http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070808_1_A1_hTheg88837
Personal income in Tulsa has risen dramatically in the last two years. The raw data can be found here:
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/mpi/mpi_newsrelease.htm
2004: $32,694
2005: $34,685 (6%)
2006: $37,564 (8.3%)
That puts Tulsa in the top 20% for Metro area personal income. Perhaps more importantly, that puts us at #13 overall for fastest income growth (top 10, considering #1-4 are Katrina area's opening back up for business).
Oklahoma city does fairly well also cracking the top 30% (lots of government jobs means no bust, but no boom either).
The data also presents total area income (non per capita). The winner: NYC msa at $910 BILLION, second was LA with $500 Billion. Tulsa has $33 Billion (#55), OKC $41 Billion (#46).
For some comparison (total income, per capita):
Salt Lake City: $36B, $34K
Omaha: $32B, $39K
Des Moines: $21B, $39K
Albuquerque: $26B, $32K
If the boom keeps running like it has the last 2 years, we will be comfortably inside the top 15% and on the verge of cracking the top 10% for personal income (average income growth was 4.6%, we top that by 3.7 percentage points - or 80% faster).
Overall a great picture for the nation, and a better picture for Tulsa!
But...but...but, according to KFAQ, Tulsa sucks.
Sheesh Cannon, you are always the conveyor of such horrible news. When are you going to quit telling us the economy doesn't suck?
Okay, I'm turning over the floor to the "glass-half-empties"
Wow. Good analysis cf. I'm not surprised at the rate of growth because this sample begins just as we were emerging from that big slump.
But, wow. Per capita income is 66th out of 363 metros? That's a good showing. Our neighbors and other cities of interest:
Kansas City - 62nd
Dallas - 45th
Houston - 30th
Oklahoma City (noted previously) - 103rd
Lawton - 214th
Lawrence - 224th
Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers - 268th
Fort Smith - 309th
Springfield, MO - 270th
Austin-Round Rock, TX - 82nd
Wichita - 83rd
I presume that the higher the per capita income ranking, the more disposable income per person.
quote:
Originally posted by Chicken Little
I presume that the higher the per capita income ranking, the more disposable income per person.
That might not be entirely true. Some cities that have higher incomes may have less disposable income due to the cost of living. One would have to compare these #'s to the cost of living charts to make that determination, but there is more than likely some correlation to it. It would be interesting to see how far down NYC gets knocked taking cost of living into account.
Anyway, download the data (or cut and paste) and you can run some interesting figures in Excel (or open office calculator).
- - -
Another interesting note, some cities that appear to have more money when visiting - do not. OKC (in the selected tourist areas), Albuquerque, and SLC all seem to be rich havens of perfect parks, well maintained streets, and pretty public places. Perhaps I just have a more holistic (wholeistic?) view of Tulsa since I'm not just at tourist places?
from crazee Cramer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU
yep....you have less than 1% of Tulsa's population catapulted into the gazillions from oil going strataspheric and oh my, everyone's all of a sudden better off....right Reagon...er, TulsaWhirled.
I won't be conned into believing this even if it is PGA weak.
And there it is, Weeeeeeeee!
Do the averages, there are nearly 900,000 people in the MSA. If 10 of them each made an additional $10,000,000 - it raises the average $111. The number of people making $1mil a year in Tulsa is small. The number making $10mil is much, much smaller. Of those, the possibility of making an ADDITIONAL 10mil a year is even less likely. And even then, it doesnt touch the outcome of the statistics.
What is more likely, everyone doing better or that 10 people each made an additional $300,000,000.00 each (see above for the ridiculousness of that statement)? It must be depressing assuming everything is negative news. I'll stick with the law of averages as well as the metro unemployment, census, and income data. You throw on a tinfoil hat and shout NAY!
What's more; so what if we have a few new billionaires in town and no one else gained a thing. How would that be bad news for Tulsa? Everyone knows how horrible our current resident billionaire, George Kaiser, is for the community. Certainly they wont support your precious over priced little stores, restaurants, or art dealers. Nope, rich people horde money and try to make they don't spend it in the community so no one else can benefit.
Keep in mind, $300mil a year makes you a BILLIONAIRE in 3 years - given decent investments. So Tulsa should have 11 times the Billionaires by the end of this year (we have 1, get 10 more). Which would put Tulsa in the 10 cities in the world for Billionaires. Between Tokyo and Paris. Certainly good news!
Then again, those damn billionaires are always scheming to blot out the sun and what not to benefit their nuclear power plants. At least in your world.
/back on topic, sry for the regression.
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
from crazee Cramer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU
yep....you have less than 1% of Tulsa's population catapulted into the gazillions from oil going strataspheric and oh my, everyone's all of a sudden better off....right Reagon...er, TulsaWhirled.
I won't be conned into believing this even if it is PGA weak.
And they're off!
Go Aox, where are you doubleA, calling Shadows, ONWARD BLOGGERS! Get that Tulsa Blows bandwagon going!
The article states that manufacturing jobs were up too. Also the "BEA" shows that "earnings by place of work" increased.
http://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/action.cfm
Earnings of persons employed in Tulsa increased from $19,939,610* in 2004 to $21,400,137* in 2005, an increase of 7.3 percent. The 2004-2005 state change was 6.4 percent and the national change was 5.6 percent. The average annual growth rate from the 1995 estimate of $12,184,450* to the 2005 estimate was 5.8 percent. The average annual growth rate for the state was 5.7 percent and for the nation was 5.5 percent.
They also have stats that break everything down into types of jobs, industries, etc.
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
$18+per hour average wage, while many are working for the minimum wage. Such facts on the reversed side of the page must list reasons for illegal's.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
$18+per hour average wage, while many are working for the minimum wage. Such facts on the reversed side of the page must list reasons for illegal's.
Like other places dont have people working for minimum wage? If you dont want to work for minimum wage go to school. I just saw on the news where a company is trying to fill welding positions and is having a hard time getting enough people. They are paying people to go to school, one company is paying people to learn in house. If you want to increase your income, one way is to go to college. Need I lay out all the stats that show how much a persons income increases from, non high school grad, to associates, to bachelors, etc.? Think someone is going to get rich if they are a high school drop out or dont have any schooling above that? They are going to be working at grocery stores and mc donalds etc. and be poor. We finally have some public colleges here and a great Jr College that is continually growing. Sounds like good news getting better. Lots of trends are pointing up. Everything and everyone isnt going to be perfect all at once. Thats not how it works.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
$18+per hour average wage, while many are working for the minimum wage. Such facts on the reversed side of the page must list reasons for illegal's.
Lose the tinfoil hat, grab a calculator:
- There are 900,000 people in the metro statistical area.
- The city employees 4,000 people
With an increase from 34,685 to 37,564 for average wage, EACH city employee would have to earn an additional [((37564-34685)900000)/4000] $647,775.00 per year.
Did my garbage man recently get a $620,000.00 raise no one told me about?
- - - - -
And you do not need to go to college to make a good living.
Welder's do pretty well. Truck Drivers average $50K. Crane Operators can easily earn in excess of $70,000 a year. If you're willing to travel, go do some pipeline work over seas or in the gulf and rack in $100,000. Of course, at any of those jobs you would actually have to show up daily, be on time, and work your butt off as you perfect your skill.
Its a labor market. Get something to sell be it educational level, skill, or proven reliability. Then you'll make more money.
I think that since the passage of bill #1804 that clamps down on the hiring of illegal aliens the wages started to go up. There is a direct connection between illegal workers and low wages. Not only is Oklahoma bill #1804 a good thing, but it'll open up more jobs for U.S. citizens. That's my take on the subject. Employers now would rather hire someone who's legal than risk heavy fines and perhaps jail time by hiring illegals to save some money. Also when you hire illegals you have no idea who they are or what their background is or even if the name they use is real. They could have long criminal backgrounds and there's no way to check that.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
Come on shadows...please explain why you hate government and especially city workers?
I keep asking and you don't ever explain.
quote:
Originally posted by sauerkraut
I think that since the passage of bill #1804 that clamps down on the hiring of illegal aliens the wages started to go up. There is a direct connection between illegal workers and low wages. Not only is Oklahoma bill #1804 a good thing, but it'll open up more jobs for U.S. citizens. That's my take on the subject. Employers now would rather hire someone who's legal than risk heavy fines and perhaps jail time by hiring illegals to save some money. Also when you hire illegals you have no idea who they are or what their background is or even if the name they use is real. They could have long criminal backgrounds and there's no way to check that.
Yes, and Tulsa needs more quality running trails, like Omaha. [:D]
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
And there it is, Weeeeeeeee!
Do the averages, there are nearly 900,000 people in the MSA. If 10 of them each made an additional $10,000,000 - it raises the average $111. The number of people making $1mil a year in Tulsa is small. The number making $10mil is much, much smaller. Of those, the possibility of making an ADDITIONAL 10mil a year is even less likely. And even then, it doesnt touch the outcome of the statistics.
What is more likely, everyone doing better or that 10 people each made an additional $300,000,000.00 each (see above for the ridiculousness of that statement)? It must be depressing assuming everything is negative news. I'll stick with the law of averages as well as the metro unemployment, census, and income data. You throw on a tinfoil hat and shout NAY!
What's more; so what if we have a few new billionaires in town and no one else gained a thing. How would that be bad news for Tulsa? Everyone knows how horrible our current resident billionaire, George Kaiser, is for the community. Certainly they wont support your precious over priced little stores, restaurants, or art dealers. Nope, rich people horde money and try to make they don't spend it in the community so no one else can benefit.
Keep in mind, $300mil a year makes you a BILLIONAIRE in 3 years - given decent investments. So Tulsa should have 11 times the Billionaires by the end of this year (we have 1, get 10 more). Which would put Tulsa in the 10 cities in the world for Billionaires. Between Tokyo and Paris. Certainly good news!
Then again, those damn billionaires are always scheming to blot out the sun and what not to benefit their nuclear power plants. At least in your world.
/back on topic, sry for the regression.
What animal makes the sound weee??? Pretty offensive.
Man, do you know how to exagerate.
Kaiser and the other generous people in his circle are amazing citizens.
I am speaking about the ones who need a hand up....
Sitting in limbo and waiting for the trickle down theory to kick in for the %99.
I have a copy of "How to Lie with Statistics"
you need to read, Cannon Fodder!
The axman cometh.
Per capita or personal income that is discussed here is not the same as median income. It is the income received by all persons from all sources. The sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts.
Therefore, the rich may be getting a lot richer while those middle and low income folks are losing ground. There is more data that needs to be taken into account - such as median income to get a better pictures. I don't have those figures handy but I'll look for them. I don't think it is as rosy as you think. Consider the following:
"Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.
The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, compared to nearly $9,000 in 2005.
"These findings show that the wealth gap is increasing steadily," said Stafford, a senior research scientist at ISR and director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging."
Shocking, isn't it?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm
"....Per capita or personal income that is discussed here is not the same as median income. It is the income received by all persons from all sources. The sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts...."
The statistics the BEA put out has categories for all of those and has taken them into account. You can look up each group within a group and see that, from what I can tell, most have gone up and more than average for the Tulsa area.
quote:
Originally posted by sauerkraut
I think that since the passage of bill #1804 that clamps down on the hiring of illegal aliens the wages started to go up. There is a direct connection between illegal workers and low wages. Not only is Oklahoma bill #1804 a good thing, but it'll open up more jobs for U.S. citizens. That's my take on the subject. Employers now would rather hire someone who's legal than risk heavy fines and perhaps jail time by hiring illegals to save some money. Also when you hire illegals you have no idea who they are or what their background is or even if the name they use is real. They could have long criminal backgrounds and there's no way to check that.
Sauer,
Re-check that. These are income figures for 2006. HB 1804 happened earlier this year and has no bearing on it as such. I would imagine most figures are harvested from IRS stats post 4/15.
Given that most, if not all, illegals don't file a return, that won't skew the statistics unless it is taken strictly from W-2 data filed with the IRS by employers.
I have not had time to peruse the entire report, and am relying on the summarized stats from the newswires and our esteemed contributor CF.
There aren't enough American citizens to do the kinds of jobs that illegal immigrant labor is doing in Oklahoma. I promise you major ag companies in the state are doing all they can to expedite some visas for their workers. Either that, or they are counting on the verification system for immigration to be so effed up they can still claim ignorance like they have been for years when they employ illegal immigrants with bogus documents.
Oklahoma is essentially at what statisticians in call full employment. Based on the number of blue collar jobs available on any given day before 1804, I'd venture to say there was already a shortage of workers. There's been a such a shortage of skilled blue collar workers for the last couple of years that those wages are now inching up to the $40 to $50K range.
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Per capita or personal income that is discussed here is not the same as median income. It is the income received by all persons from all sources. The sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts.
Therefore, the rich may be getting a lot richer while those middle and low income folks are losing ground. There is more data that needs to be taken into account - such as median income to get a better pictures. I don't have those figures handy but I'll look for them. I don't think it is as rosy as you think. Consider the following:
"Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.
The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, compared to nearly $9,000 in 2005.
"These findings show that the wealth gap is increasing steadily," said Stafford, a senior research scientist at ISR and director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging."
Shocking, isn't it?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm
Hold the phone a second here. You are interjecting an article about net worth into a discussion on income. Big difference. We are talking about what people earn, you are citing an article which isn't even relevant to the discussion. Net worth is what people save, or what assets they own vs. what they owe.
On to your article. I stopped reading the article right here:
"The analysis of a nationally representative sample of approximately 8,000 families was conducted by Stafford and ISR economist
Elena Gouskova."I was going to spout off something to the effect of: "Lemme guess you are a registered Democrat..." but your posts on the latest immigration thread don't sound like they're out of the DNC talking points so I'll cut you a little slack.
Consider the source. Elena Gouskova? Hmmm, wonder what sort of economy and society she grew up in? Wonder if she's ever read any of Marx's works? Maybe a good bedtime reader like "Communist Manifesto"? This whole article sounds like class envy to me.
The author of study, author of the article who took five or six paragraphs to finally get to the "not-so-bad" part of the story, and people who are taken in by such clap-trap to insinuate that the top 2% in net worth are evil need to stop for a second and realize that those top 2% provide a lot of jobs and income for the remaining 98% of us. They do this either via their direct involvement in a business or multiple direct or indirect investments in businesses. As well, their tax dollars provide a living for a lot of people on the government payroll and food and housing for those who cannot work or who aren't industrious enough to work.
Morbid curiosity got the best of me and I finally continued reading the article. It brings forth the following:
The results of net worth declining have a lot to do with more permissive lending practices toward groups of people who were traditionally considered kryptonite to the credit industry up to the mid-'80's: high school drop-outs, minorities, short job time, short residence time, recent bankruptcy, etc.
One of the biggest reasons for the decline in personal net worth is lack of common sense on the part of consumers. It's no reflection on earnings, but rather a reflection on spending. This is exascerbated by aggressive marketing by retailers which includes in-house financing serviced by third-party lenders, and a mentality with lenders which has allowed people to indulge their own stupidity in deciding to borrow for wants and needs rather than needs only.
I hate to smack a newbie in the face, but some people just seem determined to mine bad news out of good.
quote:
Originally posted by sauerkraut
I think that since the passage of bill #1804 that clamps down on the hiring of illegal aliens the wages started to go up...
The statistics are for years 2005 and 2006. The bill was passed in 2007.
Ergo, it had no effect on the numbers.
quote:
Ax said:
What animal makes the sound weee??? Pretty offensive.
Squirrels do:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee
I thought everyone on the internet knew that.
quote:
Man, do you know how to exagerate [sic].
I ran the numbers, that's all. When you are dealing with "average" income it takes into account everyone. So the wealth of a few individuals has little effect on the bottom line. I exaggerated nothing.
quote:
I have a copy of "How to Lie with Statistics"
you need to read, Cannon Fodder!
Show me where I lied. Then explain, in detail, how this could possibly be bad news.
"BOk buys Bank of America" - So much for having a local bank.
"Mayor Taylor donates fortune to city" - Its not even a full billion.
"Tulsans are richer" - most arent rich enough.
"The sun is shining" - not in my world.
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
quote:
Originally posted by sauerkraut
I think that since the passage of bill #1804 that clamps down on the hiring of illegal aliens the wages started to go up. There is a direct connection between illegal workers and low wages. Not only is Oklahoma bill #1804 a good thing, but it'll open up more jobs for U.S. citizens. That's my take on the subject. Employers now would rather hire someone who's legal than risk heavy fines and perhaps jail time by hiring illegals to save some money. Also when you hire illegals you have no idea who they are or what their background is or even if the name they use is real. They could have long criminal backgrounds and there's no way to check that.
Sauer,
Re-check that. These are income figures for 2006. HB 1804 happened earlier this year and has no bearing on it as such. I would imagine most figures are harvested from IRS stats post 4/15.
Given that most, if not all, illegals don't file a return, that won't skew the statistics unless it is taken strictly from W-2 data filed with the IRS by employers.
I have not had time to peruse the entire report, and am relying on the summarized stats from the newswires and our esteemed contributor CF.
There aren't enough American citizens to do the kinds of jobs that illegal immigrant labor is doing in Oklahoma. I promise you major ag companies in the state are doing all they can to expedite some visas for their workers. Either that, or they are counting on the verification system for immigration to be so effed up they can still claim ignorance like they have been for years when they employ illegal immigrants with bogus documents.
Oklahoma is essentially at what statisticians in call full employment. Based on the number of blue collar jobs available on any given day before 1804, I'd venture to say there was already a shortage of workers. There's been a such a shortage of skilled blue collar workers for the last couple of years that those wages are now inching up to the $40 to $50K range.
Yes but that will also mean that the numbers for the coming years will be even higher with much of the illegal work force gone. Wages will be up for 07-2008 and beyond. As for not having enough people or workers that's an old myth. We have abled bodied people on welfare, remember, what will happen if we let in alot of "guest" workers because we don't have enough workers today and the economy tanks and goes south in the future? Those "guest" workers will not go back home. The ecomony runs on cycles of boom & bust. In bust years you don't want all sorts of foreign people, or illegal aliens looking for jobs when U.S. Citizens are out of work.
Sauer,
I don't know how things are in your neck of the woods in Ohio.
I can say without doubt there are many blue collar and unskilled jobs available in the Tulsa area which are likely two to three times what the annual welfare benefits are locally. Those job openings have been around since before HB 1804. I think Cannon Fodder would back me up since we work in complimentary industries and deal with a lot of the same customers.
Those jobs remain un-filled because no matter what you offer, there's a segment of society who won't put the pork rinds down and get off their broken-down sofa to put in an honest day's work (or to get marketable skills) even if it meant a better lifestyle than they suffer through in abject poverty. Some people are perfectly happy with the gov't providing three hots and a flop, and a carton of generic cigarettes.
There really is sloth in this world, people who would rather settle with an $800 government check instead of working for $1600.
The idea, or should I say "ideal"? of a guest worker program is to bring in and take out ancillary workers to and from the workforce as needed.
Based on the total cluster-**** that our immigration system is now, I hold no hope that the gov't would keep tabs on the guest workers. Only solution is going to be locking down the border and figuring every guest worker who comes in will become a permanent resident.
In all likelihood, if past cycles are still relevant, the economy may head into a cool-down period in the next 5-6 years. Will we ever see the sort of unemployment like we did when we started moving our heavy industry overseas? Not likely.
If the numbers are based soley on 1040 data which would be the only way to measure all personal income, rather than wages which can be harvested from employer W-2 data, then yes, we might actually see the average income figure GO DOWN due to lower paying jobs being taken by people who actually file a 1040.
That is, of course, with the utopian scenario that there are really enough able-bodied people WILLING to take jobs which might come open with a mass exodus of illegal aliens.
It is dang hard to fill an unskilled or semi skilled job at the $12-$15 within a couple years and have the potential to lead to a union position paying up to $70,000 (with on the job training, no degree). Likewise, its dang hard to pay someone more money to work a position that a hard working high school kid can do. Never mind trying to find GOOD labor for any price.
The economy works in boom or bust cycles. But even in our busts we get up to 6-7% unemployment, not bad at all. In any event, we are in the middle of a BOOM cycle and few industries are able to fill their jobs.
From engineering to orange pickers. From welders & crane operators to teachers & nurses. There is a worker shortage in most sectors of the economy. In the past, immigration has been allowed to fill the voids. And in bust years, those immigrants children lost their jobs so they went off and started car companies, steel mills, and even dot com's.
Competition makes the market work. That includes the labor market. Either by freeing up American's to take skilled jobs, or encouraging American's to work harder, better, or get more educated to beat out the immigrants. In any event, the current system does not work for immigrants, employers, or American workers.
and... income is up in Tulsa.
CF....once again, I did not say you lied despite the accusation becoming standard in political debates by cons. I offered up my book to educate you how manipulating statistics can create a lie. It was TulsaWhirled that faulted the info by leaving out the fact you can't have a high standard of living by making $37,000 a year and that the disproportionality of incomes in this city is enormous. But with all the labor leaving and the inflation to set in, that will change some.
Because of the increased viewership this week, there is a desire to give the world a different impression than reality of Tulsa. I am fine with that. It's like the cut back in emissions that all of a sudden our air is better quality this week. Pretty easy to see.
Do not accuse the axman of being a nay sayer. He is a truth teller...
And the axman crappeth.
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
$18+per hour average wage, while many are working for the minimum wage. Such facts on the reversed side of the page must list reasons for illegal's.
By the way, who works for minimum wage anyway? Well, besides kids and people who can't put the bottle or pipe down long enough to work a full shift. Most employers offer raises, although small, to employees after working for a short while. If you work for minimum wage for longer than a couple of months, you probably need to look in the mirror for your problem.
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
And the axman crappeth.
still making personal attacks I see....
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
And the axman crappeth.
(http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/smiley-flush-yellow.gif)
There's sway in your swing....off the topic when you can't counter effectively.
You weren't expecting to find a different Conman were you Axman?
Well, I am one of those who still believes in hope.
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
CF....once again, I did not say you lied despite the accusation becoming standard in political debates by cons. I offered up my book to educate you how manipulating statistics can create a lie.
I have a book called "Why Stupid People are More Likely to be Negative" that you should read. But I'm not saying you are stupid. You called me a liar by implication, if not facially. I'm willing to bet I have a much firmer grasp of statistical analysis than yourself. If you have some desire to puff chests and compare statistical knowledge...
quote:
It was TulsaWhirled that faulted the info by leaving out the fact you can't have a high standard of living by making $37,000 a year
Really? Because people in Tulsa do better than the VAST majority of American cities. Here I thought America had one of the highest standards of living in the world, and a city in the top 20% is apparently full of people living really poorly.
quote:
and that the disproportionality [sic] of incomes in this city is enormous.
Go read the statistics I linked to. There is no more disparity in Tulsa than anywhere. Whats more, there is less disparity in the United States than many places in the world. I believe we have discussed this before and I linked to sources clarifying my view... and as always, you spouted off nonsense and faded away when repeatedly asked to show some support for your theories.
quote:
But with all the labor leaving and the inflation to set in, that will change some.
Labor leaving? I thought the population of Tulsa County was up 17,000 people since the 2000 census. Man, dang government agencies not having as good math skills as the Ax man. In my world, it would seem that there is 12000+ more laborers and still a ridiculously low unemployment level.
quote:
Because of the increased viewership this week, there is a desire to give the world a different impression than reality of Tulsa. I am fine with that. It's like the cut back in emissions that all of a sudden our air is better quality this week. Pretty easy to see.
The Tulsa World did not release those statistics. The numbers are from the BEA and Census Bureau. Why shoot the messenger, its not their fault it wasnt bad news.
quote:
Do not accuse the axman of being a nay sayer. He is a truth teller...
Then this is really a continuously crappy place to live and you should either move away or end it. If you are THAT miserable here and even news that Tulsa is growing income faster than than 95% of the other metro areas somehow translates as bad news - then nothing is going to make you happy.
- - - -
So, in summary:
1) Government Statistics. Not manipulated, not World stats, not made up conspiracy crap. These are the best numbers we will ever get.
2) You have still failed to mention
HOW TULSA'S INCOME RISING FASTER THAN 95% OF METRO AREAS IS BAD NEWS? 3) You still have yet to provide evidence that there is some radical income disparity in Tulsa.
4) You have never shown that the standard of living in Tulsa is below other metro areas.
You may not like statistics. I don't know if you have trouble understanding them, or that they don't tell you what you want to hear, or if having actual data hinders your ability to make crap up. But no matter, the numbers are there and rational people will use the best information available to both form and express their opinions.
It sure beats making stuff up and throwing it on the net. Keep throwing, its bound to stick sometime.
[/quote]
I will not be baited by you CF. I am not into puffery. That's an issue with your personal ego.
Deal with it.
I like pointing out the Whirl on Tulsa from our local monopoly propaganda machine as much as I do pointing out the national hypocracy of our executive branch, justice department, and con gress.
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Well, I am one of those who still believes in hope.
You know the old saying about hope:
"Hope in one hand, **** in the other and see which one fills up faster."
[}:)]
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
I will not be baited by you CF. I am not into puffery. That's an issue with your personal ego.
Deal with it.
Translation: "As always, I have no sources to back up my post and do not know what I am talking about." I'm sorry if you view the understanding of facts as "puffery" or the challenge to back up what you said as baiting. In my world, its called discussion.
quote:
I like pointing out the Whirl on Tulsa from our local monopoly propaganda machine as much as I do pointing out the national hypocracy [sic] of our executive branch, justice department, and con gress [sic].
KRGM, Local ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UTW, TBJ... please lookup the definition of monopoly and get back to me.
Plus,
[THE STATISTICS WERE NOT FROM THE WORLD. How many times do you have to say something before you get it? Hating on statistics accepted by everyone but you doesn't berate the World, it just detracts from any credibility you have left.
If you are at all interested in salvaging yourself and making a point, feel free to answer the questions I asked above. Thus far, you have failed to do anything useful.
You'll notice that aox is disturbing similar to Timmy when it comes to facts and logic...they have no effect on them, in fact, they seem to be completely impervious to them.
(http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/style_emoticons/default/smiley-clean-ears-out.gif)
"Tulsan's are getting richer, quicker."
Which Tulsan's, gentlemen?
Conan, I never heard that old saying.
Did you just conjure that up?
Personal income or per capita income is the sum off all assests for a given group of people in a specific geographic area. This is what the discussion topic is about.
But what I said was accurate. The rich may be getting richer, giving rise to per capita income, while the median and low income are not growing as much, if at all. Just to look at total income for a given group does not give a complete picture of how well people as a whole are doing.
One has to look at median household income to see if it has grown as well as total personal income. The study I used is just one of many out there thats shows the rich are getting richer while the rest are stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Would you like more data? Not a problem for me to find it for you.
The last statistic I saw on median household income wasn't too good for the country as a whole.
In 1967 the median household income was $35,379 and 40 years later it is only 46,326 and has gone down from 1999.
I stand by what I said and believe there is still confusion.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medhhinc.html
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Personal income or per capita income is the sum off all assests for a given group of people in a specific geographic area. This is what the discussion topic is about.
But what I said was accurate. The rich may be getting richer, giving rise to per capita income, while the median and low income are not growing as much, if at all. Just to look at total income for a given group does not give a complete picture of how well people as a whole are doing.
One has to look at median household income to see if it has grown as well as total personal income. The study I used is just one of many out there thats shows the rich are getting richer while the rest are stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Would you like more data? Not a problem for me to find it for you.
The last statistic I saw on median household income wasn't too good for the country as a whole.
In 1967 the median household income was $35,379 and 40 years later it is only 46,326 and has gone down from 1999.
I stand by what I said and believe there is still confusion.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medhhinc.html
Personal income is not the sum of all assets. Personal income is the sum of earnings, not what someone owns. Personal net worth is the sum of what someone owns less their liabilities.
Average income is a fair barometer of how all people are doing. What areas are you citing in respect to median household income? The U.S.?
Cite all you want. But are you wishing to talk about income or net worth?
Helps if you stay on topic with the rest of us otherwise it's too hard to get your point.
In the real world the barter of exchange is what determines the value of the product that is to be purchased such as labor or abstract products.
In quoting that the population of the metro is 900,000 with an average income of $18 per hour, which by using average we include those babies born on yesterday, On the flip side of the coin many of the workers in the Tulsa's private sector, that does not include the AA nor the bus company that are subsidized by many by these working poor and SS recipients by city sales taxes, reach a point where they cannot furnish the services demanded. McDonalds as well as many franchised establishments would like to be able to sell a burger for $10 dollars and hear those in the $37thousnd plus scream. Then add a $2, 00 tips for the one serving the burger to bring their income up to average.
If I am not in error the plastic credit card originated from a Tulsa Bank which would have some effect on the total gross income of the city and area.
The bottom line is dedicated to the devaluing the dollar where if it continues those figures will change where the average income will in another 20 years be increased to $370,000 which reflects the increasing income or the devaluating of the dollar the passing generation now is addressing.
I cannot find in the chronicles where the diplomas ever created the any trade wars.
I do see where the PR's are out well in force.
KAKIE, You will see. THEY are relentless.
It's like trying to nail down Go Go Gonzales.
Reminds me of the reporting in Daytona, Florida during Bike and Speed Weeks. Everything is rosey there in the papers during Bike Week and Speed Week.
However, if you go online and read the reports the week prior to and the week after all the money spenders leave their community you will find a different story. Reports of how the locals hate the Speed and Bike Weeks but love the money flowing into their cash registers.
Speed Weeks, Bike Week, Spring Break, Black College Reunion and Biketoberfest
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en&q=daytona+bike+week+locals+hate+bikers+but+love+money&um=1&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8
Nattering naybobs of negativity...
Still no one has answered the question: how could this be bad news?
And AMP... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
THIS IS NOT THE TULSA WORLD STATISTIC. The World ran the article when the stats come out.
According to the breakdown stats given by the BEA, the median income is up. The average income is up. Every bracket is up.
What the hell counts as good news around here? There is plenty of bad news in the world that we don't need to turn EVERYTHING into negative news. No, the picture is not immaculate. But Tulsa is better off than 297 other metro areas (including OKC, Albuquerque and other cities similar to use) AND has a faster rate of icnome growth.
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
quote:
Originally posted by PreserveSouthTulsa.com
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
Gee that is great. It shows that the city payroll published by the World has greatly increased average incomes..
$18+per hour average wage, while many are working for the minimum wage. Such facts on the reversed side of the page must list reasons for illegal's.
By the way, who works for minimum wage anyway? Well, besides kids and people who can't put the bottle or pipe down long enough to work a full shift. Most employers offer raises, although small, to employees after working for a short while. If you work for minimum wage for longer than a couple of months, you probably need to look in the mirror for your problem.
Actually you would be surprized at how many Tulsa area businesses depend on and pay minimum wage to their employees. Being in the personnel business for over 15 years I serviced dozens of companies that paid their help minimum wage. I recall the $3.35 per hour days that lasted 10 years. We had over 2,000 employees that worked for $3.35 per hour. Many of those worked for the enitre 10 years at the same plant at $3.35, and some are still there working for the increased minimum wage.
Not uncommon for adults to work for minimum wage in this area. I know of several labor halls that still pay minimum wage to many of their workers, because that is all the businesses will pay. Very difficult but not impossible to pay a higher scale than the business you are servicing. We had a few where we did that with their permission, to fufill their needs during crunch times and for seasonal help. We always tried to get them to raise their sites and pay more, but most were very set in their ways.
Still, there are many factory and plant jobs in the Tulsa area that only pay minimum wage today.
It was at one time around 1960 a rule of thumb that a decent hand was worth $1,000 per year times their age. 20 years old $20,000 30 years old $30,000, 40 years old $40,000.
I added up all the hours I worked one week last month, and I only earned $3.20 per hour, and had to travel through three states to earn that! Spent two days planning and recording ads. Spent a half hour renting and returning the rental car. Then drove 1.5 hours to one event in Kansas, worked for 5 hours then drove all night non stop with no sleep another 7.5 hours to an event in Texas and worked from 6am until 7:45pm, and again on Sunday from 5:45am until 6:00pm then drove 6 hours straight home to be in time to return the rental car which takes another 30 minutes between driving there, re-fueling and at spending time at their counter.
If I subtract the $279 Traffic Ticket, with fines and penalty, I received in OKC for going 65 in the 60 MPH zone by Frontier City on I-35 that brings my total hourly earnings down even further.
Wish I earned $5.85 per hour. Guess I am in the wrong industry. LOL
CF, it's bad news because some never want to believe that the fact that they are not as successful as someone else is their own fault. The value of decisions and sacrifices that people make to better their own future is never given any credit..... successful people are ALWAYS successful on the back of some poor sod that has no chance to make the same decisions or sacrifices.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
Still no one has answered the question: how could this be bad news?
And AMP... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
THIS IS NOT THE TULSA WORLD STATISTIC.
The World ran the article when the stats come out.
According to the breakdown stats given by the BEA, the median income is up. The average income is up. Every bracket is up.
What the hell counts as good news around here? There is plenty of bad news in the world that we don't need to turn EVERYTHING into negative news. No, the picture is not immaculate. But Tulsa is better off than 297 other metro areas (including OKC, Albuquerque and other cities similar to use) AND has a faster rate of income growth.
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
=============================================
Hey, I am glad someone is making more money in the past years. Sure is not me, or many folks that I know, but good news that someone is.
One would suspect that people today would need to be earning more money and carrying more cash in their pockets, as most every commodity in sight has skyrocketed in price over the past three years.
I am still waiting to find a loose $10 or $20 bill blowing in the wind considering their is $60 Million being spent in Tulsa this week.
We were trying to test a fax machine we purchased recently and among three of us none of us knew anyone with a home telephone any longer. Not sure if that is a sign of the economic times, or just that most folks have replaced their home phone with a Cricket cell phone today. LOL
I actually was replying to another post above regarding how local newspapers seem to print favorable stories versus bad news when tourists are in their towns. Kind of an Andy of Mayberry type deal I guess.
Did not mean to imply the Tulsa World did exactly that, just speaking of another instance of a few newspapers that have done that. I have read it and seen it in person at Daytona, Florida as I have friends that live and own businesses there, and read their paper online at times, and have been there dozens of times for Bike Weeks.
Most the local business owners near Daytona will tell you they really don't like the Tourist weeks, but they put up with it for the money. Most people tell their friends the truth about how they earn their money, who they really like and what they have to put up with, boss - sugar daddy - customers - colleagues, to get cash. LOL
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
Not uncommon for adults to work for minimum wage in this area.
Not in any industry I am associated with. What industries are these that pay minimum wage?
quote:
Still, there are many factory and plant jobs in the Tulsa area that only pay minimum wage today.
What factory job pays minimum wage? Janitor?
quote:
It was at one time around 1960 a rule of thumb that a decent hand was worth $1,000 per year times their age. 20 years old $20,000 30 years old $30,000, 40 years old $40,000.
In 1960 the median income for the entire country for a male was $30,000. $40,000 would put you in the top 90% of wage earners. Certainly the AVERAGE 40 year old was not in the top 90% of wage earners. I fear you are again remembering the 'good ole' days' as you wish they were.
quote:
I added up all the hours I worked one week last month, and I only earned $3.20 per hour, and had to travel through three states to earn that!
Then get a job at McDonald's. Take up welding, machine operator, tool and die work, truck driver and start earning ~$20 an hour. Hell, a bus driver make $12-15 an hour in Tulsa and they are begging for employees.
Am I just better informed in the job market or does my company and all our customer's just pay off the chart for employees? Is the government data I link to OVER AND OVER showing the average wage by industry wrong and no one told me?
Its insanely frustration to try and discuss something and not have someone care about facts or just come back with "back in my day." Especially when that is easily debunked.
Argh!
/off for a few days. Too frustrating.
I'm trying to figure out where all these crap minimum wage manufacturing jobs are in Tulsa. Especially for a large scale manufacturer. Something's not computing here. My hyperbole monitor is pegged at BS.
I was always amazed at how many business owners paid their help minimum wage also. But, the majority of those that did and most likley still do are still in business and doing good still today.
Not every position at these firms were at minimum wage, but a large portion at many were and still are.
Actually the rule of thumb or the $1,000 per year earnings was given to me last night at dinner by a gentleman that graduated high school in Tulsa in 1957. He told me that is what they were taught in school of their expected earning potential. Of course the Tulsa Public Schools also seemed to of taught people that summer is June through August also.
I won't divluge my entire customer list of over 540 business in the Tulsa metro area that I serviced for over 15 years, but here are a few that I serviced that paid minimum wage.
Three Beverage bottlers, help on the Canned and 2 Liter lines paid $3.35 for 10 years and stil pays minimum wage today.
Three Beverage Bottlers for Merchandisers that brought product from the back of the grocery stores to the shelves. They were paid minimum wage plus mileage and fuel.
Oil and Windshield fluid packaging company on Charles Page Blvd.
Dry Wall mix packaging company off of 71st Street in Broken Arrow.
Four major Moving and Storage firms in Tulsa and Broken Arrow.
Bartlett Collins Glass Factory Sapulpa
Glass Bottle manufacture in Sapulpa
Heat Exchanger plants in West and North Tulsa Rod Busters
Refractory Plant in North Tulsa
Majority of plants at the Port of Catoosa
Pipeline manufactures, pipe handlers, tile warehouse, Re-Bar bender and epoxy coater.
Powder Coating businesses
Chiminy Cover Manufacture
Fence manufacturing company near Mingo
Tile manufacture in Cherokee Industrial Center
Many landscape and asphalt companies
Meat packaging company in Owasso
Pier Drilling company in east tulsa, helpers to shovel dirt away from the hole being drilled.
Most restaurant help for back end including three in Utica Square
Fiberglass Manufacturing plant Sand Springs
Fiberglass Manufacturing plant Tulsa
Large Pipe manufacture in West Tulsa near Union street.
Trucking Company in West Tulsa near the Pipe Manufacture on Union Street. Cleaned Trucks
Cookie and Juice packaging company Tulsa
Fin Tube manufacture in North Tulsa
Many Temp Companies in Tulsa for day labor positions. Various Positions
Dry Wall delivery company on Sheridan. Carrying Drywall
Beer Distribution Companies Warehouse Help
Egg Distribution company Warehouse Help
Wal Mart - We had 250 people working at three stored as cashiers, janitors and stocking shelves at night. All for minimum wage.
Tulsa County Labor Bid was at minimum wage for 15 plus years, and most likely still is today. Shirlees Temporary Personnel had it prior to when I got it and I had the bid for 12 years at minimum wage. Can go out to quote to the 3 lowest bidders for skilled positions.
Tulsa Public Schools Labor Bid minimum wage for most positions. Can go out to quote to the 3 lowest bidders for skilled labor.
Amusement Parks and Entertainment businesses.
I have a degree in Welding Processes, and an associate's degree in Metal Fabrication. I am a proficient MIG and TIG welder and weld both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. I have operated CNC Mills, Radial Arm Drills, Mechanical Engine Lathes and Mills, Valve Grinding Machines, Boring Bars, Hones and other machines.
I worked as lead mechanic then as Service Manager and later Sales Manager for 14 years at a large 2,000 unit per year motorcycle dealership. I worked for 15 years in the personnel industry, and for 4 years in the telecommunications industry.
I have fabricated my own parts, built my own engines, ridden and campaigned Kawasaki Pro Stock and Funny Bike Nitro Fuel burning motorcycles, won a few Regional and National events and set a couple of records in doing so. Built a few shortrack motorcycles, one took the the points championship for the past three years in two sanctions.
I also have a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. And I have completed 100 hours of professional Sandler Presidents Club Sales Training courses at the Sandler Sales Institute.
I took the courses in Welding eight years ago when I was supplying welders to industrial firms in Tulsa. I enjoyed welding so much I purchased a MIG and a TIG welder and an Oxy Acetylene torch kit.
I have fabricated motorcycle and personal water craft trailers, built ornamental iron tables and chairs and gates. We had a business that manufactured trailers for five years.
One can never have enough education.
For the past nine years I have run my own business and do contract consulting and work for vairious clients in motorsports. Earnings versus enjoying what one does and having freedom of running ones own business are a trade off. Plus the market dictates growth and production of most manufacturing firms. I will trade off higher paying gigs and productions for ones I enjoy doing. I have bid on a few events I was not totally happy with, one was a Monster Truck Show in Texas that we ended up producing but did not make what the work was worth, and turned a few down due to long distance travel. I used to like to travel 65,000 plus miles a year, but now I would rather earn less and stay closer to home base.
It is not all about how much one earns, I have earned well over $75,000 in a year, made over $20,000 in one night and have lost over $30,000 on a single rained on event as well.
It is about finding your center being balanced and being comfortable with yourself. You can wear your body out, joints, vertebrae, nerves and bones, performing too much labor type jobs, and damage your eyes and lungs welding. Then you don't have much of a body left when it come retirement time. LOL
Most things I have found are a trade off.
Gota take the pleasure with the pain.
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Personal income or per capita income is the sum off all assests for a given group of people in a specific geographic area. This is what the discussion topic is about.
But what I said was accurate. The rich may be getting richer, giving rise to per capita income, while the median and low income are not growing as much, if at all. Just to look at total income for a given group does not give a complete picture of how well people as a whole are doing.
One has to look at median household income to see if it has grown as well as total personal income. The study I used is just one of many out there thats shows the rich are getting richer while the rest are stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Would you like more data? Not a problem for me to find it for you.
The last statistic I saw on median household income wasn't too good for the country as a whole.
In 1967 the median household income was $35,379 and 40 years later it is only 46,326 and has gone down from 1999.
I stand by what I said and believe there is still confusion.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medhhinc.html
Personal income is not the sum of all assets. Personal income is the sum of earnings, not what someone owns. Personal net worth is the sum of what someone owns less their liabilities.
Average income is a fair barometer of how all people are doing. What areas are you citing in respect to median household income? The U.S.?
Cite all you want. But are you wishing to talk about income or net worth?
Helps if you stay on topic with the rest of us otherwise it's too hard to get your point.
"Personal income is the income received by all persons from all sources. Personal income is the sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts. Net earnings is earnings by place of work (the sum of wage and salary disbursements (payrolls), supplements to wages and salaries, and proprietors' income) less contributions for government social insurance, plus an adjustment to convert earnings by place of work to a place–of–residence basis. Personal income is measured before the deduction of personal income taxes and other personal taxes and is reported in current dollars (no adjustment is made for price changes).
Per capita personal income is calculated as the personal income of residents of a given area divided by the resident population of the area. In computing per capita personal income, BEA uses the Census Bureau's annual midyear population estimates."
Taken directly from the source used in the first post. You just need to read the report thoroughly.
Okay AMP. I call BS.
I really get tired of reading posts that make conditions in Tulsa sound like Flint, MI.
I worked at a job in Chicago a few years back doing initial screenings and lots of 2nd telephone interviews of applicants nationwide for all sorts of jobs in many different industries... clerical, industrial, telecomm, trash companies, retail, assembly line, etc... etc... I knew how much starting wage was for the people who work at Masterfoods (M&M/Mars) in southside Chicago compared to Bama workers in Tulsa... never screened applicants for QuikTrip, but I can tell you their wages/payscale/benefits are far better than a certain national convenience store I did screen for...
I screened for companies hiring in cities across the country.
You get a feel for some of these job markets after screening applicant after applicant... I promise you, the job market in Tulsa has been better and closer to "full employment" than most other metro areas across the country. The downside of this was a rather unique subset of applicants in Tulsa who seemed to have an elevated sense of job entitlement. One of them even had the nerve to tell me to skip his interview because he had all the experience needed and to stop wasting his time.... he sounded shocked when I gave him the stock rejection of "Thank you for your interest... if we need additional information, we'll get in touch with you." [}:)]
I remember the $3.35 min wage days. Remember them well. Remember working in the 80s for a temp company called Anybody Anytime which is now Labor Ready, I believe. I remember shoving spot-welded hibachis into boxes all day in 120-degree heat with the only fan close to me shorted-out, and I wasn't even furnished with work gloves. I remember washing dishes at ORU's new City of Faith hospital because they paid over $4 an hour (yay me!).
Perspective, please. Compare the buying power of a minimum wage job in Tulsa versus the buying power of a "livable wage" job in San Francisco after rent/groceries/gas/parking/transit...
If you want to have a political discussion on how the national minimum wage should be higher and include cost of living adjustments, I'm your guy. If somebody wants to talk about the increasing disparity of wealth in this country, count me in. If you want to discuss the alarming consolidation of media in this country in newspapers and the Clear Channel effect on radio, by all means let's talk about it....
but...
THIS IS GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS FOR TULSA!
There's no way to slice it differently.
If you think the world's goin' to he** in a handbasket, could the naysayers here at least look at these stats and compare them to the stats of most other metro areas?
Oh, and when I lived in Indy, the Indianapolis Star liked to run feelgood stories right around the time of the Indy500... why would anyone think the Tulsa World would (or should, for that matter) be any different for the PGA?
Since these stats seem to mean nothing to the naysayers, let me relate personal stories... when I moved to T-town to care for a relative in 2001, unemployment was 2.7%... I applied for six jobs and got offers from five of them... when unemployment doubled the following year, it was still less than the unemployment rate was for Chicago at the time. I made the mistake of not buying a condo/house in the 90s in Chicago before the housing prices skyrocketed. So, I decided a few years ago that I eventually needed to move to a more affordable city...
Looked at Grand Rapids, MI... decided Michigan in general is not a good place to be. Considered moving either to Rochester, NY or Indianapolis with Tulsa running in third place as recently as a year ago. I got cold feet about moving to Rochester due to the job market there... very well educated workforce, many of whom used to work for Kodak and Xerox and were now applying for call center jobs in a very tight job market... I looked at Indianapolis's rejuvenated downtown but chose Tulsa because there were far too many boarded up old homes ringing downtown in Indy-- homes at the price I was looking for but just too much abandoned property (crack houses?)... and Tulsa has more call centers than you can shake a stick at...
Rent for what I was looking for apartment-wise in Tulsa ran close to $100 per mo. less than in Indy and $150 per mo. less than a comparable apt. in Rochester.
A friend of mine came down from Chicago to visit for a week... had never been to this part of the country. When I was driving around town, he immediately noticed the large number of billboards advertising for jobs. He completely surprised me by asking about rentals and housing prices... and took home one of those real estate books from the grocery store... he laughed when I told him when we were in rush hour traffic... talked to me about how a short commute from work to home in Chicago can turn into an hour long driving nightmare... and told me he honestly worried that he'd never be able to buy any kind of house/condo in Chicagoland because the housing market was so messed up...
So, while the naysayers are splitting hairs by questioning the rise in average wages versus median wages... I'd like to point out that the combination of higher wages and low housing prices is positioning Tulsa to gain lots of new people who hopefully will stay longterm/permanently this time around...
Speaking of good ole Dan P Holmes I attened school with his grandson Jeff. He went off to college in I believe it was Missouri. Last I saw him was during college one weekend at his place in Missouri. I had to drive that old Highway to Arkansas a few times, and I always think of Dan when making trips there after the new highway was built.
A big Checkered Flag Salute to Dan P. Holmes !
Perhaps you missed the meaning of my statement. I said that those companies on the list paid minimum wage to the employees we serviced them with, and most paid their own entry level help minimum wage. After probationary times many had a raise schedule in place, but others did not ant the help was always paid minimum wage as long as we serviced those accouts. Many went to $5.00 per hour when the new minimum wage was introduced to avoid pricing and payroll problems when it raised to the $5.15 mark. At that time they were above minimum wage. However with the recent raise to $5.85 the companies that were paying their help $6.00 per hour are now finding themselves with hundreds of emplployees at or near the minimum wage. That is the basis of my statement that there are many adults working for minimum wage today.
We did the same type of business and had the same and similar accounts as you mention. That is the true backbone of Tulsa, the majority of the small and mid size businesses that are homne owned and operated. Nothing fancy, just hard work with no climate controled atmposphere. There are many shops in Tulsa that have no Air Conditioning and have never had any. Lots of Paint and Body, Auto Repair, Fiberglass, Pipe Manufacturing, Steel Fab Shops, Material Handling, Warehouse. And of course landscape, asphalt, roofing and construction jobs. Plus clean up and trash details at major events nnd the Ballpark. Someone has to do those jobs.
Gloves are a presonal item like steel toed boots. Most are not re-usable, therefore considered an item the employee needs to provide. Same as Eye Protection. Most get away with reissue of Hard Hats, they spray them with a disinfectant.
I believe Dave and Paul had gloves and other safety gear for purchase at AA. Most the labor agencies have gloves and other safety equipment for sale, and most will deduct it from your earnings if you ask. Other types of non-personal equipment is typically provided, and not charged for if returned in good condition.
You most likely worked at a company on 2nd Street near Peoria I believe. They made several different products from sheetmetal, and most the pay for the manufacturing and shipping areas was $3.35 per hour at his two plants.
We always did walk throughs and safety inspectiosn prior to sending employees to businesses where I worked. We had a safety consultant that took tours with us and we would not service certain types of businesses and certain departments for specific types of high risk jobs.
Biggest advantege to working Temp Assignments is the ability to leave an assignment if you are not comfortable with it. You should of reported the problem with not having proper gloves / hand protection to your supervisor at the company or asked to use the phone and called the agency.
Other advantages with working Temp Jobs is the ability to try different jobs without having to commit prior to learning the company workings, the ability to obtain a cash advance for every days work and not having to wait up to three weeks for your first partial paycheck. Ability to be hired if it is a temp to perm placement if you meet the criteria of the company and after the amount of time specified by the contract with that company. Ability to get your foot in the door of hundreds of businesses that someone else had scouted out for you in advance.
Many of the mimimum wage types of jobs are revolving door positions. Would not matter if they paid $10 or $15 per hour, not too many people would or could stay there. Like the Lock Box folks that key punch in canceled checks at the banks. Totally boring going no where jobs. So, they mostly pay minimum wage, use temps and have high turnover. There is normally another person seeking a job every day in most markets. At times the orders exceed the manpower, and at other times the manpower exceeds the orders, but the good thing is the inventory is rotated and comes in daily. In hard times the agancies cut back on offices and staff, in good times they grow by opening new offices and adding staff.
Most times the Staffing Industry has a good pluse of the economy in that market, as they are the first to have their inventory returned, and see new orders dropping off. Based on the number of labor offices closed and cut back today, I would say either these are bad times with a lack of orders from businesses, or there is a major lack of inventory, or a combination of both. The trend is specific at times, however by seeing four labor services close up on north sheridan and out by mingo, I would think the labor market is in a slump.
The Staffing Industry holds contests for the best TV ad every year, and the winner one year played the Death March song in the background and had Vikings in a Boat rowing along and sweating. One turned to the other and smiled. The other asked him why on earth was he smiling, this job totally sucks. He replied with a big smile, I am a Temp and I learned this moring I have a new assignment for tomorrow !
The personnel agencies are similar to travel agents. If you find a good one, they can lead you to some very good positions and quickly, depending on your skill level. Especially professional head hunters that thrive on moving people around like a chess board. They unplug someone from company A, plug them into company B, then fill the empty slot at Company A. They rarely create a vacancy at a business they have contracts with, but rely on those that do not do business with them for locating their heads to sell to other businesses seeking that persons skill set, experience and rolodex files. LOL
If the market is as tight as some indicate on this board, it sounds like an ideal time to be in the Head Humter business. May have to check out that portion of the market myself regarding that.
Not all the jobs we filled were at mimimum wage, but many were. Most people do not know the DC-10 design team was made up of several Temporary contract employees. Many CAD/CAM and earilier Draftsmen and Design Engineers worked through contract staffing agencies in those days and still do today on contract basis.
After all, most jobs are Temporary, aren't they? Even the President of the United States has limited terms.
Majority of front and back office medical, legal, clerical and accounting staff work on contracts through staffing services or for PEOs which handle payroll, legals and work comp insurance and claims. Most savvy business owners outsource the majority of their payroll to PEOs and agencies today. Saves them big bucks in legals plus advantage of belonging to a larger group for discounts on medical, dental and vision insurance. And they can keep their core employees white collar portion of their firms in a separate department to allow profit sharing and other perks that they would not be allowed if all employees were in one category.
Sorry you experienced a problem with not having a pair of gloves that day. I know the folks that ran that office, and they were all very considerate and aware of safety needs. Afterall they were paying for your work comp insurance, and a claim affected their modifier on all their hours of all their employees, so it was to their benefit to make sure no one sustained any on job injuries.
Note to others, when working labor jobs it is always wise to carry a pair of gloves, lunch, something to drink, hard hat, safety glasses, and wear steel toed boots when required. Take along sun screen and bug repellant when working outdoors, wear cotton long sleeve shirts and long cotton pants. Always ask the recruiter or dispatcher of what the job entails and what special safety and personal equipment may be needed for the job requirements.
AMP, and how is that so different in other cities or metros? There will always be people working for that areas minimum wage. The article states that this areas average was moving up more than a lot of other areas averages. We know danged well that its not suddenly heaven here, just that we are doing better. Its the direction.
And Rufnex, I hear ya on the low unemployment rate seeming to bring out a sense of entitlement in people around here. Cant personally say anything about how we rate with other places in that respect. But it does seem that people here can too easily blow off a job, move on to another one, or as I have learned while trying to get my studio built and some things done around my house, its next to impossible to get people to even work. They are too busy and cant get to you, I even had a plumbing company at first give me an appt to come by and give a quote, then they didnt make it, then the owner I believe, finally told me that they were plum too busy and wouldnt be able to come by at all, sorry. Its been that way for just about everyone, The people doing the cement, the electricians, sheetrockers, etc. You either end up with bad workers or waiting and paying a good sum. I had heard from many of my clients, who are often building new homes after moving here from other parts of the country, notably California, that the quality of many the workers here were abysmal.
I just kind of smiled and went on my way just thinking it was those peoples particular experience. Now that its happened to me so often, I get the picture. lol
I remember being fresh out of high school during the 80s bust. Everyone was thankful as heck to have any job and busted their but to keep it. Older adults and young people alike.
I have mentioned before the person that I was trying to help out and let them stay at my place for a while. He could go to one of those "job finding temp" places and easily get an above minimum wage job. And he didnt even have a high school diploma or GED. Many were for 10-14 dollars an hour. I say many because he would quit one job after another or get fired because of some stupid thing he did. "Oh I wanted to go on a date so I didnt go to work" type of thing. I was aghast at his lack of work ethic. And shocked that he could get so many decent paying jobs and then blow it. I even offered to help him get his GED and pay for him to take some classes at TCC if he did. He over slept and missed the GED class and test date. Just pitiful. I started to realize why some people "needed help". It was of their own making.
Very different world than what I was used to in my early 20s.
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Per capita or personal income that is discussed here is not the same as median income. It is the income received by all persons from all sources. The sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts.
Therefore, the rich may be getting a lot richer while those middle and low income folks are losing ground. There is more data that needs to be taken into account - such as median income to get a better pictures. I don't have those figures handy but I'll look for them. I don't think it is as rosy as you think. Consider the following:
"Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.
The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, compared to nearly $9,000 in 2005.
"These findings show that the wealth gap is increasing steadily," said Stafford, a senior research scientist at ISR and director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging."
Shocking, isn't it?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm
That's sums up my opinion on this report. I am happy to report that wages and benefits are increasing in the building trades, due to HB 1804 IMO.
quote:
Originally posted by TheArtist
AMP, and how is that so different in other cities or metros? There will always be people working for that areas minimum wage. The article states that this areas average was moving up more than a lot of other areas averages. We know danged well that its not suddenly heaven here, just that we are doing better. Its the direction.
Bingo. There will always be someone that is lowest on the totem pole, no matter how high that lowest point might be.
If you want to be negative, you could argue that if our average per capita income level is so high and increasing so fast, that might actually discourage companies from coming here, since they'd have to pay more.
But I take this as good news.
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Personal income or per capita income is the sum off all assests for a given group of people in a specific geographic area. This is what the discussion topic is about.
But what I said was accurate. The rich may be getting richer, giving rise to per capita income, while the median and low income are not growing as much, if at all. Just to look at total income for a given group does not give a complete picture of how well people as a whole are doing.
One has to look at median household income to see if it has grown as well as total personal income. The study I used is just one of many out there thats shows the rich are getting richer while the rest are stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Would you like more data? Not a problem for me to find it for you.
The last statistic I saw on median household income wasn't too good for the country as a whole.
In 1967 the median household income was $35,379 and 40 years later it is only 46,326 and has gone down from 1999.
I stand by what I said and believe there is still confusion.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medhhinc.html
Personal income is not the sum of all assets. Personal income is the sum of earnings, not what someone owns. Personal net worth is the sum of what someone owns less their liabilities.
Average income is a fair barometer of how all people are doing. What areas are you citing in respect to median household income? The U.S.?
Cite all you want. But are you wishing to talk about income or net worth?
Helps if you stay on topic with the rest of us otherwise it's too hard to get your point.
"Personal income is the income received by all persons from all sources. Personal income is the sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts. Net earnings is earnings by place of work (the sum of wage and salary disbursements (payrolls), supplements to wages and salaries, and proprietors' income) less contributions for government social insurance, plus an adjustment to convert earnings by place of work to a place–of–residence basis. Personal income is measured before the deduction of personal income taxes and other personal taxes and is reported in current dollars (no adjustment is made for price changes).
Per capita personal income is calculated as the personal income of residents of a given area divided by the resident population of the area. In computing per capita personal income, BEA uses the Census Bureau's annual midyear population estimates."
Taken directly from the source used in the first post. You just need to read the report thoroughly.
Thanks for catching up with the rest of us and the lesson on what I was all ready explaining to you in a summarized fashion. I read the report thoroughly. It was about net worth, not net earnings.
At any rate, I still fail to see why people continue to mine negatives out of a clear positive.
The article you cited had nothing to do with the good
earnings news in Tulsa. It was relating to how the net worth of certain groups of Americans is shrinking. Assets - debts = net worth. So there are a bunch more people in debt. You can't necessarily relate that to lower income without examining how much debt is created by purchasing lifestyle wants instead of life's necessities on credit and having the discipline to pay off those debts in a timely fashion.
I believe you would see a correlation between the increase in personal debt since the 1960's and the dropping of personal net worth. People are buying homes out of their price range with absurd mortgage arrangements, using credit cards to buy groceries, clothing, and mocha lattes, and purchasing vehicles on 8 year notes. That will give you a decrease in net worth.
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
Who the hell buys a 400K house on 100K salary? Only someone who's spending the remainder on crack...
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
Who the hell buys a 400K house on 100K salary? Only someone who's spending the remainder on crack...
Uh, people with low net worth....????
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
Who the hell buys a 400K house on 100K salary? Only someone who's spending the remainder on crack...
dummies who've been convinced that they can afford to pay 50% of their take home on a mortgage payment (don't forget the two new cars financed for 10 years)... it is the era of the "house poor," unreal expectations and a sense of entitlement (cribs?) has pushed many a person to attempt to live well beyond their means...
the numbers make sense to me... my posse (family/friends) is all making more than ever in tulsa... mind you, they work in a wide range of industries and have a range of salaries... but, anecdotaly, they are all getting further ahead of the game...
hell, i've had not one, not two, but three people in to look at shifting from other midwest locales to take jobs in tulsa because the pay is too good to ignore...
Let me chime in here before lunch ends. The sources are not from the Tulsa World. The source comes from only one single entity...
The Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington, D.C.
Here is the site... www.bea.gov
Read it and weep. Get off of Tulsa's back.
quote:
Originally posted by brunoflipper
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
Who the hell buys a 400K house on 100K salary? Only someone who's spending the remainder on crack...
dummies who've been convinced that they can afford to pay 50% of their take home on a mortgage payment (don't forget the two new cars financed for 10 years)... it is the era of the "house poor," unreal expectations and a sense of entitlement (cribs?) has pushed many a person to attempt to live well beyond their means...
the numbers make sense to me... my posse (family/friends) is all making more than ever in tulsa... mind you, they work in a wide range of industries and have a range of salaries... but, anecdotaly, they are all getting further ahead of the game...
hell, i've had not one, not two, but three people in to look at shifting from other midwest locales to take jobs in tulsa because the pay is too good to ignore...
Like a friend of mine in T-Town pointed out-it's a matter of wants versus needs: do I need this thing, or do I just want it really bad? Put things in that perspective, and it all sorta takes care of itself.
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Mortgage situation has changed dramatically the last week. Terms are going to be very difficult for anyone making less than $100,000 a year who want anything in excess of $400,000. Many are over leveraged already.
That is not a negative comment. Just reality setting in.....
Absolutely correct, and no not a negative, just mortgage lenders coming back down to reality and realizing overly-permissive lending practices are starting to bite them in the behind.
One anecdotal example I can give is a fellow I know who was building a $1.2mm house in Wagoner county. He was real proud of himself because he was doing one of the popular interest-only loans so he could keep his payment somewhere around $4K per month (still seems a bit low to me). Long and short of it is, he was using the same rationale that people in areas which were experiencing explosive real estate prices were doing: Get in on a payment you could afford, cash out in two or three years at a profit as the real estate market was rising.
He fails to realize that there's not a high-demand for 12K sq. ft. homes, nor $1.2mm- plus price tags in Wagoner Co., Oklahoma. Turns out the builder has jacked him around, it's still not finished two years in to the process, and he's about to wind up defaulting. Poor personal decision.
Right now there are people in places like Miami, Denver, and So. Cal. who are major- upside-down on their interest-only notes because those markets have cooled off. Surveying the Miami Herald a week or so back, I noticed that prices are definitely softer than they were a year ago. Not necessarily a reflection on the local business economy and personal income, but when you have a glut of housing on the market, it's already over-built and there are plans for more development- well law of supply and demand takes hold.
Speaking of mortgage rates, I have a friend who is a CFP here in town who told me at lunch yesterday that his aquaintances in the bigger firms like Morgan Stanley were told to cancel any vacation they may have had planned for this summer or fall.
Apparently some of these larger firms took out loans and invested in funds...unfortunately a lot of these loans were heavily leveraged on the backside with mortgage liabilities...not going to be a pretty picture for some of these guys.
Lenders never seem to learn. Seems to be about a seven to ten year cycle: Some sort of new promiscuous high-risk lending practice starts with great returns. People invest in it. More lenders get involved, more investors get involved then the bubble bursts and it's a clamp-down for a few years until short attention spans allow this all to start up again.
Greed will trump common sense every time.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
Still no one has answered the question: how could this be bad news?
And AMP... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
THIS IS NOT THE TULSA WORLD STATISTIC. The World ran the article when the stats come out.
According to the breakdown stats given by the BEA, the median income is up. The average income is up. Every bracket is up.
What the hell counts as good news around here? There is plenty of bad news in the world that we don't need to turn EVERYTHING into negative news. No, the picture is not immaculate. But Tulsa is better off than 297 other metro areas (including OKC, Albuquerque and other cities similar to use) AND has a faster rate of icnome growth.
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
HOW IS THAT BAD NEWS?
Omaha, NE. almost always out rates Tulsa in just about every catagory. Omaha's out door R&R are right up there with the big boys.
quote:
Originally posted by okcpulse
Let me chime in here before lunch ends. The sources are not from the Tulsa World. The source comes from only one single entity...
The Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington, D.C.
Here is the site... www.bea.gov
Read it and weep. Get off of Tulsa's back.
Like I trust THAT government cronie staffed agency.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070810/pl_nm/economy_bush_dc_2;_ylt=AiZJVwJN0JPJHn6DJH_LKYEE1vAI
I was NEVER on Tulsa's back! I was on Whirled info's back. I might be hopping onto Bushco's back. K?
AOX... I did not see the BEA cited in the article you attached. Did I miss it? While I would agree that the BEA may be filled with beaurecrats... it is not the type of agency that gets staffed with "cronies".
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
Sorry you experienced a problem with not having a pair of gloves that day. I know the folks that ran that office, and they were all very considerate and aware of safety needs. Afterall they were paying for your work comp insurance, and a claim affected their modifier on all their hours of all their employees, so it was to their benefit to make sure no one sustained any on job injuries.
Dang, AMP... OMG!... LOL!
Thanks for giving me job-related advice based on a personal story I told that actually happened TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO!... FYI, "Labor Ready" may be a perfectly fine company these days, but "Anybody Anytime" 25 years ago was a daily-cash, show-up-in-the-morning, get-your-drinkin-money-at-night place that couldn't care less about it's workers, and I didn't know where I was working
until I actually got there... please don't take up for the selfish, egotistical, self-centered butt-wipes who made pretty good money driving their AA vans to ORU so a buncha wine-o's and homeless skidrow bums could get paid daily minimum-wage cash so they could buy a bottle of Colt '45 or Wild Irish Rose while eating hospital patients' leftovers... or in my case as a young stud, could buy some Little Kings, underage of course... mmm, that green-colored Wild Irish Rose was a taste treat, though... memories, like the corner of my... [:P]
(http://a6.vox.com/6a00b8ea068321dece00cd9702822e4cd5-500pi)
Ah, the good ol' days... back when I was temping at
Anybody Anytime, drivin' my
1973 LTD Brougham to Skelly Stadium to watch the Tulsa Roughnecks play the New York Cosmos, Chicago Sting and Tampa Bay Rowdies.... buying a roll of
Scott t.p., a squirt gun and a newspaper (was tempted to dress up as
Meatloaf, but never actually did it)... to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show (@ Fontana?!?)....
Let's Do The Time Warp Again!?!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCcb3zRl8U
--"true backbone of Tulsa?"
No. The temp-industrial section of Tulsa's economy working for jobs at or attached to minimum wage in 120-degree summer heat without A/C qualifies as the
armpit of Tulsa's economy, not the backbone... and it's oh sooooooo sad to watch those two-bit places on North Sheridan going out of business due to competition from a growing temp company like Express... and maybe due to the fact that as Tulsa's living standards get better, the HR scumsuckers at the bottom of Tulsa's aquarium are no longer needed...
Once again, good news.
p.s.... Oh, Bruno, if you think I'm nuts for soccer, looka this...
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/BWWB1/signatures.html
USR- great posts. Only disagree on one thing:
Jeff Daniels says Michigan is a great place to be, so that's gotta be true, right? [;)]
I've been up to the GR/Rockford area and if that's the area you were considering vs. Tulsa, that was a no-brainer. We've got a guy who works for us from the area. Says he'd never go back after being here for the last three or four years.
quote:
Originally posted by Double A
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
Per capita or personal income that is discussed here is not the same as median income. It is the income received by all persons from all sources. The sum of net earnings by place of residence, rental income of persons, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts.
Therefore, the rich may be getting a lot richer while those middle and low income folks are losing ground. There is more data that needs to be taken into account - such as median income to get a better pictures. I don't have those figures handy but I'll look for them. I don't think it is as rosy as you think. Consider the following:
"Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.
The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, compared to nearly $9,000 in 2005.
"These findings show that the wealth gap is increasing steadily," said Stafford, a senior research scientist at ISR and director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging."
Shocking, isn't it?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm
That's sums up my opinion on this report. I am happy to report that wages and benefits are increasing in the building trades, due to HB 1804 IMO.
Why do you say that?
I doubt if Bob Funk had much to do with a few start up temp agencies on North Sheridan closing up shop. Nothing against Express, matter of fact the assistant manager of AA worked for us for 16 years prior to moving to Express, where he is today. I served as the Legislative Representative for the Oklahoma Staffing Industry for three years, and was Vice President for four.
Would not be so quick to point fingers at the temp agencies that pay daily advances. Withoug them there would be a much larger gap between the homeless and the day labores. Remember at that time the companies they serviced were who set the pay rates, not the temp services.
Trust me, the margins of profit are driven by the total wage, so the higher skilled and higer paied employees earned the agency and it's staff more income. Most employees in that industry as with the majority of sales driven industries are paid on a commission basis. Just like automotive sales and mechanics. Perform or go hungry, there is no guarantee.
There are all kinds of jobs that need to be performed in a city, some are better than others. As I stated, we filled mostly Skilled and Semi Skilled positions, but also had many minimum wage job orders that came in. Just like a store, some folks want Porter House, others choose not so lean hamburger meat, but most stores offer a wide variety. Why Baskin Robbins had 51 Flavors.
Most people would be very suprised to see how many people on a daily basis are working for Temp agencies in Tulsa. We had over 3,200 employees in a single year, and we were one of 35 agencies in Tulsa at the time.
You characterized your industry as staffers for "the backbone of Tulsa."
I know differently.
You defended your friends and backwoods temp-agency exploitative cronies-- how many of them bought a new speedboat or RV this year on the backs of those working class "losers"? How HORRIBLE was it for you to be forced to pay your workers a whole friggin' 5.85 per hour? Sorry, today's 5.85 per hour has less buying power than my 3.35 per hour had back in '82...
Please don't pretend to care about the working poor while defending an industry that has a huge economic incentive for Tulsa to be barefoot and pregnant...
Temp agencies are largely recession-proof.
They have a job... a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it... that much I understand.
So, a few cheap-aZZ temp agencies started up in response to Tulsa's post-9/11 recession are going out of business in this city? That doesn't reflect Tulsa's economic failures... it reflects SUCCESS.
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
I doubt if Bob Funk had much to do with a few start up temp agencies on North Sheridan closing up shop. Nothing against Express, matter of fact the assistant manager of AA worked for us for 16 years prior to moving to Express, where he is today. I served as the Legislative Representative for the Oklahoma Staffing Industry for three years, and was Vice President for four.
Would not be so quick to point fingers at the temp agencies that pay daily advances. Withoug them there would be a much larger gap between the homeless and the day labores. Remember at that time the companies they serviced were who set the pay rates, not the temp services.
Trust me, the margins of profit are driven by the total wage, so the higher skilled and higer paied employees earned the agency and it's staff more income. Most employees in that industry as with the majority of sales driven industries are paid on a commission basis. Just like automotive sales and mechanics. Perform or go hungry, there is no guarantee.
There are all kinds of jobs that need to be performed in a city, some are better than others. As I stated, we filled mostly Skilled and Semi Skilled positions, but also had many minimum wage job orders that came in. Just like a store, some folks want Porter House, others choose not so lean hamburger meat, but most stores offer a wide variety. Why Baskin Robbins had 51 Flavors.
Most people would be very suprised to see how many people on a daily basis are working for Temp agencies in Tulsa. We had over 3,200 employees in a single year, and we were one of 35 agencies in Tulsa at the time.
I am choking back the puke. Preaching that temp agencies are somehow altruistic benefactors is completely absurd. If anything, they promote predatory pay day loan companies, subprime mortgages, larger numbers of employees that lack health insurance and a large second class of slave wage service worker serfs.
Some of the best jobs are temp jobs.
Look at President of the United States.
Niiiice to know. All my jobs are temp jobs.
That "friend I tried to help out" who went to the temp agencies to find work. They kept getting him some really decent jobs, and from what I could tell, they would have been long term positions. I was actually amazed at how quickly they could put him in another job after he blew it at the one before. They weren't temporary jobs, sadly it was just that he was a temporary worker. I think they were starting to get frustrated with him. He was making THEM look bad.
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
Three Beverage Bottlers for Merchandisers that brought product from the back of the grocery stores to the shelves. They were paid minimum wage plus mileage and fuel.
Interesting. I worked in the grocery business for nearly ten years. My wife was a merchandiser for a cookie company and made over $30K per year. One of my best frineds worked for one the major bottling companies locally as a merchandiser and made $25K per year. He did exactly as you suggest. He took product from the back room and stocked the shelves and displays. He wouldn't have taken the job if it paid minimum wage.
I wrked for two different major baking companies and made anywhere from $45K to $80K per year.
Before that, I worked for a local gocery chain that was notorious for paying low wages, but I still made $7.00 per hour when the minimum wage was $3.35.
Before that I made $4.10 per hour at a local mexican theme restaurant, as a dishwasher. Only the bus boys made minimum...and they got tips.
The thing is, unless you have absolutely no skills or ambition, you can find work for more than $5.85 per hour.
quote:
Like I trust THAT government cronie staffed agency.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070810/pl_nm/economy_bush_dc_2;_ylt=AiZJVwJN0JPJHn6DJH_LKYEE1vAI
I was NEVER on Tulsa's back! I was on Whirled info's back. I might be hopping onto Bushco's back. K?
So you are saying that the simple mathematical procedure of dividing the total income of a metropolitan area by its total population is compromised by a cronie staffed agency?
Does that mean if someone else did the equation you would be more likely to pay attention? $37,000 is a per capita figure, not household income.
Per capita income has always been the best way to measure the economic well being of a given geopgraphical area. For instance, say I make $60,000 a year, my wife makes $40,000 and we have three children. Our total household income is $100,000. Divided by five, our household per capita income would be $20,000.
Back in the infancy of staffing, it appeared to many some of the agencies were just slinging people and filling orders. Those were the fast growing and exlosive need driven industrial halls. Operating in the background and out of sight were the skilled, clerical, legal, medical and professional staffing services. Many were located downtown, in high rise buildings and out of sight with no signs or street entrances. Manpower, and Kelley Girl, were among some of the first ones. Since then that industry has moved along very quickly and adapted with the modern age of digital processing.
Staffing Industry is much more complex than many people precieve from the outside. Back when Tulsa was smaller and dependent on just a few Industries for jobs, there was not much need for services such as staffing. However, as the city grew and other industries opened here and jobs became available there were more needs.
Then as the oil bust hit, there were displaced workers that needed to locate other jobs and quickly. That was the Staffing Industries forte' and they helped thousands of Tulsan located jobs that fit their skills in the crunch times. As data based IBM computers came available and software such as SkilMatch, written specifically for matching skill sets and other criteria, became more sophisticated, the ablilty for matching the exact candidate to the skilled position was refined down to a science. Location, zip code, salary range, experience, skill codes, employers benefits all are keyed into the data base. Sure it can be GIGO, but if handled properly with background checks, and other requirements from the employers completed and filed in the data base, those systems can make an accurate match of a dozen qualifired candidates, quicker than you can say Tom Thumb.
The long term full time employees working for some of the companies we serviced may earn more, and most positions read starting at, some people are better negotiators in job interviews than others. Keep in mind the buyers of labor are woking with a budget, and the total billing on labor includes all the legals on the employee. Liability insurance coverage is another cost of labor and FUTA, SUTA, FICA are also included.
I have always been a advocate of having additional boxes printed on employees paychecks that indicated the total cost of the employee to the company. The employee only sees their gross pay/hours. Then decuctions for State and Federal Tax and perhaps Medicaid, and their portion of the FICA. But they do not see the employers 50% contribution of the FICA, FUTA, SUTA (State and Federal Unemployment Taxes), Worker Comp Insurance Premiums, Cost of liability insurance, Cost of payroll preperation, bank fees and other hidden expenses that are directly related to legals and payroll which make up the total cost of the employee to the business. Plus business's portion of any benefit packages provided by the business. If employees could see the large percentage of revenue on the hidden side of the payroll stub, I feel they would have a better understanding of where they fit in.
Work comp for many industrial positions may run up to as high as $200 per $100 in payroll such as folks working above 10 feet off the ground but less than two stories up. Reason, checks to their entire faimily under 18 if they fall typically. Over two stories, the rates reduce tremendously, reason . . one death benifit check. Reason for discussion, many people are confused why professional office type positions may pay higher than industrial and construction jobs. Well, when the cost of Insurance is double what the wage is, that has to be your first clue.
And Work Comp insurance as well as unemployment insurance are graded on a modifier basis. Similar to driving points for auto insurance. If an company has a high number of claims - accidents, they will have a higher modifier percentage which means they pay a higher rate for their work comp insurance. Every job is in a catagory, and they all have different rates based on the number of claims in that catagory nationwide. Clreical jobs are around 50 cents per $100 in payroll, Industrial jobs range from around $10 per $100 up to $200 per $100 in payroll. And may be higher based on the experience level of that business. In addition, in Oklahoma the state provided Work Comp has required specific industries to pay increased modifiers.
In Oklahoma the overall Unemployment Insurance premiums can and have increased with the overall condition of the unemployment claims state wide. The condition of the business and how many unemployment claims they experience also effects their rate. If a business for instance has 300 employees and lays off 50, the modifier will go into effect and raise the cost on the remaining 250 employees payroll for around two years or more depending on the status of the company and other factors. This increase in payroll cost may very well put some businesses into bankruptcy court as many operate on small margins, especially during lean times.
Enter the staffing industry. Had the business owner contracted with a Staffing Service for those 50 employees, when they were no longer needed, they would not of experienced a modifier on their unemployment fees. Plus the 50 people would have a much quicker opportunity to be placed at another assignment as the staffing business incentitive is two sided, one to avoid an unemployment adjustment, and two to earn additional profit by placing the individuals at other businesses that are in a swing of need for labor at that time.
I provided additional Merchandisers, that worked for minimum wage, for the Bottling Industry, I went with them for the start up. We had up to 30 Beverage Merchandisers working for the bottling companies during peak times, Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day Weekend, Fourth of July, and other times when the weather would be extremely hot during the summer. The did pull ups at Albertsons, Reasors, Wal Mart, Warehouse Market, Buds, Piggly Wiggly, Homeland and most major grocery stores in NE Oklahoma area. I trust there were many people working at the beverage business that earned well above minimum wage. However there were also those that did not, and we provided those.
One needs to keep in mind there are thousands of positions in a city the size of Tulsa that are typically for a specific amount of time, and not long term. They are need-driven, and the temp agencies provide the needed labor just as water is delivered from a tap. If you need additional water, you simply turn on the tap, no longer need it turn off the tap.
If there is no additional pool of labor on a as soon as needed - just in time basis, the industries in that area may no longer be competitive in the World Market. Many times we paid and billed much higher rates, depending on the need, and availability of labor. This market can be on a roller coaster swing of high or low, demand versus supply. In the 1980s there was very high demand and very high supply for some reason.
Majority of people that can read and comprehend the language know the length of their assignment, what it pays and that they need not run out and make a loan on an automobile or home, based on their working status. Far better to have a grip on your job status and budget, than to go into debt not knowing what the clouds on the horizon hold in store. Just the opposite with many so-called full time jobs, not too many people know if their job will be there tomorrow, especially in Oklahoma's roller coaster economy over the past. Oklahoma has "Employment at Will" laws which allows an employer to terminate the employee for no stated reason. We also have the "Right to Work" law which eliminated many attorney run labor unions from forcing employees to pay union dues and comply with joining a union if they choose not to.
Oklahoma provides freedoms for both the businesses owners and the employees. In Oklahoma the employee has the right to choose where they work, and they can quit their job at any moment with no notice required. No one is forced to work anywhere in Oklahoma, and most business owners choose who stays on their payroll. If you choose to open your own business in America you have the right to, and you may succeed or fail, but you have the opportunity to try, and more than once. Bankruptcy laws are written to protect those willing to risk going into business for themselves. Nothing I dislike more is someone complying about their job status, lack of pay or benefits. I work for myself, so when I drove to Kansas and to Texas and earned $3.20 per hour working, that is because I did that to myself. No one else was responsible. I was just laughing because we had two lousy turnouts, all my staff got paid, and the bills were paid, but I ended up with $3.20 per hour for my time that week. Not complaining, I am responsible if my events succeed or fail and no one else.
No one is forcing folks to work. The United States is a Free Enterprise market.
Benefit programs are available at most temp agencies in Tulsa, however the majority of employees do not choose to take the benefit plans. Most have 401K plans available as well. The benefits are paid pre-tax and there are savings to be made by using the employee pre-tax benefit programs. However, many temp workers have a working spouse that already has health insurance, and a family must choose which plan they want, most medical plans will not allow spouses to have separate insurance companies. Their spouse may have a much better plan, so they stick with that one.
Majority of employees working in Oklahoma are covered by workers compensation insurance while on the job. Not true in family owned business and partnerships where there are no other employees.
Typically many small businesses are owned by older folks why have saved up enough cash to go into business for themselves, and they are too old to be hired with benefits as the insurance for them is very expensive at their age. That is one of the reasons so many people who are older open their own businesses, many because they are no longer employable at firms that provide major benefit packages. So in reality, many small business owners/partners may also fall into the un-insured category if their budgets cannot afford the coverage.
Worker Compensation Insurance is typically is far better than most major medical accident products available. Work Comp pays 100% of pharmaceutical, surgery, diagnostics, x-rays, hospitalization and other procedures. Majority of health insurance plans be it PPO, HMO or other typically have deductibles and co-pays. They all look good at first, but when it comes to having an ailment and being treated, then receiving the bills most don't turn out to be as good as most folks think.
Added to the fact that most people that are employee status, own a vehicle and have medical insurance are paying for three premiums of insurance coverage.
1. Majority of the time emplolyees are at their job, most are covered by Worker Comp Insurance. They pay for it indirectly if it were not a part of the compensation then they may receive that additional pay in cash in hiring negotiations.
2. Most people have an automobile policy and most have Under Insured coverage that covers them from medical claims in the event the other driver is under insured.
3. Some may have a major medical policy, which seems to cover them when they are sleeping, and after they arrive at home from work and up until they depart from home returning to work during work dsys. Work comp may cover you while in transit many times, especially if your employment is mobile and you are told where to park. Also job stress related incidents may be covered under work comp. The Auto policy or someone elses under-insured policy may pay for claims while you are in transit.
Majority of people may be way over insured with three or more premiums and products covering them at specific times of the day. System is broken !
Bottom line is many people are paying for three products provided by the insurance companies, which seem to overlap in coverage.
Your medical insurance plans typically do not cover you while your are on the clock of your employer. And, you may also not be covered while operating your motor vehicle by your medical plan. Many medical employee plans have eliminated hazardous activities such as motorsports, sky and scuba diving, water skiing, personal water-craft, motorcycle and atv activities. Even some employment contracts have stipulations against the contracted employee participating in such activities. Always stuck me as comical that a Professional Football player that makes his living in a physical contact sport was also banned from riding a motorcycle while under contract.
Part time, Just in Time labor is and always has been in demand, be it professionals such as legal staff, attorney, mechanical engineer, design CAD CAM team, clerical, medical staff, skilled or general labor.
The Staffing Industry is depended on daily 24/7. There are trained personnel, on call 24/7 for fiduciaries, the three major credit card companies, and airline reservation centers. These regional emergency teams are kept in place in the event there is a major problem with the Internet networks, or a major fiber optic cut.
Granted there are a few day labor divisions that have very explosive growth and sometimes it is created by explosions. Those are the ones in the public eyc most the times that respond to emergency situations such as providing the majority of personnel to clean the World Trade Tower back during the truck bomb explosion. Or to clean up following the tornadoes that hit in the Catoosa area, or to help clean up material at ORU following a major electrical power grid explosion.
Not sure what another alternative for STAT labor would be, but if there is a better mouse trap, trust me some energetic person in the US will open up a business tomorrow to compete with what is already out there.
That is the American dream.
Thinking back, I have only worked a couple of jobs before I turned 16, that I was paid by the hour. All the rest have been compensated by what I produce, comission basis pay.
AMP:
You mentioned Works Comp, and there... you hit the nail no the head. Oklahoma pays TWICE of our neighboring states in workers comp fees. For heavy industry it approaches 12% of wages paid... TWELVE PERCENT! Neighboring states are on the 5-7% range. Geee, why wouldn't industry want to move here?
As well as all the other expenses for employees, the compensation package easily raises to 50% of salary. Brutal. It punishes a company for wanting to hire more people. Paying someone $50K a year costs the company closer to $75k. Coupled with the unemployment & other things you mentioned and it is indeed the laws of the state that drive the demand for staffing agencies.
However, at their best they provide a needed service. Often, the best employees of those agencies are bought off by employers.
Glad you returned to the discussion CF. :)
Just as most people would not attempt to perform Lasik surgery on their own eyes, it sometimes amazed me that companies would rely 100% on their HR departments to spend their valuable time recruiting new hires.
Effective HR departments energy should be spending time focusing on reducing the costs of and improving the features of their benefits programs, handling internal personnel issues, looking into reducing their insurance costs, finding and managing 401s, scheduling vacations and placing orders for replacement temps to fill in for those on vacation, finding ways of providing additional safety training and education for the workforce they are managing.
Outsourcing recruiting professionals handle interviews, pre-screening, post-screening, background checks, drug screens and other time consuming efforts on a daily basis. They have a large advantage by placing ads in local recruiting papers, newspapers and other sources every week of the year. They work with the hub and wheel of the community in recruiting, locating sources of attracting people from all walks of life. People in the market learn to know their name and that builts market awarness, which makes the recruiter and their business stand out for where to go for jobs. An individual business placing an ad for new hires or replacments may be lost in the mix. The HR people inside have the tools and training to do the job, however it is always hard to beat the seat time and experience that Professional Recuriters have. Hard to beat a professional who has skills, knowledge and years of recruiting experience when it comes to handling specific jobs.
Actually some numbers on work comp insurance are much higher than what you quoted for specific job duties. The four digit codes are available from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc.
At one time in Oklahoma all staffing businesses were forced to operated under a beginning 1.75 modifier for all their workers compensation insurance. Some were higher, and it took two years to earn a lower modifiers.
One only needs to travel to NW Arkansas to see what the results of the difference in the cost of Work Comp between these two states.
Couple of good sites on these subjects.
https://www.ncci.com/NCCI/index.aspx
http://www.centralmistaffing.com/trends.htm
Here's a something I've always wanted to ask about workers' comp:
I don't completely buy into the notion that lawyers are the sole reason that workers' comp rates are so high in Oklahoma.
Is it because many companies in the state are too careless about safety?
Is it because Oklahoma has more lesser-educated people and thus more of them are working blue-collar, hazardous jobs?
Is it this less-educated populace that takes more unsafe risks on the job?
Is it all of these things?
Those and other factors. The amount of the wage seems to be directly associated with many work comp claims in Oklahoma. Could be the mindset of folks working for low wages and seeing others kicked back taking time off while on disability income. The 3/4 of wages to most people is low, but to Joe Six Pack and others it may be a vacation.
Also keep in mind that when the minimum wage increased to $4.25 majority of the folks earning less were not required to pay Federal Income tax as they did not pierce the lowest level required. Once the new increase went into effect, Congress then enacted the Earned Income program, which helped to soften the blow that the workers felt as they became bona fide tax payers at that new minimum wage.
Had Congress not enacted that bill, the actual take home increase for those workers was around 10 to 15 cents per hour depending on their tax exemption status. Married with children or single etc. So they were being paid $4.25 per hour versus the 10 year $3.35. At $3.35 less the 7% FICA their take home was around $3.10 per hour filing M-8 or exempt student. However when the $4.25 minimum started people that filed single or with less dependents were now only now taking home $3.20 to $3.30 due to federal tax withholding. Prior to that only around 7% FICA that was required to be with held from minimum wage 40 hour payroll checks of workers filing. Others that filed single or with less dependents saw even less of an increase from the increase.
That minimum wage increase in reality was the largest modern day tax increase on small and mid size business owners in the history of the United States. Other than when Congress enacted the Federal Income Tax Codes initially.
Keeping in mind the legally required fees on payroll is a percentage of total payroll and not a fixed number like Gasoline Tax. But that is for the political forum.
After a few calculations, most discovered if they worked less they earned more. By taking off a day or two every week and not working 40 hours they hit the top of the Bell Curve which allowed them to gain the most from the Earned Income rebate.
Time off during an on job injury filled in time and did not effect the earned income credit as the insurance re-imbursement payments are typically non-taxable income.
quote:
Originally posted by rwarn17588
Here's a something I've always wanted to ask about workers' comp:
I don't completely buy into the notion that lawyers are the sole reason that workers' comp rates are so high in Oklahoma.
Is it because many companies in the state are too careless about safety?
Is it because Oklahoma has more lesser-educated people and thus more of them are working blue-collar, hazardous jobs?
Is it this less-educated populace that takes more unsafe risks on the job?
Is it all of these things?
Couldn't say for certain. Our company falls into one of the very highest "risk" categories for WC. We have not had a major WC claim in years- probably 15 to 20 at least and no permanent disabilities attributed directly to working for us for the 50 years our company has been around.
We don't hear of many accidents involving our line of work in the state and it's a tight enough group that you usually know what's going on w/ competitors and their employess either directly or from common customers or vendors. Usually premiums are a somewhat of a reflection of actual claims experience within a given risk group. I don't know if they use the national numbers then apply a multiplier or what.
All I can say for certain is it doesn't make Oklahoma near as attractive as it should be for manufacturing work.
I normally charge a consulting fee for this information, but I will give you this much for free as it may help improve the economy in Oklahoma.
Typically the rates are derived from the NCCII four digit codes. Each job duty is listed, there are pages of them in the NCCII book I own.
You locate the exact job duty and the book provides the multiplier used. They are based on National experiences.
The Oklahoma State Workers Comp Insurance Fund requires companies to rate their workers under their Industry and typically will not allow clerical and other job classifications to be rated at their level. This to me is wrong and causes Oklahoma to be less competitive in manufacturing and construction, using those higher rating codes for support people. If the support people were located in a separate building off site, then they may allow them to be rated separately.
Private Work Comp providors normally rate each job description and charge accordingly. If you do not have the current NCCII code book for job classifications, then you are at the mercy of the insurance providor and have no clue what to look for when purchasing the coverage, or if your employees are coded properly.
One could be paying way more for improper coded employees than necessary.
A word to the wise is sufficent.
I spent a winter weekend keying all the descriptions, codes and rates out of the NCCII book into a database so I can quickly search for the proper code, rate and description.
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
allowed them to gain the most from the Earned Income rebate
Its not really a "rebate" if you get more out than you put in. Stupid governmental doublespeak. [;)]
My point exactly. The "Rebate" was stolen from the monies collected from the business owners and other tax payers. Thus the highest modern day tax on small and mid size businesses in the history of the United States. Well, other than when Congress first enacted the Federal Income Tax Codes.
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
I spent a winter weekend keying all the descriptions, codes and rates out of the NCCII book into a database so I can quickly search for the proper code, rate and description.
I guess you couldn't do something more exciting like watch the grass grow since it was winter, eh?
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
I spent a winter weekend keying all the descriptions, codes and rates out of the NCCII book into a database so I can quickly search for the proper code, rate and description.
Yuk! Whatever you make, you certainly earn it AMP.
May of been the winter weekend before or following the Chili Bowl and the Shootout. LOL
I could not find it online or on CD so I just made my own, by God. "Lead, follow or get out of the way". LOL
Goes back to the rule of thumb.
5% of the people make things happen.
15% of the people wonder what happened.
80% of the people have no clue anything happened.
"You create your own destiny" Bob Buck-1986
Enough chatter, I must get back to working on our October opening round of competition for our Winter Series, and get these people in our office to selling some advertising for the programs so we can make payroll this month. LOL
quote:
Originally posted by rwarn17588
Here's a something I've always wanted to ask about workers' comp:
I don't completely buy into the notion that lawyers are the sole reason that workers' comp rates are so high in Oklahoma.
Is it because many companies in the state are too careless about safety?
Is it because Oklahoma has more lesser-educated people and thus more of them are working blue-collar, hazardous jobs?
Is it this less-educated populace that takes more unsafe risks on the job?
Is it all of these things?
1099 worker misclassification. Employers cheating the system by not paying in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvnAjQP-VIM
I disagree DoubleA. The vast majority of workers are corrected classified and employers correctly pay. Certainly the problem is not TWICE as bad in Oklahoma as it is in neighboring states. If it is, then fine the offending parties instead of taking it out on law abiding companies that try to do the right thing.
For the record, the video you linked to is a generic training video. It has nothing to do with why OKLAHOMA is worse than other states. Not to mention, perhaps it is the poor and expensive system that leads to the cheating... not the cheating that leads to the poor system. In any event, it offers nothing to explain why Oklahoma is worse than others (it never even talks about Oklahoma).
"These contracts are making great profits off of the backs of these poor guys that are not making a living wage." The video spends as much time talking about profiteering and bad contractors than about the causes of the problem. Watching that video one would walk away with simplified understanding that contractors hate workers so they cheat the government.
I digress...
I'm tried to figure out what is wrong with the OK workers comp system and have never gotten a straight answer. For some reason, its a political question instead of a practical one. I don't know I'm afraid.
Problems with Workers Comp in Oklahoma
Picture a very large pool of money available, with straws provided for sucking the money into your industry.
One group pointed to liberal work comp judges, aggressive plaintiff attorneys, insurance companies such as the state fund that had no dog in the fight as the large pool of money was the money from the employers and not theirs.
Plaintiff and Defense Attorneys would sit at the work comp court and exchange payment envelopes, as one would benefit the other at the expense of the businesses in Oklahoma that pay into the fund.
Management pointed to lack of controls on predatory employees that were seeking the "next claim" or an attempt to gain 100% disability.
Thrid party administrators commplained it was the "dueling" doctors syndrome, hospitals and medical groups with high charges that performed unnecessary procedures running up the costs per accident.
Labor pointed blame at the employers for not having proper safety training, proper safety guards on equipment, and lack of educating employees about hazards at the worksite. That sparked the interest of the State Universities and County Vo-Tech schools.
With som many different groups tugging at the money in the pool, it became a major political battle.
The Reform introduced by Mary Fallin came in many shapes and sizes, it included controls on medical costs, training, set percentages for attorney fees, and fraud investigation. But as with most rules written other methods of sucking funds from the pool were discovered.
And from the "Reform War" ashes came a new animal named Rehabilitation. That involves the State Universities, County Vo-Tech and others who now have their piece of the pie, shared with the attorneys, doctors, insurance reps, TPAs, that is called workers compensation.
Texas offers a totally different approach to work comp.
http://www.workerscompensationinsurance.com/workers_compensation/texas.htm
Current Reform articles:
http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/southcentral/2005/07/04/partingshots/57829.htm
http://www.legalreforminthenews.com/StateProfiles/OK/OK_Workers_Comp_6-8-05.html
Looks like whatever the current situation was or is will change soon. Here comes the results of Bush/Rove/Cheney political shenanigans on the economy.
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm
This is just unreal. Choppy times are here.
The truth is not known.
As of today the world central banks have injected $1 trillion dollars into the system. That's alot of bad paper that's been temporarily bailed. Real estate is tettering on a major collapse not seen in decades.
Fragile times indeed.
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm
Don't everyone dive in at once....
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
Looks like whatever the current situation was or is will change soon. Here comes the results of Bush/Rove/Cheney political shenanigans on the economy.
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm
This is just unreal. Choppy times are here.
The truth is not known.
As of today the world central banks have injected $1 trillion dollars into the system. That's alot of bad paper that's been temporarily bailed. Real estate is tettering on a major collapse not seen in decades.
Fragile times indeed.
http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm
Don't everyone dive in at once....
Why not just blame it on Rumsfeld, Powell, or Libby? Makes about as much sense.
Nope. Not the dopes. They are the dupes.
1) The article you linked to is mostly about risk measurement. It only mentions the market as being "fragile" in one sentence while talking about tightening capital markets.
2) There has been ~$300,000,000,000.00 in cash pumped into global circulation,
not a trillion. Even the article you linked to yourself says so
quote:
having injected $300 billion into the world monetary system in the last two business days
3) and its not "bad paper" its available liquidity... its not as if they just printed $300 Billion and started handing it out.
4) And while I'm at it... a statement without any support is worthless. It does NO GOOD to just say "Bush caused it" and leave it at that. Not only is that a ridiculous claim, but as an unsubstantiated comment it doesn't even foster discussion. Shall I reply with "did not!"
The bush impact on the economy is limited to the tax cuts, the war, and deficient spending. None of which result tighter credit in private equity markets nor inflated real estate prices. Since you failed to raise any issues, I'm not sure why I bother with any analysis.
Get your facts correct, then I'll bother discussing things with you. Even when you get bad news to cheer over you still have to exaggerate it THREE FOLD. And t hank god Tulsan's made so much more money this year, so we can take advantage of the weak markets and buy in.
quote:
Originally posted by Double A
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
I doubt if Bob Funk had much to do with a few start up temp agencies on North Sheridan closing up shop. Nothing against Express, matter of fact the assistant manager of AA worked for us for 16 years prior to moving to Express, where he is today. I served as the Legislative Representative for the Oklahoma Staffing Industry for three years, and was Vice President for four.
Would not be so quick to point fingers at the temp agencies that pay daily advances. Withoug them there would be a much larger gap between the homeless and the day labores. Remember at that time the companies they serviced were who set the pay rates, not the temp services.
Trust me, the margins of profit are driven by the total wage, so the higher skilled and higer paied employees earned the agency and it's staff more income. Most employees in that industry as with the majority of sales driven industries are paid on a commission basis. Just like automotive sales and mechanics. Perform or go hungry, there is no guarantee.
There are all kinds of jobs that need to be performed in a city, some are better than others. As I stated, we filled mostly Skilled and Semi Skilled positions, but also had many minimum wage job orders that came in. Just like a store, some folks want Porter House, others choose not so lean hamburger meat, but most stores offer a wide variety. Why Baskin Robbins had 51 Flavors.
Most people would be very suprised to see how many people on a daily basis are working for Temp agencies in Tulsa. We had over 3,200 employees in a single year, and we were one of 35 agencies in Tulsa at the time.
I am choking back the puke. Preaching that temp agencies are somehow altruistic benefactors is completely absurd. If anything, they promote predatory pay day loan companies, subprime mortgages, larger numbers of employees that lack health insurance and a large second class of slave wage service worker serfs.
I gotta agree here, and I'll take it a step further.
When I returned to Tulsa briefly in 2005, I tried out with various staffing firms while staying in the area, tried to get a feel for what they had. I have my degree in computer Science and experience in IT, but they had no positions available (or so they said), no work as a cosmetologist, masseur nor makeup artist; Call Centers were not a good fit for me. Sure, they'd advertise for IT or other things, but the jobs were often "filled" when you came in. Then they would try to send you on other jobs. I personally believe the advertised jobs were not there at all: just a way to build the database, and then "bait and switch." Somehow, while I didn't get the jobs I ideally preferred, I at least got the jobs that I had some proficiency in.
The people who sign with them are at least wanting to go to work (how well they do is not yet the issue), but the people who manage and send people out on the assignments are often a little sleazy and squirrelly. It's best never to deal with them on the phone, but rather in person. They can tell you whatever they want on the phone, even lie and try to sound convincing. But face to face, they dodge and weave and try to sound credible. It's actually fun to put them on the defensive.
quote:
Originally posted by TheArtist
Niiiice to know. All my jobs are temp jobs.
That "friend I tried to help out" who went to the temp agencies to find work. They kept getting him some really decent jobs, and from what I could tell, they would have been long term positions. I was actually amazed at how quickly they could put him in another job after he blew it at the one before. They weren't temporary jobs, sadly it was just that he was a temporary worker. I think they were starting to get frustrated with him. He was making THEM look bad.
Have to mess up really bad to make people like that look bad!
quote:
Originally posted by USRufnex
You characterized your industry as staffers for "the backbone of Tulsa."
I know differently.
You defended your friends and backwoods temp-agency exploitative cronies-- how many of them bought a new speedboat or RV this year on the backs of those working class "losers"? How HORRIBLE was it for you to be forced to pay your workers a whole friggin' 5.85 per hour? Sorry, today's 5.85 per hour has less buying power than my 3.35 per hour had back in '82...
Please don't pretend to care about the working poor while defending an industry that has a huge economic incentive for Tulsa to be barefoot and pregnant...
Temp agencies are largely recession-proof.
They have a job... a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it... that much I understand.
So, a few cheap-aZZ temp agencies started up in response to Tulsa's post-9/11 recession are going out of business in this city? That doesn't reflect Tulsa's economic failures... it reflects SUCCESS.
I figure, I go in, ask questions about the jobs. If they beat around the bush and either cannot give me a straight answer one way or another, I run as fast as my feet can carry me. Matter of instinct.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
1) The article you linked to is mostly about risk measurement. It only mentions the market as being "fragile" in one sentence while talking about tightening capital markets.
2) There has been ~$300,000,000,000.00 in cash pumped into global circulation, not a trillion. Even the article you linked to yourself says so quote:
having injected $300 billion into the world monetary system in the last two business days
3) and its not "bad paper" its available liquidity... its not as if they just printed $300 Billion and started handing it out.
4) And while I'm at it... a statement without any support is worthless. It does NO GOOD to just say "Bush caused it" and leave it at that. Not only is that a ridiculous claim, but as an unsubstantiated comment it doesn't even foster discussion. Shall I reply with "did not!"
The bush impact on the economy is limited to the tax cuts, the war, and deficient spending. None of which result tighter credit in private equity markets nor inflated real estate prices. Since you failed to raise any issues, I'm not sure why I bother with any analysis.
Get your facts correct, then I'll bother discussing things with you. Even when you get bad news to cheer over you still have to exaggerate it THREE FOLD. And t hank god Tulsan's made so much more money this year, so we can take advantage of the weak markets and buy in.
I agree about buying in weak markets. Timing is the issue. How long will this last and how deep will it go?
Worldwide, there's been over a trillion pumped into this mess. So far.
They call it bad paper. That's what it is becoming....
The Bush impact includes confidence. That will surely fade away.
quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
Get your facts correct, then I'll bother discussing things with you. Even when you get bad news to cheer over you still have to exaggerate it THREE FOLD. And t hank god Tulsan's made so much more money this year, so we can take advantage of the weak markets and buy in.
Aox rule #1- never let facts get in the way of a good story.
Aox rule #2- see rule #1.
US Federal Reserve: $62bil
European Central Bank (EU): $213B
The Bank of Canada: $1.55B
Bank of Japan: $8.39B
Swiss National: $2.2B
The Reserve Bank of Australia : $4.18B
The Monetary Authority of Singapore: $1B
Where is the other $700,000,000,000.00 from?
Enlighten me. My numbers are from the WSJ, search "Central Banks React to Liquidity Crisis." And in spite of the potential for damage, I do not think most people in the world that pay attention are too surprised that the sub-prime mortgage lenders are finally boiling over. Perhaps non-economic types are surprised by the sucking sound in the liquidity markets and the run on bonds, or perhaps the small scale panic... but its not a crisis. Not yet.
Certainly the potential is there if another run of bad news, a disaster, or an agitator steps in (China sells Dollars, Tehran or North Korea default on foreign debt, or countries begin un-pegging their currency rapidly).
wait, watch and see where money can be made.
This was in the Sunday TW concerning Key Personnel and Whirlpool.
WHIRLPOOL SEEKS EMPLOYEES WITHOUT DIPLOMA
( "Key Personnel and Whirlpool Corp's Tulsa division are launching a new program, offering individuals without a high school diploma the opportunity for a promising career.
Through the program, candidates will be hired as Key employees and assigned to work full time at Whirlpool. To remain in the program, candidates must attend a free once-a-week General Education Development class on site at Whirlpool before their shift begins. Once theat cadidate completes the class and receives a GED certificate, he or she is eligible to be hired full time by Whirlpool.
"The available labor force in Tulsa is dramatically impaced by the local drop-out rate of 30 percent," said Deb McCaskey, regruiting specialist at Key Personnel. "Many people are limited in their opportunities for a promising career. This program gives people another chance to get a quality job." )
We often hear about the low test scores some of our schools have and where we rank with other schools. But one thing we often dont consider is the drop out rate. Sometimes schools "don't strongly encourage" students to stay in school, especially if they are ones who "bring down the mandated test score averages". Many students arent even considered drop outs but "in transition" or other terms to decrease the appearance of their drop out rate. If a student who is leaving is asked whether or not they may go back to school some day and they say yes, then they can also not be counted as a drop out. Regardless, 30 percent drop out rate is not good and to have income up in Tulsa under such circumstances is notable.
It seems interesting to note how many companies are going out of their way to educate employees or try and recruit them into the area (welding companies, whirlpool and many other people I have heard complain about the lack of quality workers and difficulty in attracting quality people to live in Tulsa) because they are having a hard time getting qualified workers otherwise. We have a low unemployment rate in the city. We may see it go lower and find the building trade having a harder time finding workers as well, if many in our hispanic work force end up leaving.
What this brings to mind to me is that we should definitely as a city focus on education both at the lower levels and college, and do what we can to make our city attractive to young educated people.
quote:
Originally posted by AMP
Back in the infancy of staffing, it appeared to many some of the agencies were just slinging people and filling orders. Those were the fast growing and exlosive need driven industrial halls. Operating in the background and out of sight were the skilled, clerical, legal, medical and professional staffing services. Many were located downtown, in high rise buildings and out of sight with no signs or street entrances. Manpower, and Kelley Girl, were among some of the first ones. Since then that industry has moved along very quickly and adapted with the modern age of digital processing.
Staffing Industry is much more complex than many people precieve from the outside. Back when Tulsa was smaller and dependent on just a few Industries for jobs, there was not much need for services such as staffing. However, as the city grew and other industries opened here and jobs became available there were more needs.
Then as the oil bust hit, there were displaced workers that needed to locate other jobs and quickly. That was the Staffing Industries forte' and they helped thousands of Tulsan located jobs that fit their skills in the crunch times.
-------------------------------------------
That is the American dream.
I worked for Manpower after quitting "Anybody Anytime." I enjoyed working for Manpower... the difference between those two outfits was night and day... to the point where I told anyone I spoke with who said they needed a job as a temp to NEVER work for "Anybody Anytime." Strange that they eventually changed their name to "Labor Ready"... maybe they were getting a bad rep around town... Too bad
"2 News works for you" wasn't around back then... I still consider them some of the creepiest people I've ever worked for... insisting on working a 12 hour day after being told we'd be scheduled for 8... nobody I knew got paid OT because these folks had a way of playing a little shell game that enabled them to work some people over 50 hours per week, but under different employers, thus no OT... may have been legal at the time, but very unethical...
Once again, this was 25 years ago, and your gripes about the rise in minimum wage from 3.35 to 4.25 AFTER TEN YEARS FROZEN IN TIME doesn't ring true... I worked retail jobs at or slightly above min wage as a college student...
From 1997 to 2007 minimum wage was again raised AFTER TEN YEARS FROZEN IN TIME. All entry level low-wage workers who annually watch their rent, food and gas prices go up are screwed slowly over the course of a decade... an 18 or 19 year old working at minumum wage in 2006 had much less buying power than the 18 or 19 year old working the same job in 1997... is this fair? ...while management in the restaurant and daily-cash temp worker industries, etc. get
their cost of living raises, don't they?
I always hear how low-wage employers insist that a higher min wage causes the workers who've been with them to suffer... yet those workers who make a paltry $6 - $7 per hour regularly reject that argument, and are almost unanimous in their support for a higher min wage...
Express Temp Services has made millions upon millions of dollars for Bob Funk... enough money to for him to start his own little sports management arm that runs minor league hockey and baseball teams and some bull-riding tours...
Express Sports was established off the profits from temp workers who far too often are taking extra hours to pay off predatory lenders.... always thought Rent-a-Center should have a daily-cash temp agency in the back of their stores...
I assume most temp agencies are on the "up-and-up." And I can sympathize with both small businesses and low-wage earners who are part of a political tug-of-war between Dems and Repubs that could be resolved with some simple annual cost of living adjustments on the min wage...
Nobody should be working 40 hours a week in this country and remain under the poverty line... nobody.
These people are a tiny percentage of the workforce... others who just need part time temp work for the $$$ are another small percentage of the workforce...
The big story is how the rest of us are living in a city with a strong economy, low unemployment, affordable housing and higher wages... good news, for sure.
When I first started in the Staffing Industry we spent hours explaining the concept of staffing to business owners, managers and supervisors. It has been many years since sales reps did that, as the majority of industries in the US began using used temp help at one time or another in by the 1980s. Today the clients seek service such as on site management, PEOs, Payroll Service, Professional consultative strategic planning for upcoming projects.
PRE & POST HIRE POLICIES
Regarding hiring policies in the modern day, there are many new procedures and laws regarding pre and post hiring interview questions and forms to sign. That entire process is an entire class in itself. With that said, newspaper advertising has gone out of sight, so wording in help wanted ads, and display ads are at a premium. Being brief is required if one wants to stay in budget. Also most positions may have minimum number of years experience requirements, and if one candidate excels above all others for a position they are typically chosen. In addition, orders come in daily and as one position is filled, another may appear the same week. Typically not every applicant is hired at any company.
Being offered an assignment for a position similar to one's field is an opportunity to: 1. Earn some money while still conducting your job search. 2. Get your foot in the door of a potential employer that may need your skills or know of others that do. 3. Demonstrate your abilities and willingness to do what ever it takes. Keep in mind that many companies hire from within or from referrals made from other companies similar to theirs or referrals from their suppliers.
MINIMUM WAGE RASING FLOOR OR KEEPING UP?
Is the main problem with raising minimum wage is it raises the floor for everything? Say a person was working last month after being with a firm for over a year, and was earning $6.00 per hour. New hires may of come in at $5.15 at the existing minimum wage. Now with the new minimum wage, the new hires are starting at fifteen cents an hour less than the person that worked for over a year and was earning $6.00 per hour. Now that person feels they need an additional raise of 70 cents up to $6.70 or even $7.00 per hour. Another employee in another department may be earning $7.00 and when hearing of the new hires getting the 70 raise the floor of expectation raises for that employee also. Keep in mind the legals on those positions are additional, and are a percentage. For this discussion say legals are 35% of the payroll. Legals = legally required fees and taxes on payroll, Work Comp, FUTA, SUTA, FICA, etc.
Based on $5.15 x 35% = $ 6.95
Based on $5.85 x 35% - $7.88
So based on the $6.00 x 35% = $8.10 per hour
Based on the $6.70 x 35% = $9.04
On $7.00 x 35% $9.45
The employee earning $5.15 may only receive a 70 cent raise to $5.85, but it cost the business 93 cents to provide the additional 70 cents to the employee.
The employee earning $6.00 going to $7.00 cost the employer 1.35 additional for the one dollar raise as the legals are 35%
That 93 cents or 35% of the pay increase, is passed on to the consumer in one manner or another in most cases. Thus raising the floor once again, and repeating over and over. Goes back to the age-old question of "Which Came First the Chicken or the Egg".
Keep in mind the employee also pays 7.65% to FICA and another percentage in State and Federal taxes of the total gross on thier check. So the employees take home is, at times up to 60% or greater, far less than what it costs to make the payroll for that individual.
This is the reason I feel all the legals and fees should have a box on the payroll stub so everyone understands how payroll taxes, fees and other legals effect their rate of pay, and the overall cost to the business that they are a part of.
It may be difficult for many to comprehend the use of temp help from the owner/management perspective, if one has not had to make a decent size payroll or managed a large number of employees, and I can understand that. Many small and mid size businesses operate on narrow profit margins and must use all available resources at their disposal to help them manage their expenses. Other cost is that of advertising, recruiting, hiring and training new employees. Many sources place that cost at $3,000 and more per employee.
COST OF LABOR - FIXED OR VARIABLE
Labor can be a fixed or variable expense. It makes much more sense to operate a business with variable labor costs than fixed. Just as with companies that depend on material, as it is needed, the majority of businesses work on a "Just in Time" basis. They order the material as needed to avoid warehouse space and damage in storage.
By using temps it is similar to the water faucet. A large pool of labor or water sits in holding tanks, when water or in this case additional labor is needed one turns on the faucet. When not needed one simply turns off the faucet, or in this case returns the inventory of labor back to the pool where another company may need them. No penalties, no additional charges, no obligation, no issues with having to tell someone they are no longer needed or laid off. Saves all the stress on the supervisors, managers and people in direct contact with the additional laborers, as in the beginning their is an up front contract that is known by all that this is a temporary position and may end at any time without notice. And at the same time the temp may also be needed to work longer than the original assignment.
MINIMIM WAGE TEN YEARS OR MORE @ $3.35
1979 2.90
1980 3.10
1981-1989 $3.35
1991-1995 4.25
1996 4.75
1997 -2006 5.15
I stand corrected, there was one year when it was only $2.90 per hour in the first ten year run. Then the second long run at $5.15 ran for nine years.
OVERTIME HOURS
Many or our employees would become angry that they were not allowed to work at different companies during weekends after obtaining 40 hours of work, overtime or not and it did not matter if they were earning minimum wage or $15.00 on a prevailing wage construction job. They just wanted to work and make money.
Many that wanted additional work on the weekends after working 40 hours at one or more assignment for one agency, would sign on with two or more temp services for additional assignments, thus avoiding the overtime problem by only working at one service. Not sure if that describes the "shell game" you are referring to, but that was done by the employees and not the agencies.
Most wanted extra work to earn more money. They could not understand why they could not work at a totally different location/assignment for straight pay no overtime. That was very hard to explain to many. When the business they were assigned to requested them to work over 40 and approved the overtime, they were billed and paid at that rate.
Majority of the time the business would exchange anyone that had 40 hours for new additional help that did not have overtime, to avoid the extra expense. That was one of the main reasons for businesses using temp help, to keep from having unnecessary and fixed labor expenses. It also provided fresh employees that were far less suseptable to job related injuries caused from working too many hours.
As they were our employee, any hours over 40 hours per week had to be paid and billed as overtime. Very difficult to send an employee that had not worked at a company prior to that day, and bill them 1.5 times their pay rate plus legals and markup.
There are companies that request specific people to return. Some would agree to and pay the overtime for those individuals versus having to depend on a new person and re-train them what to do.
OVERTIME LAW
Many people mistake the federal labor laws concerning Overtime. Some think anything over 8 hours, in a 24-hour day, is overtime. Law is anything over 40 hours in a workweek. In some Collective Bargaining contracts, overtime may indeed be over 8 hours in a 24 hour period, and that could be where some of that information comes from.
The payroll work-week is established by the company that is handling the payroll of the employee. It may vary from the payroll work-week of the business where that employee is assigned.
I never knew of any service that did not follow those basic laws. The Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor investigates and handles all complaints of that nature. One of the main people at the Tulsa Wage and Labor office was Ben Furlong. They attended many meetings we held and worked with the staffing industry and all businesses in this area.
I wish nobody had to go through an unchanged Reagan-era min wage at the same level I had to from '81 -'89 trying to work while going to college from '84 onward with no parental help.... but my grandparents dealt with the great depression in Oklahoma and I completely understand life ain't fair-- anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something... but I wouldn't wish on a human being what I saw going on at "Anybody, anytime" back when I was in high school.
Sir, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, you do NOT know what my experiences were with that company, experiences that happened over 25 years ago... don't preach to me about work gloves and pretend you knew what happened back in the day... you are not psychic. Yet you continue to act as if these people were innocent and blameless... they weren't. I cannot go back in a time machine and press charges on behalf of my co-workers or inform the friggin' Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor... I was 17 years old at the time. And the people that I believe to this day were taken advantage of were folks who would never have made waves, and THAT STAFFING COMPANY KNEW IT... Geez.
You refuse to even vaguely admit that there were/are bad apples in your industry... remarkable.
Once again, I have worked on the employer/HR side that screens applicants as a recruiter, and have worked many different "day jobs" over the years and understand enough to know the temptation for low-wage employers and their staffing companies to put the squeeze on employees desperate for jobs and/or needed cash to pay bills, etc... or those losers who are inevitably gonna use that daily-cash for booze, etc...
If anything, these days in Tulsa, I'm guessing the opposite could currently be true and that there is pressure on temp agencies who will lose their businesses due to the good job market for workers here...
But sometimes, you have to judge an industry or even a society based on how it treats its most vulnerable.
Did you honestly think $5.15 per hour would go on forever... never change... while cost of living expenses get higher and higher...?
True, I was not there in your situation.
Keep in mind I have not worked in that Industry since 1998.
Your description sounds as if they may not of followed the rules and regs as closley as we did, but that was in the early days of labor halls and many were just starting up. So they may not of had proper training or by your description it sounds as if upper management, who was from out of state, may not of even cared.
They went out of business as you indicate, so that pretty much explains it. I didn't see any reason to throw them under the bus anymore than you already have. You did a pretty good job of it. I could add a lot more but what is the purpose as you say it was 25 years ago. Plus i still know three of the people that worked there, and I have lunch with two of them on occasion, so I didn't want to beat up on them too much. :) I am sure if they came on here they could tell you much more horror stories about that company, I have heard tons of them believe me. That was a national chain, and the owners were from the East Coast and wore pin stipe suits, so one does not want to say too much bad about those folks if you get the picture. ;) Like Rodney Dangerfield's line in Back Too School, those aint the Boy Scouts hauling the trash.
Waht you describe is one of the main reason we formed the Oklahoma NATTS Association to help educate people in the Industry of the labor laws in Oklahoma, and keep everyone on the same page and informed of the laws and regulations. Many of the Industrial agencies were also members of Associated Builders and Contractors, a national organization who provides training in construction safety and management among other things.
Supprized you were allowed to work Industrial positions at 17, most agencies require the employees to be 18 to work Industrial, but as you say that was back in the early 80s and that service may of not followed that policy. It has changed quite a bit since then regarding age limits operation of machinery, moving vehicles etc.
Actually I agree with you on many points.
We were then constantly trying to get wages up, so we could move away from work comp problems and earn more on our margins. I never liked the minimum wage jobs, but they were what was in demand at the time and we had lots of competition then trying to service those companies to keep our foot in the door for brighter times in the future.
Most the agencies progressed with time or closed up. We began screening all employees as required by our clients. We performed drug and alcohol screens for companies that requested them. We did criminal background checks for positions as required. We facilitated company provided safety training, job training, job orientation, and testing. We moved into weekly pay and away from the cash draw business. Stopped running our vans and hired people with their own transportation. Moved into skilled and licensed trades placement. Focused on machine operators, welders, metal fabrication, electronic assembly. We opened additional departments for Clerical and Legal positions. Although the massive numbers were and still are in the lower wage positions, the higher margins and profit are in the skilled market, and there are far less work comp claims.
While I don't think you will ever see the demand for day labor deminish, I have seen the training and education of the employer and employee improve tremendously since the early 1980s, and I trust it will continue to move away from the unorthodox type of dealings you describe.
And with this new law on immigration you may see it increase in need. I keep hearing ads on KMOD constantly for Industrial positions from numerous companies including personnel agencies.
The availability or lack thereof of labor drives the pricing in most markets. Lack of labor, supply normally causes the pay rates to increase, demand. Will be interesting come November to see what unfolds with the contest of the law and the outcome and results of the other side of the first week in November if it stays active.
A few companies are finding themselves behind the proverbial eight ball with this new law coming into effect if they have not already made pricing adjustments to combat the higher wage costs that are on the immediate horizon both with the increase in the minimum wage which was predictable coupled with the HB 1804. This occured each time the minimum wage increased in prior years, which raised the floor for many other positions. This time around having both occur near the same time is a double hit. Up side is it increased wages almost immediatly for savvy owners that planned for it coming and adjusted their pricing accordingly. Down side is it increased the cost of living along with it in a time delayed reaction.
Without doing some job resume and salary history phising quickly, one could be blind sided by labor and get caught in the musical chair game of employees moving from one company to another for higher wages, while in reality there may be bodies to fill those jobs that are unaware their are avaiable. Advertising in this market is very expensive and there are way too numerous TV channels on cable, too numerous a number radio stations, and the poor newspaper, not sure if that is read much by the level of candidates needed currently.
I would not want to be trying to replace orphaned positions left open by musical chair employees in this current market. Plus if you have a business, you run the risk of loosing some of your better help to businesses that can pay higher wages. This is getting good.
.. Sorry double post..
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
Some of the best jobs are temp jobs.
Look at President of the United States.
yep, and some temp jobs can turn into a perm job. Look at the congress we have some life long "workers" there. Some of those guys have been there for decades.
quote:
Originally posted by USRufnex
I wish nobody had to go through an unchanged Reagan-era min wage at the same level I had to from '81 -'89 trying to work while going to college from '84 onward with no parental help.... but my grandparents dealt with the great depression in Oklahoma and I completely understand life ain't fair-- anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something... but I wouldn't wish on a human being what I saw going on at "Anybody, anytime" back when I was in high school.
Sir, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, you do NOT know what my experiences were with that company, experiences that happened over 25 years ago... don't preach to me about work gloves and pretend you knew what happened back in the day... you are not psychic. Yet you continue to act as if these people were innocent and blameless... they weren't. I cannot go back in a time machine and press charges on behalf of my co-workers or inform the friggin' Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor... I was 17 years old at the time. And the people that I believe to this day were taken advantage of were folks who would never have made waves, and THAT STAFFING COMPANY KNEW IT... Geez.
You refuse to even vaguely admit that there were/are bad apples in your industry... remarkable.
Once again, I have worked on the employer/HR side that screens applicants as a recruiter, and have worked many different "day jobs" over the years and understand enough to know the temptation for low-wage employers and their staffing companies to put the squeeze on employees desperate for jobs and/or needed cash to pay bills, etc... or those losers who are inevitably gonna use that daily-cash for booze, etc...
If anything, these days in Tulsa, I'm guessing the opposite could currently be true and that there is pressure on temp agencies who will lose their businesses due to the good job market for workers here...
But sometimes, you have to judge an industry or even a society based on how it treats its most vulnerable.
Did you honestly think $5.15 per hour would go on forever... never change... while cost of living expenses get higher and higher...?
My thing is, I take a look at some (not all, just some of them) of these recruiters for temp services and instictively, I can usually size them up fairly accurately. Some of them are fairly honorable and well-intentioned people, and some of them (and not all of them) can be real scuzzbuckets, not to be trusted, and they are the ones I like to stick it to.
While staying in the Tulsa area for a brief time back in 2005, I'd meet with them, discuss signing on with them, listen to them try to sell me on this bill of goods that often sounded too good to be true-because it usually was too good to be true.
One well-known firm in the Tulsa area discusssed "marketing my resume" after signing on with them-only to find out later from the receptionist (a squirrelly individual in her own right) that my application wasn't even processed yet (and this was nearly two weeks after I'd signed on with them!). There was another firm there, where I caught the recruiter lying her tail off about having tried to call me (I was staying with family, and they not only had Caller ID but also an answering machine: I'd have gotten her call if they were really trying to reach me), then saying that there'd been no assignments for the past few days-then backtracking like crazy when I showed her a newspaper classified ad her firm put out that Sunday (our little confrontation took place on a Monday, the very next day after the ad ran in the local paper). Meanwhile, another that I'd tried to sign on with sent me a letter only 24hrs later after doing the paperwork, stating that they were unable to consider me for employment (you know it's pretty bad when a temp service won't hire you!).
But I ultimately managed to find one that utilized my talents while I was staying there in Tulsa and it paid me well, and those are the guys I chose to go with. They were a little more honest.
But like i said in my previous post, the fun was in meeting with these people face-to-face, shooting them the tough questions and watching them come unglued whenever I cut through their hype and their dishonesty. Perhaps when I move back to Oklahoma in the next 2 years, a career change is in order, such as investigative journalist? I don't mind returning for that next degree and Journalism may be tailor-made for my instincts, personality and comportment.
The report below also helps illustrates the point I've been making - although it is for the state of Oklahoma as a whole and was released at the end of last August:
Census Data Reveals Declining Median Income, Rising Poverty Rates in Oklahoma:
Current Economic Gains Failing to Benefit Many
(Tulsa): New data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the state's current period of economic growth is distributing benefits very unevenly across the state's population and leaving many Oklahomans behind, according to an analysis by Community Action Project (CAP), a Tulsa anti-poverty agency.
The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey found that Oklahoma's median household income declined slightly to $39,292 for the most recent two-year period of 2004-05 from $39,519 in 2003-04. The state's poverty rate jumped from 11.8% in 2003-04 to 13.2% in 2004-05. This represents roughly 50,000 additional Oklahomans living below the poverty line, which in 2005 was just under $20,000 for a family of four. During the same time period, overall state personal income grew 6%, according to previously-released data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I'll be on the lookout for an updated report that may be coming out at the end of this month(?) August. Do you see my point? State income was up up 6% but it was uneven with many people falling behind. Hopefully the new report will show some improvement for many. That is what I'd like to see.
http://www.captc.org/newspdf/pubpolpovertyrates_0806.pdf
Interesting report. I wonder what accounts for the discrepancy. Clearly, the rich getting richer would have an impact, but to actually have negative household income and the positive personal income numbers at the same time seems very odd. A hand full of rich people struggle to skew the statistics in light of the masses of middle class and poor.
Also, I really don't pay much attention to 'poverty" levels. Its a number that is invented by a government official and has little or no bearing on actual poverty levels. You want to reduce poverty? Just make the number smaller. I once had a cost of living gage that gave approx. cost of living for each adult and then for added children in several regions... seemed a better gage to me.
Nonetheless, interesting report. Thanks for the info.
The Tulsa metro is only about a little more than 25% of the state's population so we are in no way talking about a comparable dataset.
Also, median household income and average per capita income are two very different statistics. Oklahoma (and especially Tulsa) always does worse on household income data than on per capita income due to our high divorce rates. A family of four with two wage earners has a combined income of $100,000 but after divorce there are two households with a average of $50,000. Same amount of per capita income, but radically lower household income.
I agree that per capita income is a better measure of overall health of the economy. The gap between per capita income and household income is more an indicator of a social ill here in the buckle of the Bible belt than of anything to do with the economy.
quote:
Originally posted by mr.jaynes
quote:
Originally posted by USRufnex
I wish nobody had to go through an unchanged Reagan-era min wage at the same level I had to from '81 -'89 trying to work while going to college from '84 onward with no parental help.... but my grandparents dealt with the great depression in Oklahoma and I completely understand life ain't fair-- anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something... but I wouldn't wish on a human being what I saw going on at "Anybody, anytime" back when I was in high school.
Sir, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, you do NOT know what my experiences were with that company, experiences that happened over 25 years ago... don't preach to me about work gloves and pretend you knew what happened back in the day... you are not psychic. Yet you continue to act as if these people were innocent and blameless... they weren't. I cannot go back in a time machine and press charges on behalf of my co-workers or inform the friggin' Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor... I was 17 years old at the time. And the people that I believe to this day were taken advantage of were folks who would never have made waves, and THAT STAFFING COMPANY KNEW IT... Geez.
You refuse to even vaguely admit that there were/are bad apples in your industry... remarkable.
Once again, I have worked on the employer/HR side that screens applicants as a recruiter, and have worked many different "day jobs" over the years and understand enough to know the temptation for low-wage employers and their staffing companies to put the squeeze on employees desperate for jobs and/or needed cash to pay bills, etc... or those losers who are inevitably gonna use that daily-cash for booze, etc...
If anything, these days in Tulsa, I'm guessing the opposite could currently be true and that there is pressure on temp agencies who will lose their businesses due to the good job market for workers here...
But sometimes, you have to judge an industry or even a society based on how it treats its most vulnerable.
Did you honestly think $5.15 per hour would go on forever... never change... while cost of living expenses get higher and higher...?
My thing is, I take a look at some (not all, just some of them) of these recruiters for temp services and instictively, I can usually size them up fairly accurately. Some of them are fairly honorable and well-intentioned people, and some of them (and not all of them) can be real scuzzbuckets, not to be trusted, and they are the ones I like to stick it to.
While staying in the Tulsa area for a brief time back in 2005, I'd meet with them, discuss signing on with them, listen to them try to sell me on this bill of goods that often sounded too good to be true-because it usually was too good to be true.
One well-known firm in the Tulsa area discusssed "marketing my resume" after signing on with them-only to find out later from the receptionist (a squirrelly individual in her own right) that my application wasn't even processed yet (and this was nearly two weeks after I'd signed on with them!). There was another firm there, where I caught the recruiter lying her tail off about having tried to call me (I was staying with family, and they not only had Caller ID but also an answering machine: I'd have gotten her call if they were really trying to reach me), then saying that there'd been no assignments for the past few days-then backtracking like crazy when I showed her a newspaper classified ad her firm put out that Sunday (our little confrontation took place on a Monday, the very next day after the ad ran in the local paper). Meanwhile, another that I'd tried to sign on with sent me a letter only 24hrs later after doing the paperwork, stating that they were unable to consider me for employment (you know it's pretty bad when a temp service won't hire you!).
But I ultimately managed to find one that utilized my talents while I was staying there in Tulsa and it paid me well, and those are the guys I chose to go with. They were a little more honest.
But like i said in my previous post, the fun was in meeting with these people face-to-face, shooting them the tough questions and watching them come unglued whenever I cut through their hype and their dishonesty. Perhaps when I move back to Oklahoma in the next 2 years, a career change is in order, such as investigative journalist? I don't mind returning for that next degree and Journalism may be tailor-made for my instincts, personality and comportment.
Once again, I am not familer with those incidents. I will offer this for those in a job search currently or in the future.
Pre and Post Hire Process
Keep in mind that as with any employer, one applies for a position with the company. That is only the first step in the hiring process. That does not mean they are hired at that point in the process. As I stated above the Pre-Hire and Post-Hire process since the change in the law is a University level class in itself. Lawyers and legal minds wrote this process in labor laws. Our labor law firm trained 40 of our staff members for three eight-hour days straight on the new employment processes, and that was only the introduction. Additional training took several months in the evenings, with follow up seminars held every quarter.
Typically the hiring process, if done properly and following all the new rules and regulations should take more than 48 hours if the employee lived and worked only in one state. If they came from out of state, depending on the state they came from, the reports can take up to two weeks or more to arrive. If one lived in or worked in a state such as Florida and in a few of the high crime counties, those reports are at times backlogged for up to a year or longer. Add in the time for performing the USCIS Employment Authorization checks for applicants.
There are numerous reasons applicants are turned down for employment, depending on what type of job it is and the requirements set by the employer. Not every applicant is hired at any company. Most of the higher quality personnel agencies perform screening, and contact previous employers to verify salary, job classification, and re-hire status. It is typically much more difficult to pass the screening processes at Personnel Agencies, than many other businesses. This is for many reasons, but mainly because it is in their best interest to provide the best-qualified and highest quality of employees that are available.
I am not sure what your questions were to the recruiters so I cannot answer that directly. I can offer this. With the new laws they are not allowed to ask certain questions, and if you ask a question that the answer would be the same as them asking an illegal question in the interview, they may not answer it directly as it would be in violation of pre-hire discussion laws.
I would suggest reading the laws on pre and post hire questions and procedures for anyone conducting a job search. Knowing the proper procedures and what is allowed to be discussed during a pre-hire interview may provide a quicker avenue to being chosen for the position you are applying for.
If you are not comfortable with the initial interview at any company, I would suggest moving on to the next one on your list. There are different levels of quality and people in all businesses. That is why Baskin Robbins has 31 Flavors. Businesses are made up of people and sometimes a person does not fit in with the people working there. That is pretty common in the World.
If you are turned down at one agency, I would suggest applying with another. Some have more stringent hiring standards than others. I would not hold that against them or worry about why you were not hired. You moved on and found another agency that hired you and worked an assignment or more. That is what you were seeking to do, and you found it.
These agencies are like Banks, not everyone qualifies for loans at specific levels at all banks. May find one that will accept your application with a smile, while others may turn you down for the same amount.
quote:
Originally posted by kakie
The report below also helps illustrates the point I've been making - although it is for the state of Oklahoma as a whole and was released at the end of last August:
Census Data Reveals Declining Median Income, Rising Poverty Rates in Oklahoma:
Current Economic Gains Failing to Benefit Many
(Tulsa): New data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the state's current period of economic growth is distributing benefits very unevenly across the state's population and leaving many Oklahomans behind, according to an analysis by Community Action Project (CAP), a Tulsa anti-poverty agency.
The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey found that Oklahoma's median household income declined slightly to $39,292 for the most recent two-year period of 2004-05 from $39,519 in 2003-04. The state's poverty rate jumped from 11.8% in 2003-04 to 13.2% in 2004-05. This represents roughly 50,000 additional Oklahomans living below the poverty line, which in 2005 was just under $20,000 for a family of four. During the same time period, overall state personal income grew 6%, according to previously-released data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
I'll be on the lookout for an updated report that may be coming out at the end of this month(?) August. Do you see my point? State income was up up 6% but it was uneven with many people falling behind. Hopefully the new report will show some improvement for many. That is what I'd like to see.
http://www.captc.org/newspdf/pubpolpovertyrates_0806.pdf
We have been hearing for decades now how if you are not a skilled worker your wages are going to stagnate. The more skilled and educated you are, your wages are going to go up. Do we want to be a country or city of mostly skilled or unskilled workers? True there will always be some jobs that are not skilled that are required. But if the majority is able to afford it, those people will have to get paid more. The city will pay the trash man more because they can afford it. If you have a huge pool of uneducated workers there is no push to raise wages for them. If there were fewer then those companies that wanted them would have to pay more to get and keep them. Then the costs would be transferred to the wealthier consumers etc. But even still, it must be that the more skilled some people are the more desirable and thus more paid they will be. That alone will create wage disparity between them and the unskilled. 100 years ago there wasnt a need for highly skilled computer and tech people or whatever. The general educational and skill disparities werent as great or numerous and thus neither were the general wage disparities. (especially if you were in one of those "one industry" industrial cities) There is more to it than that, but that still has to have an influence. Plus as there are more people than ever a single person can invent or sell a product to ever more people. Even selling a one dollar product to a billion people can make you quite "disparigingly" wealthier than the average person.
Wage disparities will continue to increase. However there is still the opportunity to pull more people than ever up the ladder. Course if they would reach up and grab the next rung of education for themselves, that would help too. And it behooves us to make that rung as easily reachable and cost affordable as possible.
After the initial shock in the early 80s, the cost of energy was not a big issue concerning travel to work for several years. The cost of driving from outlying towns into Tulsa was not a major expense, and many people did it every day.
With today's energy costs, folks that commute to a job are faced with the balance of taking a job that pays less in their home community, or finding a cottage industry need to fill from their home, or accepting the fact that they are taking a loss in the cost of transportation if they continue to commute. Many are financially ahead to change jobs and work at a local outfit, versus the difference between their cost of driving for higher pay.
There may be low unemployment, but there is even a greater lack of mobile labor, skilled and un-skilled that was created when the price of fuel exceeded the $2.00 per gallon mark.
The diameter of the circle where one lives and where one works shrunk with every raise in gas prices that are not complimented with a raise in the pay rate for that person's job.