Yelp Employee Fired After Public Post To CEO Saying She Can't Afford Food

[Hortensis]

88. She's had a couple lessons in life.

But, no excuses for Yelp's Stoppelman. Yelp vastly underpays its customer service staff - @$730 every 2 weeks for - presumably - full-time work. Even out of the city, the only place anyone could afford would be in a slum or a bedroom in a very modest unit shared with one or preferably two other renters.

When I left high school in the 1970s with a typing class for a "skill," I easily found work for a living wage -- very modest, but I could afford a one-bedroom apartment in a respectable neighborhood and classes at the nearby community college.

That was at the beginning of large numbers of women going out to work, though, and eventually two-income households became normal. Two incomes in a "what the market will bear" environment meant that wages could be dropped and housing prices could practically double.

The Stoppelmans these days know their entry-level jobs are being taken by those who can live with family, need a second income to allow them to scrape by, and/or are willing to rent basic shelter in low-income areas and commute in to work.

Innocently or otherwise, we allowed the Stoppelmans to divert our national prosperity into their own pockets in the first place. We are a fabulously wealthy nation. We owe Jane a lot more than an apology. This is our problem to fix.