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Thread: So.....no signature, no bill.

  1. #11
    Senior Member gimmethesimplelife's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    I'm so glad at least ONE of my kids adhered to my "do as I say, not as I do" financial practices. The restaurant worker son who was furloughed in April, then brought back in July, then furloughed again in September managed to apply for (and get) restaurant worker grants and save all the money he could with the federal stimulus package and he now STILL has enough to get him through to spring. And the new stimulus will be icing on the cake. He has no debt, a very small apartment in downtown Burlington ($875/month), and no car. So he has rent, cable and utilities and that's it.

    But he sees the writing on the wall, and so he is considering either a) going full steam ahead with his music or b) going to community college to start a new career at age 36 in psychology or social services. He will only go back to the restaurant industry in order to pay bills.

    This is tough. Every day I read about a new business shuttering here in Vermont. Today it was an innovative culinary school. DS's former boss actually posted a GoFundMe campaign to get them through mid-2021 and they raised $25k. The local "nice" restaurant started a pizza truck. People will have to be creative and take risks to get over this.
    Catherine - about your son and coming from someone with years of f anf b experience - grocery retail has been a lifesaver for me. I'm making 1.75/hour more and have better benefits after 90 days. I don't know the specifics of the local economy in Burlington, true - but I thought I"d mention grocery, if only as a bill paying steppingstone to something else. Rob

  2. #12
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    Like people aren't trying to do this already?

    The warehouse I work at now is still hiring. Very physical work and they will be cutting back their holiday bonus pay at the end of the year down to under $15.00/hour, but - hey - time to "readjust ambitions" or get different "training" because it's such an easy thing to do and ageism, sexism, racism, etc. no longer exists in the U.S. workforce.
    Add to that the fact that better paying jobs have a lot of competition, it takes longer to land them, even assuming you can eventually. You will on average spend more time unemployed looking for them than a lower paying job. The reality at least here, seems to be lots of low paying jobs and a high cost of living, and imagining those low paying jobs are being replaced with "better" jobs you just need more training for is fantasy. There aren't enough decent paying jobs to go around. Even if lower paying jobs go away, that just means lower paying jobs go away, not that better paying jobs magically appear in their place.

    The retain for a new career thing mostly only works when it does at all for a certain age, and that age is hard to define but realistically it's probably be retrained before 40 at least. You are 28 and in a dead-end job, sure maybe get training for a new career. You are 50 and in a dead-end job, yea um there is no easy way out, keep looking and all that of course, but there is not necessarily any retraining pixie dust. You want to add a credential and can afford to pay for it, go for it, it may improve career prospects in an existing career, it's just not going to magically create job offers where there aren't any which is what people who tell the unemployed to retrain imagine.

    When unemployed may in many ways be the worst possible time to seek additional education (unless one is young and going back to school they had quit for a job or something, then it's probably a good decision, my blessings to such wise 20 somethings for which it will likely pay off). Except that one has time, well yea there is that, time, just no money and boatloads of stress.
    Trees don't grow on money

  3. #13
    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by happystuff View Post
    The warehouse I work at now is still hiring. Very physical work and they will be cutting back their holiday bonus pay at the end of the year down to under $15.00/hour, but - hey - time to "readjust ambitions" or get different "training" because it's such an easy thing to do and ageism, sexism, racism, etc. no longer exists in the U.S. workforce.
    I have a friend in the restaurant business who says about half of the restaurants around here are going to go under. I suspect it's a similar outlook for airline jobs, just to mention a couple. I understand some of the difficulties and issues, but it would seem the options are, adjust ambitions, get training, or long term unemployment. It's just not a pretty picture.

  4. #14
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    I understand some of the difficulties and issues, but it would seem the options are, adjust ambitions, get training, or long term unemployment. It's just not a pretty picture.
    but the point being made is not that it's difficult, but that it might not be a choice of: get training OR long term unemployment, but get training AND long term unemployment (or at least get training and get a job that makes no use of it and doesn't care about it). Because training is not much of a solution to unemployment.

    Meanwhile there is always the cost of training and unless one can get the government to pay it all, it's wondering if one is spending money one doesn't have (well one sure doesn't have it if unemployed) on training that may well lead nowhere, and on how wise a decision that really is to spend down one's precious pennies going for broke as it were, on the off shot it pays off, maybe may as well take it to Vegas!
    Trees don't grow on money

  5. #15
    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore View Post
    but the point being made is not that it's difficult, but that it might not be a choice of: get training OR long term unemployment, but get training AND long term unemployment (or at least get training and get a job that makes no use of it and doesn't care about it). Because training is not much of a solution to unemployment.

    Meanwhile there is always the cost of training and unless one can get the government to pay it all, it's wondering if one is spending money one doesn't have (well one sure doesn't have it if unemployed) on training that may well lead nowhere, and on how wise a decision that really is to spend down one's precious pennies going for broke as it were, on the off shot it pays off, maybe may as well take it to Vegas!
    A rather unfortunate picture. I don't know what your perspective might suggest for the unemployed in a down and out industry.

  6. #16
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    Universal basic income with Medicare for all

    Many entitlement programs could be eliminated

    The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are

  7. #17
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tammy View Post
    Universal basic income with Medicare for all

    Many entitlement programs could be eliminated

    The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
    +1
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  8. #18
    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tammy View Post
    Universal basic income with Medicare for all

    Many entitlement programs could be eliminated

    The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
    I mostly agree, but to be honest if not realistic, I'm not seeing that anywhere in the near future. Maybe years or another election from now. I have read a little bit about a revival of a modified Civilian Conservation Corps.

  9. #19
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    The last time I retrained for a career change was about 20 years ago, and it would have worked just fine if the post 9/11 recession hadn't happened. If I had been a little quicker--like right after I retired--I probably would have had a second career as a technical editor. My age didn't seem to matter much.

  10. #20
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tammy View Post
    Universal basic income with Medicare for all

    Many entitlement programs could be eliminated

    The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
    Which entitlement programs would you eliminate?

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