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Not until you demonstrate that they are correct. Hard to dispute platitudes. I'll start, that first one regarding education. Is it easy to learn now with the i
by mitchty 11y ago
Not until you demonstrate that they are correct. Hard to dispute platitudes.
I'll start, that first one regarding education. Is it easy to learn now with the internet? Sure, undoubtedly true. Is that measurably better than before for any person? Probably not. Cost per semester hour at a college I went to 10 years ago, is over four times as high now.
That is just the first bullet point. I tend not to even consider the rest if the first point is so... out of touch might be the best way to phrase it.
- WalterBright 11y agoAs I pointed out in another reply, a higher percentage of Americans have college degrees than ever before.
- makomk 11y agoBecause you basically need a college degree to have a decent chance of getting a job at above the minimum wage. Semi-skilled labour in places like factories has gone and isn't coming back and jobs that didn't used to require a degree are demanding them because why the hell not?
- WalterBright 11y agoSomething like 28% of American adults have college degrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... 0.8% of Americans over 25 are earning minimum wage. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/01/30/almost-everything-you-have-been-told-about-the-minimum-wage-is-false/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/01/30/almost... That leaves 70% of American adults do not have college degrees and are earning above minimum wage. Of course, depending on how one defines things those numbers can go up and down, but it's not a stretch to say that most workers do not have college degrees and earn above minimum wage. One last observation - starting your own business does not require a college degree. (Probably the most famous of those is Microsoft, and Microsoft has hired programmers without degrees.)
- vacri 11y agoThat you quoted the percentage of total population rather than the percentage of total workers suggests that you're trying to spin-doctor. The same link calls $9.50 "well over" the minimum wage of $7.25... conveniently ignoring that $9.50/hour is still a shit wage. That link clings to the literal minimum wage like a limpet - notice how it never tells us the numbers of people barely above minimum wage? Earn $7.50/hour? Well you're too well off to be part of those statistics... The author then has the gall to accuse others of using selective statistics to make their argument, and even throws out the 'class warfare' canard.
- WalterBright 11y agoI did believe I was accounting for spin doctoring by increasing the 0.8% to 20% when I acknowledged different definitions and said "most".
- vacri 11y agoYour link that you are taking as minimum wage doesn't account for people trivially above minimum wage. Yes, 'most people earn above minimum wage', but that's not the spirit of the discussion - someone earning 25c/hour more than minimum wage is still earning a crap wage. There are significantly more people on a crap wage than "the numbers go up and down a bit from 0.8%". Similarly, that link only takes the federal wage into account - of course it's going to be abnormally low, given there are states with higher minimums. For example, Washington state has a minimum wage of $9.47/hour. A minimum wage worker in Washington won't show up in a study claiming $7.25 is the minimum wage. Also, where do you mention 20%?
- WalterBright 11y ago"Most" means >50%. 70 - 50 = 20
- ectoplasm 11y agoIf it's such a small number of people, is there a problem with substantially increasing the minimum wage?