4 ms·

> In the US and Western Europe there is an oversupply of unskilled or low-skills labour, driving their wages down (relatively to skilled labour). You're right,

by id 11y ago

> In the US and Western Europe there is an oversupply of unskilled or low-skills labour, driving their wages down (relatively to skilled labour). You're right, but the reality is that even skilled workers rarely make it to the top 1%. In fact, they might not even find a job in their field. Even if you're super-high-skilled and work in Silicon Valley as a programmer, your net income probably doesn't come close to the entry bar of the top 5%.

cm2187 11y ago
But the examples cited in the article all relate to an undersupply of physicians or lawyers, or professions that have not learned to scale.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  Part of the problem is the US education system seems to not be turning out enough people with quality educations, even when there isn't a shortage of of credentialed people. For instance, there are plenty of lawyers. Most of them don't make much money and leave the industry quickly. Yet it is difficult to find a highly qualified lawyer to handle difficult issues. With medical professionals, there is simply a huge shortage. Same with researchers, engineers, etc. My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates. Reasonable being new graduate hires start out at CPI adjusted rates to near top end in silicon valley.
  - ratboy666 11y ago
    "not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates." Um... that is the definition of cheaper. In your own justification sentence. H1B must (should) be paid at your prevalent rate -- and this may not be what you consider a "reasonable" rate.
  - scottlocklin 11y ago
    "My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates." Sounds like "H1B visa holders are cheaper" to me. High quality engineers should be commanding on the order of $250k. In the absence of H1B visa holders lowering wages, that's what high quality engineers would command as an average salary; same as a good doctor or lawyer. The main reason doctors and lawyers cost that much: you can't H1B them. Lawyer skills are too specific to a locality and subsection of the trade; for whatever reason, law school doesn't actually help with this -experience, networking (particularly for criminal law) and apprenticeship is how it ends up working. LLD is just a hoop that needs to be jumped through to get such apprenticeships. The AMA is the most effective labor union in America, keeping out highly skilled doctors from abroad by denying their skills validity.
    - techdragon 11y ago
      Layer's pretty much world wide, have some form of 'local certification' in the form of 'Passing the bar', or equivalent local requirement. Its not that the skills are specific to a locality, its that in order be allowed to practice law in a jurisdiction you must complete the local requirement.
- TuringNYC 11y ago
  Learned to scale? It is quite intentional. The medical boards are controlled by the doctors themselves. They decide how many residents to train for their specialty each year. The usual figure is about under ~300students/yr for the most sought-after (and "undersupplied") specialties. That keeps wages up. This is not like programming where you get a gamut of skillsets and 120,000 extra immigrants hopping into the pipeline each year. There is no supply/demand equation here other than what is allowed by specialty medical boards themselves.
  - cm2187 11y ago
    But they still have the concept of one very highly skilled and expensive doctor in front of every patient. It is a form of craft industry. It hasn't moved on to the industrial area, where you only need very skilled workers to create and prototype, but that scale well by not putting these expensive workers in front of every customer. Even banks have done that. I am not saying it is easy, and perhaps the technology doesn't allow it yet, but undoubtfully this is a next step in the medical profession.
techdragon 11y ago
Haha... Try being a programmer outside Silicon Valley... Or outside the USA... Disparity comes in many forms.
- id 11y ago
  That's exactly my point.
rayiner 11y ago
The bar for top 5% is like 90k/year.
- freyr 11y ago
  $90k household income is too 29%. Top 5% household income is $220k. As of the 2014 census.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I believe it's significantly higher than that, though probably still well within the norm for a market-paid, highly skilled, SV SWE. http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-your-rank-as-a-taxpayer.html http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-your-r... suggest that it was ~$180K in 2013 (this is presumably on a per-return basis, which is neither individual nor household income, but likely much closer to the latter).
sosuke 11y ago
Middle classes shouldn't be in the top percentiles but it seems to be so.
thedufer 11y ago
> Even if you're super-high-skilled and work in Silicon Valley as a programmer At Google or equivalent, programmers can hit the household 5% bar ($220,000) within 2-3 years.
encoderer 11y ago
You're off on that. Plenty of sfba engineers in the top 5%.

by id 11y ago

cm2187 11y ago

But the examples cited in the article all relate to an undersupply of physicians or lawyers, or professions that have not learned to scale.

merpnderp 11y ago
Part of the problem is the US education system seems to not be turning out enough people with quality educations, even when there isn't a shortage of of credentialed people. For instance, there are plenty of lawyers. Most of them don't make much money and leave the industry quickly. Yet it is difficult to find a highly qualified lawyer to handle difficult issues. With medical professionals, there is simply a huge shortage. Same with researchers, engineers, etc. My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates. Reasonable being new graduate hires start out at CPI adjusted rates to near top end in silicon valley.
- ratboy666 11y ago
  "not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates." Um... that is the definition of cheaper. In your own justification sentence. H1B must (should) be paid at your prevalent rate -- and this may not be what you consider a "reasonable" rate.
- scottlocklin 11y ago
  "My company hires H1B visas not because they are cheaper, but because we can't get anyone here to do the job at reasonable rates." Sounds like "H1B visa holders are cheaper" to me. High quality engineers should be commanding on the order of $250k. In the absence of H1B visa holders lowering wages, that's what high quality engineers would command as an average salary; same as a good doctor or lawyer. The main reason doctors and lawyers cost that much: you can't H1B them. Lawyer skills are too specific to a locality and subsection of the trade; for whatever reason, law school doesn't actually help with this -experience, networking (particularly for criminal law) and apprenticeship is how it ends up working. LLD is just a hoop that needs to be jumped through to get such apprenticeships. The AMA is the most effective labor union in America, keeping out highly skilled doctors from abroad by denying their skills validity.
  - techdragon 11y ago
    Layer's pretty much world wide, have some form of 'local certification' in the form of 'Passing the bar', or equivalent local requirement. Its not that the skills are specific to a locality, its that in order be allowed to practice law in a jurisdiction you must complete the local requirement.
TuringNYC 11y ago
Learned to scale? It is quite intentional. The medical boards are controlled by the doctors themselves. They decide how many residents to train for their specialty each year. The usual figure is about under ~300students/yr for the most sought-after (and "undersupplied") specialties. That keeps wages up. This is not like programming where you get a gamut of skillsets and 120,000 extra immigrants hopping into the pipeline each year. There is no supply/demand equation here other than what is allowed by specialty medical boards themselves.
- cm2187 11y ago
  But they still have the concept of one very highly skilled and expensive doctor in front of every patient. It is a form of craft industry. It hasn't moved on to the industrial area, where you only need very skilled workers to create and prototype, but that scale well by not putting these expensive workers in front of every customer. Even banks have done that. I am not saying it is easy, and perhaps the technology doesn't allow it yet, but undoubtfully this is a next step in the medical profession.

techdragon 11y ago

Haha... Try being a programmer outside Silicon Valley... Or outside the USA... Disparity comes in many forms.

id 11y ago
That's exactly my point.

rayiner 11y ago

The bar for top 5% is like 90k/year.

freyr 11y ago
$90k household income is too 29%. Top 5% household income is $220k. As of the 2014 census.
sokoloff 11y ago
I believe it's significantly higher than that, though probably still well within the norm for a market-paid, highly skilled, SV SWE. http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-your-rank-as-a-taxpayer.html http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C000-S001-your-r... suggest that it was ~$180K in 2013 (this is presumably on a per-return basis, which is neither individual nor household income, but likely much closer to the latter).

sosuke 11y ago

Middle classes shouldn't be in the top percentiles but it seems to be so.

thedufer 11y ago

> Even if you're super-high-skilled and work in Silicon Valley as a programmer At Google or equivalent, programmers can hit the household 5% bar ($220,000) within 2-3 years.

encoderer 11y ago

You're off on that. Plenty of sfba engineers in the top 5%.