Have you been a member of the blue-collar work force

I worked at a car wash, on a tree cutting crew, and as a mover. They were all three awful, but at 19, your body can handle some abuse.

 

That's not true at all. Plenty of Democrats "have money" and are very comfortable. What some of us whine (not "wine," which is a beverage many of us enjoy) about is the inordinate burden placed on the middle class, and upper middle class, by the incessant tax cuts for the very wealthy, who are paying a lower rate today than they did under Reagan, or at any time over the last several decades, going back to at least the 1950's under another Republican President, Eisenhower. And it has nothing to do with having worked blue collar jobs in the past, which many of us have. Certainly as many as the Republicans whining about every damn thing they can think of.

Honestly, do you guys simply pull this crap out of the air, toss it on a wall, and see if people will buy it?

 

Impressive sir. I will alert your local Dodge dealer so that you may claim your Stratus forthwith.

 

The Dittoheads seem to have the idea backwards. Blue collar work can be very hard, taxing to one's health, and never pays like a White Collar job. Blue Collar workers should be on the side of Wealth Distribution because the wealthy do not expend themselves nearly as much, to make a lot more money and have ways available to them to play the system.

Why is it fair for a welder to be physically spent by age 50 making $40,000 and a Director of Human Resources in an ergo chair with a secretary bringing him coffee while he plays Farmville makes $250,000 plus stock plus stock options taxed at 15%?

Economic appropriateness should be a much bigger, more liberalizing issue for working people. But, the rich have spent their time and money villainizing unions, equal pay legislation and social services to the point that they are now associated with godlessness, laziness, and anti-Americanism.

It's Orwellian!

 

college jobs. highschool jobs and jobs while prepping to climb the corporate ladder shouldn't count.

You're tourists.

Even if you've worked with common people, lived with common people or slept with common people....

 

I agree. All of my hard Summer jobs had an end in sight, the people that did it full time can't see an end.

(all the more reason to support pay equity, affordable health care, social services and a retirement safety net)

 

You're showing some ignorance here. If a welder were 50, assuming had done it for 20 years, he would probably be getting paid about 40 an hour. They get overtime hours often. Those guys also have their trucks with the welding unit on back that they are able to lease to the contractors as a part of their pay. They will get paid like $1,000 a week to provide the equipment. Welders at age 50 (if they're good and done it right as a career) are more likely making 6 figures. Even the guys that have cush jobs in a plant where all supplies are provided have great benefits, flex hours and make $36 an hour with usually guaranteed overtime. My time in the plants showed me that blue collar construction actually pays pretty damn well. The welder who explained the pay system to me ironically was a dem/liberal at a younger age but had become more of a conservative/republican as he got older.

When you say blue collar jobs, I think of true construction/plant operating jobs. People starting out in the field make dog **** (who doesn't?) but have the ability to make a pretty damn good living as they learn skills, get titles, gain experience and hell, show up for work and are dependable.

Working in this environment kind of make me shrug at high school education rates for Texas. Hard working individuals (usually hispanic) see their family making good money by the time their 35/40 yr old and will simply drop out of school to start learning the trades and make $14/$16 an hour. They have family at home and there is pressure to go to work. Most of the guys I worked with on my crew were hispanic and this was their thinking. Why stay in highschool when you can go to work when you know bluecollar is the way you'll make a living?-especially when there is pressure from your parents to go make some $ and help with the bills.

Just my observations.

 

methinks you have taken my statement too literally. Feel free to insert assembly line worker or even nail salon cosmetician. When I drive around Houston I think .... strip center after strip center, full of people making $7.25 and hour. They can afford maybe beans and apartment. No 529's no 401K's not a dollar for retirement, barely making it from check to check. I picked welder because I have some experience with it; I've seen some broken down, young old men from it.

($40 and hour (and maybe in Texas working on oilfield equipment) is still only $80K. not a rich man's wage)

 

Plumbers and electricians generally make much more per hour than some IT guy at a help desk.

 

Moved bags of fertilizers and loaded Christmas trees on cars/trucks one Virginia Winter.
Horrible.

 

But they, actually work.
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Anybody else ever load hay bales? picking peas was probably the hardest work I ever did...for one day before I quit.
I have a friend that says shoveling oyster shells for driveways is actually THE hardest job on Earth.

 

Which is one of the reasons I get ticked off at pasty chair-dwellers who think it would be a good thing to raise the retirement age. You might be able to make it through to 68 or 70 working in a cube, but if you're doing physical work, a raised retirement age could literally be a killer or the difference between relaxing in your retirement and dealing with pain.

 

I worked at Wal-Mart as a furniture sales associate, and did a lot of unloading trucks, but that was in college. I've never made a living as a blue collar worker.

 

Supposedly you are supposed to move away from labor intensive work as you get older.

 

Wouldn't you still retire sooner if medical reasons dictate it, so that a raised retirement age would not really have any effect on you if your health does not allow it to be raised in your case?

 

Not if you don't have any savings/retirement money. In his example you are waiting for social security to kick in at 65 so you can stop working, if it was raised, you would have to keep working till that age, possibly doing manual labor.

 

Okay, I would have thought that medical insurance or something would somehow cover you if you have to retire early for medical reasons.

 

Good god, yes. I was up visiting my grandparents place in East Texas as a teenager, and Grandpa had mowed a couple of his best producing fields. It wasn't supposed to rain, but naturally it became threatening. That meant getting the hay into the back of the pickup, and on the trailer, and into the barn double quick. I thought I was going to die. At the end of that day, I was probably as tired as I've ever been before or since. I feel tired just thinking about it. At the time, I thought I was in pretty good shape. I wasn't!

 

I believe what you are looking for disability insurance. Social Security will pay out early for disability as well.

I do believe rimrocker was talking about quality of life after retirement, which is to say being able to retire before your health deteriorates to the point where you can't enjoy retirement.

 

Understood, thanks.