In easier to grasp terms, that works out to at least $13.00 per hour. Low and mid-tier Skico employees make less per hour than that. In fact, low tier make under $11.00 per hour. In fact, one has to be in a management position at Aspen Ski Corp. to make that bare minimum. And that bare minimum? Is for a single person. If you are single with one child you need to be making between $28 and $29 per hour.
Remember now, Aspen's largest employer is seasonal. So double or triple what you need to earn in order to get that made in 6 months or less.
Remember now, your 'perks' like health insurance, free ski pass and bus pass lower your expenses which translates out to a great point that Tracey Stewart makes in this article. 'You make too much' to qualify for most all subsidies to help out. Now there is a very interesting thought considering Aspen's blue blood runs liberal. Good 'ol fashioned capitalism is sounding better by the day, isn't it?
Still think Lee Mulcahy's voice should have been quashed by $Big Money$? Or that he should still be enduring the wrath of $Big Money$ for exposing them?
Before personally judging Mulcahy and supporters, please read up on all of the facts and get familiar with all of the story.
While you're at it, please read the entire article by Dorothy Atkins today. Up on the Aspen Daily News.
Dorothy Atkins:
"In order to be self sufficient and live in Pitkin County, an individual needs to make at least $27,000 a year, according to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP), while a single parent with three young children needs to make $103,607 annually to get by on their own.
The nonprofit agency presented the statistics and others related to self-sufficiency standards to the Board of County Commissioners in a work session on Tuesday.
The study is an income measurement tool that determines how much money families of various sizes and compositions living in specific geographic locations need to earn in order to make ends meet without public or private assistance. The nonprofit produces the study every three years.
A singe parent with one child needs to earn at least $59,400 a year to be self sufficient in Pitkin County, while a two-parent, two-child household needs to make over $87,500 a year here, according to the study.
Those statistics include federal tax credits that families would theoretically receive like the child care credit and the earned income tax credit.
The study also addresses the increase in costs of basic needs since 2004. Of the six categories, all costs have gone up in Pitkin County except transportation. The costs of housing, child care, food, health care and taxes have all increased. The cost of health care showed the largest jump, increasing by 121 percent, which is consistent with the rest of the state, said Tracey Stewart, self-sufficiency project coordinator with CCLP.
Of a sampling of various common working and middle class lines of work, only two occupations in Pitkin County pay enough for a single parent with one preschooler and one school-age child to be self sufficient, according to the study. Those are registered nurses and operations managers, the latter of which theoretically includes people in management positions at Aspen Skiing Co., Stewart said.
Commissioner Rob Ittner questioned Stewart on whether or not the study took into account benefits that residents receive — like affordable housing and food stamps — which can do a lot to offset the high cost of living in Pitkin County.
Stewart countered that there is often a gap between the amount of money individuals would have to earn on the lower end to qualify for receiving benefits from the government and the amount one would have to make to be self-sufficient...." (Read more? You should. Click title)
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."
8 comments:
some D & E employees start out at $9.25/hour.
from andrew breibart:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/02/21/michelle-obama-loves-the-corporate-cash-in-exclusive-colorado-ski-resort-from-non-union-employers
On the campaign trail in 2008, Michelle Obama denigrated corporate America, but on the campaign trail in 2012, she's more than happy to take its union-busing cash and enjoy the lifestyle of the .001%.
Michelle Obama has long been known to have expensive tastes, so her sixteenth vacation of the Obama presidency oughtn't come as a surprise. She bought a three hundred Coach bag when she was a teenager with her babysitting money. Her dress at the 2008 convention cost $1250. She dined at Table 52, a high-end restaurant on her infamous “Date Night” to New York City. She sported a $2,000 dress for her last vacation in Hawaii. She owns a pair of $540 designer sneakers, which she wore,humorously enough, to a food bank.
But this week is but another example of how out of touch she is. Michelle Obama and her daughters are spending the long weekend at the "huge private home" of long-time Democratic donors, Paula and Jim Crown. The Crowns, who hail from Chicago, have given the Democratic Party plenty of money over the years, according to FEC filings. Indeed, Michelle Obama hosted a fundraiser at the Crown home last year, too, where more than 150 Democratic donors donated between $1,000 and $10,000 to the Obama re-election campaign.
The Crowns own the Aspen Skiing Company, known locally as The Skico, which has been involved in a labor dispute with Lee Mulcahy, a former ski instructor who was fired he says for criticizing the disparity between what the Skico pays its instructors ($69 a day) and the cost of a day long lesson ($625). Mulcahy, who took his complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, pointed out that he was merely asking for a living wage, something he argues the Crowns already support through their philanthropy to organizations that back a living wage. (Shia Kapos, "Aspen's have-nots hurl challenge at Crowns," Crain's Chicago Business, January 24, 2011)
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In May 2010, Mulcahy wrote a letter to a local newspaper questioning Skico's corporate mentality of "the customer is always right, no matter when they are wrong" and gave the example of a private shuttle that wouldn't offer a ride to skiers at public bus stops on a snow day because he was concerned his well-to-do customers would complain. Though Mulcahy stressed he was lucky to work for Skico repeatedly, he found himself fired. According to the Chicago Tribune, Mulcahy maintains it was in retaliation for voicing his opinion and for sending emails to fellow instructors about living wages and discussing unionization. He filed with the National Labor Relations Board. (Alejandra Cancino, "Speaking out in Aspen snowballs into lawsuit," Chicago Tribune, December 12, 2010). Alas, Mulcahy ultimately lost his NRLB fight last June, but not before the NRLB required Skico to end its policy barring communication between instructors on personal email accounts about wages, benefits, work conditions and unions. (Scott Condon, "Aspen Skiing Co., Mulcahy end bitter feud--for now, The Aspen Times, July 1, 2011.)
So what has this got to do with Michelle Obama?
It's part of a pattern of do-as I say, not-as-I-do liberalism. In 2005 and 2006, Michelle Obama received $45,000 and $51,200 and more than $144,000 in stock from TreeHouse Foods, Inc., a food-processing company that manufacturers some of the very food that Obama now campaigns against in her "Let's Move" anti-obesity crusade.
What's more, as her husband was currently inveighing against Treehouse's biggest customer--Wal-Mart--in the U.S. Senate and while running for president, this raised charges of hypocrisy, which Michelle refused to entertain. In fact, she was deeply offended that the press asked questions about her business dealings. “My income is pretty low compared to my peers,” she says, meaning other Harvard Law grads. “You wouldn't ask that question if, like some people in politics, we had trust funds and were rich.” (“Off message: Sen. Obama Sees Hypocrisy in His Wife’s Post At A Firm That Does Business With Wal-Mart,” Crain’s Chicago Business, December 11, 2006).
But the Obamas are rich, fabulously so. And so are their friends the Crowns who routinely makes the list of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans. Couldn't these Obama backers give less money to Obama and more to their employees?
Now, of course companies ought to be free to hire and fire as they see fit. No one but the Obamas dispute this tenant of the free market.
But why is it okay to vacation at one of the most exclusive, anti-union resorts in the country, but not okay for Boeing and other companies to relocate to right-to-work states without facing the wrath of Obama's National Labor Relations Board? Why is it okay to take cash and gifts from anti-union companies?
"-Ittner also questioned Stewart on people who are supposedly below the self-sufficiency level but who can afford cable televisions and cell phones.
Those people are often part of pay-as-you go programs, Stewart said, which are cut off as soon as the individual can’t make a payment, or they live in subsidized housing that provides cable television.
“It’s very easy in this country to look like you have more than you own,” Stewart said.
Stewart acknowledged that she often had the same discussion with people, because it is a common fallacy.
“And then I introduce them to poor people and we stop having this conversation,” she said."
Surprised at Ittner showing this kind of hypocrisy. At least 60% of Pitkin folks are working class and that's not the working class in management stages. Those that are in management and above plus more than a few of those considered wealthy live fake in some way. We all know it and so does Ittner. Just one of those dirty secrets everybody keeps on behalf of keeping up appearances.
That 60% plus are real people with families and friends who keep that secret. They do it so they can live in a place where there really is a chance to get ahead. The irony of that is the power that controls that success doesn't want to share. Doing that might lower the bottom line profits.
Another sad reality in Pitkin county and the upvalley of Garfield county is that just living with the kind of odds Stewart and these commentators are talking about is enough for anyone to handle.
To have to handle the effects that the greed of a few in that 10% on up bracket use to enhance their bottom lines is so wrong, the actions of those doing so are borderline criminal. If not actually criminal.
It is with interest to watch the current lawsuit wait and service staff have going against local restaurants. Which is a perfect example of greed mongering and apathetic elected officials who deliberately keep themselves clueless and blinded.
Notice that this is at least the third time this study has shown the problems with a steady increase of how bad those problems are. Yet not a single government entity or corporate power steps up to make corrections. And they wonder why the kids of upper Garfield and Pitkin don't stick around or return home to live and raise families. Even the Skico and Crown family have lost steep in rankings of sought after resorts and their bottom line doesn't hold a candle to Vail Resorts and others. With the Aspen population approaching the late middle age stage, retirement stage and end of life stage; there is no young population any longer that can hope to sustain in the economic conditions they face. Sooner or later all that is fake is going to crumble.
And there, is the best reason why Crowns should seriously entertain selling out to somebody like Vail Resorts.
They don't even hold the ability any longer to say that they're respected.
$27,000 annual is way too low of a threshold in Pitkin County. Way too low. $20 per hr. for a single person is enough to live on. $13.00 is poverty.
No. $9.25 to $11.00 an hour is poverty and that's what the majority of industry workers are making. There are even a lot working for less.
You can't even live in Glenwood Springs on $13 an hour if you're single. Especially if work is upvalley commute.
You can barely live and work in Glenwood Springs for $16 an hour.
I'd say this study is still way, way off base and seeing that makes it hit and hurt even worse for the average person. There's something about not being able to make bare bills like rent and utilities, gas and food while you watch all the lies and manipulation with things like tourism marketing, prosperity for all and big corporate greed thieves improving their bottom lines at your expense.
Just somehow doesn't seem genuine and sincere.
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