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Counter-anecdote: my wife has a Master's degree and works 60 hours a week, trying to transition from biotech to teaching. She has to cobble together multiple j

Counter-anecdote: my wife has a Master's degree and works 60 hours a week, trying to transition from biotech to teaching. She has to cobble together multiple jobs, some of which are in the "low-wage sectors". She works 60 hours a week because, well, budgets have been cut to school districts. She'll be earning $16k/year next year as a teaching fellow, albeit earning her education Master's while doing it. We have a friend who scarcely makes $11.50/hour working in foodservice. Sure, the woman doesn't have the discipline or ambition to be a high-powered professional, but she never wanted to be a high-powered professional. She's working-class in the proper sense of the word: born to blue-collar workers, grew up in a blue-collar town, wants to just do a fair day's work for a day's livable pay. She doesn't get that choice, because everything outside the professional class has been gutted of livable wages and opportunities. Nonetheless, how many jobs are professional jobs? 20%? 10% of new jobs inside this past decade? If your proposal is simply that inequality isn't a problem because everyone should be a professional, how are 100% of the people supposed to squeeze themselves into 10% of the jobs? And if 90% of the people end up in the bottom 90% of the jobs, why should those jobs exploit them by paying unliveably low wages? After all, if there wasn't profit to be made employing those workers, nobody would do it, and minimum-wage rises at the municipal level have "destroyed" nowhere near as many jobs as predicted. It looks to me like "inequality" really means "exploitation", a word Americans should start saying more often.

aaronchall 10y ago
Your wife is being paid to go to school and she'll make better money as a teacher when she completes? Brilliant, welcome to the middle class. If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), you can get a roommate, a beater car, and still have a fun life. That's not exploitation, that's her choice. If she wants the responsibility of providing for a family, she should probably take on more responsibility in her career, and make way for our unemployed youths who need their first jobs so future employers will take them seriously for real ones.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), As a matter of fact, her old employer never gave her full-year hours, so she had to deal with a basically minimum-wage income of ~$15k/year. She finally found a new foodservice position in her area (where she can afford the housing costs in mere driving distance to work) that will convert her to full-time this year, so she's making a bit of a move up. She's also been attending community college to become a paralegal, but that takes time when you're working and also dealing with personal issues.
- seasharp 10y ago
  And she'll never be able to support a family, dying young or putting stress on social programs as she ages with no support network. Then after 30 years of these low skill folks dying off without having kids everyone will be pooping their pants about millions of immigrants moving in to prop up our economy that we uprooted and wondering where the economic power of the west is headed.
tropo 10y ago
If you wife counts the cost of commuting, dress clothing, supplies/materials, paying others to cook/clean/care, taxes... does this even make a profit? What is the point? Meanwhile, there is an impact on family life. There are only 168 hours in a week. Take out 56 for sleeping, 60 for work... now down to 52, which is 7.43 hours per day. In those 7.43 hours you must cook, eat, bathe, poop, shop, make love, commute, exercise, and more. I don't think that really fits. Something is not getting the time required. Is there a good reason she persists? Would she feel unvalued as a stay-at-home mom? Does she fear that she might be inadequate? Does she somehow think she'd be a failure if she chose a traditional role? I hope you would still respect and value her if she did that, and that she knows it. (don't just assume she knows it -- and she may hesitate to believe you if you say it, due to upbringing or peers)
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  We don't have children. We don't believe in that "traditional role" rubbish. And also, we live in Boston: if you don't have two professionals working here, you don't make rent. Biotech was toxic for her, so she's taking a hit for a year to change fields.
  - burfog 10y ago
    I lived in Boston doing part-time IT help for what is $14.38/hour in 2017 dollars. You can make rent, just not in completely over-the-top fancy digs. I lived at 525 Newbury Street, in a basement apartment facing the alley. That isn't even a bad location; it is a very short walk away from the Kenmore Square station on the Green Line. I had time for fun. I'm sure you can buy better toys than I could, but you mostly can't buy time. Anyway, it is 100% false that you need two professionals to make rent. You could do it with a full-time minimum-wage job. Anything above that is luxury.

aaronchall 10y ago

Your wife is being paid to go to school and she'll make better money as a teacher when she completes? Brilliant, welcome to the middle class. If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), you can get a roommate, a beater car, and still have a fun life. That's not exploitation, that's her choice. If she wants the responsibility of providing for a family, she should probably take on more responsibility in her career, and make way for our unemployed youths who need their first jobs so future employers will take them seriously for real ones.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), As a matter of fact, her old employer never gave her full-year hours, so she had to deal with a basically minimum-wage income of ~$15k/year. She finally found a new foodservice position in her area (where she can afford the housing costs in mere driving distance to work) that will convert her to full-time this year, so she's making a bit of a move up. She's also been attending community college to become a paralegal, but that takes time when you're working and also dealing with personal issues.
seasharp 10y ago
And she'll never be able to support a family, dying young or putting stress on social programs as she ages with no support network. Then after 30 years of these low skill folks dying off without having kids everyone will be pooping their pants about millions of immigrants moving in to prop up our economy that we uprooted and wondering where the economic power of the west is headed.

tropo 10y ago

If you wife counts the cost of commuting, dress clothing, supplies/materials, paying others to cook/clean/care, taxes... does this even make a profit? What is the point? Meanwhile, there is an impact on family life. There are only 168 hours in a week. Take out 56 for sleeping, 60 for work... now down to 52, which is 7.43 hours per day. In those 7.43 hours you must cook, eat, bathe, poop, shop, make love, commute, exercise, and more. I don't think that really fits. Something is not getting the time required. Is there a good reason she persists? Would she feel unvalued as a stay-at-home mom? Does she fear that she might be inadequate? Does she somehow think she'd be a failure if she chose a traditional role? I hope you would still respect and value her if she did that, and that she knows it. (don't just assume she knows it -- and she may hesitate to believe you if you say it, due to upbringing or peers)

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
We don't have children. We don't believe in that "traditional role" rubbish. And also, we live in Boston: if you don't have two professionals working here, you don't make rent. Biotech was toxic for her, so she's taking a hit for a year to change fields.
- burfog 10y ago
  I lived in Boston doing part-time IT help for what is $14.38/hour in 2017 dollars. You can make rent, just not in completely over-the-top fancy digs. I lived at 525 Newbury Street, in a basement apartment facing the alley. That isn't even a bad location; it is a very short walk away from the Kenmore Square station on the Green Line. I had time for fun. I'm sure you can buy better toys than I could, but you mostly can't buy time. Anyway, it is 100% false that you need two professionals to make rent. You could do it with a full-time minimum-wage job. Anything above that is luxury.