Like, you want janitors and McDonald fast food workers and cleaners.
You just don’t want them to make a liveable wage and have healthcare and be treated like proper human beings.
People who work in an air conditioned office all day sincerely do believe that those jobs are both less important and not as exhausting.
a job being ‘exhausting’ doesn’t make it important, janitors and fast food workers are paid less bc their job doesn’t take any real skill – like basically anyone can do it
not everyone can be a lawyer or a doctor or run a successful business, those people worked hard and learned new skills and gained useful knowledge so their end job would pay more and not be physically exhausting
stop shitting on people who earned a good life because you aren’t being given one for free
ugh
I work in a hospital. It’s also the worst flu season in recent years in my hospital. You know whose job is one of the most crucial for EVERYONE, doctors and medical staff included? Janitors. Go ahead and try to have a safe working environment, ESPECIALLY in the medical field, without them.
Tell me, do you know how to best create a medically safe work environment? Because I sure as fuck don’t, but the janitors do, and they know this while being on their feet and performing manually exhausting tasks for 8+ hours straight surrounded by caustic chemicals.
Same goes for fast food workers. Do you have any idea how much knowledge and physical work goes into working in a kitchen? Wanna tell me you put out grease fires, what temperatures different foods are stored in, and how to keep a safe working environment for both customers and workers in a job surrounded by hot oil, ovens and chemicals? Not to mention, again, being on your feet for 8+ hours in a hot kitchen being yelled at by customers constantly.
I promise you that these people do a more difficult and oftentimes more important job than a large portion of office jobs I’ve been in.
Fun fact: In my neck of the woods, hospital janitorial staff union wanted a pay raise. Their workers were struggling. The hospitals laughed at them, so they went on full strike.
The hospitals were in crisis mode within an HOUR.
Surgical rooms were not being cleaned, toilets and patient rooms were not cleaned, garbage was not picked up, instruments that get reused were not being cleaned (i.e. scalpels, patient beds), laundry wasn’t done, floors were not clean, biohazard waste wasn’t collected.
The hospitals folded the next day and the union got EVERYTHING they asked for.
Now, you may not work in a hospital @purest-rain but wherever you do work, just imagine what might happen if… suddenly no one cleaned. No one picks up the trash in that fancy office. No one vacuums or sweeps, or cleans anything. Nothing. Not the toilets, not the offices. It might take a little longer, but pretty soon, those fancy law-offices look pretty gross, don’t they? Especially the bathrooms. I’ve cleaned bathrooms, I know exactly how disgusting people are when they use a toilet they don’t have to clean.
Stop shitting on low-wage workers just because you don’t understand how important their job actually is. You cannot simultaneously demand a service, while dehumanizing the person who provides you with it, and demanding they not be compensated fairly.
You cannot simultaneously demand a service, while dehumanizing the person who provides you with it, and demanding they not be compensated fairly.
The fact that so many people are getting so defensive about this is disgustingly sad. If you think “anyone can do it” then YOU do it. The job is necessary for your convenience, so fucking be a little more goddamn appreciative.
How does one think they’re educated on anything and not understand the role of sanitation in public health???
Tag: poverty
My mom cried as a first year teacher when she realized many of her students were food insecure. She put a snack pantry in her class and has had one ever since.
My sister cried with anger as a first year teacher because of how few of her students grew up without being exposed to violence, poverty, and neglect.
My dad didn’t cry as a first year teacher, but was convinced he was the worst teacher ever for 4 years straight. (He wasn’t)
My aunt was exhausted for the first year because her students were convinced she’d only be at their school for one year and then move to a better paying school district like all of their other new teachers. She spent the entire time teaching, actively gaining trust, and calming anxieties.
Some of these things are not technically school related, but have an impact on students in the classroom. As new teachers, my relatives got varying levels of support. New teachers need better support.
3 quit at my old job because they didn’t feel like they were getting the pay or support that was appropriate for what they were doing in the classroom. All of the teachers I have encountered pay for many of their own supplies. Many take time before or after school to check up on students they feel are at risk.
There are teachers that have students live with them or end up fostering students. My mom fostered 2 students and had another 2 live with us.
What many teachers do on the job isn’t as supported as it could be. They aren’t paid like they should.
Did I mention that a lot of the first year teachers I have worked with qualify for SNAP benefits and/or WIC? 😦
This post has 2k notes.
Re: Why Teachers Provide Snacks (at my work)
ALL of the teachers I work with at my school provide snacks to students.
We’re a Title I school. This means almost all of our students are food insecure. It’s unreasonable to expect food insecure families to provide their own snacks to school.
ALL of the teachers and many of our other staff members provide snacks for their classrooms or offices. Our counselor has snacks in her office. Our health room assistant has snacks in her office. Our principal has snacks in his office. Our vice principal has snacks in her office. The office professionals have small snacks available as well.
Our new teachers usually can’t afford to do this, so veteran teachers and support staff often chip in.
When students DON’T have access to snacks, they get tired. Our students can’t focus. Students get irritable. They’re feeling the effects of hunger and cannot focus on their work. We see escalated behaviors because kids are hungry.
Providing food not only prevents some problems from happening, but it’s The Right Thing To Do.
Many of our students’ Only Guaranteed Meals are at school. School meals are not designed to provide a child’s only source of nutrition. The caloric value of school lunches isn’t enough. So—Kids get snacks with lunch. Kids get multiple ‘breaks’ (which they think are ‘‘regular breaks’‘) for snacks.
Anyone who wants a small snack will get one.
We have a Friday Weekend Bag Program, but many families HATE THOSE. Those snack bags come from the Thurston County Food Bank. They only contain shelf stable food since many of our families don’t have a reliable way to cook things. Most of the families decline the bags because the Instant Noodles, Dry Granola Bars, and Vegetable Soup aren’t what they’d eat anyway.
__
A lot of the kids DO want fruit/vegetables. (Downside is if they can’t store those at home). We have some kids who try to hoard milk. <—a problem since many kids don’t have access to reliable refrigeration at home! Our milk ‘‘collecting’‘ kids ALL don’t have reliable refrigeration since they’re in living situations that don’t have refrigerators or freezers.
We provide snacks for the kids because we need to.
My Personal Project this coming school year is connecting My School with local nonprofit Fairshare Food Share Resource. It’s a group of volunteers who harvest small amounts of fruit and vegetables and give them away. They’re for smaller home gardeners who aren’t up for sending items directly to our food bank system due to time/health issues/etc.
The Thurston County Food Bank is expanding our school garden this year. I’m hoping that the garden will eventually be a nice Community You Pick for our students and the surrounding neighborhood.
The last big ol’ update had links. I’ll add links to this because food insecurity TICKS ME OFF. It shouldn’t be a thing. We’re fighting food insecurity at my elementary school.
All of my coworkers and all of my now-retired relatives have paid for classroom snacks/pantries With Their Own Money.
Food insecurity is a big issue in the United States.
When our kids aren’t eating enough they are tired, can’t focus, and are irritable. It’s difficult to get work done when you’re feeling the effects of hunger.I’ll post excerpts of some articles below.
Feeding the need: Expanding school lunch programs
“Schools have always been the front line in the battle against
childhood hunger. It started with the National School Lunch Act, signed
by President Truman in 1946, which gave federal money to states to fund
school lunches.Today more than 30 million kids benefit. And yet,
by some estimates at least one in six still doesn’t know where the next
meal is coming from.“School
lunch is no longer this Brady Bunch convenience; it is a soup kitchen,”
said Jennifer Ramo, of the New Mexico anti-poverty group Appleseed.“It
is a place where kids who haven’t eaten at night or haven’t eaten that
weekend, go to get basic nutrition so they can function. I think
we just have no idea how big the problem is and how many children are
suffering. And the best thing to do is just must make sure they’re fed.”Growing Hunger in Schools is a Growing Problem (2012)
“What do parents tell their kids on the first day of school – stay
out of trouble, do your homework, and listen to your teachers,” Nelson
said.“That’s our message today: listen to your teachers. What are they
telling us? Hunger needs to be a national priority.”One in five children struggle with hunger nationwide and six out of
ten teachers report students regularly coming to school hungry. According to 80 percent of those teachers, the problem is only getting worse.Educators realize the toll hunger takes on students. Nine in ten
teachers consider breakfast to be “extremely important” to academic
achievement. Fifty-three percent of teachers spend an average $26 of
their own money each month providing snacks for their students.”Reading, writing and hunger: More than 13 million kids in this country go to school hungry
“There
is tremendous stigma of children going into a cafeteria before the
bell,” said McAuliffe, “whereas with the alternative breakfast model, it
normalizes it, creates community in the classroom around a meal, and
starts the day off strong.”Underscoring the crucial impact a
healthy breakfast can have, a 2013 study done by Deloitte for No Kid
Hungry found that kids who have regular access to breakfast score 17.5
percent higher on standardized math tests.Breakfast and lunch
programs in schools are making great strides in attacking childhood
hunger, but a huge gap remains. According to No Kid Hungry, a quarter of
all low-income parents worry their kids don’t have enough to eat
between school lunch and breakfast the next day; and three out of four
public school teachers say students regularly come to school hungry.Increasingly, advocates are focusing on programs that ensure kids have
enough to eat when they are not in school, and after school and summer
meal programs are on the rise.”Yep. My school is poor enough that it has all the kids on free breakfast and lunch, and nearly every teacher has a box of protein bars or fruit snacks or something to give to hungry kids in their classroom. We all buy them with our own money. How fucked are we as a society that this is pretty much normal at all the poorer schools?
A lot of our school funding is through property taxes. Low income areas have lower taxes which means lower funding for their neighborhood schools. It sucks.
Schools in high poverty areas are Title I schools. Almost every school in my district is Title I.
ALL public schools should be properly funded and NO ONE should be food insecure. (my 2 cents)
Further reading for anyone interested:
Why America’s Schools Have A Money Problem
Is It Time to Stop Funding Schools With Local Property Taxes?
School Funding Inequality Makes Education ‘Separate And Unequal,’ Arne Duncan Says
Schools with greater than 40% of families considered low-income are qualified to apply funding to school-wide programming
Federal Title I Funding for Students who Struggle with Literacy
Title I: Rich School Districts Get Millions Meant for Poor Kids
Then there’s schools that are literally falling apart:
I work at one of America’s underfunded schools. It’s falling apart
It’s Not Just Freezing Classrooms in Baltimore. America’s Schools Are Physically Falling Apart
Detroit teachers fed up with shoddy school conditions
Leaking sewage, splintering walls: Parents complain Wake County school is falling apart
Without State Support, Michigan’s Schools Will Continue to Crumble
We’re dealing with students and families that are food insecure:
Food for Thought: How Food Insecurity Affects a Child’s Education
“Money can’t buy you happiness” is propaganda from rich people to convince the poor to be satisfied with less.
Delicious, finally some good fucking food.
they’ve actually studied this, and there is a measurable point up to which money basically does buy happiness, and then past that point it stops
a billionaire is not guaranteed to be any happier than a millionaire, but both those people are almost guaranteed to be happier than someone living in poverty
(the “point” turns out to be “the time at which you have enough money that all your needs can be met without anxiety and you have some amount of money left over to do things like pursue passions, give back to the community, and do other emotionally fulfilling things.” what a shocker!)
Money buys security, free time, disposable income for leisure products, service, foods, and events.
So yes…it does actually buy happiness. It incidentally also purchases health care, and fulfill the hierarchy of needs which tend to contribute to most people’s ill health due to stress levels…
Literally happiness.
This map shows every state where women are more likely to live in poverty than men
Wait… hold up. Every state is colored in. That can’t be right… right?
Unfortunately, the map is accurate. And it’s especially problematic for millennial women, who are much more likely to have a bachelor’s degree or higher than millennial men, but who are consistently earning less living and living in poverty more.
SLAMS THE REBLOG BUTTON
“But women earn more degrees” and still get paid less, so eat my whole ass
Something I see a lot of people missing in the reblogs: KIDS KIDS KIDS THIS IS LIKE 92% ABOUT KIDS
Yeah, there’s other factors too, but “women don’t ask for raises” and “pink-collar jobs aren’t valued” are smaller factors than the simple fact that caring for your own children is mandatory for women and optional for men.
Here’s the life story of, I’m going to say, about half the women I’ve ever worked with:
– Had children. Possibly voluntarily, possibly through lack of contraception education and/or funds.
– Broke off relations with the father. Frequently this was for a reason that was not a choice on her part, like he abused her or went to prison or just plain disappeared.
– Kept the kids. Even if it was an amicable split, she likely has weekday custody and is the one who takes charge of the vast majority of their needs.
– Dad may or may not pay child support, but even if he does, the average child support is $2550/year and the average cost of raising a child in a low-income family is $8610/year.
– The mother can’t afford paid childcare, but she has some friends/family members who watch her kids, but they can’t commit to a consistent schedule, which means she can only work limited hours and has to take a lot of unplanned time off.
– This drastically limits both which jobs she can take and how much she can earn from those jobs, and completely locks her into poverty until the youngest child is old enough to be home alone. But by then she’ll have an unimpressive resume of assorted part-time gigs, plus likely health problems from 15 years of eating junk and barely sleeping, so it’s not a fabulous career launch point.
There’s lots of factors in why women get paid less than men, but lack of childcare is hugely, gigantically more important than stuff like “women don’t speak up enough in meetings,” or even stuff like “female neurosurgeons make less than male neurosurgeons.”
The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?
What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.
Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]
It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?
IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!
Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.
My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.
So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.
Prices of prices went up.
We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.
We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.
Most of us can’t afford to:
- Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
- Buy a house
- Buy a new car
- PLAN to have children
- Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.
Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.
So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young black and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.
anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.
read the commentary above ^^
“Hey. Hey, guys. I know the economy being fucked up is totally our fault, but what if we tell people the next generation…wants to be poor?”
Wealthy students at my school leave behind tons of shit when they go home for the summer (I’m talking appliances, food, furniture, $$expensive shit$$). We’re allowed to donate our belongings to goodwill at the end of the year, but honestly a lot of students just leave their stuff in their rooms because they don’t care what happens to it.
We have an amazing housekeeping staff who keep our buildings clean and running. They also DONT MAKE A LIVING WAGE. Students are trying to get the school to up their pay, but nothing has happened so far. These staff members are barely scraping by, lots of them have multiple jobs, and they struggle to even get food on the table.
Now, the housekeepers clean up the buildings at the end of the year of course, so they obviously come across all of this leftover stuff. They are expected by the school to put it ALL in the donation bins. Even though these workers don’t have enough money for food and bedding, they get none of it. This last week a worker tried to take hone a fridge that a student left behind, something they would not be able to afford on their salary. Guess what?
They got fired.
Wealth disparities at elite colleges don’t just exist amongst some of the students. Staff are greatly under appreciated and under paid. Pay attention to your housekeepers and facilities and groundskeepers and dining staff. Thank them as often as possible. Fight for them to have a living wage. Help them however you can. Treat them with some fucking respect.
I got quite a bit of stuff when I was in college by taking perfectly great/ like new stuff that wealthy kids had left behind. It is crazy how poverty is criminalized.
via reddit.com
This is about Kiva.org, which is a wonderful organization, and I have used them for some time to support people around the world.
They are very highly scored as a charity, and their operating costs are covered entirely by voluntary donations you can give them as you check out when making your microloans.
Summer means poor children are not getting 2 free meals a day at school so if you’re able, please consider donating to your local food bank.
This is so helpful for anyone that needs it!
here is a website where you can find similar programs based on your location.
BOOST!!!!!!
TO!
Find Summer Meals in Your Community:
https://www.fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks
“Money doesn’t buy happiness” ok and poverty buys what exactly
where is the lie
Out of poverty creates strength and compassion. It’s weird how that works.
i sure wasn’t feeling the strength when i was skipping class because i was too weak to walk there after going 2-3 days without food, and i definitely wasn’t compassionate when i was checking every time i walked home to see if there was an eviction notice on the door. stop trying to fucking make it seem like a good thing.
Poverty is not a virtue. It doesn’t make you a better person. Poverty doesn’t make you “strong and compassionate” it makes you insecure and stressed the fuck out. Poverty makes it so you can’t live your life without the everything being undercut by fear. It makes you hard and angry. We need to do away with the bullshit myth that being poor is somehow better for you as a person. You know who wants you to believe that? Rich people, so you don’t question them.
“poverty creates strength and compassion” is a lie perpetuated by the financially privileged to encourage the poor to accept their economic disadvantage and all of the trouble it comes with.
lack of access to affordable medical care, affordable education, shelter, electricity, and food do not build character. literally kill that myth right now
wupacing 