
Why American Workers Without Much Education Are Being Hammered - jacinda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/upshot/why-workers-without-much-education-are-being-hammered.html
======
blfr
The article doesn't mention immigration even in passing. Sure, there's
globalization and improvements in technology but there are also millions of
people increasing the supply of labour, especially for jobs that don't require
much skill or certification.

~~~
humanrebar
And it doesn't mention that even the most educated workers are not keeping
pace with real GDP growth.

The analysis basically books down to "supply exceeds demand, uneducated
hardest hit". I would have liked to see more analysis on the ultimate reason
for the lack of demand for workers.

Finally, it bugs me when people blame technology for destroying jobs and not
society, employees, and employers for thinking simple, repetitive jobs are
viable long-term career paths. Distilled to absurdity, we could pay people to
dig holes and refill them, but robots will always be orders of magnitude
better at that. Why blame the robot and not everyone else for not realizing
hole-digger is a job with an expiration date?

~~~
normloman
Few people think a repetitive, unskilled job is a viable career path. People
take these jobs because they have no other choice. Not everyone can go to
college.

~~~
humanrebar
You don't have to go to college to think strategically about your next job,
not just the current one.

> People take these jobs because they have no other choice.

You take a job because you have no other choice. You stay at a job past the
expiration date because:

* nobody told you that jobs have expiration dates

* you know but think you'll deal with that problem later

...I think it's important for us to create a culture that encourages people to
think about their jobs and careers strategically. The broader conversation
revolves around statements like "people are stuck" or "they need retraining
and/or education". I don't think those statements and attitudes are helping
people enough, especially when bootstrapping, self-education, and content
creation are cheaper and easier than ever.

~~~
normloman
You have to be in a good position just for the option of bootstrapping, and
educating yourself. If you're working two jobs just to keep the lights on, you
don't have the time or money. And self education doesn't mean much if you
can't list a degree on your resume. It's not hopeless, but it's hard!

------
ck2
The trade deal Obama really wants to sign is going to put the final nail in
the uneducated worker's coffin. Every remaining low wage job that can be
exported, will be exported. The rest will be automated as much as possible.

Then we are going to have this weird culture where the people serving you food
have college degrees and are desperately trying to pay off student loans.
Meanwhile everyone else will think they can just make a startup or small
business to survive but there will be so many copycats the customer base will
be too fractured.

We better discover nearly free power soon or things are going to get ugly for
the 98% in the next decade.

~~~
kfk
It is worth mentioning that an economy that produces higher added value will
have a fallback on the lower classes too. While the delta in wealth between
the rich and the poor has been increasing, in relative terms the poor have
been getting richer. A poor today is way better than a poor 50 years ago or
even 20 years ago. If you are concerned about what poor people can do, then
think to all those products that now are too expensive but that a future
richer society might want. For instance, in Germany (richer country than
mine), is very normal to buy local/bio/laborIntensive goods like traditional
food and so on, this is all stuff that non educated people can do and will do
in the future.

~~~
mistermann
I generally agree with this, but in some locations an exception to this is
real estate, in that a growing subset of the market are becoming increasingly
priced out of ever buying anything. Interestingly, the US for the most part is
not currently suffering from this due to the bursting of the housing bubble.

~~~
kfk
Yeah, but the thing is, we are not really running out of flats/houses, we are
running out of space in the cities. That is a way less bleak future than the
parent proposed, it just means that poor people will leave far from the city
center, but can we really blame that? Is that even a problem? People leave
where they can afford, that's just the reality, as long as they can afford a
good house with heating and all the other nice stuff, I think location is not
that much of an issue.

~~~
mtbcoder
Location is a big issue for people who rely on public transportation to get to
their places of employment. It's not always feasible to live far away from
where the jobs are and not everyone can simply telecommute or otherwise work
from home.

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Shivetya
Having worked for a security company; rent a cops; I was surprised by the
types of people who took up the job. While there is a good amount of turnover
there are many who are there for life. Most had a high school diploma and some
had more. We did have college kids working their way from school, sitting at a
post and doing periodic walks does lend time to study and it wasn't
discouraged.

At first I was concerned because one of my jobs was to insure that payroll
checks were printed on time and delivered to sites by payday or when required
by law; terminations and those who quit in some states are required to be paid
within a set amount of time. Having talked to only a few I found many simply
liked the job because a) it was easy, b) schedules were nearly fixed, and c)
the uniform imparted a sense of import. I never really ran into anyone I
wouldn't want to have watching over a site. Those types tend to self weed
themselves out.

Even in a day and age of automation there is still the comfort level many get
from having a person about. Not all guards are low paid but many are.

Immigration reform will hit many sectors hard; likely the security sector as
well. So the question becomes, how do you lessen the burden of all the fees
for government services these people have to pay? We might not be able to
legislate their pay to a level everyone is happy about but there are many
costs of living imposed by government that could be restructured based on
income.

~~~
hollerith
What fees for government services do you refer to?

~~~
zo1
I believe he's referring to Taxes.

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randomname2
The point of the article is interesting, _among those who have a job at all_ ,
managerial workers and independent professionals are making more money while
the majority of workers are making less.

However while uneducated "workers" may be suffering, among the educated there
are more and more "non-workers":

[https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11327662](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS11327662)

------
NTDF9
Are we really this Myopic?

Americans think that they deserve a certain standard of living. Why? Why do
you deserve it? I don't see a good answer to this.

For a country emphasizing competition and capitalism so much, I find it
hilarious when Americans start complaining about being out-competed (by other
countries or by college grads or by smarter people).

The reality is that, in society, not everyone can get everything. The real
issue is with glamorizing excessive profits.

Also, we can't expect only the good parts of globalization. If we want $10
t-shirts made by a worker in Bangladesh, we had better be prepared to lose the
job to them. They are doing it cheaper and better than entitled us.

There's a solution! Tax the rich (and corporations) more and redistribute
wealth in a fair way that creates more local opportunities, but we know where
this discussion goes.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Americans think that they deserve a certain standard of living. Why? Why do
you deserve it? I don't see a good answer to this.

Because they built a society that can provide it. To everyone.

A good life for people _is the goal_. The _terminal_ goal. You don't have to
justify doing good for people; you have to justify making their lives _worse_.

~~~
NTDF9
>> Because they built a society that can provide it. To everyone.

That society was built on exploiting global resources and issues eg: selling
weapons for wars, extracting oil, gold and diamonds from countries with
uneducated leaders, manufacturing stuff from countries where living wage is
lower aka making lives worse.

Just think about it! When those other countries start becoming more and more
educated and start turning things for their own good, this great American
society is going to have to suffer.

Let's say there are two people (American and Chinese) in this world and one
t-shirt manufactured. The American was always able to afford it. Now the
Chinese can afford it and can outbid the American. Doesn't the standard of
living of the American drop? Yes.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Economics doesn't work that way. The profit margins of the American capitalist
may have been higher when the Chinese were poor, but actual total world
productivity (the amount of stuff available to share around) has gone _up_ as
the Chinese have gotten richer. The development of the Third World is a
positive-sum, ahaha, development.

~~~
NTDF9
Economics does work that. The amount of resources are limited by: a. Quantity
of raw materials available for use b. Skill (labor and/or machines) to convert
those raw materials into something useful.

So while America had a lot of a and b, the rest of the world is having that
now too. So America has lesser of a and b as a proportion of total a an b

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CodeSheikh
Min wage should be increased by certain significant percentage but definitely
not by 100% to $15. That is basically saying "no need to study in high school
or go to college because you can still make around 30k based on min wage". 30k
is a starting salary for a lot of college fresh graduates. This could in-
return can also create economic imbalance among classes (abridging the gap
between high school drop out and fresh college graduate)

~~~
danans
Local minimum wages should be raised in a manner commensurate with local
inflation. In places like the Bay Area and NYC, $15/hr isn't much considering
the enormous cost of living - hence the term "living wage".

$15/hr is probably too high for a part of the country with a very low cost of
living like Mississippi.

The federal minimum wage sets the absolute bare minimum.

The often mentioned radical alternative is Basic Income, which would eliminate
all minimum wages and push up wages on the low end by tightening the labor
market (because many on the low-income end of the labor spectrum would opt not
to work).

------
deedubaya
Maybe the correlation isn't education => low paying jobs, but motivation =>
low paying jobs?

I've seen a lot of people just "settle" with a crappy job which pays poorly
just because they aren't motivated to go find something better or more
challenging on a day-to-day basis. Some of these people have gone through
college, some haven't.

~~~
snowwrestler
The above will be a controversial post because there are plenty of highly
motivated people who work hard but never get rich. For example a day laborer
construction worker has to get up very early, perform tiring physical labor
all day, and then do it again the next day. Many work more than 5 days per
week to make ends meet. I bet that not many web developers could make it as a
day laborer for long!

That said, the question of "motivation" now has a deeper subtext thanks to
recent research on early childhood development and the impact of family and
community on each individual's development and achievement.

Rather than an inherent personal quality (which is easily corrupted into a
proxy for "worth" or "deserving"), we are learning that motivation is heavily
influenced by factors outside a child's control, like how much loving
attention they receive, how many words they hear per hour, the level of
violence they witness or experience, the number of books in their home, the
professional success of their parent or parents, the average socio-economic
level of success in their school district, etc.

So, to say that maybe the answer is motivation, is not as much of an answer as
it used to be. Now we want to know where motivation comes from, and what we
can do to improve that.

~~~
deedubaya
> So, to say that maybe the answer is motivation, is not as much of an answer
> as it used to be.

Definitely. It's sad that these outside factors influence something so
important, but that doesn't change the fact that some people are motivated and
some are not, does it?

~~~
danans
I think the point is that there are systemic factors that affect motivation
that far swamp out an individual's drive, especially in their formative years.

These can include, but are not limited to: violence and trauma in one's
community and family, lack of reliable parents or positive role models in
one's community, childhood economic pressure towards physical survival and
meeting basic day-to-day needs.

These are all things that individuals born into poverty in the US face at
disproportionate levels, and they can have a negative effect on motivation. We
generally don't fault people for the very harsh circumstances they are born
into.

~~~
deedubaya
Yes, I understand that the PC thing to do is to not fault people for such
things.

But the fact remains, which sucks, but still.

Where do we draw the line? I was attacked by a dog when I was a child which
was very violent and traumatic for me. I also grew up "are we going to eat
tonight" poor. Do I qualify?

~~~
snowwrestler
This isn't about you. It's about how we use scientific knowledge to make
better policy decisions.

We learned that people need vitamin C to prevent scurvy; now we have
government policies and cultural norms that make sure that every child gets
enough vitamin C.

As our scientific understanding of brain development grows, we'll (hopefully)
develop norms and policies to make sure kids get what they need there too. You
can see today the early stages of that process with respect to exercise, and
more recently, sleep.

------
briandear
Is there causation between no high school diploma and lower wages? They are
certainly correlated.

~~~
njharman
I always assumed (and still believe) they are both (lack of eduction, lack of
well paying employment) are both results of other root causes. In other words
if you couldn't make it through high-school or college (for whatever reason,
ability, environment, access, attitude, etc) then whatever those reasons are
make you also unable to acquire and keep a decent job.

~~~
zo1
>" _[..]then whatever those reasons are make you also unable to acquire and
keep a decent job._ "

And unfortunately for them, it doesn't keep them from inflicting the same
life-outlook on their offspring. Greatest tragedy of our society, that we
overlook that.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
We supposed to neuter people?

~~~
zo1
Of course not, that's horrible.

I'll leave it to the smart statists out there to figure out how to remedy this
tragedy whilst staying within the "moral framework" they have in-place
already. You know, the thing that makes it "illegal" to carry bad-plants in
your pocket while simultaneously making it legal to bring innocent life into
this world without being able to take care of it, and ultimately making it
suffer.

------
dataker
The article should be named' Why Blue-Collar Workers Are Being Hammered'.

The matter of the fact is that in most blue-collar jobs, salaries stagnate
after years of experience.

Having an education only do 2 things:

\- Gives one the ability for a white-collar job

\- With the same stagnation, blue-collar salaries become 'higher' and most
workers are complacent about it

~~~
genericresponse
It's the same for the bulk of white collar workers as well in most industries,
they just stagnate later.

~~~
dataker
White collars have always had better salary growth than others.

Generally, blue-collars rely largely on 'manual labor' and, therefore, after
its peak productivity, they hit a depreciative tendency(younger
employees/outsourcing/...) .

White collars rely largely on networking and influence, hence its
'productivity' continues to grow.

The more 'manual work' one performs, the smaller his salary growth is.

------
CodeSheikh
btw..why on the earth this article is on HN?! Are people comparing tech worker
salaries as an ideal model for the entire economic class? I am confused by the
upvoters here.

~~~
randomdata
There is always infighting on HN of whether a degree is important for being a
developer. As such, anything that paints education in a positive, or negative,
light will reach the front page.

