Originally posted by @Susan Maneck:
Originally posted by @Chris Szepessy:
I work for the post office...new hires now start somewhere around around $40k a year plus benefits, over $19/hr. not including the benefits. Very, very few people apply and the ones who do get the job, usually quit in the first couple weeks. There's also a few positions that start at over $65k a year and can't find anyone for those jobs. Oh, the post office doesn't require a degree or any special skills other than a little hard work at times. There are already decent paying jobs out there that people can get IF they wanted to.
No, those programs don't usually come out to $15 an hour. Food stamps for a family of three is about $400 a month. In Mississippi you can only get Medicare if you are pregnant or have a young child so even the very poor don't have it. And they can't get Obamacare either if they are only making minimum wage. Assuming they had a housing voucher that might be worth $800 a month. So we have a total of $1200 a month which comes out to about $6 an hour. Now if you got a minimum wage job and you add these benefits to them you might come close to $15 an hour, but then you are still without health insurance. In that case a single mother would be irresponsible to take a job and lose Medicaid for her children.
As for your Post Office jobs, those aren't that easy to get as you imagine and you usually start out as a part time worker, often a rural driver working one day a week and on call the rest of the time. You may not need an education but you do need to take a test and there is a trick to passing it. I had to attend a paid workshop to learn that trick. It worked, I was offered the job but I was offered a graduate fellowship and didn't have to take it. But this is why I know so much about the process. I scored in the nineties which is pretty much what you need to be considered. Veterans get a five point advantage over others and most postal workers are veterans. It is not that easy a job to keep once you get it either. It is very high pressure and not everyone can do it. There is a reason that the phrase for a mass shooting used to be "going postal."
Now, there have been some problems finding enough workers during the pandemic but that is because entire offices sometimes caught the virus. That happened up here in Lake Tahoe. We didn't get mail for a week.
What you said used to be true of postal jobs. Present day, they are extremely easy to get. There's no more exam and they don't even require drug testing. And since there's such a shortage of workers, the part time employee has the opportunity to learn other routes and cover that carrier's day off, sometimes working 6 days a week if they want. Yes, we are under time restraints and sometimes it is hard and possibly stressful.
On top of that, the local Stewart's (chain gas station) is also hiring at $18/hr plus benefits...no special test, no "one day a week," etc. There are plenty of jobs out there paying a "living wage" but people just don't want to work..plain and simple. I've worked 2-3 jobs at a time before to either make ends meet or in order to save more money. I still work any overtime I can get, even though I don't really have to. I have no special skills and only an associates degree from community college...and a ton of work ethic. Again, I'm all for giving someone a hand up, but I'm not big into giving hand outs.
