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Many Disney workers live in cramped housing as company collects tax breaks | NewsNation Prime - YouTube
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tonight only on prime the back and forth
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fight between florida governor ron
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desantis and the state's largest
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employer that's disney has gained
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attention around the country but
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employees who work at disney say it is a
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distraction from the bigger issues that
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are going on at the company disney has
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made headlines especially recently for
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its progressive stance on social issues
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but inside its own company its employees
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some of them say they are facing low pay
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and an affordable housing crisis senior
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national correspondent brian enton is
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live at walt disney world in orlando for
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us tonight and brian uh you started to
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dig into this you talked to several
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employees families living in nearby
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motels near the theme park because they
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say that is all they can afford
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yeah marnie that's exactly what they say
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they say the conditions that they're
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living in should be more of the
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conversation around the country should
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be part of the conversation more as more
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and more people are talking about disney
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many of these theme park workers make
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just 15 an hour it is not enough money
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to be able to afford a house or even a
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rental with the skyrocketing housing
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prices in this part of florida uh so
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many of these workers now live in these
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dirty disgusting motel rooms and they're
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paying
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fifteen hundred dollars a month to live
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there
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behind the bright and shiny world of
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disney
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in the shadows a few miles away is this
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strip of beat down motels in kissimmee
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florida and it's not tourists staying
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here it's theme park workers
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is it okay if we come in
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room 118 of this hotel is home to a
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family of five
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plus three dogs and a cat
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ashley her husband and kids moved to
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florida so they could fulfill their
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dream of working at disney you have
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disney stuff everywhere yeah disney's
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is what we do we actually move down here
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for disney specifically ashley's husband
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is a disney bus driver making 18 an hour
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up there i have a little oven
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that i can cook in
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in our marketway
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this was our fridge from back home that
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we brought with us
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um the rooms don't come equipped with
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the fridges they come with the little
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miniature fridges and a lot of people
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that's all they have here with rising
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housing prices and inflation ashley's
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family could no longer afford rent on a
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disney salary and it's not just them
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motel after motel after motel
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filled with theme park workers disney
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makes so much money though yeah i mean
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is it ever frustrating that you have to
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live like this it is it is um
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you know i think
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they could definitely do more disney's
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revenue was 67 billion dollars last year
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but they still get big breaks from the
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state of florida according to the
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orlando sentinel disney avoids millions
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in taxes and perhaps the biggest perk of
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all disney worked to deal with florida
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to essentially have their own mini
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government on their twenty five thousand
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acre property controlling everything
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from permitting to electricity and it's
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not just disney making big money while
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workers suffer amazon employees have
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been known to live in their cars and
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universal studios workers say they're
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considered part-time while working 40
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plus hours a week if you don't mind me
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me asking how much do you get paid an
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hour
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fifteen dollars an hour
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is fifteen dollars an hour enough to
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live here
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it's not
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15 dollars an hour and we're in a hotel
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room this woman who didn't want to show
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her face for fear of losing her job
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lives at the magic castle motel
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is there any way for you to get ahead to
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get a normal place
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no there's no way
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i mean all the prices the gas prices
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everything is going up
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and our paychecks are not
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showing it you know
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we started reaching out to disney
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yesterday about what we found at the
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motels and today disney released this
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promotional video announcing their
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decision to turn 80 acres of their land
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into 1300 affordable housing units today
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we're excited to share some news about a
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new initiative designed to address a
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growing challenge in our country
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and our region and that's affordable
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housing at this point the plan is just a
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rendering that still needs approval i'm
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here 18 years i've never seen it this
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bad barbie austria runs a nonprofit and
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has been working with the families in
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the motels for almost two decades
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i don't know if you've heard disney gets
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tax breaks
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i know they do i mean they have their
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own little government on their land yes
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it
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doesn't compete with some people when
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they hear about the motel life yes and
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it's all around us just about every
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hotel motel on this trip are housed
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with homeless family not really housed
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they rent rooms there
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there are no tourists on the strip none
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whatever
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they're all on disney property they're
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all at the airbnbs
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so all we have here is poverty
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and we reached out to florida governor
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ron desantis office about this problem
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they say they're aware of it that
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they've allocated millions of dollars to
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help with the affordable housing crisis
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but just spending 48 hours
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out here marnie you realize it's
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complicated it's going to be complicated
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to fix yeah a lot of layers to the
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struggles that these people are facing
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brian i'm curious
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now that disney has released this plan
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to address affordable housing to some
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degree the people you spoke with did
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they know about it how did they respond
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so i mean you have to understand it's
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still just a plan it's renderings at
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this point it still has to be approved
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imagine how long it will take to build
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this 80 acre complex um so yes of course
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there's optimism that disney is going to
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do this but it's not going to fix
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anything in the short term no
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i'm also wondering you mentioned just a
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moment ago 1500 a month for these motel
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rooms adds up to about 50 a night what
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do the people running the motel say
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about their role in all of this
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well i mean
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this is the only place that these
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workers have to go but i'll tell you
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money when you go in the rooms and it's
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not just the one room that you saw in
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the piece we went in many rooms where
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people didn't want us to film but would
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show us around i mean you hear fifteen
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hundred dollars a month they're paying
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and it's sort of crazy because you'd
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think you could rent an apartment for
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fifteen hundred dollars a month and
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maybe you could find the department for
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fifteen hundred dollars a month but
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remember you need first month last month
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security deposit credit check these
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theme park workers are working paycheck
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to paycheck they can't save enough money
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for all of for that deposit up front uh
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so they just continue to be stuck in the
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motels yeah uh you sympathize with them
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especially it strikes me seeing that
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these people go to work to make kids and
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families happy at the most magical place
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and then they come home and you see all
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of their own kids in these tiny cramped
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motel rooms but
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disney obviously the largest employer
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there in the state have they considered
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other opportunities where maybe they
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have more opportunity for advancement
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other jobs outside of disney
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yeah it appears in many ways they're
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trying a lot of more people these days
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are full-time so they do get some
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benefits they can work their way up the
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ladder and one of the workers i spoke to
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said gosh aren't you frustrated with
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disney do you think the state needs to
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come down harder on them and they said
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well think about if disney left or if
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disney had to cut jobs that would be
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even worse than the situation right now
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so despite the way a lot of these people
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are living many of them still defend
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disney right and they want that job
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fifteen dollars an hour um it still gets
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a roof over their head uh brian as
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always thank you we'll be following that
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closely
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thanks for watching click the red
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