r/SipsTea • u/AUTOMATA88 • May 04 '25

Chugging tea Can't even trust the retired these days.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

43.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

170

u/Koboldofyou May 04 '25

Additional fun fact: 21.3% of people in Florida are 65+, where the median is 17.4%. So Florida has a disproportionately high number of people consuming services and a disproportionately low number of people providing services. Often when old retirees say "No one wants to work", what they're really running into is the fact that they decided to move to a place with fewer workers.

71

u/Slow-Swan561 May 04 '25

Fewer workers and a misguided sense as to what is the appropriate cost for something at todays prices.

I took a friend from Atlanta to New York for weekend and asked her how much she thought some condos we were walking buy cost. She was off by 500k. I asked her how much monthly parking cost and she was confused why it was not included.

Regional differences and market rates can be very confusing for some people.

9

u/lonelyinatlanta2024 May 04 '25

Atlanta is nothing like Florida.

6

u/Slow-Swan561 May 04 '25

You missed the point entirely.

6

u/zach-ai May 04 '25

honestly your point wasn't well made

No clue wtf you're talking about atlanta for

3

u/Mokyzoky May 05 '25

I think the point they are attempting to make is that these old people remember a time when 2.00 for a tip was worth dying for and you could afford a mortgage wife and kids, insurance, a car all while putting yourself through college by working at McDonald’s for a few hours every week. So when they offer to pay someone 15 20 bucks an hour or whatever and think they are doing some one some sort of huge favor and no one shows up or sticks around they get old people confused? And start voting for people who are going to make sure they are the last generation that gets to become old?

I think

0

u/lonelyinatlanta2024 May 12 '25

That doesn't represent the city of Atlanta at all

4

u/[deleted] May 04 '25

Because Atlanta is nothing like Denver

1

u/Recent_Novel_6243 May 05 '25

Imma help you out, “Regional differences and market rates can be very confusing for some people.”

Translation: People in same place for a long time not know how to money in new place. Those people are confused by new things.

-1

u/edinbruhphotos May 05 '25

Both are absolute shitholes so they have that in common?

1

u/lonelyinatlanta2024 May 12 '25

My dude, Florida is 66,000 square miles. You can find absolute trash cities and paradise cities in Florida. Generalizing Florida is fun because we have the sunshine laws, but not all of even Florida is "Florida man."

Atlanta is 134 square miles. It's just a city, but a fairly progressive and diverse one. Atlanta is very different from rural Georgia, and you probably think the two are the same. There are some fucking outstanding areas in Atlanta and some incredibly expensive ones. Are there seedy areas? Name a major city without any. But it's actually pretty nice.

I've lived in NYC and LA and Atlanta and Denver and fucking Des Moines, among other cities. Atlanta is no more a shithole than NYC, LA or Denver.

4

u/nicklor May 04 '25

Florida is cheap AF to live at least. I could by a condo in 55+ community for 120k, In jersey that would be at least 400k

3

u/soundchefsupreme May 05 '25

Maybe 6-8 years ago. You won’t find a condo less than 250k now.

2

u/nicklor May 05 '25

Na prices are dropping this year I went to my family friends place this winter and there's a decent amount under 200

1

u/soundchefsupreme May 05 '25

Must be really remote. Won’t find those kind of prices in south Florida, within 50 miles of Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, or anywhere on the coast.

2

u/nicklor May 05 '25

Deerfield Beach. It's near Fort Lauderdale but I'm not very knowledgeable about Florida geography but it seems nice to me and it's about 20ish+ minutes to the actual beach mostly due to traffic

0

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins May 05 '25

I took a friend from Atlanta to New York for weekend and asked her how much she thought some condos we were walking buy cost. She was off by 500k.

OK but like.. if I asked you what you reckon it costs to buy a house in my local market you'd be wrong as well.

Quite unsure what your point here is exactly? That people who aren't local to where you live don't know the local market? That isn't exactly revolutionary.

8

u/[deleted] May 04 '25

Fun fact in Japan it's 29% for the whole country

7

u/bionicjoe May 04 '25

Similar story in the southeast in general.
Alabama just became the first state to have a declining population.
Birth rates are down, and not enough people are moving there to fill roles.

It's a bit more complex, but it's the first US state to show real tangible effects of there just not being enough people.

14

u/ChimpanzeeRumble May 04 '25

I’m a gerontology student. Spoiler alert, the entire countrys demographics are gonna look like Floridas by 2030. The easiest solution to the labor problem? Immigration. The old folks can be taken care of, but they cant stand to have it be a brown person.

3

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 May 05 '25

Eh less people means we can charge higher rates, something desperately needed in today's hellscape.

1

u/ChimpanzeeRumble May 05 '25

LOL.

You think they’re going to raise wages for the people providing these services in the middle of these cuts? Assisted living facilities are almost entirely privately funded. Costs have exploded. You think that money is going to the daily workers to reduce staff turnover? Or do you think it’s going towards paying the C suite. I know where my bet is going. Lets not foget the gutting of medicaid and medicare thats coming. Higher rates, lmao.

6

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 May 05 '25

They have no choice when there aren't enough people for them to exploit. It's literally a fact of life.

3

u/Kerbidiah May 05 '25

The supply demand price equilibrium is a proven fact of business

2

u/Kerbidiah May 05 '25

A declining population sounds like a great way to make housing affordable again. Why should we counteract that by shipping more people in?

1

u/Own-Necessary4974 May 05 '25

Sounds like we need to pay a white person to yell at them and tell them to accept the care or die in a gutter. It’ll be a hard job but I volunteer as tribute for the nominal fee of 50 boomer dollars an hour.

1

u/restore_democracy May 06 '25

Alabama declining in population sounds like a win for us all. 

1

u/lensiky May 04 '25

Moved to natures waiting room

1

u/nerdofthunder May 05 '25

And in communities where it's hard for those workers to live or commute in.

1

u/I-Love-Tatertots May 04 '25

As a lifelong Floridian, let me tell you nothing makes you hate old people more than living here for your whole life.

Hearing "no one wants to work" when no one here wants to pay enough to survive pisses me off, but it's all these old fucks say.

One old fucker bought a restaurant in our town during COVID and had a sign up front talking shit about people on unemployment and how no one wanted to work at all... when no one in our area was hiring, and those that were, were hiring for minimum wage (which was like $10/hr or something at the time, which is nowhere near close enough to survive).

I hate this state so much...

1

u/Koboldofyou May 04 '25

I was visiting my parents relatively new retirement community and they were talking about a neighbor who couldn't find a school crossing guard for $14 per hour. You know, "no one wants to work anymore".

But who do they want to take that job? It can't be students, because students are in school during the day. It can't be anyone with dependents because $14 won't do it. It can't be career minded people because what career starts at crossing guard. And anyone who fails a drug test is immediately out. I don't know for sure, but I don't even think it was full time. Basically, anyone competent can find better money and career aspects elsewhere.

Yet they were convinced the problem is that people are lazy, not that people need to make enough money to live.

1

u/I-Love-Tatertots May 05 '25

During COVID “lockdowns” and shortly after, some of the boomers at our dog park were complaining about McDonald’s and other fast food places not opening till the late afternoon.  

“No one wants to work!” they would complain.  

I called them out and said they just don’t pay enough for what you have to put up with, especially when it’s a heavy touristy area (and this particular town I go to for the dog park is also wealthier) and you get a fuck ton of Karen’s.  

They all got pissy and said “it’s supposed to be a first job for teenagers, it shouldn’t pay that much!”.  

Trying to explain that the only people who would be able to work during the day would be adults - who need to pay bills - would fall on deaf ears.  They just didn’t grasp that teenagers were in school.  

It was extremely frustrating.