“It’s astonishing to me — though perhaps it shouldn’t be — that Hillbilly Elegy managed to seduce as many liberals as it did given that Vance’s scorn for almost everyone in his poverty-stricken small Ohio town reverberates on every page. He doesn’t do a very good job of disguising it, but he does arguably try — he occasionally tells us he feels empathy, while rarely actually displaying any. Early on, he writes, “I’m not arguing that we deserve more sympathy than other folks.” This comes immediately after demonizing a co-worker he once had because he was consistently late or absent from work, and who seems to represent the larger ailment among “hillbillies” he claims to want to diagnose.
Though he seems to hate his community full of deadbeats, drug addicts, fat people, and “welfare queens,” we’re supposed to read his portrayal as enlightening and empathetic because he’s constantly feinting briefly toward gentleness. “There are no villains in this story,” he tells us early on; except Hillbilly Elegy is full of them. Throughout the book, he frequently makes assumptions about the motivations and life circumstances of the people around him and rails against them for what he sees as their lazy, unmotivated, or bizarre choices. Indeed, more sympathy does not seem to be his concern.
Even the book’s title is a manipulation. As many people have pointed out, Vance didn’t actually grow up as a fabled “hillbilly”; he merely spent some of his summers in Appalachia as a child. When he’s describing the small town of Middletown, Ohio, where he grew up, the first thing he focuses on is the town’s socioeconomic decline, unlike his more affectionate descriptions of the topography of rural Kentucky and detailed character profiles of his family there. He’s at pains to make sure we understand how much he hated it there, and how much his heart truly belonged with his renegade redneck family across the Kentucky border.
In Middletown, his focus on the town’s economics, its rising “residential segregation” into concentrated areas of working-class poor, and the row of decaying mansions on Main Street, all reveal his obsession with class and upward mobility. It’s a fixation that underpins the book. “Looking back, I don’t know if the ‘really poor’ areas and my block were any different, or whether these divisions were the constructs of a mind that didn’t want to believe it was really poor,” he admits.
In all of the many moments where he demonizes the poor people in his orbit, Vance fails to offer or even consider the broader context of what’s happening with his community that might drive people to lives of penury and misery. He rails against drug addicts and provides a close, painful look at his family’s own battle with addictions, particularly his mother — but he never mentions the opioid crisis or the role companies and policy played in ravaging rural communities.
“We created these problems, not the government, not a corporation,” he insists, despite having plenty of evidence to the contrary.”
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“Vance is, of course, a conservative, and the focus on individual failing rather than systemic failures is to be expected. But what’s striking about Hillbilly Elegy, especially in the context of his recent turn toward Trumpian populism, is its disdain for people.
Even as he’s trying to define himself as part of one in-group or another, be it the Scots-Irish or the “hillbillies,” he can’t stop shaming and distancing himself from the other people in it. His characterizations of his community and the people in it thrum with disgust and a deep sense of remove. As someone who grew up in a similar world, it would never even occur to me to feel for my own rural small Southern town the loathing Vance seems to feel for his, and the fact Vance never even second-guesses his own level of antipathy is one of the more chilling aspects of the book.”
“Last September, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill mandating a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. The new wage is among the highest in the county, surpassing even Washington, D.C.’s $17.50 minimum wage. While supporters touted the wage increase as a way to help struggling Californians, detractors warned that restaurant owners would respond by laying off workers, cutting their hours, or speeding up the already starting shift to automation.
The law went into effect in April, meaning that it’s likely too early to tell what the ultimate effects of the law will be. However, a recent report from the Associated Press detailed concerns from several California fast food restaurant owners who say they’ve been forced to reduce hours and hike food prices.
“We kind of just cut where we can,” Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns several Wendy’s franchises told the A.P. “I schedule one less person, and then I come in for that time that I didn’t schedule and I work that hour.”
Juancarlos Chacon, who owns nine Jersey Mikes locations in Los Angeles told the A.P. that he’s resorted to reducing staff, cutting his part-time workers by about 20 employees. He’s also had to raise prices. A turkey sub, for example, that used to be under $10 now costs $11.15. As a result, the amount customers spend, he says, has been falling.
“I’ve been in the business for 25 years and two different brands and I never had to increase the amount of pricing that I did this past time in April,” he told the A.P.”
“if it’s win-win, why just make the minimum $20? Why not $30? Or $100?
Because government requiring higher wages is not a win-win.
Interfering with market prices always creates nasty unintended consequences.”
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“No. 1: Thousands of Californians have already lost jobs because some restaurants closed. Others lost income because their employer cut worker hours. The chain El Pollo Loco cut employees’ hours by 10 percent.
Pizza Hut announced that they will lay off more than a thousand delivery drivers. One such driver, Michael Ojeda, understandably asked, “What’s the point of a raise if you don’t have a job?”
No. 2: Workers who still have jobs will lose them because now their employers have more incentive to automate. Chipotle just created a robot that makes burrito bowls. Even CNN acknowledged, “Some restaurants are replacing [fast food workers] with kiosks.”
“A new California law will require that most food-service workers get paid at least $20 per hour starting next year.
But hundreds of pizza delivery drivers in the Los Angeles area are about to discover Thomas Sowell’s famous adage that the true minimum wage is zero.
Pizza Hut announced Wednesday that it would lay off about 1,200 delivery drivers in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties, CBS News reported. Pizza Hut franchises are outsourcing delivery to third-party apps like GrubHub and UberEats as a cost-saving measure in advance of the new law taking effect.”
“President Joe Biden’s administration is currently considering new regulations that will deny middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans crucial child care services, specifically hampering their ability to welcome au pairs into their families. Biden has proposed further regulating the federal au pair program, which will disproportionately burden highly skilled working mothers, maybe even to the point of driving more of them out of the workforce.
For me, this issue is personal. Like millions of families in the summer of 2020, my family faced a childcare crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The daycare our two young boys attended, aged one and three at the time, closed its doors, and our temporary nanny found another job. Fortunately, my wife and I were both healthy and able to work from home. But caring for two young children while working proved challenging.
We tried to find a solution and re-enrolled our boys in daycare, but it closed down for days at a time due to COVID cases. As a result, my wife and I had to take turns working and taking care of the children. I’d work during the morning and early afternoon, she’d work in the late afternoon and night. It was unsustainable.
Desperate, we finally considered hiring an au pair, a step we had never seriously considered before. The idea of having a stranger live with us seemed off-putting. We were not used to having help at home. We associated such arrangements with the super-rich who could afford butlers, maids, and private jets. But the pandemic left us no choice and convinced us to take the plunge.
We are so glad we did.
We contacted an au pair agency and began interviewing au pairs within days. Due to COVID-related border closures enacted by the Trump administration, new au pairs weren’t coming to the United States, but those already here could switch families. After multiple interviews and in-person meetings, we decided we wanted to hire Neevoliah, who was originally from South Africa and had been with another family in San Francisco. She joined our family in early fall 2020.”
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“Hiring an au pair was the second-best decision we’ve made regarding our children (the best was having them). But the Biden administration’s proposed regulatory changes could end this program for us and thousands of other middle-class families.”
“B 1228 applies to fast-food chains with at least 60 locations nationwide — except for those that make and sell their own bread. The bill’s landmark change is a minimum wage hike to $20 per hour, almost $5 higher than the Golden State’s minimum wage of $15.50.
It would also see the establishment of a Fast Food Council to set wages and make recommendations for working conditions. The council has the power to increase the new minimum wage each year through 2029 up to 3.5% or the average change in the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners, whichever is lower.
One key part of the bill has been removed since its proposal. Previously, AB 1228 would have made fast-food corporations jointly liable if franchisees committed labor violations, which the NOA believes could have led to “frivolous lawsuits against franchisees” that would then force the larger corporate head offices to exert more control over local operations.”
“The early wage access industry has emerged because so many Americans aren’t paid enough, and they aren’t paid quickly enough. There’s frequently a lag of several days between when employees complete their work and when they get paid, making many workers reach for early pay apps.
The US still largely lacks the ability to make instant, real-time payments between bank accounts — a technology that’s widely available in many other countries — which means it can take longer for workers to get paid. Slow bank payments “have very significant wealth effects for low-wage workers,” said Elena Botella, author of Delinquent: Inside America’s Debt Machine. Fintech companies have stepped in to fill that void with early wage apps, offering workers faster access to their earnings for steep fees.”