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No one wants to work for low wages. That hasn’t changed since before the pandemic. There is no ‘large class’ of rich people. It’s literally called the 1%. The

No one wants to work for low wages. That hasn’t changed since before the pandemic. There is no ‘large class’ of rich people. It’s literally called the 1%. There are many high income tracks - medical, engineering, legal, financial, trades - pick one. Anyone can get a loan to finance their education. The system can always be improved, but there’s a lot of people out there who have the choice to improve themselves as well.

grumple 5y ago
A lot more than 1% have enough wealth to not need to work full time. The top 40% by wealth have wealth of at least 200k. Top 25% have 400k. Top 20% have 600k. These numbers are huge, but they are enough to indicate outright homw ownership at least depending on area, which is enough to make working full time unnecessary. There are places where you can own a home for under 100k as well. I addressed high income tracks already regarding the time investment and limited opportunity. Loans are not as readily available as you suggest, particularly for 7 or 8 years of education, even less so if you're older, and taking on a lifetime of debt is not wise. There's a reason med school and law school (actually most graduate and professional schools) are full of students from affluent backgrounds.
- trixie_ 5y ago
  Unless you have no family, kids, responsibilities or retirement plan then not working is not possible below the 1%, and even then not a great idea. My point is most people not in the 1% and many in the 1% are working to maintain whatever lifestyle they have including their kids and parents which need support as well. If anything the higher someone’s net worth the more they need to work to maintain it. Life gets a lot harder as you get older. Also you don’t need an 8 year degree from an expensive school to work as a highly paid professional as your example suggests. Hell I know tons of people who have earned BS/MS degrees part time while working at from very affordable school. In summary your fantasy of a large upper class sitting around doing nothing while at the same time keeping the poor down is just that - a fantasy. Everyone is just out there trying to live their lives and get by while supporting their kids, family and parents.
  - grumple 5y ago
    You're simply wrong. You can certainly never work well outside the top 1%. Hell, you can live on social services while near the bottom if you really want. But I know many upper class people who don't work or barely work. It's not a fantasy, it's reality. It's not about keeping anyone down, that's a strawman and not even close to something I said. It's just the economic reality; when all you need to pay for are property taxes, utilities, and food, that's covered very easily by income earned from even modest amounts of wealth. This is a flaw in our economic system. As for the other class of people, there simply aren't many avenues for those people. I've watched many 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggle. A small number become programmers, a small number become strippers, and the rest tend to work long hours for little pay even with great educations, let alone without those educations.

grumple 5y ago

A lot more than 1% have enough wealth to not need to work full time. The top 40% by wealth have wealth of at least 200k. Top 25% have 400k. Top 20% have 600k. These numbers are huge, but they are enough to indicate outright homw ownership at least depending on area, which is enough to make working full time unnecessary. There are places where you can own a home for under 100k as well. I addressed high income tracks already regarding the time investment and limited opportunity. Loans are not as readily available as you suggest, particularly for 7 or 8 years of education, even less so if you're older, and taking on a lifetime of debt is not wise. There's a reason med school and law school (actually most graduate and professional schools) are full of students from affluent backgrounds.

trixie_ 5y ago
Unless you have no family, kids, responsibilities or retirement plan then not working is not possible below the 1%, and even then not a great idea. My point is most people not in the 1% and many in the 1% are working to maintain whatever lifestyle they have including their kids and parents which need support as well. If anything the higher someone’s net worth the more they need to work to maintain it. Life gets a lot harder as you get older. Also you don’t need an 8 year degree from an expensive school to work as a highly paid professional as your example suggests. Hell I know tons of people who have earned BS/MS degrees part time while working at from very affordable school. In summary your fantasy of a large upper class sitting around doing nothing while at the same time keeping the poor down is just that - a fantasy. Everyone is just out there trying to live their lives and get by while supporting their kids, family and parents.
- grumple 5y ago
  You're simply wrong. You can certainly never work well outside the top 1%. Hell, you can live on social services while near the bottom if you really want. But I know many upper class people who don't work or barely work. It's not a fantasy, it's reality. It's not about keeping anyone down, that's a strawman and not even close to something I said. It's just the economic reality; when all you need to pay for are property taxes, utilities, and food, that's covered very easily by income earned from even modest amounts of wealth. This is a flaw in our economic system. As for the other class of people, there simply aren't many avenues for those people. I've watched many 20 somethings and 30 somethings struggle. A small number become programmers, a small number become strippers, and the rest tend to work long hours for little pay even with great educations, let alone without those educations.