Income Inequality
Poor People and Rich People Live In Different Worlds
But most people don’t know it
A friend called me from the grocery store on Easter, mentioning she’d had to go to a different place than usual because her favorite store was closed for the holiday.
“I try to never go to the store on a holiday,” I said.
She didn’t understand why.
“Well, most of those people who came to work today probably would have preferred to be home. Maybe they wanted to drive to a relative’s house for dinner or have an egg hunt with their kids. If nobody went to the store on Easter, they could be with their family.”
“But they chose to be here,” my friend said. “They get time-and-a-half.”
“I’d be surprised if they did,” I said. Though I’ve never worked in a grocery store, I worked a lot of service jobs as a student. Not once did I ever get paid extra for working a holiday.
Nor was I ever given a choice. If they scheduled you, you came in, or you were fired. That was that.
My friend was sure they were rewarded for holiday work.
But with me on the phone, she asked one of the workers. Sure enough, the worker was not getting any…
