70% of Food Stamps/Medicaid recipients work full time, new study GAO And more results

[xanzul]

When I was working at Walmart last year I was making around 13.90 an hour. I could not pay my bills no matter what I did. Current pay at companies like Walmart is not nearly enough and has to change. I am really hoping Bernie Sanders does become Secretary of Labor because he has the potential to change the lives of so many. It is long past time when this should have been addressed.

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How is this shocking? America is notoriously overworked and underpaid. Where hard work is valued but seldom rewarded or appreciated. The pandemic only brought more attention to how many 'essential workers' don't receive essential pay.

Americans would lose their mind if half of those companies list ceased to exist tomorrow and yet those who make those companies run are often then butt end of jokes, viewed as drones who should be lucky they get the below living wage checks they receive. How dare that cashier not be smiling when your cart is full of stuff food they can't afford to buy!

The corporations are only a reflection the "fuck you at least I got mine" mentality.

Between lack of a pandemic response in the US and Walmart fucking me over I am literally facing being homeless soon. I have health issues that make covid19 potentially fatal to me and the only reason Walmart fired me was because I used their covid19 leave of absence policy. I literally gave this company almost 10 years of my life and they don't fucking care.

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the last democrat to win the majority of white voters was LBJ who basically created the modern incarnation of the welfare state, which is why i dont get the whole class reductionist bernie wing " just focus on class and ignore racism and they will all come back" when lbj basically was kind of that, unless you buy the whole civil rights act caused the realigmnent thing, then you are kind of just clarifying my point that racism is more powerful than any class based politics.

If you want to talk about welfare states then please explain why red states are unable to pay their way and why blue states have to subsidize them? Democrats are not the issue here.

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I mean honestly if someone doesn't fart progressively enough you lash out at them like they just murdered your parents. Glass houses and all that.

And yet there is infighting in the GOP about Trump not conceding. Stop with the projection. It is fucking tiresome.

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Maybe we should stop giving tax breaks to huge corporations and bailing them out when a disaster hits.

Trillions upon trillions have been given to companies this past year as covid19 relief while the actual taxpayers got a few billion. It is disgusting and this 500 billion "skinny" bill Moscow Mitch is pushing has zero money for taxpayers and provides corporations immunity from covid19 related lawsuits. We are living in a failed state.

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One of the reasons a good hard look should be taken into Universal Basic Income.

UBI would have resolved most of the financial and economic issues caused by lockdowns but fucking morons would rather screech about "socialism" than support anything that could improve their lives.

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It may sound nuts and you might not even care but to draw the line simply at 'full time workers" doesn't tell the full story.

For one it's common to make sure as few possible of your workers actually hit the 35-40 hour mark to keep from having provide expected full time benefits and to meet/evade regulations. There's people whose responsibility it is to keep the number of 'full time' workers as low as possible while still having enough employees. When the reporter comes and asks why so many of the companies employees still rely on social programs to get by the employer can say "well a lot of our full time employees are doing fine, it's mostly those under 40 hours who aren't", leaving out that the bulk of their employees are scheduled just below full time.

Another reason to say earners instead of straight up full time employees is that's its financial and mentally better for them to take a cut in hours receive benefits than to work 40 hours a week. The $50 extra on their check still wouldn't be enough for a living wage (no one isn't just $50 shy of poverty vs a decent living) but if they work those 5 extra hours the risk losing benefits they need worth a lot more. That those 5 hours aren't worth losing $100 in food stamps.

People are forced to work two jobs or realize it's not worth busting your ass in a job that doesn't net you a livable wage. If you have to put in 60 hours a week so your paycheck is 'good enough' there's a lot of things wrong with that picture ie why are the wages so low? Why are we okay with people being overworked and underpaid? At what point does 'working to live' become 'living to work'?
Those people have the same exact problems at 30 hours and 50 hours, difference is that the 30 hour person might be a little happier because they arent working themselves to death for the same dead end wage.

Earners are people part of the the working class in general. And it doesn't just apply to retail/food/service workers with. You can easily be someone working a white color job in area not making enough for a living wage in the area or be forced to become a slave to your wage to do so.

Walmart is notorious for scheduling full time associates less than 30 hours a week. When I was a support manager at Walmart I was constantly having to deal with various associates getting fucked over in terms of hours and were unable to pay their rent or bills or buy food. I went to salaried management everytime I got a complaint hoping they would give my people more hours but most of the time they just ignored me. My store as a result lost a large number of workers who were amazing and knew their shit and were great with customers. They were replaced with stupid teenagers who work like 10 hours a week who refuse to even do the bare minimum of their job.

[kamuimac]

Nobody is going to hire a random nobody of the street, these examples you put up are worthless. But I suppose its easy to judge the poor from a position of privilege

well walmart aparently does. and thats why they pay so little - because there is "0 entry cost" to get hired there.

long long time ago there exaisted a little thing called "apprenticeship" and "internship " when young people worked for lower wages in oder to learn skills that others have , then few years later they made their master papers and were considered as good craftsmen/worker and open their own independent businesses .

nowadays people are lazy and want everythign instantly and for free.

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If you get a "small loan" from your parents, a lot of things become easier.

uff thanks god i live in socialistic EU - when starting my side business i got 35k non-returnable grant even though i didnt really need it but hey its free money (from my previously paid my taxes ) didnt have to ask parents even for one cent

[Toppy]

So long as we're talking about Walmart, anyone finding it fun that they made a big deal about "We're giving our associates Thanksgiving off this year!"

Reality: Everyones still working 5 days that week. They're being forced to use their time off for the thanksgiving day the store is closed. If you dont have any they just take whatever you have.

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well walmart aparently does. and thats why they pay so little - because there is "0 entry cost" to get hired there.

long long time ago there exaisted a little thing called "apprenticeship" and "internship " when young people worked for lower wages in oder to learn skills that others have , then few years later they made their master papers and were considered as good craftsmen/worker and open their own independent businesses .

nowadays people are lazy and want everythign instantly and for free.

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uff thanks god i live in socialistic EU - when starting my side business i got 35k non-returnable grant even though i didnt really need it but hey its free money (from my previously paid my taxes ) didnt have to ask parents even for one cent

On the job training is getting rarer and rarer in the US and likewise there is little room for new businesses in most areas. Its not something everyone can do.

Its not a question of laziness, its that the systems put in place to help people get ahead early in life (again, such as on the job training) have been either removed or toned back to the point where said training doesn't help with finding other work.

Wal-mart also pays its skilled positions low as well. Unless you're the store manager or the assistant manager, you're not getting paid much.

They also recently scaled back managorial positions so there's even fewer people who can get these half decent paying positions. And they're apparently looking for ways to scale back even more currently.

[Howel]

do you really have to be a bilionaire though ? all you see is either bilionaries or people living on food stamps ?

all it takes is to take first step.

i always give the same advice - if you really dont have any skills learn how to paint walls - here in my city people who literaly only paint walls but do that with skills with ease earn 6-8k a month . and they are booked 2-3 months in advance.

you really have other choices then to work in mcdonalds and wallmart - or their equivalent in other countries.

yes sure you wont be instantly a milionaire - but for sure you wont need food stamps.

I mean, quick math, 50 hours a week, 4 weeks a month, they'd be earning 30 bucks an hour to reach 6k, 40 bucks an hour to reach 8k. Average salary for a painter in the US, is 17 Dollars. So your example, either leaves out that this person works an insane amount of hours (88-117 hours a week, if it was by the 17 dollar average), or it is not a particularly good example, since it is an outlier.

Still better than McDonald's and Walmart, but the thing is, craftsmen don't have the best job opportunities, and a lot of them don't get a job in their given trade, and end up in those places, or other places with a lower salary than their trade average. So it is not really a great example at all.

[Toppy]

I mean, quick math, 50 hours a week, 4 weeks a month, they'd be earning 30 bucks an hour to reach 6k, 40 bucks an hour to reach 8k. Average salary for a painter in the US, is 17 Dollars. So your example, either leaves out that this person works an insane amount of hours (88-117 hours a week, if it was by the 17 dollar average), or it is not a particularly good example, since it is an outlier.

Still better than McDonald's and Walmart, but the thing is, craftsmen don't have the best job opportunities, and a lot of them don't get a job in their given trade, and end up in those places, or other places with a lower salary than their trade average. So it is not really a great example at all.

It also ignores that the need for these trades is limited, and the more people who do it in an area the lower their prices get.

Like theres loads of poor mechanics where I currently live since theres to much competition. Likewise so many people are paid low that they cant afford to pay high prices for repairs.

There was a similar issue where I used to live with plumbers and carptenters. A whole bunch of people could do it, so prices were low and they weren't paid much.

Trades CAN be lucrative, but they are not universally lucrative and the more people do it the less lucrative they are.

[Saltysquidoon]

long long time ago there exaisted a little thing called "apprenticeship" and "internship " when young people worked for lower wages in oder to learn skills that others have , then few years later they made their master papers and were considered as good craftsmen/worker and open their own independent businesses .

Another tool that has been abused by your neo-liberal masters btw.
A typical Sydney firm will interview hundreds of candidates in the employment season, take on maybe six interns and hire one on a good year. During this time you will be expected to live in sydney (one of the most expensive places on earth) either on a below minimum wage stipend (if you got in one of the big 6) or nothing working 90 hours a week (minimum, if you land on a 'big' case you're sleeping in the car) for a summer. If mummy and daddy can't afford to cover your rent for this period then you've been effectively priced out of that option (nice way to sidestep socialised higher education and ensure the big firms remain an old boys/girls club btw).
Not to mention the egregious examples of some companies trying to make prospective interns pay for the privilege of being free labour.

Further, can we talk about how ghoulish a person has to be to come into a thread linking a report that suggests some number of people working 40 hours a week need to be subsidised by food stamps to survive and with direct fiscal evidence that despite walmart profit's increasing by over 8% year on year (sitting at 14 billion at time of writing) and getting $2.2b in tax breaks from orange man they only increased employee remuneration by $400m? And do naught but impute said people are nothing but lazy fools?
Btw for the sake of clarity that person is you, I am in no uncertain terms impinging on the content of your character.

[kamuimac]

I mean, quick math, 50 hours a week, 4 weeks a month, they'd be earning 30 bucks an hour to reach 6k, 40 bucks an hour to reach 8k. Average salary for a painter in the US, is 17 Dollars. So your example, either leaves out that this person works an insane amount of hours (88-117 hours a week, if it was by the 17 dollar average), or it is not a particularly good example, since it is an outlier.

Still better than McDonald's and Walmart, but the thing is, craftsmen don't have the best job opportunities, and a lot of them don't get a job in their given trade, and end up in those places, or other places with a lower salary than their trade average. So it is not really a great example at all.

having your own business means working 24/7 . so i assumed normal 60-70 work week - thats normal work week for me - which still lets me to have ton of free time - which is pretty much a norm in constructions / renovations from what i see here. (i dont work in this sector but one of my "spot buddies " in gym has his own busisness and operates this way - same with contractors that we sometimes hire )

i wonder where does this notion comes from that people should work 40 hours a week and not a single hour more ? especially when they just start their carrier - seemed always dumb to me.

ofc noone should be forced to work more against his will - but if he wants to live on better level ? they should work instead being lazy

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It also ignores that the need for these trades is limited, and the more people who do it in an area the lower their prices get.

Like theres loads of poor mechanics where I currently live since theres to much competition. Likewise so many people are paid low that they cant afford to pay high prices for repairs.

There was a similar issue where I used to live with plumbers and carptenters. A whole bunch of people could do it, so prices were low and they weren't paid much.

Trades CAN be lucrative, but they are not universally lucrative and the more people do it the less lucrative they are.

ah those poor mechanics. one of my acquitances - who happens to be a mechanic - just opened completly new woskshop this year because he had so much work .

especially now when people avoid public communicaton and go everywhere in cars -_-

i get it - some people live in bad place for business - well maybe its time to move somewhere else instead cry "they took our jobs" / "there are no jobs"

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Another tool that has been abused by your neo-liberal masters btw.
A typical Sydney firm will interview hundreds of candidates in the employment season, take on maybe six interns and hire one on a good year. During this time you will be expected to live in sydney (one of the most expensive places on earth) either on a below minimum wage stipend (if you got in one of the big 6) or nothing working 90 hours a week (minimum, if you land on a 'big' case you're sleeping in the car) for a summer. If mummy and daddy can't afford to cover your rent for this period then you've been effectively priced out of that option (nice way to sidestep socialised higher education and ensure the big firms remain an old boys/girls club btw).
Not to mention the egregious examples of some companies trying to make prospective interns pay for the privilege of being free labour.

Further, can we talk about how ghoulish a person has to be to come into a thread linking a report that suggests some number of people working 40 hours a week need to be subsidised by food stamps to survive and with direct fiscal evidence that despite walmart profit's increasing by over 8% year on year (sitting at 14 billion at time of writing) and getting $2.2b in tax breaks from orange man they only increased employee remuneration by $400m? And do naught but impute said people are nothing but lazy fools?
Btw for the sake of clarity that person is you, I am in no uncertain terms impinging on the content of your character.

i dont mind you calling me whatever you like dont worry

also exploitation ? lol

if person A has 0 skills he has to put in work and dedication to get them

if such person starts internship and just assumes that internship means instant job oportunity after he is completly delusional .

again we are talking about person with 0 skills and 0 experience - not specialist with 10 + years of experience and piethora of skills who comes to job interview "like a boss" becaue he knows his net worth for any company that will hire him .

but lets be honest - such people dont apply for jobs at wallmart.

[Saltysquidoon]

if person A has 0 skills he has to put in work and dedication to get them

if such person starts internship and just assumes that internship means instant job oportunity after he is completly delusional .

Let me get this straight. A person who has:
-A three-year bachelors degree;
-A three-year law degree;
-A practical legal training diploma;
-A valid practicing certificate in Australia;
(this is the baseline amount of formal training required to apply for said internship)
And additionally to be competeitive:
-Experience volunteering at either a reputable firm or government office; and;
-Experience working part-time as a paralegal

Has 0 skills and should be happy to be working in Sydney (again which has one of the highest costs of living on earth) for below minimum wage doing easily 90 hour workweek just for the chance to knife their peers so they can maybe get an offer?
Jeeze no wonder you think people working 40 hours a week and still needing food stamps at Walmart are lazy, neoliberal capitalism has pickled your brain.

[Howel]

having your own business means working 24/7 . so i assumed normal 60-70 work week - thats normal work week for me - which still lets me to have ton of free time - which is pretty much a norm in constructions / renovations from what i see here. (i dont work in this sector but one of my "spot buddies " in gym has his own busisness and operates this way - same with contractors that we sometimes hire )

i wonder where does this notion comes from that people should work 40 hours a week and not a single hour more ? especially when they just start their carrier - seemed always dumb to me.

ofc noone should be forced to work more against his will - but if he wants to live on better level ? they should work instead being lazy.[

That's 14 hours a day, if it is a five day week. 8 hours sleep, that's 2 hours left. Ton of free time? Over all 7 days, it is 10, leaving 6, but that leaves out weekends being a thing. It is also 21 dollars an hour, which with the amount of overtime and working weekends, is not actually great, if your base average wage is 17 dollars.

The reason for the 40 hours, is because that's what the majority of business opening hours allows, when running two shifts. 24 hour ones, it is usually 3-4 shifts. The reason, is because there is no need to give people more hours, it'll only screw up your business being underworked by being overstaffed. Hence, you simply can't. Not that many businesses offers a particularly high amount of overtime hours, and that's not even touching upon the fact that a lot of businesses don't even pay out that overtime (22 something billion dollars a year goes unpaid). That and it is not particularly good for your health to work beyond 40 hours, somewhat depending on the line of work.

Equally so, at low wages, even working 70 hours, won't actually net you some super sweet life. At 12.5 dollars an hour (which is even somewhat above average in some places), that's 3.5k a month. That's not exactly well off. So even if one elects to not be "lazy", they're not going to live the sweet life; especially because they are also working a lot.

[s_bushido]

nowadays people are lazy and want everythign instantly and for free.

Fuck. You. And everyone who thinks like you.

Wanting a livable wage for your job is not a sign of "laziness" or "wanting everything for free." People who work retail or fast food are no less deserving of being able to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plate than those in fields requiring more training and/or education. Because they're goddamned human beings too, just like everyone else.

At least the people who argue that increasing wages will lead to employees being fired (to cut costs) pretend to be operating on something other than pure malice.

[Krakan]

Thinking like that is what causes revolutions.

Do those revolutions build better and stronger societies or do they create weaker more impoverished ones where even more suffer?

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What job exists today and could be done for 40 hours a week, should leave someone in poverty and reliant on taxpayers to subsidize their income?

Most service industry ones. Manual labor in some cases as well given the sheer excess of it companies don't need to offer competitive wages at all.

It's about what your labor is worth on the market not what you believe it's worth.

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looks at the companies and the list

sees how much people rely on those companies

wonders how well those companies could function without its workers

wonders how much those employees contribute to society

Those people seem pretty important to me.

There not and are extremely replaceable to the point there are hundreds of applications for each of their jobs in most cases and it requires extremely little training to replace them.

[Twdft]

Most service industry ones. Manual labor in some cases as well given the sheer excess of it companies don't need to offer competitive wages at all.

It's about what your labor is worth on the market not what you believe it's worth.

What does it mean to be human?

[Saltysquidoon]

Most service industry ones. Manual labor in some cases as well given the sheer excess of it companies don't need to offer competitive wages at all.

It's about what your labor is worth on the market not what you believe it's worth.

Are you suggesting that there are more people than there are jobs? AND as a result the market cannot furnish everyone thus the government should pay people?
You better watch yourself you're running dangerously close to speaking a communism

[kamuimac]

Let me get this straight. A person who has:
-A three-year bachelors degree;
-A three-year law degree;
-A practical legal training diploma;
-A valid practicing certificate in Australia;
(this is the baseline amount of formal training required to apply for said internship)
And additionally to be competeitive:
-Experience volunteering at either a reputable firm or government office; and;
-Experience working part-time as a paralegal

Has 0 skills and should be happy to be working in Sydney (again which has one of the highest costs of living on earth) for below minimum wage doing easily 90 hour workweek just for the chance to knife their peers so they can maybe get an offer?
Jeeze no wonder you think people working 40 hours a week and still needing food stamps at Walmart are lazy, neoliberal capitalism has pickled your brain.

few easy questions (may be unprofessional as im not a lawyer

- how many hours/years spend in court defending your clients ?

- how many hours/years spent in corporation work / court working for your business clientes

- how many clients do you have (your own that you could bring with you to bigger law company

- how many cases did you actually win in court for your clients ?

papers means next to nothing nowadays. everyone have them . thats minimum possible requirements met to even start carrier in this type of work

real exeprience is what counts

you are no longer in school - you are competing with potentialy anyone in age bracket of 25-60 for that job opening - why should they chooose you over literaly thousands other applicants.

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That's 14 hours a day, if it is a five day week. 8 hours sleep, that's 2 hours left. Ton of free time? Over all 7 days, it is 10, leaving 6, but that leaves out weekends being a thing. It is also 21 dollars an hour, which with the amount of overtime and working weekends, is not actually great, if your base average wage is 17 dollars.

saturdays are normal work days for most of companies - especially if someone has his own business. then a lot of people work 7 days a week to grow and expand it.

i do agree that 70 hours is a stretch and a lot - but 60 hours is easily achievable for anyone . that 6x10 hours. not that much tbh in my eyes. especially if you really like what you do and it gives you satisfaction (and a lot of money ) most small business owners all around world work like that. very often even up to 12 hours a day in initial growing phase to cut expenses on managers etc.

The reason for the 40 hours, is because that's what the majority of business opening hours allows, when running two shifts..

the reason for 40 hours work week is a bit different then you think but i cba to explain it.

in next 10 max 20 years i fully expect it being changed to max 30 hours a week . just wait and see

ofc the income will be also cut down by at least 25 % due to less hours of work needed to do the same job due to raise of productivity due to automatization and robotization

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Fuck. You. And everyone who thinks like you.

Wanting a livable wage for your job is not a sign of "laziness" or "wanting everything for free." People who work retail or fast food are no less deserving of being able to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plate than those in fields requiring more training and/or education. Because they're goddamned human beings too, just like everyone else.

At least the people who argue that increasing wages will lead to employees being fired (to cut costs) pretend to be operating on something other than pure malice.

define "livable wage"

livable wage doesnt mean being able to affrod big house , car and 70 inch tv ,designer clothes and iphone 12 . its means that you have enough money to rent a single room to have roof over your head , buy cheap clothes and buy food. and this is easily achievable with minimum wage.

this is the base mistake people make when for example speaking about UBI - they assume that it will give them enough money to live very comfortably - which will never ever happen .

livable wage is not what they really want. they want much more.

[Saltysquidoon]

few easy questions (may be unprofessional as im not a lawyer

I'm not talking about me, I'm far too old to be worrying about internships. I'm talking about fresh graduates who are being exploited by harbor view firms. I also don't work in corporate law (nor would I with the insane practices they maintain and the lack of scruples required to represent corporations). What I do mostly involves property and let's call it "tax exposure minimization" (which is unethical enough for me) as well as care and protection matters to salve my conscience when I can.

Btw the fact you're flippantly suggesting it should be perfectly normal for people to have 5 years of formal education in addition to mandatory 300 hours of unpaid volunteer work in addition to X hours of paid/unpaid work to have the opportunity to apply for an internship and not see that represents a glut of workers and a dearth of opportunities it mind-boggling.

define "livable wage"

livable wage doesnt mean being able to affrod big house , car and 70 inch tv ,designer clothes and iphone 12 . its means that you have enough money to rent a single room to have roof over your head , buy cheap clothes and buy food. and this is easily achievable with minimum wage.

"Living Wage is a wage sufficient to ensure the workman food, shelter, clothing, frugal comfort, provision for evil days etc..." That's a definition given by Justice Higgins in Harvester in 1907.

That awkward moment when you're more conservative in the definition of 'livable' than a high court judge from 113 years ago.

[Mihalik]

as far as "working skills", how many people started out in their garage as teens with little to no actual working skills/experience and are now billionares.

Next to none.

I repeat. Next to none.

The one most applicable example that you are trying to reference here is Bill Gates.

He comes from a family of bankers and lawyers, the rich type of bankers and lawyers. At age 13 he was enrolled in the best private school in the United States. The school very early on began investing in IT and education related to programming, buying computer time share from GE at the time when that was mostly a thing that only universities, corporations and governments could afford. He was classmates with people like Paul Allen. Half of the fucking big names from the early IT boom came out of that fucking school. These weren't just random nerdy kids playing with cathode rays after homework.

It's a bit easier to start the first multi billion dollar software company when half of the first generation of software engineers with access to silicon chipsets are all in it together.

Most of these bootstrap billionaire stories are remotely not as bootstraps as you want them to be.

This remains true in most cases.

Even in my case, tho I'm no billionaire that's for sure. I started my studies at the University of Syracuse, not exactly an Ivy League school, but decent enough. 2nd year there was an opportunity for a research position at the University of London in collab with SU where after 2 years you'd get your graduate degree and your masters. The position came with a "full scholarship" which was really a joke of 9k yearly stipend and no housing (let's just say you ain't going to live in London out of 9k a year, no matter how stingy you are) combined with some dumbass background check paperwork that you would have to validate in London in person even before applying for the position (this is back in 2003, quite pre-you can do everything online).

I spent 6 grand traveling for paperwork even before I applied for the position. My yearly living expenses were nearly in 17-18k range (probably more with the occasional trips to the US). I couldn't get a job on my own time as I had no time...I'd do 3 to 4 hours of classes a day, on top in my final year I'd be teaching/giving training for 2-3 hours a day then spend 6 to 9 hours in the lab or doing field work.

Before graduating I was already hired in a junior position with a major European company in my field.

Now there are 2 stories I can tell here.

I'm a kid of an upper middle class family of diplomats and dual US-EU citizen, who spent most of his childhood in various private preparatory schools, where I was a pretty decent student, tho not quite MIT material, who lucked out on being financially able to join a foreign study program that was a direct pipeline into a good job where you had to work hard and travel a lot but that already put me in the upper middle class before I hit 30, and I get to live in Spain that land of sun, wine, partying, the Mediterranean.

Or I can tell this story.

I'm a middle class kid of government workers, who was a good student which allowed me to get into a full scholarship foreign study program that lead me to a good job, where I spent the first 3 years doing field work, mining, dredging, construction in remote areas working month long shifts in nearly a dozen different countries which finally allowed me to get into a decent C level job in Spain.

See, the two stories are very different.

So whenever you're being fed one of these rags to riches bootstraps billionaire stories...there's typically some creative framing there.

[Howel]

saturdays are normal work days for most of companies - especially if someone has his own business. then a lot of people work 7 days a week to grow and expand it.

i do agree that 70 hours is a stretch and a lot - but 60 hours is easily achievable for anyone . that 6x10 hours. not that much tbh in my eyes. especially if you really like what you do and it gives you satisfaction (and a lot of money ) most small business owners all around world work like that. very often even up to 12 hours a day in initial growing phase to cut expenses on managers etc.

Yeah, but that's when someone owns their own business, something that is not viable for a particularly large part of the population, in a fair bit of industries. And even an entrance into one, is not an assured grand pay off. As I noted, it is not even that much, if one takes into account that the same work hours, with overtime, would actually net you more. So it is a lot of work, with limited pay off; it looks good on paper that it is a fair bit of cash, but it is ultimately a lot of labour being sold at a mediocre price.
And also, 60 hours, at 12.5 dollars (which again, is a bit above average), is 3k a month. That's again, not exactly particularly well off.

the reason for 40 hours work week is a bit different then you think but i cba to explain it.

No please indulge me, I am very interested to hear your take on it.

[JohnBrown1917]

The 40 hour work week has nothing to do with the power unions held back in the day, nope, not at all.

[Krakan]

What does it mean to be human?

To struggle overcome and carve your own place in the world.

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Are you suggesting that there are more people than there are jobs? AND as a result the market cannot furnish everyone thus the government should pay people?
You better watch yourself you're running dangerously close to speaking a communism

I never said anything about the government paying people. Eventually equilibrium will happen sooner or later as it always has and likely always will barring some yet unseen boon.

[PACOX]

There not and are extremely replaceable to the point there are hundreds of applications for each of their jobs in most cases and it requires extremely little training to replace them.

Youre lack of empathy is disturbing.
You will find hundreds of applicants for any position. Actually you may find even less for these positions because no one wants to be overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated.