The Trickle Up Theory
When the Real Estate boom was at its height, a distraught young woman, working a four day convention services job for nine dollars an hour lamented that there were no good jobs in Las Vegas. She didn't know what she was going to do. She had moved here, and now she couldn't find work that would allow her keep up with her bills.
Duh! Why would anyone move without checking out the employment possibilities? But they do and this woman did. This is what I told her.
All work in Las Vegas is minimum wage. We don't have industry. Office jobs, if you can find one, don't pay much over minimum wage. Unless you want to work in the cleaners, the 7/11, or retail, don't come here. Casino jobs are minimum wage - or darned close to it. People live on tips, and even that has dried up because of debit cards and ticket in-ticket out. If we don't work for tips, we work at the bottom of the pay scale. Can you teach? If so, you'll make a little more. Grocery stores have a union. They do a little better in pay and benefits, but it's still retail. I've known construction workers (illegal) who were working for twelve dollars an hour - less than half union scale.
Entertainers, if they can find work, are being offered less than they earned thirty years ago. The Entertainment Capital and Gambling Capital of the World is no longer a place to live - at least if you want to make a living. Now, if you're here for the weather, you've come to the right place. I've never once, in twenty years, had to dig my car out of snow drift or worry about sliding on the ice. It gets hot, but the day after it cools off you forget how hot it was and start saying to people on the street, "Isn't it a beautiful day?"
But what prompted me to write about the sad state of earning capability in Las Vegas was the fast food workers - I think it's McDonald's workers - picketing for higher wages. They think having no education, and in many cases barely being able to speak English, entitles them to fifteen dollars an hour. If they can get it, good for them. But there is a "trickle up" problem with that.
I have a friend who has managed a Starbucks for years. She feels the few people who work for her deserve to be paid a "living wage" as do all fast food workers. She believes all CEO's make too much money. That profit should be passed down to the people who make those profits possible. I can't say I disagree with that sentiment. Fifty years ago my father, a union carpenter who always worked for over scale, believed the same thing about the CEO's of GM, Ma Bell and the other major corporations, BUT . .
This is how "trickle up" works. Fast food workers, most with little education, get their salary doubled. Then the bottom of the rung college educated substitute teachers who are working for fourteen dollars an hour say, "I have a college education. If fast food workers had their salaries doubled, mine should be doubled." So that is done. Now the regular teaching staff that is making twenty-five dollars an hour is ticked off because they've spent years in school getting master's degrees and probably still have school loans hanging over their heard. They want their salary doubled, and it is. Soon everyone's salary is doubled and what has happened? Fast food workers are still at the bottom of the pay scale. Everyone has gotten their salaries doubled. The cost of everything we buy has risen in order to pay those new salaries, and the CEO's are still making obscene salaries with stock options.
I like the dollar menu at fast food places. I like the ninety-nine cent stores. It like the sound of "It's only a dollar." I supposed I could get used to the dollar ninety-nine menu or the everything a dollar ninety-nine store, but why, when in the end, it's all the same. Fast food workers won't move up the food chain with a living wage, they'll simply be paid more to stay in the same place they've always been. And in a few more years they'll want to double their salary again and everything will Trickle Up again.
No comments:
Post a Comment