6 ms·

Crap article. The problem is that the maths doesn't work anymore. Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a pers

Crap article. The problem is that the maths doesn't work anymore. Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a person's life, caused by the pandemic pushes McJobs into "working there makes a loss" territory. Every single employer that crawls out from under their rock and howls some version of "nobody wants to work anymore" is saying "I pay crap wages for my crap job, and expected to do so forever". When the boss and all the customers spend every moment of every day taking a dump on you, they should be grateful when the worst that happens is you stop turning up.

tolbish 5y ago
Is this actually true? I remember my grad level engineering classes in which I was the only American. And these weren't tiny grad classes either, at least 10-20 students. Now I'm starting to think all of this is simply the endgame of our education system.
- bsder 5y ago
  Actually, I would argue that is simply economic rationality. 1) A PhD is generally an economic disaster. For 6+ years you are making less than minimum wage, and only the most technical fields benefit from it economically. Those 6 years put you almost $250K behind someone earning a decent engineering salary--and the working engineer has a 6 year experience record and corresponding professional network. If you have to spend a couple more years as an underpaid Postdoc, you never catch up economically. 2) A quick Master's generally makes good economic sense in a technical field--get it as cheap and fast as you can. It's generally worth a nice salary bump, and it puts you into a slightly different category when layoffs and stuff come around. (Master's degrees often can be considered for "R&D" positions that a Bachelor's is considered unqualified for even with 20+ years of experience--HR rules are stupid.) 3) Advanced degrees in non-technical fields are a HUGE net negative economically. In addition, a non-trivial amount of foreign grad students are sponsored by their government to be there. Colleges love them because they pay full, non-resident prices in cash.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    I'd say a large majority of Americans complaining about student debt today have advanced degrees in non-technical fields. The extra earning power you get in the U.S. for STEM degrees far outstrips any cost of college or healthcare compared to Europe.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      What you're ignoring is that employers have been using "has a degree" as a filter for decades now. Any type of position, including the lauded "learn to code" ones, starts with "do you have some type of degree?". This is the rule, and while exceptions exist, they're not common or reliable. It is still generally looked down on to only have a high school education.
      - zepto 5y ago
        I concur. As an engineering manager, I had recruiters question my decision to hire people without degrees, even after they had verified work history and has passed objective tests proving they had the necessary skills.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    So I need to figure out how to translate my recently acquired OMSCS degree into more money, apparently. My current company gave me a lot of 'attaboys' but it has no value otherwise.
    - erichocean 5y ago
      Easy, find a new job. Switching jobs is by far the simplest way to increase your compensation.
    - burlesona 5y ago
      Have you asked for a raise, and ideally also for increased responsibilities? My experience is that people don’t usually get raises without asking for them, and specifically without seriously looking at other jobs. By far the best way to get a raise is to find another job you like, get the offer, then give your boss the chance to match. But if you like the job and would rather keep it, then I recommend telling your manager about this before you start interviewing, so they have time to work the machinery and try to materialize an increase for you if they want to keep you (and have any internal leverage). Unfortunately most company HR programs are f*** up and won’t authorize anything other than token raises for existing employees, whereas the recruiting team will authorize much higher pay in order to actually sign candidates that managers want to hire. Thus you’re really anchored to wherever you started at any given company, and if you want to see a big change in role and comp it’s almost always necessary to change jobs.
- dundarious 5y ago
  You seem to be contrasting the proportion of US citizens in postgrad education (in your experience) to GP's point about supply and demand in the labor market for low skill, low wage service jobs. What's the relationship there? I don't understand at all.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    Yes you are right. However, my gripe is related. I've seen tens of articles posted here about the lack of available talent in engineering and thought there may be parallels to less skilled work.
- madengr 5y ago
  Ha ha, sounds like my DSP class in grad school. 27 Asians and three white guys.
grecy 5y ago
> Every single employer that crawls out from under their rock and howls some version of "nobody wants to work anymore" is saying "I pay crap wages for my crap job, and expected to do so forever". Even worse, they also expected to make obscene profit off the backs of those workers being paid crap wages. McDonald's, as one example, makes $10B in profit every single year. [1]. Their profit went up during the pandemic, 13% YoY. How anyone thinks they shouldn't increase wages and be content with only a few billion in profit is insanity. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gros...
- machinebun 5y ago
  McDonald's has been reducing their number of workers and franchising as per their 2016-2017 plan. So most of the people that work at McD are not even their employees (since McD the brand is now just a real estate/leasing business).
- mdorazio 5y ago
  That’s not how it works. Most fast food restaurants are franchised, not company owned. An average McDonald’s owner (franchisee) only makes about $150k per year off it [1]. And that’s after investing a rather large sum of money into the business in the first place. I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”. [1] https://work.chron.com/average-income-fast-food-franchise-owners-24587.html https://work.chron.com/average-income-fast-food-franchise-ow...
  - grecy 5y ago
    > I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”. Then that is exactly what should happen. The world isn't better because McDonald's is in it and everywhere. If there were less, there would be more locally owned burger joints, and more "regular" folk making money instead of corporate giants.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
treis 5y ago
>Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a person's life, caused by the pandemic pushes McJobs into "working there makes a loss" territory Just to be clear, you think working at a McJob actually costs you money?
- prawn 5y ago
  Job may require you to have a car/commute or pay for public transport, pay for services you'd otherwise have time to do yourself, to pay to put children into childcare (my childcare is AU$122 per day, per child).
- lsaferite 5y ago
  I think the term you'd want to research is "Welfare Cliff".
- wolfram74 5y ago
  Businesses have operating expenses that mean they operate at a loss despite selling product, why is it in conceivable the same might apply for laborers? Transport, shelter, food, tons of jobs offer pay such that at the end of the month, you're losing money and still living in substandard conditions.
  - treis 5y ago
    Whether you make enough at a McJob to pay for everything is a different claim than the one the GP made. Their claim, at least how I read it, is that you lose money by working a McJob.

tolbish 5y ago

Is this actually true? I remember my grad level engineering classes in which I was the only American. And these weren't tiny grad classes either, at least 10-20 students. Now I'm starting to think all of this is simply the endgame of our education system.

bsder 5y ago
Actually, I would argue that is simply economic rationality. 1) A PhD is generally an economic disaster. For 6+ years you are making less than minimum wage, and only the most technical fields benefit from it economically. Those 6 years put you almost $250K behind someone earning a decent engineering salary--and the working engineer has a 6 year experience record and corresponding professional network. If you have to spend a couple more years as an underpaid Postdoc, you never catch up economically. 2) A quick Master's generally makes good economic sense in a technical field--get it as cheap and fast as you can. It's generally worth a nice salary bump, and it puts you into a slightly different category when layoffs and stuff come around. (Master's degrees often can be considered for "R&D" positions that a Bachelor's is considered unqualified for even with 20+ years of experience--HR rules are stupid.) 3) Advanced degrees in non-technical fields are a HUGE net negative economically. In addition, a non-trivial amount of foreign grad students are sponsored by their government to be there. Colleges love them because they pay full, non-resident prices in cash.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  I'd say a large majority of Americans complaining about student debt today have advanced degrees in non-technical fields. The extra earning power you get in the U.S. for STEM degrees far outstrips any cost of college or healthcare compared to Europe.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    What you're ignoring is that employers have been using "has a degree" as a filter for decades now. Any type of position, including the lauded "learn to code" ones, starts with "do you have some type of degree?". This is the rule, and while exceptions exist, they're not common or reliable. It is still generally looked down on to only have a high school education.
    - zepto 5y ago
      I concur. As an engineering manager, I had recruiters question my decision to hire people without degrees, even after they had verified work history and has passed objective tests proving they had the necessary skills.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  So I need to figure out how to translate my recently acquired OMSCS degree into more money, apparently. My current company gave me a lot of 'attaboys' but it has no value otherwise.
  - erichocean 5y ago
    Easy, find a new job. Switching jobs is by far the simplest way to increase your compensation.
  - burlesona 5y ago
    Have you asked for a raise, and ideally also for increased responsibilities? My experience is that people don’t usually get raises without asking for them, and specifically without seriously looking at other jobs. By far the best way to get a raise is to find another job you like, get the offer, then give your boss the chance to match. But if you like the job and would rather keep it, then I recommend telling your manager about this before you start interviewing, so they have time to work the machinery and try to materialize an increase for you if they want to keep you (and have any internal leverage). Unfortunately most company HR programs are f*** up and won’t authorize anything other than token raises for existing employees, whereas the recruiting team will authorize much higher pay in order to actually sign candidates that managers want to hire. Thus you’re really anchored to wherever you started at any given company, and if you want to see a big change in role and comp it’s almost always necessary to change jobs.
dundarious 5y ago
You seem to be contrasting the proportion of US citizens in postgrad education (in your experience) to GP's point about supply and demand in the labor market for low skill, low wage service jobs. What's the relationship there? I don't understand at all.
- tolbish 5y ago
  Yes you are right. However, my gripe is related. I've seen tens of articles posted here about the lack of available talent in engineering and thought there may be parallels to less skilled work.
madengr 5y ago
Ha ha, sounds like my DSP class in grad school. 27 Asians and three white guys.

grecy 5y ago

> Every single employer that crawls out from under their rock and howls some version of "nobody wants to work anymore" is saying "I pay crap wages for my crap job, and expected to do so forever". Even worse, they also expected to make obscene profit off the backs of those workers being paid crap wages. McDonald's, as one example, makes $10B in profit every single year. [1]. Their profit went up during the pandemic, 13% YoY. How anyone thinks they shouldn't increase wages and be content with only a few billion in profit is insanity. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gros...

machinebun 5y ago
McDonald's has been reducing their number of workers and franchising as per their 2016-2017 plan. So most of the people that work at McD are not even their employees (since McD the brand is now just a real estate/leasing business).
mdorazio 5y ago
That’s not how it works. Most fast food restaurants are franchised, not company owned. An average McDonald’s owner (franchisee) only makes about $150k per year off it [1]. And that’s after investing a rather large sum of money into the business in the first place. I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”. [1] https://work.chron.com/average-income-fast-food-franchise-owners-24587.html https://work.chron.com/average-income-fast-food-franchise-ow...
- grecy 5y ago
  > I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”. Then that is exactly what should happen. The world isn't better because McDonald's is in it and everywhere. If there were less, there would be more locally owned burger joints, and more "regular" folk making money instead of corporate giants.
- shkkmo 5y ago

treis 5y ago

>Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a person's life, caused by the pandemic pushes McJobs into "working there makes a loss" territory Just to be clear, you think working at a McJob actually costs you money?

prawn 5y ago
Job may require you to have a car/commute or pay for public transport, pay for services you'd otherwise have time to do yourself, to pay to put children into childcare (my childcare is AU$122 per day, per child).
lsaferite 5y ago
I think the term you'd want to research is "Welfare Cliff".
wolfram74 5y ago
Businesses have operating expenses that mean they operate at a loss despite selling product, why is it in conceivable the same might apply for laborers? Transport, shelter, food, tons of jobs offer pay such that at the end of the month, you're losing money and still living in substandard conditions.
- treis 5y ago
  Whether you make enough at a McJob to pay for everything is a different claim than the one the GP made. Their claim, at least how I read it, is that you lose money by working a McJob.