But in all seriousness, when did salaries get so bloated? There was a period of time when people would bust their butts to get $10/hr. Now I understand prices of everything have increased over time, and therefore incomes have had to increase and that little thing called inflation, But I mean for real, c'mon people, 30 years ago gas was less than a dollar a gallon. In September/October 2008 gas peaked at $4.00/gallon, some places were at almost 5 a gallon.
Now I understand some increase over the last 30 years, but really, I don't think incomes have increased that much. Believe me I wish they would have. I mean how long did it take for them to increase the minimum wage to $6.55 nationally, about half the states (27 of 50) have state regulations that are higher than the federal $6.55 and only 5 states have no minimum wage regulation, and 6 states are still lower (but law mandates employees get the higher of the two wages). In 1979 the minimum wage was raised to $2.90, so by my math (granted I'm a conservative and a college graduate so my numbers might be a little bit off from yours) that's a 2.25 times increase in the minimum wage compared with a 6.25 times increase in the gas prices. Now granted I know gas prices have since come down from that astronomical high but still, they should have never gotten that high in the first place. So incomes over the same 30 year period were increased at 1/3 the rate overall.
Why is it that everything we need to pay for, be it electric bill, gas bill, water bill, etc all increases significantly before our wages are increased at all. (do you feel it coming yet? I do, but then again I'm the writer of this aren't I?) Earlier today a bill was passed that will effectively increase our electric bill by as much as 40%, when it's all ready tough enough to pay the bills every month, they go and do something like this. Now I'm sure we'll go on struggling along, tightening our collective belts at home, and begging for any and all the overtime we can physically work to help make the ends meet, and it'll be 2 years or more before the ability to receive a raise is given due to the company's financials. I know the company needs more money, so does everyone, but no one's paying more. Maybe if our pay was based on effectiveness and efficiency then people would notice a significant difference in their pay that is directly representational of the effort they put forth, and how much they care about their job. Hey, wait a minute, that sounds like having a personal responsibility for your job. Wow 3 references in 4 posts (3 for 3 if you don't include that horrific news update I had to post to vent a little bit), maybe I'm on to something there.
Either way, companies are saying they're not making enough money, so they're charging more for their services, and employees aren't being paid anymore and they're having to pay more for objects and services they need because they companies aren't making enough to stay afloat. At what point will someone grab the bull by the horns and say "ENOUGH ALREADY, we can't keep doing this." It's funny, we all love a good shopping spree, especially when it's on the store's dime; or if you buy items for your company, the companies credit card; but when it's your credit card, you think 2 or 3 times before you finally let the cashier swipe your card. It's never fun making that large 4 or 5 figure purchase (unless you're filthy rich, in which case please e-mail me and let me know what intrigues you enough to read my posts), however sometimes it's mandatory.
I'm sure there's more I just can't get it organized at the present time, got too much stuff on my mind that's getting me all confuzzled. More later I'm sure.
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