Why do people demean minimum wage workers? (you dont have to read below)?

Question

my mom works a minimum wage job. she could not afford college (and the 6months she could, she spent 5 years paying just those loans back).

people say that those jobs are not meant to be a career. but the thing is some of us werent born lucky...if all goes well im able to go to community college next year cause of a scholarship.

but the thing is, we complain that these jobs werent meant to live on but someone has to do it and there arent enough high and well paying jobs out there for all of us.

my mom grew up in a time where women were expected to be wives (she was born in the 50s)....

she also decided it was important for me and my sister to have as close to a normal life as everyone in school so she let us have a computer so we didnt have to be reminded everyday that just cause we are poor we dont deserve some things that those with money have.

why do people demean minimum wage workers? if anything its those people that keep this country running...they do the jobs no one else would...the work in the factories that process our food and the work in stores and restaurants everyone shops in.

Answer 1

Most people these days are so insecure about themselves that they look for any way they can to make themselves feel better and usually that involves cutting other people down and/or putting on a fake front. It's very similar to schoolyard bullying. It takes someone very secure with who they are and what they have to accept other people without making judgments.

Answer 2

Because we expect regular people to better themselves from one generation to the next. I agree with the writer who told of his grandfather. My great grandfather was a dirt farmer. My grandfather was a farmer who worked his way up to carpenter and then school janitor. My mother was a school teacher and my father a mechanic in the Air Force. I started as an electronics engineering technician but I have educated myself to be an electronics engineer designing state of the are professional audio electronics. I am also on the board of directors of a small public company and have one patent. And note that when I went to high school and college I worked my way through and took student loans to get my education. My mother also worked her way through a one year teacher's college. My father was a self taught mechanic and also taught me.



My daughter just got a degree in economics and has started graduate school to get a masters of science in technology management, specializing in Transportation and Safety. My daughter was very sick in high school and her first couple years of college so she could not work. Hence she has big student loans. And while she gets nothing from her mother, I continue to drive a 1988 car and live in a small rented house so I can pay at least half her college cost.



So while not to put down your mother for being stuck in a low wage job all her life, opportunities come from what you make of life. She obviously did not make the best of her teen years. Because what you do during those years will determine where you end up on the economic ladder for the rest of your life.



And since at least half the population are a**holes, they will put down people who did not make the best of themselves, even though they do perform services that have value.

Answer 3

Not to argue the point - but to give you a different perspective as explained to me by my grandfather who came from a family with next to nothing to build wealth & provide as best he could for my parents, who in turn, did likewise for my generation.



Historically, each generation strives to ensure the next generation is better-off economically than the one they are in. With this belief, my grandfather worked in the coal mines, for poor wages and in dangerous conditions to allow my mother to go to college to become a teacher. His work ethics in the coal mine helped him earn a reputation which opened other opportunities. He was offered a job working for similar wages outside of the coal mine which he accepted. His hard work at the new job opened more doors by doing more than was expected of him, which again provided additional opportunities. This happened a few times and through a couple of career paths, but in the end, he was able to improve his economic position by working his way up the ladder from being a coal miner to what today would be considered an engineering technician.



As the US has grown over the past 100 years, this happened for many people who started with next to nothing and worked their way up the socio-economic ladder.



As a result, many have come to expect others to work hard to move up from minimum-wage jobs (as previous generations have done) and oftentimes equate this movement up the corporate ladder as ambition - and as a by-product of this thinking, have come to equate not moving up the socio-economic ladder as lacking ambition.



From a logical standpoint, this type of thinking is flawed. It does not take into account that many people sacrifice career advances for other reasons. In your mother's case - to provide a more normal life for you and your sister, your mother did not pursue opportunities that would upset that ballance.



Hope this made sense. Best of luck to you and your family. While going to college is not a guarantee of success, it will open doors to you that weren't made available to your mom. That she has given up what she has to help make your life better is something I hope you appreciate, too.