I was a commissioned sales person out of school. Talk about long days. Door to door.
I never had any money.
I’m self-employed. zer0 administration killed our nest egg and also killed business, so we needed to use retirement savings to live for 8 years. DH worked (self-employed)until age 67, when zer0 & company impacted discretionary spending and hurt our businesses. He helps in my business and spends his time fixing our property so we can sell and downsize. He picks up some money with a few old clients. Savings are at an all time low, but we still have some. Driving an 18-year-old truck. Rusty, but runs well.
Business picked up dramatically after DJT was elected. Cost of living increased, too. We have nowhere left to cut. Have a signed offer on the property and the home inspection is next week. Orders are as good as possible.
I’m 76, DH is 68. So far, no major health problems. Supplemental insurance is expensive. We both take SS, but we never made a lot, so it covers about 1/2 living expenses, business covers the rest. Once the sale goes through and we’ve downsized, things will ease up a bit with extra cash to beef the savings. I will need to continue working, at least for a while and am glad I can. DH will restart one of his former businesses when he doesn’t need to be doing home construction/maintenance all the time.
So: I make more than $15 and pay self-employment taxes and my own *benefits*. The net is my *wage*.
I’ve been financially comfortable and I’ve struggled financially. Such is life. Hope to be financially comfortable again, soon. Never asked for help and none was ever offered.
This series on the poor working non-unionized jobs is propaganda. I’ve worked for myself for over 50 years. I’ve had employees. Most were not worth the money and supervisory time. A couple were wonderful. I paid as much as I could, but my jobs were all part-time, cash. The good workers went on to succeed. The bad ones, didn’t.
This tired-out 29-year-old might consider how much energy is being sucked by the union organizers. She could get a few more hours sleep if she didn’t have meetings and retreats and actions to attend.
Not a lot of sympathy.