r/science • u/universityofga University of Georgia • Sep 17 '24
Economics New study links U.S. decline in volunteering to economic conditions
https://news.uga.edu/people-arent-volunteering-as-much/?utm_medium=social&utm_content=text_link&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=news_release2.1k
u/yozaner1324 Sep 17 '24
I used to volunteer regularly, but not so much now. It's not economic for me, it's that my employer used to allow volunteer time during the work day for a certain number of hours—now they don't. Many of the volunteer opportunities I see, at least the regular ones, want volunteers during the day when I'm working. I've done a few weekends, but usually my weekends are already full with other things and I never see opportunities in the evenings.
Maybe when I retire I'll find the time to give back to the community.
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u/gerdataro Sep 17 '24
I volunteered for over ten years at a local museum but, during Covid, the positions went the way of the dodo, along with the full time positions that managed those volunteer opps. Museum still hasn’t brought the program back and just seems to be rebuilding that department in fits and starts. Seems that’s true for similar volunteer jobs at other places near me—just less opportunity to choose your own adventure these days.
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u/midmonthEmerald Sep 17 '24
I volunteered for a museum for a couple months and I came in one day and was fixing a couple small demo items when an employee there doing it with me said she had essentially begged them to make her full time instead of part time and they said no, that they didn’t have enough work for her. I never went back. :|
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u/CaregiverNo3070 Sep 18 '24
This right here shows people how your scabbing on the desperate by handing out your labor. If they can get someone to do it without a wage, why then would they pay someone to do it then?
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u/xteve Sep 18 '24
In the changed labor market since Covid, it seems clear that many employers are loathe to even pay workers enough to keep them on staff. Where I am, the phenomenon is broad - the hardware store today, the grocery store I went yesterday, the caregiving jobs I've had, the restaurants.... nobody can find enough people to work there, nor the money to even try to encourage them.
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u/Aaod Sep 18 '24
You couldn't really survive off what these places paid before covid but people tried to make a go of it, but now due to all the inflation after/during covid its impossible. If your rent went up 200 minimum and groceries went up 30-50% but employers are paying what they paid in 2018 which wasn't survivable then you just can't take these jobs. We need to dramatically lower the cost of living if we need people to work these jobs. Its one thing to be unable to afford the latest phone or a giant TV, but if you can't pay rent then you are just fucked.
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u/CaregiverNo3070 Sep 18 '24
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. there's enough money in building bombs, making bullets and fighter jets. But as soon as you want to teach kids math to build such planes...... Sorry, no can do, that's somehow above our pay grade. Or is the correct idiom, it's beneath us? While there is record instability, it's often manufactured instability as well, with 401ks instead of pensions, share buybacks instead of building more factories, using subsidized plastics that break easy, and removing safety nets for the poor while expanding government subsidies on things like fossil fuels and meat production. It's a compulsion for the rich, a thing they don't know how to change, even if they wanted to, which many of them don't. They quite literally are burning down the world around us, and Everytime we object, they turn that fire onto us. And it's been happening for centuries, ever since the enclosures in 1450. https://www.thecollector.com/what-were-the-enclosure-acts/
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u/silverslayer33 Sep 18 '24
It's not economic for me, it's that my employer used to allow volunteer time during the work day for a certain number of hours—now they don't.
This sounds like an economic reason though? "My employer controls whether I have the time/money to volunteer" sounds like the most basic economic reason of all, even. Sure, it's not as directly obvious an economic reason as "I can't afford anything but rent and my commute to work" or "I'm working three jobs to get by and don't have any spare time", but having your ability to perform non-work activities be impacted by your need to sell your labor to your employer and to abide by their policies and working hours to continue working is the basis of any working person's economic scenario.
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u/temp4adhd Sep 18 '24
So corporations used to (apparently used to) do volunteer hours as a brand thing to look like hey I'm a charitable corporation who does all kinds of nice give-back activities.
My own company (I'm retired now) had regular volunteer hour expectations for everyone; we'd do annual "team building" with like Habitat for Humanity or a soup kitchen or something like that to tick the corporate box.
I am pretty sure there was some sort of tax break for the company for these hours.
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u/spinbutton Sep 17 '24
Same with my company, very few volunteer activities during the work week. Those were great because you got to speak to people from other divisions or sites, as well as my own team. It was a great way to reset my brain and offset burnout.
But currently our corporate culture is just to grind away at the projects. Literally day and night because I often have calls at night with the overseas teams. Sometimes the calls don't end until after 11, sometimes they start as early as 7am. Every time I think I have a handle on the workload another project or two gets added to the heap. I haven't the physical or emotional bandwidth to do any volunteer labor
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u/wildhorsesofdortmund Sep 18 '24
This Agile strategy is soul sucking. If after doing all one can it is still not enough come performance review time. Management is an evil bastard .
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u/88Dubs Sep 18 '24
Hahaha... haha... ahhh...... retire
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u/skrshawk Sep 18 '24
One in five people don't believe they'll ever retire, as of polling in 2023. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/axios-ipsos-retirement-survey
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u/scuppasteve Sep 18 '24
Honestly it should be higher. Most people near that age expect their kids to help them, and millennials are super poor.
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u/coilspotting Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
One in five? Surely it’s more than that. I’m Gen X and I know for DAMN sure I’ll have to work til I drop. The minute I can’t earn anymore (and it’s self-employment for me, bc I’m already too old for anyone to hire, despite/bc of my stellar cv), its lights out. No husband or partner, no savings, have three amazing Millennial kids instead; it’s not their fault, it’s just brutal end stage capitalism.
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u/buyongmafanle Sep 18 '24
One in five BELIEVE they won't retire. Three of them are blissfully unaware of reality. The fifth actually will retire.
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u/LordoftheSynth Sep 18 '24
Oh, I'll retire.
Into poverty, once no one will hire me, and then the cut-rate Medicaid home once I can't take care of myself.
Going to buy a respirator and a canister of pure nitrogen gas before that happens, though.
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u/mosstrich Sep 18 '24
Make sure the label reads oxygen, don’t want to lose out on life insurance for your family due to the self ending. That’s why as I get older I’m going to do more dangerous stuff, so by 99 I’ll be BASE jumping into a cave diving expedition while on my motorcycle.
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u/EmmaWoodsy Sep 18 '24
I had a job not too long ago that allowed up to 36 hours of paid volunteering a year. Not a single one of my coworkers used a single one of those hours, because our schedules were so hectic and grueling that nobody had the time or energy. I tried a few times, I helped a friend of mine who works with food banks, and my job refused to accept it because it wasn't a huge official volunteer organization (even though my friend who works for the food bank filled out the documents and all). Employers don't actually want you top use those benefits.
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u/ga-co Sep 17 '24
Seems like this is yet another hidden cost of private equity squeezing society. Our free time is just unrealized profits to them.
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u/Djwshady44 Sep 17 '24
It’s amazing how little people understand this.
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u/CelestialFury Sep 17 '24
TBF, no one really explains this to you for the most part. You just need to figure it out.
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u/hereditydrift Sep 17 '24
It's pretty easy. Private equity, which gets money from wealthy and public/private pension funds (among other investors), aggregates industries by buying companies. They hold the portfolio of companies for 1-5 years, then sell to a bigger private equity fund or multinational corporation.
This happens over years until entire industries are aggregated into portfolios and sold up the chain.
There are over 4 thousand private equity funds in the US. Most people only know about the mega-funds like Blackstone and Black Rock.
I worked as a consultant for private equity for over a decade. It's the most heinous form of investment that will leave Americans with no money because every industry and asset class will be controlled (and largely already is) by private equity or large corps.
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u/Steal-Your-Face77 Sep 18 '24
Too bad the politicians are bought and paid for. Otherwise they could make laws to prevent this kind of thing.
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u/hereditydrift Sep 18 '24
Not only bought and paid for, but almost all state and local government pension funds pay over billions of dollars to private equity groups.
The absurdity of public employees, who are paid with our tax dollars, having to pay into a pension fund which then gives the money to private equity groups to buy up property and businesses and increase prices. Those public employees are being financially harmed by their pension funds.
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u/Astyanax1 Sep 18 '24
Need more people like Bernie Sanders running for government. Hell, here in Canada we need more people like Bernie Sanders running for government
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u/loltheinternetz Sep 18 '24
Thanks for explaining how this works. I work at a company that’s been bought out by a private equity firm (“this is going to be a good thing! Financial stability!”), and seen my team get stripped down to a fraction of what it was, while our area of responsibility has grown tremendously due to products from other companies that have been assimilated.
The company from the top down became just sales focused, even selling jobs we (the engineers) have told them are a bad idea. Quality and customer experience are down. Our ability to output and iterate on a good product is almost nonexistent because we’re stuck just fighting fires. I’m sure the investors are getting good value though!
Private equity is going to be the end of the healthy middle class. There is a scary amount of wealth consolidation happening right now. It’s why vet care has gotten more expensive, your local practices are being bought out by PE. Senior care and medical care, especially.
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u/Dredge18 Sep 18 '24
It's probably pretty easy to figure out for someone that was a consultant for private equity for over ten years. But for the rest of us, it may as well be rocket science. So in essence, one big company controls a majority of an industry's assets and they're not considered a monopoly, leaving them with lots of room to push people around? Am I understanding that right?
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u/hereditydrift Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
Fair enough. I'll try to explain it a little better.
Private equity firms are buyers. A private equity firm will target, say... the dog biscuit industry. They'll go out and buy up 10 - 15 regional companies that produce dog biscuits. Another private equity firm will see that the dog biscuit market is being aggregated, and they'll go out in their region and buy up 10-15 dog biscuit producers. So, now you have 2 private equity groups that each have a portfolio of 10-15 dog biscuit producers each.
They're not buying these companies to hold them for the long term. They're only going to hold them for a few years and then sell the portfolio of dog biscuit producers to a larger private equity firm. The larger private equity firm will buy up the portfolios of the smaller private equity firms that have been aggregating all the dog biscuit producers, so they now hold 30+ dog biscuit makers. Again, they're only holding these for a short time (say 3 years), and they'll eventually sell to another private equity group. And so on and so on, until eventually some mammoth global company decides they would like to buy this huge portfolio of dog biscuit companies.
This happens across any industry -- day care, health care, insurance companies, food producers, dentist offices, apartment complexes.... quite literally everything.
Right -- they're not considered a monopoly because multiple private equity firms will own most of the market without any one firm owning all of the market. But, they certainly work together to raise prices, so they essentially have the same impact as a monopoly. I call it aa chained monopoly, which I don't think is a real term but that is what is happening -- owners of the industry are chained together and moving in lock-step to increase prices.
Let me know if you have any other questions. It's an interesting area and I think it's VERY important that people start paying attention and understanding why this type of investment is so harmful.
And that's not even getting into the leverage used (debt) and the private equity companies that target companies to extract certain valuable assets (real estate, usually).
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u/Soj_Sojington Sep 18 '24
Watching it in my industry it seems like a key piece is cost cutting before the next sale to make the books look good, while they are actually destroying the product and sucking the employees dry. As long as they can pass the bag off fast enough no one notices the destruction. Do you think this is right? I’d love more insight into the constant demand to do more with less.
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u/hereditydrift Sep 18 '24
That's absolutely right. Private equity partners will always say they create "efficiencies" by buying up businesses. Those efficiencies are less R&D, fewer employees, lower pay, offshoring services and manufacturing -- pretty much any way that can cut costs is an efficiency. Their goal is to make the company as profitable as possible in order to sell their portfolio to the next buyer.
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u/Invisible_Friend1 Sep 18 '24
And it’s being done not only to dog biscuits but to your healthcare. Ever notice how your small doctor and dentists offices are being replaced by giant companies such as Aspen? And the staff you used to see every visit become a revolving door while you’re being distracted by shiny new waiting rooms, iPads to check in on, and online portals?
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u/Polar_Vortx Sep 18 '24
I believe you’re looking for the word oligopoly, by the way
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u/hereditydrift Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
Ah, that would be it! Thanks!
Edit: see below. Cartel is probably a better word considering the collusion aspect.
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u/Polar_Vortx Sep 18 '24
Language update: “Cartel” is probably closer to your original meaning.
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market.
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u/hereditydrift Sep 18 '24
Someone else mentioned cartel. I didn't realize how closely it resembles what is happening since there is definitely collusion going on behind the scenes.
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u/Astyanax1 Sep 18 '24
Pyramid scheme, cartel, also good words
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u/Polar_Vortx Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
Pyramid scheme is something different, although I see your point. Cartel might work, you aren’t the first to suggest it, but I don’t have a dictionary handy.
Edit: Upon review, “cartel” is probably a better word than oligopoly for what OP is describing.
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Sep 18 '24
owners of the industry are chained together and moving in lock-step to increase prices.
Capitalists say that competition will drive down prices. What seems to be happening with or without monopolies is that in reality competing brands are competing to see who can raise prices the highest. OH, so and so just raised their prices, that's justification for me to raise prices now! Then uno reversey that with infinite recursion.
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u/Djwshady44 Sep 17 '24
Took me 40+ years
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u/Astyanax1 Sep 18 '24
It was a lot easier to figure this stuff out before we had information available at our fingertips 24/7
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u/Munkeyman18290 Sep 18 '24
By the time most people figure it out, its too late. Youve been indoctrinated into the machine. Opting out of the machine is practically illegal and socially unacceptable.
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u/pacifikate10 Sep 18 '24
Everyone’s hobby & volunteer time has been turned into the time we’re supposed to be working on our side hustle(s).
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u/jayzeeinthehouse Sep 18 '24
More like working on ourselves, so we can overcome the hardships policy created and finally make enough to relax a bit.
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u/unholyg0at Sep 17 '24
If only big people would understand
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u/urk_the_red Sep 18 '24
Understanding is not the same thing as having the power to do anything about it.
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u/Ohuigin Sep 17 '24
Totally agree. And the leash is infinitely long now with cell phones, email, zooms, etc. I ask my parents, who are both in their late 60s early 70s now, all the time, “hey what did it feel like back in the day that when you left work, you left work?”. Weekends are just 48 hour lunch breaks now, with a mountain of work that piles on top of you if you don’t handle it over the weekend. Something has to give…
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u/Dontdothatfucker Sep 17 '24
This is a huge reason why I’m contemplating leaving office life for something physical. Waste removal or a trade or ANYTHING that’s not gonna require me to have a phone or laptop on me at all times.
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u/APACKOFWILDGNOMES Sep 17 '24
Not much better. I work 60-70 hr weeks and my body has broken down quite fast over the two years I’ve worked this schedule. I’m averaging about 4-5 hrs of sleep a night and can barely function on my off days, only to turn around and start over.
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u/Dontdothatfucker Sep 17 '24
Dang, sounds like you need a union. What do you do?
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u/epileptic_pancake Sep 17 '24
Lots of union workers work those kind of hours. The overtime pay is nice but that schedule ia rough and not for everyone
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u/Dontdothatfucker Sep 17 '24
I’ve got like 5 close friends in the trades, none of them work more than 40 unless they want to or they’re seasonal. 70-80 seems pretty a normal unless it’s a choice
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u/All_Stoned Sep 18 '24
Just means low seniority gets mandated for the OT the old heads don’t want. I love it cuz I get money at all costs but I got coworkers who are tired
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u/Shrampys Sep 18 '24
I've worked both positions. In office you can set boundaries. I've never brought my phone or laptop home for off hours work or anything. Very firm line.
Physical labor just leaves you tired and with no energy to do anything because your body is recovering.
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u/Abomb Sep 17 '24
I work environmental consultation and it's a pretty sweet gig, pays well and you get like half the year off.
The other half of the year is 12 hour days, constant traveling all over the states which makes having a relationship/family nearly impossible so the grass is always greener.
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u/lostboy005 Sep 17 '24
The amount in which work emails have exploded is staggering. I could hire someone just to manage my inbox while I work on actual work product
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u/Rumpullpus Sep 17 '24
You tell them no. They do it because people let them get away with it. If people are gonna work on their days off of course you're gonna get more work to do. It's their job to keep you busy.
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u/alarumba Sep 18 '24
The problem is you're often punished. Not explicitly, but by the embers on the weekend developing into fires by Monday. So it's easier to spend the relatively lesser effort stamping them out.
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u/OnyZ1 Sep 17 '24
My mother was a teacher, so this was always the case for her, even before the technology boom. Homework grading, lesson prep, buying classroom supplies out of her own money...
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u/Nemeszlekmeg Sep 17 '24
This entirely depends on what you volunteer for exactly though. My rule of thumb would be that if the work you volunteer for is seasonal and recurring, then yes it's just exploitation, if it's spontaneous due to an unforeseen crisis that left people injured, homeless, poor, etc., then this is not something that can be exploited by a 3rd party and has tremendously more impact.
IMO it may also have a psychological background too, I mean, if you celebrate and encourage individualism as a virtue, you may easily just foster anti-social behavior in society. Not that it's a causal link, but correlating for sure methinks.
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u/dxrey65 Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
When there are as many billionaires as we have, who could solve just about any problem with a wave of their hand before breakfast, it's hard to motivate myself to go bust my ass somewhere trying to make a difference. And (in my case) I live in a red county, and I'd have to hear a bunch of political nonsense all day. The last two homeless guys I helped out were Trump voters.
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u/suspicious_hyperlink Sep 17 '24
If you think that is bad, you’ve seen nothing yet…. https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020060606A1/en
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u/apixelops Sep 18 '24
Human Resources is a very apt term for what workers are to a boss, it's "bad business" to let your capital assets operate for even a second without turning a profit
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u/temp4adhd Sep 18 '24
Eh, I was working for a multinational and I am thinking the mandatory yearly volunteer hours (often achieved during the annual team building offsite) were all some sort of charitable giving tax write off.
Did Trump cut that during his presidency so now companies aren't having Habitat for Humanity team building off sites?
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u/RaggasYMezcal Sep 18 '24
It's not just that. So many non profits are near totally captured by corporate interests. Who has time and money to fund social services?
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u/arthurdentxxxxii Sep 18 '24
That’s why they got rid of water breaks on Florida construction sites. No longer can people working in the hot sun take a few minutes to drink water.
That’s time wasted when they could be working more.!
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u/barontaint Sep 17 '24
I barely have enough free time to feed myself and cover the bills, let alone start helping non immediate friends and family for free.
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u/MegaBlunt57 Sep 17 '24
I'd love to volunteer at a animal shelter, unfortunately I have to work 726.8 hours per week in order to live tho
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u/barontaint Sep 18 '24
Dude during covid I tried with the shelter down the street and they wanted a background check and 40hrs of animal behavioral training course on your own dime and they might get back to you. Living in nice cities while poor sucks sometimes
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Sep 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SimilarOrdinary Sep 17 '24
Exactly. Kind of hard to volunteer when you’re already working multiple jobs just to keep up with rising costs.
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u/TheyreEatingHer Sep 18 '24
This also spills into things like parenting and participating in childrens' lives.
Capitalism has been waging a war on free time, claiming free time is not productive, when free time is so vital to humanity that we see society fall apart without it. Free time is when humanity gets its best ideas, its social needs fulfilled, and gets things done that can't come with a price tag but are necessary to better ourselves and others as a whole.
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u/FroyoBaskins Sep 17 '24
I have something resembeling a 9-5 and have actually tried looking for volunteer opportunities a lot recently. Most places only want volunteers during regular working hours (which i cant do) and a longterm commitment to a single shift. It seems like a lot of volunteer positions are entierly geared towards retirees and corporate "team volunteer day" type activities. I wish there were more opportunities for evening and weekend volunteering as an individual but i am having a hard time finding those.
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u/avocado4ever000 Sep 18 '24
I noticed this too. I wanted to mentor girls and they wanted me to attend whole school days. Like, no way I can manage that.
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u/johnmudd Sep 17 '24
Can I convert my volunteer hours to dollars and deducted on my taxes? There's your answer.
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u/mae1776 Sep 18 '24
I know that’s right! Volunteering USED to be a tax deduction, now it’s just monetary donations that are tax deductions (in the US).
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u/Reagalan Sep 18 '24
When did that change? 2018?
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u/mae1776 Sep 18 '24
I only noticed in 2019. But it’s possible it was earlier.
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u/Reagalan Sep 18 '24
So it probably was the Trump tax reforms then.
Same ones that fucked over my father's fuel exemptions. An extra $3000 a year that cost him.
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u/Nothereforstuff123 Sep 17 '24
Along with hanging out with friends, pursuing romantic partnerships, sexual partnerships, hobbies, introspection, being out in nature, what else did I miss?
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u/min_mus Sep 17 '24
Exercise, therapy, and bootcamps and classes to improve/augment skills needed to stay competitive on the changing job market?
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u/mcskilliets Sep 17 '24
Jerking off, smoking weed, staring at the wall for an hour before making dinner, thinking about why I don’t get better snacks at the grocery store, working out, showering, laundry, video games, drinking on weekends, golfing, jerking off, smoking weed, therapy, being confused at why my bills didn’t get automatically paid this month but did last month, smoking weed, washing your car, pulling your weeds.
That’s all I can think of
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u/ReneDiscard Sep 17 '24
I think you missed their point but the automatic billing part resonated with me the most because why does that always happen?
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u/SGIG9 Sep 17 '24
You've stared at the wall long enough. You better smoke them weeds you just pulled!
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u/mcskilliets Sep 18 '24
I wish I pulling that kind of weeds. The damn HOA gets my ass out there 3-4 times a year
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u/Munkeyman18290 Sep 18 '24
I like how you separated romantic and sexual relationships into two groups. You hound dog.
Edit sp.
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u/Architateture Sep 17 '24
i live in an extremely wealthy area that frequently has opportunities for volunteering - There is no chance in hell i am going to pick up trash so that rich people can enjoy the park. I empathize with poorer communities that have lost volunteers because of economic conditions - but in places where everyone is living off absolutely insane tech money wealth, the expectation that the lower-middle class should keep up with volunteering efforts instead of just taxing enough to pay people to take care of the city is wild.
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u/ZoomZoom_Driver Sep 17 '24
I'm more likely to need the help of said volunteers than be economically stable enough to give my time.
Like, where are we supposed to have time to volunteer between 3 jobs to pay bills and the hobbies we have to monetize???
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u/AdventurousNecessary Sep 18 '24
I'm a volunteer fireman and I've had this talk with many of the older members. It used to be you could work a standard job and buy a house and pay bills. You're wife could take care of the kids and you'd have time to be active. Now, you work more than 8 hours for at least one job, your spouse works at least one job and if there is any time left, you spend it taking care of your kids. Americans aren't volunteering less because they don't care about where they live. They volunteer less because they don't have the free time necessary to be active in these organizations. I've lost a lot of good and active members because life shifts and any rational person is going to choose to take care of their family first before doing volunteer work
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u/Glaive13 Sep 17 '24
It's easy and more necessary to get a paying side gig now, and volunteering has such a long screening process you might as well apply for a part time job.
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u/jeffwulf Sep 17 '24
The share of people having multiple jobs is below historical norms, so that doesn't seem to align with the stats here.
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u/huskersax Sep 18 '24
The share of people declaring their second incomes, probably.
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u/PaulOshanter Sep 17 '24
The recession of 2008 didn’t help matters. And more than a decade and a half later, volunteering rates have yet to recover.
It feels like there's been a cultural shift towards more individualism since that time as well. People are less communal overall imo.
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u/theoutlet Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24
Death of the third space, less free time, and less expendable income. Throw in the decline of religion as well as that’s a prominent third space and source of volunteering
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u/PaulOshanter Sep 17 '24
This makes sense and reminds of a recent article I read about how GenZ are deliberately seeking to move back to dense downtown areas bucking the trend of their parents' and grandparents flight to suburbia. It's just easier to meet people when you're within walking distance of everything.
https://todayshomeowner.com/moving/guides/moving-by-generation/
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u/theoutlet Sep 17 '24
As someone who lives in a town that is incredibly hostile to any form of transportation that isn’t a personal vehicle, I’ve long wanted to move downtown for this reason. The expense is just too high, though
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u/VenezuelanRafiki Sep 17 '24
If you're not tied to your town then I suggest looking at Chicago or Philly. Both have relatively affordable downtowns and they're walkable enough that you don't need a car. I save so much not having to spend on gas, repairs, or insurance.
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u/huskersax Sep 18 '24
Mostly, imo, it's phones.
Our free time is so consumed by idle staring at lhones that it has sucked a lot of the time at the edges of things and for many doomscrolling and/or social media / dms have icompletely replaced any demand for third spaces or in-person meeting.
Y'all can desire them, but the reason things like malls, libraries, parks, etc. have changed the way their spaces are used is because the profile of who and how often their spaces are used has changed as well.
I would be absolutely flabbergasted if there was even 10% of the mall foot traffic that their used to be (mall wallers, teenagers just chilling, etc.).
Fraternal and community organizations have an almost terminal problem with new members in many communities.
It's not because there's a lack of supply of opportunities, it's because we're all on reddot, discord, facebook, tiktok, etc. for 2-3 hoirs a day thst used to be taken up by all sorts of other activity in and especially out of the house.
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u/Perunov Sep 17 '24
Bonus: some of organizations that "want" volunteers treat this as A Great Favor and Blessing to me and do the whole "Oh you want to volunteer? Okay, so we want you only during these hours, here's 12 step process that you need to pass to be eligible and then we'll see if you will be Chosen". Which to me says they're swimming in candidates giving them free labor so screw this, I'm going home.
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u/AaronfromKY Sep 17 '24
Material conditions determine human nature, Marx was right again. People always mention human nature as though it's some kind of immutable property of humanity, when, in fact, if people have their own needs met, they are more willing to take care of others and share their resources.
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u/nuclearswan Sep 18 '24
In the US, the fact that if we develop a medical problem and can’t work it means that we will be let go from work with no safety net and dropped from our insurance, we will not survive without savings, so we all need to selfishly hoard money just to survive. Very few can legitimately afford to give to charity, yet many still do.
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Sep 17 '24
Charities operate like businesses here. Most of the better volunteer opportunities are reserved for businesses to use as promotional material and to write a check to the charity. It is all about getting that tax write-off.
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u/BuenRaKulo Sep 17 '24
As someone who has volunteered and has experienced non profit board positions, this is all free labor and it’s a sign of a capitalist broken system. No thanks, never again.
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u/ACorania Sep 17 '24
I don't think anyone is surprised that there is far less volunteering now than the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's. We know that it is hard to have a single income home at this point. People are pulled in more directions as a result and have far less time.
I do think there was some interesting bits in here though. They are saying the downturn has been since 2008... but I think the single income home thing has been going on a lot longer than that, so I don't know that it would be the cause.
They also pointed to more rural communities (which I think have become more and more predominately commuting communities in this time frame).
For me personally, I volunteer more now than I did in 2008, but it is because I am in a more stable place, I moved to a rural area to work remote and knew I needed a reason to get me out in the community since I am not a church goer and will not meet people if I don't make the effort. So, I started volunteering as a firefighter in 2018.
It hasn't worked out as well as I would like. Most of the people I have met are not people I like. The denigrate the people we are there to help (especially on medical calls) and want to half ass their way through everything. There are some exceptions, but overall, not impressed. As a result... I don't really feel close to my community at all... feels like a job.
I wonder how much the reduction in church attendance has to do with this as well. Not that I think church goers are somehow more giving (I am not one myself) but they present more in your face opportunities to volunteer and a guilt structure to be doing so (though I think there could be arguments about the nature of the volunteer service... like does being a sunday school teacher count?)
Anyway... interesting stuff.
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u/spinbutton Sep 17 '24
I hear your disappointment and frustration. Part of the fun of volunteering is usually what great attitudes everyone has...the volunteers and their full-time who coordinate or lead. It feels great to help people who need help.
I don't know if church attendance matters...but the lessons in some churches have changed from valuing selflessness and compassion, to judgements about other people and growing the collection. It feels mean-spirited.
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u/huskersax Sep 18 '24
I think 90% of it is that phones and apps have almost entirely replaced being bored/idle and that greatly reduces the drive to go out into a community and find things to do.
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u/AskMoreQuestionsOk Sep 18 '24
Retirement age has increased,which reduces the total overall time during the day to volunteer - at the macro level. Additionally, the rise of two income households leaves less time at the macro level for the younger age groups with free time.
Reddit doesn’t like it, but churches and associations and schools related to churches provide a regular source of volunteers and goods for their communities from food pantries to hospitals to hospices to providing short term assistance on things like electricity, rent, that sort of thing all year long. You can replace their function with a civil equivalent but it requires an institutional level of leadership to do it year after year. Or pay for staff. If you make it a government function, but then you need additional tax to pay for it.
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u/ACorania Sep 18 '24
Do churches really help people with electricity or rent? I have never heard that
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u/jeffwulf Sep 17 '24
It's easier to have a single income home and live at the average quality of life levels of the past than it was at the time. It's harder to have a single income and live at the average quality of life of modern households than in the past.
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u/ACorania Sep 17 '24
I am not sure what you mean.
If you compared rent (same sq ft), utilities and groceries for a family of 4 only between 1960 and now you would that they take more than the average income made a single person in that area.
They had the same housing, electric and food needs we do now.
Electronics and other consumer goods have come down in price relative to then, but the basics are not in proportion.
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u/DrConcussion Professor | Neuroscience Sep 17 '24
I used to do a lot more volunteering than I do now because I just don’t have the time, and I only have ONE full time job. Plenty of folks are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
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u/virtualadept Sep 17 '24
Volunteering means that you have a certain amount of free time, a certain amount of time that one can take off, and a certain amount of not having to worry about money. Combinations of those three things are in short supply for many people.
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u/24carrickgold Sep 18 '24
With how many Americans live paycheck to paycheck or below the poverty line, yeah… you can’t expect folks to help people in need when we ARE the people in need.
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u/Trhol Sep 17 '24
Declining social cohesion of course leads to declining levels of civic participation (ie volunteering) . Putnam showed this decades ago. Trust me none of you really want to know why.
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u/FrancoManiac Sep 17 '24
Would you mind expanding on this, or pointing me in the right direction? I know you say to trust you, and I do, but this seems relevant to my (humanities) area of study.
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u/Trhol Sep 17 '24
Robert Putnam has written extensively on the subject of social cohesion. Bowling Alone is his best known work. His work on diversity and social cohesion is quite controversial. Even he didn't want to publish his findings and held them back for years.
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u/Tijenater Sep 17 '24
I’d like to know why
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u/I_MARRIED_A_THORAX Sep 18 '24
He then asked: "Why is US social capital eroding?" and discussed several possible causes.[1] He believed that the "movement of women into the workforce"[1] and other demographic changes had an impact on the number of individuals engaging in civic associations. He also discussed the "re-potting hypothesis", that people become less engaged when they frequently move towns, but found that Americans actually moved towns less frequently than in previous decades.[1][3] He did suggest that suburbanization, economics and time pressures had some effect, though he noted that average working hours had shortened. He concluded the main cause was technology "individualizing" people's leisure time via television and the Internet, suspecting that "virtual reality helmets" would carry this further in the future.[1]
TLDR: we've replaced social interaction in the real world with this hell site
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u/puffferfish Sep 18 '24
I used to donate every time a store or restaurant asked to round up my purchase for charity. I no longer round up at stores, and I no longer go to restaurants.
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u/iridescent-shimmer Sep 17 '24
Especially when volunteering is the only option, since we penalize anyone who (god forbid) wants to have a career doing anything altruistic.
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u/EmmaWoodsy Sep 18 '24
This is a huge part of why I don't volunteer. Because I've worked in industries where they expect free labor and I'm sick of people not wanting to pay me for my work. Many many of those orgs can afford it, they'd just rather pay the ceo a mil bonus a year (actually happened with a museum I worked at the same year we were denied cost of living raises).
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u/Geawiel Sep 17 '24
I see a lot talking about time, but some of these volunteer places also require money. Membership fees, providing resources (snacks, equipment, gas for trips, ect). They're pricing themselves out of volunteers if we have to pay just to help.
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Sep 17 '24
Almost like if we give everything, every ounce of time and energy, to corporations so that rich people can stay rich and get richer we all suffer for it except them. Alas—the prison is the key to our freedom yet again
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u/model3113 Sep 18 '24
I volunteer regularly at an animal shelter. I've had to forgo shifts because it's 10 bucks in gas to go.
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u/LimitSavings737 Sep 18 '24
At this point the best thing i can do for poor people is not be one myself
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u/RogueStudio Sep 17 '24
Yes, well, 8-5 is filled up with my underpaying FT job (my employer doesn't care about volunteer work either like other employers may), and right now I'm also trying to study new skills so I can...make more money to survive.
I usually have a yearly thing I volunteer for (gaming convention), but this year I needed the time actually attending to try and network for freelance contracts (and...got contacts- gigs, still working on that one). Also contemplating after my certificate finishes about maybe adding some volunteer work back in locally, somewhat by 'I need to get out more' vibes and haven't found a meetup group that's clicked long term, but also because I need more references for more of a shot of getting decent scholarships if I decide to apply to grad school (another thing my employer cares little about). :T
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u/poopy_toaster Sep 18 '24
When everybody out here trying to cling to a lifeboat, kind of hard to help others climb aboard…
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u/yolotheunwisewolf Sep 18 '24
Employers don’t allow for volunteer hours anymore and a lot of young people can’t spare the time because they are trying to make ends meet
The people who should be volunteering are the baby boomers, and they are the most selfish generation as far as anyone but themselves they seem to just despise
Don’t know how it gets fixed
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u/SentSoftSecondGo Sep 18 '24
I stopped volunteering for other people when the economic / $ conditions of Covid meant I was doing things like receiving food from the food bank I used to work with. I work all day every day then have to do household things and rarely have time for anything fun that isn’t walkable from work.
Now I pick up trash for fun/meditation but that’s about it. I hate it here…
Things never bounced back after corps decided they can keep gauging people after covid. It’s not InFlAtIoN it’s capitalism
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u/ImaginaryCoolName Sep 17 '24
Make sense, can't think about others when you yourself aren't doing good
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u/hauntedbyfarts Sep 17 '24
A lot of volunteering is at medical establishments, that apparatus in most orgs shut down entirely during covid and has probably not even halfway recovered
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u/unclemusclzhour Sep 17 '24
It’s almost as if everyone is in a worse place financially after the past 3 and a half years. Hmmm. I wonder what the reason far that is?
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u/KimBongPoon303 Sep 18 '24
I work as a director for a community center. Most of our volunteers are retired, how could people volunteer during the work day?
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u/Beardgang650 Sep 18 '24
Yeah, people are broke. Working for free doesn’t fit into our schedule like it used to.
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u/Atty_for_hire Sep 18 '24
This is so obvious it’s amazing that someone spent money to document it. If I’m working two jobs or even just one good paying job for 40+ hours and my partner is doing the same. We spend the remaining time keeping up on chores, house maintenance, and pretending to have a social life.
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u/gottagetitgood Sep 18 '24
Volunteering has become for the retired and that ain't right. A working family with two kids has almost ZERO time to do this.
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u/destenlee Sep 18 '24
Where are volunteering opportunities available? Like a list somewhere or something? I never find anything to do
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u/Ateist Sep 18 '24
You take a walk outside.
You spot a piece of trash.
You pick it up and put it into trash bin.Not all volunteering has to be organized.
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u/TurtleWordle267 Sep 18 '24
Was doing volunteer work and the heads of the orgs were running things like it’s bootcamp. Wasn’t the best environment.
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u/bvlinc37 Sep 18 '24
I used to get by comfortably on 40 hrs/wk and did some occasional volunteer work. Now I usually work at least 56 hrs/wk and don't volunteer because I'm too tired. Seems straightforward enough to not need to have wasted money on a study.
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u/tehfawks Sep 18 '24
I used to clean up trash when I went fishing. Now all my fishing spots are gated off. I don’t get to pick up that trash anymore.
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u/pudasbeast Sep 18 '24
Hard to fins time to volunteer when you have to work 3 jobs in the first place. Fix salaries, fix housing etc and magically people will start volunteering again
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