by Chris Black
Fifteen years ago you could have made $35k/year and afforded a home in a nice Midwest suburb.
You’d have a $750 monthly mortgage with taxes and insurance.
Family medical insurance plans with employer support were $300 a month.
The same homes are now $1700 a month and that health plan is $1800 a month if you are lucky.
That $35k a year job still pays $35k a year.
The “Fight for Fifteen” didn’t help. It just turned a $20 an hour job into what an $8 an hour job was in the 2000s.
Every biz has a help wanted sign, but wants to pay less than $25 an hour.
Stamping trashcans from 3-11am for $18 an hour isn’t worth it to just about anyone.
It was a lot easier to get a $50k a year job in 1982 than it is now.
College also didn’t cost an average of $38k a year.
The days of making a good living off trades is coming to an end. The independents are being put out of business left and right with corporate consolidation of the industries.
Plumbing, HVAC, IT, body shops, and car repair, all are becoming corporatized and labor turned into a commodity. all due to liability insurance, bonds, and regulations.
One of my neighbors worked for a small HVAC company and was making $85k a year. The company got bought out, because the owner chose a payday for retirement over the employees.
The first thing the corporate owners did was cut costs and salaries, plus they added unpaid overtime for salaried workers.
If you didn’t like it, they offered you three months’ severance to walk away.
Nearly every body shop near me has sold out to Crash Champions, just like all the glass companies are selling out to SafeLite.
Why? Because the insurance companies all bill through SafeLite.
If you choose a local company, SafeLite gets paid and passes some cash on to the little guy.
The payment is based on SafeLite’s contract with GEICO, not the actual costs of the little business.