Living in cars, working for Amazon | Hacker News Reader

Living in cars, working for Amazon

theguardian.com

64 pointsadgasf62 comments

For those who want to read an expose on the nomadic and way underpaid, I'd suggest checking out Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. (actually, anything she writes is phenomenal). This whole living in your car and being nomadic is hardly new to America. I saw it when I was traveling the USA from 2001 to 2007 or so.

As I tell anyone, the only reason Los Angeles can have so many gyms is because the working homeless needs to take a shower too.

On the one hand, I'm glad that this topic is getting more attention, but I'm uncomfortable with the thought that Amazon is the poster child for this, when they are one of the few companies that has low wage workers working full time, which is very rare in this day of required health care.

I agree it is weird. It is also sad that as a society we can't take care of our elders. With respect to insurance, some of these workers are over age 65 so they get Medicare. What's interesting is that the article describes "Don Wheeler" a former software exec who lost everything in the '08 crash as well as his Berkeley house to his ex-wife. For the HN softare crowd who worry about a career as they get older, this is close to home. That being said he may have unique circumstances but still... I think people also underestimate the financial impact of divorce.

Yeah, I’d love to take care of the people who mortgaged my future away for a few more dollars.

Entitlement programs need to be cut ASAP and supplanted by UBI. Especially so for the boomers who wrecked my country.

> Yeah, I’d love to take care of the people who mortgaged my future away for a few more dollars.

You're going to really enjoy the irony when you realize what we're currently doing to the next generation's world as well.

Automation is an evil I can live with. At least it’s fair.

It hits all ages full-force. The person serving you coffee, cooking your food, ringing up your groceries, are all part-time and can't get full-time.

Yeah, a lot of them are homeless. At the end of the day, no one is going to help them.

Can't get full time because that means the company have to pay for health benefits. That one was totally predictable and could have been solved by making part time employment provide part of the benefits.

Or just punitively tax all in kind benefits.

There's no good policy reason to make it advantageous for businesses to provide compensation that the recipient can't spend or sell.

I don’t live on the west coast, but I know that housing is ridiculously expensive and nobody wants to build housing. Atleast in the San Francisco area. Anyways, crazy idea. Why not build a parking garage with a few amenities to cater to these van dwellers. I’m sure there are permitting issue, but it might be easier.

A lot of church parking lots let car dwellers sleep there. LA has fairly loose rules about parking and sleeping (I get that impression walking around north of Hollywood Blvd). I suppose it depends on where you are. You can't park in Beverly Hills, I'm sure.

EDIT to add: Rent in Los Angeles can be quite reasonable, though out of reach of the single minimum wage worker. With a dual income, it's possible. The problem is good credit and proof of long-term employment. The move-in costs is absurd.

I wish temporarily living in your car was more acceptable. I'd somewhat rather do that right now than have to hop between airbnb places while I'm looking for a real apartment by my new job. If I had a van or something I'd do it but it's just a normal car that would be too conspicuous.

Amazon seems to almost always be the target of these articles, how about highlighting someone else for a change. For example, drive along El Camino Real next to Stanford University and you will see a long line of campers parked along the road. Many of the people living there work either directly or indirectly for the University. Stanford has literally thousands of acres of empty land where they could build housing for their temporary and low income employees, yet they chose not to. They could at least provide a campground with proper facilities and hookups (so sewage doesn't go down storm drains, for instance). Of course the real solution, which is to pay ALL your employees a living wage, that apparently is crazy talk in The Valley.

When the owner of Amazon it's the richest person on the planet I would say it's fair game.

Also, Amazon has amazing public perception, letting the public know how they can be so cheap and good it's worth doing, just like the campaigns of the past against sweatshop usage by famous clothing brands.

> When the owner of Amazon it's the richest person on the planet I would say it's fair game.

How is the structure of ownership of the company changes the rules of the game for the company? Company's goal is to create value for shareholders.

If you want punish people for having more than others, there's already an instrument for that, progressive taxation.

> If you want punish people for having more than others, there's already an instrument for that, progressive taxation

Except that rich people (and companies) don't pay taxes.

Paying higher wages doesn't create more housing. At best these people could displace some others if paid more.

The real real solution is to legalize housing construction in the area.

Another real solution would be public policies that encourage economic development in other metropolitan areas so that we don't have to squeeze more and more people into a few small areas. It isn't healthy for the country as a whole to build up Palo Alto more and more while we allow Modesto (for example) to stagnate.

I understand there are certain benefits to density and geographic concentration of related companies, but those aren't the only factors we should consider.

I'd take this argument more seriously if Palo Alto was even moderately densely urban.

It's my understanding that it's the local municipalities who don't let them build, fearing traffic congestion and losses in land value, generally being wrong on both accounts.

You don't think traffic congestion is a problem in the bay area?

Of course it is - but if Stanford build more housing for employees on its land, there would actually be less traffic since fewer people would be commuting to work.

I think amazon is the target because they apparently have program dedicated to hiring temporary workers who lives in RVs:

http://www.amazondelivers.jobs/about/camperforce/

(it's almost unbelievable)

Aren't there people who _want_ to do this?

Or is it good marketing?

I know people that actually do like these sorts of mobile adventures. It's pretty common in the health industry to have traveling doctors and nurses that hop from state to state to fill in for vacationing docs or temporary needs. It's called locum tenens. You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locum

This scenario is slightly different, but there are certain types of people that prefer to not be tied down or simply have a craving to spend a piece of their lives roving around geographically. Similar mentality to liveaboard sailors and people that seek out work in Antarctica.

My wife is a CNA. If you're flexible about suddenly hopping on a plane for a few weeks or months and living in a rented room, there's some good money in it (several times her usual pay rate and housing paid for). But at least in that case, the wages are pretty good. Amazon's are pretty low, and they don't pay to house the workers.

The article points out that Amazon DOES pay for their RV park fees (these tend to be: $15-50/day). Additionally, the people in this article say the pay is good (compared to what they'd be making elsewhere for unskilled labor). It's not what your wife would make, but she has special training and certification. I do know a family that lives out of an RV supported by a locus tenens RN. The dad (former schoolteacher) homeschools the kids. They could settle down in a single location if they wanted, or rent out locations during the wife's appointments, but this RV trip is their adventure.

My point is that there is a type of person that actually enjoys this type of lifestyle. I don't think Amazon is being nefarious and taking advantage of impoverished RV migrants as much as it's creating a mutually beneficial arrangement.

I am sure someone enjoys it but it is less fun when you dont have a choice

Amazon provides proper campsite and hookups. The only think wrong with Amazon's program is the low wages, not the living situation for seasonal work.

Don't let the absurdity of hiring workers who can only afford to live in RVs escape you.

To be fair, maybe it makes some sense for seasonal work. Or maybe that's just marketing. If the wages are decent, then maybe it's okay.

Now that’s scalability.

Oh God. That's truly terrible. Funny that they just acknowledge it up front like that. "Slave wages" with the resulting living conditions...come aboard.

Why is this top response just a deflection?

Stanford does not have the money - you see they are busy creating a new form of non-scholarships that allow special people who would donate in future to go to school at much lower rate for education

There is no concept of 'society' and 'community' in the country. As long as things are good there is no problem, but when things start falling apart you need robust social and community structures and these simply don't exist.

Because people who are down need more than just tokenism, they need real human structures that can provide psychological human support, that sense of family, and then social and community structures that show the society is human and has empathy for its fellow members to get them back on their feet.

People who are wealthy already have this. People who are not need to think about down times, not just for themselves, but their family, friends, community and children down the line. If everyone thinks they are strictly individuals on the verge of becoming rich and these silly things don't matter you are going to have serious social problems.

There are definitely communities organized around churches, mosques and synagogues. I think one problem we have is that we expect faith based organizations to pick up the slack instead of the government. That was a big agenda in W’s administration.

Here’s the issue, everyone is broke except the rich. Some of them don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes. Politicians are easily bought.

This will only become more common once vehicles are self-driving. People will live in their vehicles and have them either drive around all night or find a place to park many hours away from their jobs (assuming there any jobs left).

The fantasy many folks seem to have about self-driving vehicles causing car ownership to disappear in favor of automated Ubers/Lyfts/whatevers on demand might come to pass for one class of people, but there will be large numbers of people for whom the opposite happens: they give up their homes (by choice or not) and live in a self-driving vehicle that is the only dwelling they own.

We already have this, without self-driving cars.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-sands-bethlehem...

Some Asian patrons of casinos almost live on the bus, in between stays to sell the various free perks they receive. It's a hellish existence, and not one to be wished on anyone.

The most famous one is probably the google employee who lived in a truck: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truc...

There are actually a lot of other software engineers / freelancers on https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all. Like this engineer from Tesla: http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-employee-lived-out-of-v...

I find the modding be really cool. But the stories of people getting killed/robbed at night like this Palo Alto tech worker scares me: https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/man-kill...

(Google campus would be a pretty ideal place to do this though)

Did you read the article? It's not about a high-paid engineer working at a big 5 tech company and living in an RV. It's about people who can't afford homes and work temporary jobs around the country because our economy has failed them.

Federal minimum wage, times 2000 hours (if you can get it,) is not enough to sustain a living, much less a family. If we want people to work for a living, we'd support significant increases there.

Is 40 hours a week some kind of natural upper limit? People long ago worked more hours than that for sustenance.

I talk to a lot of people hustling and making a living working a trade or a service job and then doing something else on the side. I agree that $15K per year is a meager existence. What I'm not as sure about is whether one earner working only 2000 hours at minimum wage is something we need to make sustainable for a family of four.

(Side note: I'm in favor of UBI around $500-800/adult/month and half that for teens as supplemental income for most.)

The problem is that minimum- to low-wage jobs tend to be the ones with inflexible, unpredictable schedules, making it difficult to juggle more than one job at a time. On top of that, they're also the ones where employers will do anything to limit one's work hours to avoid having to pay them overtime. In theory anyone should be to earn more money just by putting in more hours, but in practice this is really only an option for those in higher-income professions (doctors, lawyers, the self-employed, etc.)

Minimum wage increases make it uneconomic for employers to hire workers whose labor produces little value — mainly youths and people without advanced education. So they get stuck in the permanently unemployed underclass, always reliant on welfare or working under the table for cash. A better solution would be to eliminate the minimum wage entirely and make up the difference through income redistribution with something like a negative income tax for the lower brackets.

Having groups of people working for 1 dollar an hour but refunding them at tax time is not the answer

Higher wages also means more disposable income for workers which flows quite heavily to industries like retail and hospitality, which offer a high proportion of entry level jobs

Disposable income is disposable income regardless of whether it comes from wages or income redistribution. If minimum wages are artificially fixed higher than the value of labor then those workers won't get any wages at all.

This is terrible, but that dude, Don Wheeler, absolutely should not have had that much assets in assets like stocks at such an advanced age. As you get older your asset mix should shift towards more low gain and high stability investments, like bonds, T-bonds, and other stable fixed-income asset classes.

Or, so I understand.

I had the same thoughts. Also, his story highlights the impact of divorce and rising trends of solo living arrangements.

Haven't anyone noted that the guy was made homeless by divorce?

So heartbreaking! As a younger man, I have seen enough. Married people can say what they want about how they love their lives, but the risk is just overwhelming. I am sure Don Wheeler loved being married at some point as well.

People have to live in car .. while working in amazon.. but why in earth we should use amazon ?? Do we support rich getting richer only.. ?

Please, lets start to respect our self and forgot these mega companies

You can regulate these companies through the political process, but you do need to get involved...

What chance do you have of convincing consumers to use a less convenient more expensive alternative to Amazon, when you can barely convince them to vote in their own interest?

‘Barely convince’? When did that happen? I think it is fair to say Americans are flat out incapable of voting in their own best interest. It could be argued they don’t even have a chance to, but regardless, they by-and-large cannot identify that chance whether it exists or not.

Fair point...

Markets don't optimize for ethical practices, but for convenience and price - driving down wages and driving up profits.

Consumers don't care how bad Amazon employees have it, if that degree of ruthless exploitation is what it takes to deliver an Echo anywhere in the world in two days.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking these people are forced into living this way due to rising housing and apartment costs. There is always a choice. These people could live in crappy apartments in crappy city-jobs if they so chose. But they don't want to, because part of them romanticizes life on the road.

You’re trash.

The GP was not a charitable comment, but outright personal attacks are still not allowed. We ban accounts that post this way, and I don't want to ban you, so would you please not post like this?

You've been here a long time, so I'm sure you know that civil, substantive comments are what we're looking for.

I will obey this, respect the needs of encouraging good discussion, and value my place as a member of this mostly interesting and thoughtful community. Still I stand behind the logical accuracy of my original statement.

You are right, there is a choice. The fact that this nomadic lifestyle is on the rise, however, is notable.

What is causing the increase? IMO, it's regional inequality. If the only good jobs with growth potential are centralized to areas with some of the highest cost of living in the world, then it makes sense that people would do anything they can to go to those areas, even if it means homelessness. Is this really something that we want to support in our society? Shouldn't we try to provide an increasing quality of life for _all_ of our people, not just the rich?

Edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain? What did I say that was wrong or inaccurate?

That's your privilege speaking.

Try living as a single parent of two children on minimum wage, and then tell me how much "choice" there is.

Do we believe that all Americans should have access to at least a minimum of food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, and health care, assuming they are either willing to participate, or unable to? What does that cost these days? How do we make that possible?

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