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minimum wage work used to be for teenagers living at home. The terrifying thing to me is that we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills

minimum wage work used to be for teenagers living at home. The terrifying thing to me is that we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage. most of us started at or near minimum wage living with roommates etc. The question to me is what is preventing these people from achieving career growth?

paulpauper 5y ago
Tons of middle age and old people doing minum wage, low-skilled jobs. This whole myth that minimum wage = young people died long ago.
- gnarbarian 5y ago
  You're totally missing my point. By the time you are old you should have acquired a valuable skill.
- walkedaway 5y ago
  That makes absolutely no sense. Of course minimum wage expands to mean "the minimum wage that some entry-level person should be required to receive." Entry level means young. That's exactly who the law should be for. After entry level, it's up to the individual to level up and improve their employability and work their way up. At least that's the way it used to work, and boy did it work. Nowadays everyone wants the payday without having to put in the effort.
jwilber 5y ago
What kind of outdated, out-of-touch take is this? Do you have any idea how much EMTs make? Teachers? Are those not “appreciable” skills? It’s ignorant comments like yours and the false narratives they push that result in our current abysmal minimum wage situation: https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/ https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-i...
- gnarbarian 5y ago
  EMTs and teachers make more than minimum wage. teachers even got the summers off. Many teachers I know take summer jobs.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    EMTs do indeed make more than the minimum wage. They averaged $17.62/hour last year. Teachers do a lot better than that, at the same source K-12 teachers are around $60k average. Of course, they don't start there, starting somewhere closer to that EMT pay straight out of school in many states. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/emts-and-paramedics.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/emts-and-paramedic... https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/home....
hellotomyrars 5y ago
When you consider how wages have stagnated and also many of the kinds of the then Middle-class jobs which didn't require specific (higher) education but had serious potential for advancement via on-the-job training (Manufacturing) were almost entirely offshored it isn't that hard to understand. It is hard to get a well paying job without education. It is hard to afford education without a well paying job. The places with the most jobs, especially low-paying entry level jobs are quite often the most expensive places to live (cities). The cost of living is highly variable depending on where you are in the country, but only in the last few years have states/municipalities worked to try and close the gap in minimum wages so that people who work there can afford to live there.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  Education as a means of upward mobility is extremely narrow, and applies to less and less fields every year. In fact, for many people it’s a way to guarantee you’ll never be able to climb any financial ladders because you’ll be saddled with unpayable debt and a worthless degree.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    One of the sickest things about popular culture in recent years has been the brainwashing of people to stigmatize community colleges (or public universities). Have you noticed how many major politicians have ties to predatory for-profit schools?
- dvt 5y ago
  > It is hard to get a well paying job without education. Absolutely not true. This is a dangerous myth that has gotten people stuck with worthless liberal arts degrees and $xxx,xxx in student debt. You can make a very decent wage with a trade skill (plumber, electrician, HVAC technician, etc.) Starting out, for most of these jobs, all you need to do at first is merely "show up." I say this as someone that deeply values education, and I myself have one of those "worthless" liberal arts degrees. But the difference is that I went to school as a way to become a more well-rounded person, I already had a skill prior to going to school, and I also had a full academic scholarship that I was able to maintain due to good grades.
blululu 5y ago
This is historically false. In the US, the minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to put a limit on how low wages could go. In Parrish of West Coast Hotel v Parrish was a married woman. The Fair Labor Standards act of 1938 (passed after the court found a prior law unconstitutional) restricted the labor of people under 18 and gave pay raises to more than half a million American adults. The goal was to raise the wages of working adults. Please offer some hard evidence that the minimum wage is intended only for teenagers.
bcrosby95 5y ago
Who exactly is flipping burgers during lunch hours in the central business district? Generally not teenagers that are in school during those hours.
perl4ever 5y ago
>we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage Have you applied or know someone who applied for a minimum wage job recently? The last time I did, the person interviewing me went on a rant/monologue about how she couldn't find anyone who would actually show up and not, like, play on their phone all day. Essentially all I had to do in the interview was agree on a start date. Then a couple days later, she changes her mind, evidently because I was overqualified (aka wore a tie, probably too old). Which turned out to be ok, because someone else called me back about a ~$15/hr job. This was a little before the pandemic in a non-economically booming area, not a major global city. I can't remember when I've seen a full time minimum wage position offered. Stocking shelves at Target paid more than minimum. Answering the phone for an ISP, which was my first job, paid slightly more than minimum. I may be forgetting something, but I think if any jobs I've had or applied to paid exactly minimum they were probably very short assignments through temp agencies. Where obviously their client is paying a lot more.

paulpauper 5y ago

Tons of middle age and old people doing minum wage, low-skilled jobs. This whole myth that minimum wage = young people died long ago.

gnarbarian 5y ago
You're totally missing my point. By the time you are old you should have acquired a valuable skill.
walkedaway 5y ago
That makes absolutely no sense. Of course minimum wage expands to mean "the minimum wage that some entry-level person should be required to receive." Entry level means young. That's exactly who the law should be for. After entry level, it's up to the individual to level up and improve their employability and work their way up. At least that's the way it used to work, and boy did it work. Nowadays everyone wants the payday without having to put in the effort.

jwilber 5y ago

What kind of outdated, out-of-touch take is this? Do you have any idea how much EMTs make? Teachers? Are those not “appreciable” skills? It’s ignorant comments like yours and the false narratives they push that result in our current abysmal minimum wage situation: https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/ https://www.cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-i...

gnarbarian 5y ago
EMTs and teachers make more than minimum wage. teachers even got the summers off. Many teachers I know take summer jobs.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  EMTs do indeed make more than the minimum wage. They averaged $17.62/hour last year. Teachers do a lot better than that, at the same source K-12 teachers are around $60k average. Of course, they don't start there, starting somewhere closer to that EMT pay straight out of school in many states. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/emts-and-paramedics.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/emts-and-paramedic... https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/home....

hellotomyrars 5y ago

When you consider how wages have stagnated and also many of the kinds of the then Middle-class jobs which didn't require specific (higher) education but had serious potential for advancement via on-the-job training (Manufacturing) were almost entirely offshored it isn't that hard to understand. It is hard to get a well paying job without education. It is hard to afford education without a well paying job. The places with the most jobs, especially low-paying entry level jobs are quite often the most expensive places to live (cities). The cost of living is highly variable depending on where you are in the country, but only in the last few years have states/municipalities worked to try and close the gap in minimum wages so that people who work there can afford to live there.

ed25519FUUU 5y ago
Education as a means of upward mobility is extremely narrow, and applies to less and less fields every year. In fact, for many people it’s a way to guarantee you’ll never be able to climb any financial ladders because you’ll be saddled with unpayable debt and a worthless degree.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  One of the sickest things about popular culture in recent years has been the brainwashing of people to stigmatize community colleges (or public universities). Have you noticed how many major politicians have ties to predatory for-profit schools?
dvt 5y ago
> It is hard to get a well paying job without education. Absolutely not true. This is a dangerous myth that has gotten people stuck with worthless liberal arts degrees and $xxx,xxx in student debt. You can make a very decent wage with a trade skill (plumber, electrician, HVAC technician, etc.) Starting out, for most of these jobs, all you need to do at first is merely "show up." I say this as someone that deeply values education, and I myself have one of those "worthless" liberal arts degrees. But the difference is that I went to school as a way to become a more well-rounded person, I already had a skill prior to going to school, and I also had a full academic scholarship that I was able to maintain due to good grades.

blululu 5y ago

This is historically false. In the US, the minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to put a limit on how low wages could go. In Parrish of West Coast Hotel v Parrish was a married woman. The Fair Labor Standards act of 1938 (passed after the court found a prior law unconstitutional) restricted the labor of people under 18 and gave pay raises to more than half a million American adults. The goal was to raise the wages of working adults. Please offer some hard evidence that the minimum wage is intended only for teenagers.

bcrosby95 5y ago

Who exactly is flipping burgers during lunch hours in the central business district? Generally not teenagers that are in school during those hours.

perl4ever 5y ago

>we have a large quantity of adults without any appreciable skills that would lend them to work which raises them out of minimum wage Have you applied or know someone who applied for a minimum wage job recently? The last time I did, the person interviewing me went on a rant/monologue about how she couldn't find anyone who would actually show up and not, like, play on their phone all day. Essentially all I had to do in the interview was agree on a start date. Then a couple days later, she changes her mind, evidently because I was overqualified (aka wore a tie, probably too old). Which turned out to be ok, because someone else called me back about a ~$15/hr job. This was a little before the pandemic in a non-economically booming area, not a major global city. I can't remember when I've seen a full time minimum wage position offered. Stocking shelves at Target paid more than minimum. Answering the phone for an ISP, which was my first job, paid slightly more than minimum. I may be forgetting something, but I think if any jobs I've had or applied to paid exactly minimum they were probably very short assignments through temp agencies. Where obviously their client is paying a lot more.