Is the US a dystopia?

Lock it up

Just like we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 12, 2024

https://theweek.com/business/economy/gen-z-work-child-labor

Thousands of teens are revitalizing the part-time job market. It is a significant shift for Gen Z, with an increasing number of them seeking after-school and summer jobs, "reversing a trend of forgoing work when millennials were teens," The Washington Post said in a recent analysis.

"You know, in the last year or two, they've really helped keep the service sector going," said Abha Bhattarai, economics analyst for the Post, to Marketplace. Several restaurant owners told her that if it were not for the influx of teens working for them, "they just would have had to shut down by now."

Still, this galvanizing employment trend seemingly has an underbelly, as the recent boost in child labor law violations highlights.

last line made me lol, what a country!

Keeping them at work under the watchful eye of bosses is the only way to protect them from classroom groomers and adrenochrome harvesters.

my state's rolled back a bunch of controls and 16 year old grocery store cashiers can sell liquor again

yet there's a dark side to this dark underbelly

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/12/immigrant-child-laborers-killed-factories-osha

also their skin has a tough, sour flavour when cooked, some theorise that heavy vaping is to blame

Still, this galvanizing employment trend seemingly has an underbelly, as the recent boost in child labor law violations highlights.

That's the most coldly evil sentence I've read in a news story in a while.

Hmm. In my world, children cannot (and probably should not) get jobs. The jobs that teenagers used to do (mowing, shoveling, burger-flipping, golf caddying, retail cashiering) now go to adults who need them to feed families.

(Which is itself troubling enough.)

Paper routes

I had a paper route, it was awful - I was classified as an 'independent contractor' and had to buy my own rubber bands and plastic bags, and do the collections

Pretty sure I was making about ninety-one cents an hour, if that

I'm not quite sure what you're saying YMP, but:

At least 250,000 more teenagers are now working compared to before the pandemic, part of a gradual but consequential shift that is boosting employment at restaurants and stores, and changing cultural norms. In all, 37 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds had a job or were looking for one last year, the highest annual rate since 2009, according to Labor Department data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/21/teen-jobs-pandemic-wages/

"looking for one" is a bit squishy, but children/teenagers can and do get jobs

Yeah, it was a shit job, but now it's all done by adults. At least they don't have to go door-to-door to collect anymore.

I hear there's big money to be made in print journalism

I had a paper route too and I liked it, outside of having to get up early on Sundays. getting a bunch of tips on Christmas would be awesome too like suddenly I'd have $200

they wanted us to deliver samples of random products, mostly cleaning stuff. I always just gave 'em all to my Mom, lol

the collection thing *did* suck but luckily everyone in my neighborhood was nice. some of these folks fell so far behind though

Lol jimbeaux, you say that as if newspapers still exist.

I never had a paper route but was definitely carrying golf bags at 12, bussing tables at 13, laying out newspapers at 15, waiting tables at 16, selling clothes at 18... I have worked constantly since 1981.

But my children? We just spent a week on a single camp-counselor application and the idea of McDonald's (or whatever) seems like a non-starter.

Rob, I'm not sure what I'm saying either (apart from what I have already said). But it is a different employment landscape now, and I don't think that is a controversial statement.

Lol jimbeaux, you say that as if newspapers still exist.

I have a friend that helps his day by delivering NYT print edition, but it's mostly to stores, not to individual residences

We still get the daily paper, and I get my wife the print NYT every Sunday.

When I was working at grocery stores from 5PM on everyone working front of house was a high school student, if we needed an adult we’d have to call up a manager from stocking or another department.

I’m terrible at guessing ages but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a grocery store crew that seemed to have anyone I’d assume to be a high school kid.

the Piggly Wiggly here has kids who I think aren't even in high school. I remember seeing one who looked like he was almost my son's age! (my son is 9) he was super nice too! but there's no way he was older than 13!

I had a paper route when I was pretty young — 13 or 14 — but I only lasted a couple of weeks. Getting up at like 5 in the morning to fold all the papers into my delivery bag and then riding my bike all over the place to deliver them? Fuck that shit. I wound up throwing them down the sewer and calling the paper to tell them I quit. Then when I was 15 I got a job at Baskin-Robbins and have been working ever since. One of the greatest times in my adult life was in 2009-2011, when I got fired from Metal Edge magazine because the publisher went out of business, but because of the Great Recession I was able to collect federal unemployment for two straight years. Thanks, Obama! (Seriously. That shit was awesome.)

The pandemic has killed well over a million people in the US. The pandemic stimulus injected considerable amounts of cash into every household in the nation. The federal government's border policy has drastically shifted toward strangling immigration from poor countries. Boomers are aging and retiring.

There's plenty of macro-economic reasons why historically underemployed groups like teens and Blacks are getting jobs at an unusually rapid pace and no surprise that the jobs they're getting are among the shittiest lowest paid ones, or that those jobs are seeing wage increases -- even though the working conditions for those jobs remain as bad as ever.

How all this fits into dystopia is a tangled thread, but... capitalism!

I definitely started working summer jobs and after-school stuff around the age of 11. Nothing “on the books” until I was in high school, but walking the neighbors’ dogs and fetching their papers and mail for them when they were out of town was a sweet and easy gig.

Other than a stretch between January and June '96 and two months in '00 I've held some kind of job since Poppy Bush was prez.

i never had to risk being flayed alive at a meat packing plant.

Aside from the paper routes (I echo unperson's assessment of the job), I got my first actual employment at Burger King when I was 15. Working in fast food is a great way to learn that you are entirely fungible.

but because of the Great Recession I was able to collect federal unemployment for two straight years. Thanks, Obama! (Seriously. That shit was awesome.)

I never got unemployement - I was lucky enough to land a job during the recession, in fact I was the only hire in that department for nearly 18 months. but I had friends who did this and indeed it was pretty awesome - everyone was just hanging out all day, but they had money to do stuff.

I remember cleaning a neighbor's junk-filled yard when I was about ten, spending a couple hours... and getting a shiny fifty cent piece for my trouble (no this was not 1940)

A tender age to learn about worker exploitation

Great Recession unemployment insurance was awesome! Just when you thought it was coming to an end, they'd re-up you... did a lot of day partying, all my buddies were similarly unemployed

lotta people criticized my friends for staying on it so long but it's like come on, they're gonna be paying into this system for 40-50 years, let 'em have it now. and it's not like there was a lot of steady work around. they weren't like...*not* trying to get a job, but they weren't exactly trying to get one either (it was pretty well known which places you could apply to with basically no chance of landing anything)

My GF at the time was like "So... are you even looking for work?" with a frown

I would do under the table odd jobs but I didn't want to jeopardize that sweet federal gravy train

i feel like i've always worked. full time for 40 years or so. i had a paper route for years before i was 16. it kinda sucked and i don't know why i did it that long. i made like no money doing it. i did odd jobs too for whatever money anyone would give me. also, i would wake up early every sunday morning at around 6am and go across the street to the village store and put together all the sunday new york times by hand. they came in bundles of sections back then. you lined up all the sections in order and then it was like an assembly line. a hundred papers took awhile. i would get paid five bucks and two apple turnovers. i smelled like the new york times all day every sunday when i was a kid.

Strangely - I had a few old skateboarding buddies who helped create the Great Recession. They'd all moved down to somewhere in Orange County (I think Laguna Beach or Santa Ana, not sure) and were selling these amazing new mortgages at a very bro Glengarry type office.

"Andy, you want to buy a house? Let's get you into a new home!"
"I don't have any money."
"That's the thing - you don't neeed any money! And you can take loans against the property!"

I think OC was the subprime epicenter for awhile, and then spread all over the place.. I wanted nothing to do with it, but these guys were making bank until it all fell apart

well sheeeit i’m like— and then?

i "worked" more or less off and on from about the age of 14 (minimum legal age, working as a library page) until about... 27, i guess. had a probably-gender-dysphoria-related nervous breakdown in '03, lived with my mom in florida for a couple years, got addicted to benzos at the free clinic, stumbled into a job in '08 that i stuck with for the next eight years, until the company got taken over by a republican grifter who embezzled our raises and ran the company into the ground. i quit, moved to portland on the money from my dad's estate (he'd just died), immediately got a professional job, and i've been hanging on there ever since. the current company i'm at has been taken over by grifters who are running the company into the ground (i think they're at least democrats, though i could be wrong on that), but i don't really got anywhere else to go right now. my friends are either losing their jobs left and right, no explanation given, "right to work", nobody has to give one, or else grimly hanging on to meaningless and/or outright evil work. my workplace has paid for three month-long intensive outpatient mental health programs and three six-week programs of transcranial magnetic stimulation during the time i've been there. i guess it's starting to be routine - when my short-term disability gets replenished from last year, it's time to go into another intensive outpatient program. right now i'm doing a six month DBT program, not full-fidelity but closer than most people can get. occasionally i apply to jobs at different places, but the people who work there say that work there is awful as well. it's hard to say for sure. i used to feel like i was racing against time, that if i just held on until things changed that it'd be ok, that at some point it would be obvious enough that shit wasn't working that _somebody_ would have to do _something_, but i got tired of living my life waiting for things to somehow miraculously get better. maybe this is the best things get from now on. if it is, i guess i'm ok with that.

(the MH outpatient programs and the TMS weren't particularly related to my being trans, FWIW)

I got fired from a restaurant after they figured out I was using stolen manager codes to void off $50-100 every night, thankfully that had given me enough cushion that I got to spend almost four months drunk and unemployed before I got another job as a server.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2024/02/28/school-districts-giving-police-access-to-security-cameras-surveillance/72620671007/

Two of Arizona's largest school districts have decided to give police access to their surveillance systems.

Peoria Unified and Mesa Unified school districts recently approved agreements to grant local police departments access to live school camera feeds during emergencies.

The districts say the partnerships will help police better respond to emergencies by allowing them to immediately locate threats, medical emergencies, large fights or active shooters.

They also say it will help police departments respond appropriately to false alerts or situations that have already been diffused.

"In the world we live in, where we never know what's around the corner," said Allen Moore, Mesa Unified School District's safety and security director. "We just wanted them to have the best tools available so that they can respond with the proper amount of officers and resources."

Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers to Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts
https://www.404media.co/amazon-amazen-workingwell-savoring/ (free subscription link)

Amazon is telling workers to close their eyes and dream of being somewhere else while they’re standing in a warehouse. A worker in one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers, who we’ve granted anonymity, sent 404 Media a photo they took of a screen imploring them to try “savoring” the idea of something that makes them happy—as in, not being at work, surrounded by robots and packages.

Step 1. Amazon executive hears from warehouse managers that workers are unhappy, gripe a lot to each other and are hard to retain.

Step 2. Amazon executive decides to hire a psychology consultant to combat the "unhappiness problem".

Step 3. Consultant visits some Amazon warehouses, interviews workers, observes the fung shui.

Step 4. Consultant delivers a 153 page report on their findings with 14 recommendations for changes and improvements to raise employee morale, then invoices Amazon for $145,000.

Step 5. Amazon executive convenes a meeting where the recommendations are discussed over catered lunch and 6 of the recommendations are adopted, with another 5 table for later consideration.

Step 6. Memos are sent to warehouse managers, along with Powerpoints for employee training. In accordance with the 6 morale-boosting changes: break rooms are repainted in cheerful colors new vending machines are installed, the first aid supply stations are now to be unlocked and freely accessible, and employees are urged to think happy thoughts. Managers can't implement the other two for lack of budget.

I hope the US collapses.

It's a common saying: You do the crime, you do the time. But when people are released from prison, freedom is fragmented. It marks the start of new hardships, impacting families and communities.

Part of that is due to a Florida law many people are unaware of, further punishing second-chance citizens, preventing them from truly moving on.

It's called "pay-to-stay", charging inmates for their prison stay, like a hotel they were forced to book. Florida law says that cost, $50 a day, is based on the person's sentence. Even if they are released early, paying for a cell they no longer occupy, and regardless of their ability to pay.

Not only can the state bill an inmate the $50 a day even after they are released, Florida can also impose a new bill on the next occupant of that bed, potentially allowing the state to double, triple, or quadruple charge for the same bed.

Critics call it unconstitutional. Shelby Hoffman calls it a hole with no ladder to climb out.

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/pay-to-stay-florida-inmates-charged-for-prison-cells-long-after-incarceration

Damn, this is a soulless law.

jesus, and i cannot stress this enough, fucking christ. what a hellhole this country is.

Within three years, when applying for the exemption to work in case management, her dream job is when Hoffman found out that she — like thousands of others — still owes the state $50 a day for the seven years of her original sentence: $127,750.

not to detract from that evil shit but how about this evil shit

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/23/tennessee-bill-concealed-handguns-schools-teachers-staff/73431609007/

Armed teachers, who will be required to undergo training that some opponents have argued is not intensive enough, will be allowed to carry handguns in their classrooms and most campus situations without informing parents and most of their colleagues that they're armed.

and just staying on tennessee for a minute

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tennessee-would-criminalize-helping-minors-get-abortions-under-bill-heading-to-governor/ar-AA1nBqUR

Tennessee is poised to become the second state in the nation to make it illegal for adults to help minors get an abortion without parental consent, a proposal that is likely to face immediate legal challenges should Gov. Bill Lee sign it into law.

Passing those two bills back to back took special gall because the abortion one was sold as a "parental rights" bill — saving parents from having other people take their minor children to have abortions — but the armed-teachers one includes a whole section on confidentiality ensuring that parents have no way to find out which school employees are packing heat or even which schools have armed employees. And they had to clear a whole gallery of enraged moms chanting "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS" just so the House could vote. "Parental rights" is a fungible concept.

I believe the Tennessee state legislature is actually really fucking deranged. Like literally. They are completely off the reservation.

I used to be like well, at least we’re not Alabama and Mississippi. But now we are

next you know they'll be deporting people to rwanda

Most teachers I wouldn’t worry about them having guns aside from incompetence but there were a couple who strike me as potential problems on their own. The Vietnam vet who trapped a wasp and then proceeded to cut it up on his desk…