<story><title>What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?</title><url>https://www.residentcontrarian.com/p/what-does-shitty-job-mean-in-the</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rnikander</author><text>So rent a room and&amp;#x2F;or don’t live in the best part of the city. That’s what I did near Boston a few years ago. My rent was well under $1000. Do people think they’re entitled to private apartments in the most expensive cities in the world?</text></item><item><author>abxytg</author><text>Cynically untrue. Amazon is not even close to bottom of the barrel. And it&amp;#x27;s clear you haven&amp;#x27;t paid market rent in a major city since you bought that starter home back in the 90s - 42k is a joke when your rent is close to $2500 and you get no benefits.</text></item><item><author>mrjangles</author><text>&amp;gt;how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude...The average worker can&amp;#x27;t afford anything without taking on debt.&lt;p&gt;For people from other countries wondering about the veracity of these claims, let&amp;#x27;s take an example:  The typical shitty job everyone on here complains about is working at an amazon warehouse.  This is a job people with no skills take on.  They pay 15 USD an hour. In other currencies that is 42k a year AUD or 2390 Euros a month.  (the cost of living is roughly the same in these places).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll leave you to decide whether this is &amp;quot;slavery&amp;quot; and whether they &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t afford anything&amp;quot; or whether Americans are just so rich they are out of touch with reality.</text></item><item><author>alexfromapex</author><text>I think this article starts to touch on a topic area I don&amp;#x27;t hear much about but am extremely frustrated by: how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude.  In the &amp;quot;When They Know They&amp;#x27;ve Got You&amp;quot; section, they mention the real challenges of not being able to obtain a lawyer if things truly aren&amp;#x27;t fair.  The average worker can&amp;#x27;t afford anything without taking on debt.  Insurance is a scam in a lot of cases but if a worker is sick it will only hurt the worker not the company a lot of the time.  To make matters much worse, the corporations lobby the government and fund all candidates and have seemingly captured the government so no changes are being made.  Healthcare, extremely high rent, and things like property tax where failure to pay sends you to prison are used as the means of coercion.  If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>screye</author><text>Boston is actually an amazing example of things the US needs to do to enable affordable living.&lt;p&gt;The expansive public transport network allows you to live far from the city without incurring huge commute times. That paired with the density means that car ownership is discouraged, which takes away another expense. Lastly, the city continues building multi-family middle housing in the city outskirts which keeps housing availability high.&lt;p&gt;High density and walking&amp;#x2F;public space culture comes with many other advantages. High footraffic means restaurants can run low-margin, high-volume food that poor can afford. The public spaces mean that restaurants can operate low-overhead businesses out of food trucks and holes in the wall.&lt;p&gt;Speaking if public spaces, they&amp;#x27;ve generally (idk how, it is more localized there) managed to avoid the violent homelessness problem of the other major cities. Violent homelessness disproportionally affects poor people as they are more reliant on public spaces and safety in numbers. This has helped the city avoid an SF&amp;#x2F;Portland&amp;#x2F;Seattle-esque deterioration of entire neighborhoods.&lt;p&gt;Most American cities don&amp;#x27;t have any of these pros, which leads to skyrocketing costs associated with city living.</text></comment>
<story><title>What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?</title><url>https://www.residentcontrarian.com/p/what-does-shitty-job-mean-in-the</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rnikander</author><text>So rent a room and&amp;#x2F;or don’t live in the best part of the city. That’s what I did near Boston a few years ago. My rent was well under $1000. Do people think they’re entitled to private apartments in the most expensive cities in the world?</text></item><item><author>abxytg</author><text>Cynically untrue. Amazon is not even close to bottom of the barrel. And it&amp;#x27;s clear you haven&amp;#x27;t paid market rent in a major city since you bought that starter home back in the 90s - 42k is a joke when your rent is close to $2500 and you get no benefits.</text></item><item><author>mrjangles</author><text>&amp;gt;how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude...The average worker can&amp;#x27;t afford anything without taking on debt.&lt;p&gt;For people from other countries wondering about the veracity of these claims, let&amp;#x27;s take an example:  The typical shitty job everyone on here complains about is working at an amazon warehouse.  This is a job people with no skills take on.  They pay 15 USD an hour. In other currencies that is 42k a year AUD or 2390 Euros a month.  (the cost of living is roughly the same in these places).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll leave you to decide whether this is &amp;quot;slavery&amp;quot; and whether they &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t afford anything&amp;quot; or whether Americans are just so rich they are out of touch with reality.</text></item><item><author>alexfromapex</author><text>I think this article starts to touch on a topic area I don&amp;#x27;t hear much about but am extremely frustrated by: how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude.  In the &amp;quot;When They Know They&amp;#x27;ve Got You&amp;quot; section, they mention the real challenges of not being able to obtain a lawyer if things truly aren&amp;#x27;t fair.  The average worker can&amp;#x27;t afford anything without taking on debt.  Insurance is a scam in a lot of cases but if a worker is sick it will only hurt the worker not the company a lot of the time.  To make matters much worse, the corporations lobby the government and fund all candidates and have seemingly captured the government so no changes are being made.  Healthcare, extremely high rent, and things like property tax where failure to pay sends you to prison are used as the means of coercion.  If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iamdbtoo</author><text>Yeah, that&amp;#x27;s kind of how this country markets itself. Being able to afford a home and a family on a regular worker&amp;#x27;s pay is literally part of &amp;quot;The American Dream.&amp;quot;</text></comment>