Take a moment to remember:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20xsPUnClK4[/youtube]
Now, live from the DUmp, something at least as entertaining: we have, gloom, despair, and, agony on me!
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10025444599xchrom (105,561 posts)
Shocking Picture of What Life Will Look Like When You Can't Afford to Retire
http://www.alternet.org/economy/shocking-picture-what-life-will-look-when-you-cant-afford-retire
Since the financial crisis ripped the security out from under millions of people, the bulk of our politicians, including President Obama, actually tried to reduce, rather than increase, Social Security. The absence of pensions, along with the inadequacy of 401(k)s, skyrocketing healthcare and job insecurity and unemployment, are sending more and more people scrambling to figure out a way to keep body and soul together. Even grandparents are joining the ranks of those for whom life has become a game of Survivor. In an email interview, I asked Bruder about this alarming trend and what it means for the country, now and in the future.
Lynn Parramore: In your recent article in Harper’s, you describe a trend of downwardly mobile elderly folks traveling the country in RVs in search of temporary and seasonal work. How many people are we talking about? How fast has this trend been emerging?
Jessica Bruder: Though no one keeps an official tally of how many older Americans are doing this kind of work, their ranks appear to be growing rapidly in the wake of the housing bust and market crashes.
Amazon first hired a handful of migrant full-time RVers in 2008 through a program the company later named “CamperForce.†As of 2014, it had expanded to employ some 2,000 workers, according to a recruiter I met in Quartzsite, Arizona. The American Crystal Sugar Company taps the same labor pool each fall to staff its annual sugar beet harvest, and their recruitment numbers are up, too. This year, they’re hoping to recruit 600 " workampers," up from 450 the year before.
LP: What’s the gender breakdown among these traveling workers? What kinds of work are men and women doing?
JB: I was impressed by how many older, single women I met among the working nomads, from a tarot reader living in a former convict labor van she’d transformed into a roving gypsy boudoir, to an ex-medical technician who managed to fit her whole life—along with a Shih-Tzu, a lovebird and a loquacious African Grey parrot—into a 10.5-foot Carson Kalispell sport trailer.
The gender breakdown was roughly even. Employers don’t discriminate when doling out hard or dirty work, whether it’s scrubbing campsite toilets or walking 15 miles a day on a concrete warehouse floor to pack Amazon’s holiday orders.
LP: Amazon’s ads for CamperForce Associates sound so upbeat about the opportunities for older workers: recruiting “flexible and enthusiastic RV’ers with a positive, can-do attitude to join us in our warehouses,†with an emphasis on “fun†stuff like prizes and “community activities.â€
What’s the reality of the actual work experience, based on your investigation?
JB: The ads are surreal. They sound like an invitation to summer camp, and not just the ones for Amazon jobs. “Feel like a kid again!†and “Hey workamper, it’s time for fun!†are a couple slogans used by recruiters for Adventureland, a theme park in Altoona, Iowa where migrant workers run the rides, games and concessions for $7.25 to $7.50 an hour. Recruitment materials for the beet harvest, with 12-hour overnight shifts in subzero temperatures, refer to the work as “an unBEETable experience!â€
I was tempted to edit the turgid post of the Kodachrome Kid but didn't.
Here are a few notable notes from the thread. Many more abound at the link.
LuvNewcastle (7,036 posts)
1. Save all you can now, because you might be busting your ass
picking beets and living in a camper when you're 65. Jesus, what is the world coming to? It's just not right for someone to have to work until they drop dead.
Here is a great one from one of Frank's favorite DUmmies. Where to begin with this one.
Warpy (78,205 posts)
52. Most people are lucky to get out of debt these days
Saving is just another pipe dream unless they're willing to go to the extremes I did.
I had to go to those extremes because I couldn't get health insurance.
Back in the nineteenth century when they did work people until they dropped dead, at least cannabis, tincture of opium, and cocaine preparations were legal and over the counter. Now they want us to wring every drop of misery out of a Dickensian existence. I guess we are supposed to pray the pain away.
Assholes.
Anyone know this mole?
7962 (2,518 posts)
14. And a LOT of 40-50 somethings are counting on an inheritance for THEIR retirement. I know some of them. They dont know for sure how much mom & dad have, but they're counting on that lump when the folks die to fund their own retirement. They live it up now, saving very little. I live in an area where a lot of the residents work for the military in a civilian capacity. Wages are public knowledge. Wages are pretty good, but when you look at how some of these folks are living, you wonder what they're gonna do when they retire. And their govt pension will be a pretty good one, but many are living in 300K houses and this is an area where you can live fairly comfortable making 35-45k a yr.
I just couldn't resist this one
Star Member kairos12 (1,642 posts)
16. New book about this should be titled--"The Gramps of Wrath"
'cause I wonder, what ever did happen to the tomjoad DUmmy?
