I worked part-time at a small daily newspaper starting in 2019 for $12/hr. By 2021 I was an editor making $16/hr thanks to doing WAAAY more than I was getting paid to do. The paper was sold just before I started working there and was sold again in late 2020.
I was fed up with the new company that gutted nearly everything that made us a local paper: page layouts, graphic design, even printing was moved a state away. The publisher's position was completely eliminated, meaning nobody was able to lead the three remaining departments. The local women that handled every single phone call from delivery to billing to classifieds to obituaries were fired and replaced by a (bad) call center in south Asia.
Unbeknownst to the other, me and the managing editor put our notices in on the same day in September 2021. We left in October.
By Feb. 2022, the paper got sold yet again. A newsroom that had three editors and three reporters just before I started was down to two people. The only local person remaining who was remotely capable of hiring (the sales executive) reached out to me to offer my old job back…at $16/hr. An email from the new owner came later that morning with an official job offer.
My only stipulation for taking the job was a budget. If they wanted me to rebuild a newsroom, I wanted to hire people for at least $17 per hour to put us on-par with starting pay for some of the biggest employers in our area. Yes, I was willing to hire reporters with a starting pay higher than my own.
Sales exec then tells me about all the great “benefits” the new owner will offer: full WFH option; generous sick leave policy (no pay, but no trouble), insurance, etc.
“Those sound great but they won't help a new college grad party their loans…or rent,” I told her.
(Keep in mind just weeks before i found out a former coworker was eligible for and living in Section 8 housing during our time working together when her reporting was pivotal in exposing police brutality that killed a man).
She said $17/hr for new hires was just too unreasonable and used a former intern as an example. “She's good but what would you do when you realize her work isn't worth $17 an hour,” she asked.
“Well, if we're paying more than the starting wage at Taco Bell, we could probably recruit a better reporter than her.”
Things seemed to click in her head and she said she would call me back.
By the end of the day, I received an email from the new owner saying that my job offer was rescinded and was sent by mistake.
For the two years I worked there, my paycheck pretty much covered child care (thankfully my spouse has a much better-paying job). Since I haven't been working, the kids aren't in daycare and I've saved thousands of dollars in home repairs by doing them myself.
Meanwhile, the newspaper that won multiple awards in 2019, including our division's first place award, from the state press association hasn't been nominated for an award since.
Oh yeah, and now democracy is literally dying and nobody can figure out why nobody wants to hold the most powerful people in any community accountable for $12/hr.
Thanks to the people in this sub who have radicalized me. My kids also thank you for helping me find my actual worth (it's way more than even $17/hr).