Readers React: Working in America hasn’t always been this easy

To the editor: So, it’s “not easy to be an employee in today’s economy.” When was it easy? (“Labor Day 2015: Uncertain times for American workers,” editorial, Sept. 7)

Back in 1946, when I was working in a Sears warehouse, I was paid 50 cents an hour. Inflation adjusted, that equates to about $6 an hour today, less than half of the $15 “living wage” that Los Angeles will require by 2020.

Not many years before that, workers who built the Golden Gate Bridge (11 died during construction) were paid no more than $1 per hour. Don’t even ask about vacations or sick leave. And if you had mentioned paternity leave, no one would have known what you were talking about.

The reality of work in the U.S. is that there was a brief golden era after World War II when the rest of the world was in ruins. Today we are competing with a world full of people desperate for jobs at almost any pay.

Those of us with jobs ought to be thankful and not complain about a “work-life balance.”

Arthur O. Armstrong, Manhattan Beach

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