You're viewing a single thread.
Some beggars make bank. Like, more than you do.
Ahh twitch streamers and youtubers.
Nah, car window washers.
$2 per car, 4 cars per light change, 6 light changes an hour = about $50/hour.
Edit: Since people need more help with math:
1 light change: 6 minutes.
Time to wash a car window: 30 seconds at most (20 seconds is normal)
Lets call an additional 30 seconds between cars for moving 3 feet and getting money.
That's 1 minute per car. Out of a slow 6 cars per minute, doing ~24 cars per hour gives you plenty of time to account for resting and being turned down
$100 an hour would be a good hour, $20 would be slow. $50/hr is a round average. Most work a couple hours a day.
Yes, it's illegal to walk in traffic like that.
$375/day, $150 in "a few hours"
Lol, right. Just like you can just ignore air resistance when doing your physics homework.
We all know there's just a line of hundreds of cars, everyday, waiting to willingly give $2 to a random homeless person to wash their windshield. Just all day, cars coming through and voluntarily giving up $2 for a service they don't need BECAUSE THE CAR CAN DO IT ITSELF.
What reality do you live in?
$375/day, $150 in "a few hours"
Not bad for a 16yo kid.
Yes. As I said, I have read the reports. I am looking for actual evidence that they're accurate. II was more looking for a first person perspective from someone who has actually been in that position. So not you.
If you want to live in ignorance, I can't help you any further.
I was being conservative. They'll often get more than that.
And yes, thousands upon thousands of cars, every day, all day long.
But they're not waiting to get their windows washed. As I said, light change. The cars are waiting at stop lights.
It's illegal, but that doesn't stop them.
Yeah but like 95% of those people will refuse it or not give them anything. They don't get paid by every car. Maybe like 10% max.
If you say so.
Sounds like estimation of a best case scenario. If I was in one of those cars I would definitely say "no." I don't even look at those median grifters. And if they did climb onto the hood of my vehicle and start washing my windshield without my consent, there would be hell for them to pay.
No, that's an average, not best case. They can get much more than that.
Proved wrong in the first sentence. The article states $375 is the most he ever got. "Can" is also doing a lot of work in the sentence "he can get up to $150 in a few hours".
How does $375 prove my $50 wrong?
No, never mind. I don't care. You want to live in ignorance, you do you.
$375/day, $150 in "a few hours"
Wow.... So your proof, is an honest 16 year old kid who stated as soon as he can get a better job, he'll stop, that he's just doing this as a way to help out the family and his mom lets him because it's a one way street and it's less likely for him to get hit by cars. While washing windshields, he has been repeatedly assaulted. He apologized if he ever washed someone's window without asking. And yet, this, this apologetic, honest kid trying to help his family is your example of people making bank. You're an asshole.
It's an example that people here (like you) have no idea how much money window washers can get.
Well in my area. It's people that just sit at a traffic light. Maybe with a dog and people just give them a couple dollars when they pass by. There's so many different individuals going through a light at a grocery store that everybody has the chance of giving them some money without feeling like they're being imposed on. It's a very lucrative racket in the right area.
It's a fantastic way to earn money if you have no morals or self-respect.
Doesn't seem any different to me than standing their working as a retail cashier. You're getting paid to destroy your feet. That's the point.
Yeah but the beggar is self-employed and can go home whenever he wants. He's actually better off.
I used to work in retail and I used to have to hang around in the same era of the store because it was my area of the store and they had one of those infomercial TV ad things in my aisle and it was on loop that repeated maybe every 30 seconds. That thing actually caused me mental anguish, it was like water torture listening to the same 30 second thing on a loop, for 8 hours a day.
I used to go hid in the stockroom to get away from it.
Perhaps we should make retail work more dignified than being homeless.
They're not necessarily homeless.
I used to work at an arcade. Along with having to hear every machine go through its demo over and over again when no one was playing it, they also had a video tape on a hour loop. During Christmas, because the song just came out, I had to hear All I Want For Christmas Is You, every hour, 40 hours a week for a month and a half. I hate that song far more than most people who hate it.
As someone who used to regularly go to the gym, this is why I hate Shake it Off by Taylor Swift, and dislike her music in general. They played it about every half an hour. Spend an hour and a half at the gym, and you'd hear that song three times. Go to the gym three days a week, and it doesn't take long to absolutely hate the sound of her voice.
Plus you can still collect unemployment benefits!
If it's such a good gig, nothing is stopping you from doing it yourself?
Self respect and morals as mentioned in another comment.
Money has no morals. The amount of money you have is probably the worst way to judge a character. More often it's circumstances and I see no reason to kick someone when they're down like you do.
I'm not big on relying on charity to pay my bills. If you could get it by doing an actual job and just beg because it's easy you're stealing from those who actually need it.
How is it stealing when people are giving it to you voluntarily?
He (hopefully) means fraud.
Charity is a limited resource so if you are relying on charity when you do not need it, you are taking it from those who do.
You aren't taking anything.
The word you're looking for is fraud, not stealing or theft.
I'm saying that the available charity is limited. When you solicit charity while not needing it you remove that charity from those who do. So while it may be a fraudulent appeal for charity it also steals a available resources from those in need.
So what? If they can, good for them. Why is that a bad thing?
They aren't doing it on their own either. They usually live with family, or families. Are also on assistance, and that 2009 Mercedes that they drove the lot over, is the family car, registered to their cousin. It's not a glamorous life, like OP thinks.
The downvotes from ignorance on Lemmy are simply astounding. People can't believe things outside their tiny bubbles.
Car window washing: $375/day, $150 in "a few hours" https://thewest.com.au/news/perth/a-16-year-old-perth-window-washer-reveals-what-life-is-like-on-the-roadside-ng-b881029234z
Begging: $400/day https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/professional-beggars-intimidate-women-tourists-melbourne/6621824
Begging, $40 before lunch, then went to work: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/164e6f/comment/c7sm5b5/ (the whole thread is really good, fantastic content in this post. There's a link to a blog where guy begged in different ways, and logged the results. Worst: "ex-wife" ($3.30/hr), best: "wheelchair" ($23/hr))
For 38 studies, $20usd-$60usd/day: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10575677211036498 - which is what most people are thinking about.