She was 80. For a woman born around 1930, getting a job as a French teacher was more than she'd be expected to do. Her circumstances have more to do with the US social safety net than her planning a poor career.

But it does highlight the fact that working in academia can be a worse career than working in retail.

> the fact that working in academia can be a worse career than working in retail

I agree; it is exploitative.

But why do people keep showing up to do it? For every person who quits finally there are another dozen lined up to take the job. Perhaps that may be a little exaggeration, and no doubt it varies by region and subject matter, but people doing adjunct work must be getting compensation that is not salary or else why are they doing it? (Maybe I should say that I work in higher ed; I've often been puzzled by people's motivations about this.)

> But why do people keep showing up to do it?

Social status. Nobody gets looked down upon when they say that they're an adjunct professor at a university.

And of course it's rewarding and stimulating work.

That's one way of looking at it.

If she was living in Western Europe she'd probably be retired 23 years already, have a pension and free healthcare.

In the US we have single payer healthcare for people over 65. She was 83.

At 83 she almost definitely qualified for Medicaid, so she did have health insurance. However many health insurance plans have limits and high deductibles or disqualified expenses that can send a low income person bankrupt anyway. Quick quiz, which treatments for ovarian cancer would your plan cover and what are the deductibles? How does that compare to a plan you could buy on the individual market as an 83 year old woman?

Oh, I absolutely agree that the US healthcare system is absolute shit, but there are ways around it.

She should have planned for it long before 83. I started planning my finances for retirement at 25.

She should've been eligible for Medicare, but I guess she didn't pay medicare taxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)#Eligib...

If she wasn't paying payroll taxes, that would be the fault of the employer who is supposed to deduct them, and where she had worked for 25 years, no? There is no minimum income you have to pay it on as far as I am aware.

If you're living paycheck to paycheck, planning for retirement isn't on your list of high priorities. Paying your rent, and buying food is, and those little unexpected expenses like new tires hit hard.

It's great that you're fortunate enough to have enough income to be able to plan for retirement at 25.

> She lived day-to-day, didn't bother to plan even short term future, it's completely her fault.

Nobody should have to go without healthcare just because they didn't plan ahead or didn't do the right set of steps. Health care should be available for anyone without putting the burden of being eligible for that care on individual people.

> If you're making $10,000/year is the US, while having an education, it's your own damn fault.

That is a bold and broad generalisation.

She actually refused aid on numerous occasions, I believe there was something of the Vie Bohème in her. Also according to the math she began teaching at 58, which asks what happened before.

Does it really matter what happened before?

She deserved some compassion. By any reasonable point of view this was well-liked competent teacher who gave 25 years of service to her employer. She happened to fall through the social safety net.

Sadly, the way things are going, such miserable endings are going to become far more common when our generation becomes elderly.

> Also according to the math she began teaching at 58, which asks what happened before.

Probably married with a husband earning the wage, the default mode of living in a marriage for the generation born in 1930.

I not sure about that, her obit didn't mention a husband and also if she were a widow she should have been receiving survivors benefit from social security.

$10K/year is equivalent to $5/hour full time.

Even a complete moron with no education can make more money doing cleaning, washing dishes, delivery, etc.

And that lady was not a complete moron, she was teaching.

So the take-away is that american schools value their teachers less than restaurants their dish-washers. That's a great lesson about the state of academia.

That's not true. The lady worked part time. Most dish washers work full or longer time work shifts.

The academia pays alright, you just have to do the hours. She didn't.

The lady worked part time, granted. However, I would expect a high-skilled job such as teaching to pay enough for a living even on part time - 3,500 USD for a whole course seems a bit on the cheap side for me.

Then, there's a couple of other factors that come into play: The university only hands out part time contracts, so they're in a position to keep the wages low: Demand too much, no problem, we'll take another teacher for your course next year. I dispute your notion that academia in general pays enough. The given university pays an average of 20 - 25k to 75% of it's teachers. That's about half of the average wage in the USA. Even if they're working part-time that's still way too low for a job that requires university grade education. That's the people you entrust your childrens education to, not your dishwasher.

I assume that most of those 75% would love to have a full time job at the faculty, but the faculty obviously doesn't let them. So they either have a second/third job or live on scraps. Neither of those options is even remotely beneficial to the students education.

Read the article. Leaving aside the absurdity of expecting 83 year old people to work, this woman wanted to work and was let go.

> That's not true. The lady worked part time. Most dish washers work full or longer time work shifts.

This is not true at all for dish washers and retail workers. The trend over time has been to schedule those workers at the maximum possible amount without them qualifying as a full time employee, which may entitle them to some kinds of benefits.

Probably not a huge job market for someone in her 80's. There's not a large job market for someone 20 years her junior.

I would do private tutoring. I bet it pays much better too.

Considering she worked very relaxing hours, she could spend 10 hours a week searching for new clients.

What if they don't employ fulltime ? Also what is so special about parttime employment that it shouldn't also give (partial) pensions and health insurance.

Decent countries decouple jobs and pensions/healthcare. Parttime employment should have nothing to do with your access to either.

Is that the only place in the country that employs?

At her age she shouldn't even be working. What has she been doing for over 60 years? Where is her social security, 401k/IRA, savings?