conclude that the only possibility is the Dump's resident dick inspector got the decimal point in the wrong place.

It should read $1.50/hr, NOT $15.00/hr.

This should clear up the confusion.   

Now she makes $15.00/dick. Tax the rich.

Again, the decimal point.  It should read $1.50/dick. 

She was charging $1.00/inch, but was being shorted, and now charges per item.

[Tucker]

Given the DUmmies' inability to use math for any useful purpose, especially the purpose for which it is designed for, I conclude that the only possibility is the Dump's resident dick inspector got the decimal point in the wrong place.

It should read $1.50/hr, NOT $15.00/hr.

This should clear up the confusion.   

Again, the decimal point.  It should read $1.50/dick. 

She was charging $1.00/inch, but was being shorted, and now charges per item.

She thinks she belongs to the liberal elitist club. She very well could be. Making 1..50 per hour puts her into one of the top wage earners at the DUmp. Anyway, as an elitist, she would use the metric system.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Some made $100K in 80s dollars?  For sponge baths and bedpan duty?  Yeah, I don't think so.  That's about 2-1/2 times what an Army captain got then, even using the Government calculation of the value of all the benefits (Which they used to give us in printout form every year to show how much we were 'Really' getting despite the less-than-impressive size of the paychecks).

[NHSparky]

IIRC, my dad was tickled pink to take a job 800 miles away for six months because he'd be a foreman making $16.00/hour.  My first construction job (summer between sophomore and junior years) was as a laborer making $6.50/hour.  I thought I was rich beyond my wildest dreams.  Compared to what I made until I hit E-5 in the Navy almost a decade later, I was.

[wasp69]

NNN0LHI  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-06-11 04:00 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. It was a lot better when everyone's wages were patterned after union workers

Seemed like a lot of people couldn't understand that simple concept.

Don

Yeah, DUmbass?  Let's all look for the union label, huh?