5 ms·

In the UK these are defiantly not classed as middle class jobs. Heck teachers are only JUST about considered lower middle class in the UK. Working on the shop f

by UK-Al05 15y ago

In the UK these are defiantly not classed as middle class jobs. Heck teachers are only JUST about considered lower middle class in the UK. Working on the shop floor is not a nice job. Humans are just not designed for fitting one component for 8 hours a day with little variation. It's one the great tricks america has done, almost everyone thinks they're middle class. In the UK i'm not even sure i'm middle class.

jnbiche 15y ago
And yet the most amazing thing of all is that despite our expansive definition of the middle class -- the middle class is getting smaller.
- tsotha 15y ago
  The middle class is smaller because we've added fifty million immigrants (legal and illegal) to the bottom end. So of course the people who were here make up a smaller percentage of the total.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Yes - the middle class is getting smaller because more people are reaching the top. http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott-winship-obama-administrations-questionable-mobility-claims-reihan-sal http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott...
  - diogenescynic 15y ago
    50% of Americans made less than $26,000 a year in 2010: http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices-stagnant-wages-chip-at-savings-rate/2011/11/23/gIQABV4rpN_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices... And, if Federal Reserve created inflation hadn't destroyed their purchasing power, they'd be 20% ahead on wages at the bottom than they are today even if those wages had stayed at the same literal dollar amount they were at over forty years ago. The middle class is getting hammered and because they have less disposable income they save less and spend less, hence the economy grows slower. Wages as a percent of the economy are basically the lowest ever: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the-good-old-days-are-now.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the...
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed This sentence is a jumble of confusion. Wages have not been "stagnant", wages adjusted for a flawed [1] measure of the cost of living have been. Nominal wages are way up. You are correct that health care costs increased, but those costs are mostly not paid for with wages [2]. In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably. Workers simply receive more of their benefits in the form of untaxed health benefits rather than taxable wages: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=1140 http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa... Further, the stagnation of wages themselves is due mainly to Simpson's Paradox. Immigrants enter the US and occupy low levels of the wage ladder, lowering the averages. But the immigrants are better off, as are non-immigrants (who's wages did not stagnate): http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-paradox-cause-the http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission [2] Those health care costs are, however, used to adjust wages downwards via CPI.
      - wisty 15y ago
        > In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably Over 40 years, you'd hope for a little more than "considerably". Especially since a lot of growth is in worker productivity - people doing real work (i.e. those on minimum wage) work harder than ever.
        yummyfajitas 15y ago
        Maybe 39% (from 1975-2005) isn't enough for you. That's your call. To me, it's a far cry from "stagnation". As for growth in worker productivity, I seriously doubt it occurred due to actions of minimum wage workers. Are you asserting that a burger flipper flips more burgers now than in 1975? If we follow Paul Krugman's logic [1], this is not the case. Workers tend to be paid their marginal product. This suggests that if wage gains were distributed more to the top than the bottom, this is because the productivity of high earners increased more than the productivity of low earners. [1] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creators/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creat...
- jnbiche 15y ago
  So now disagreeing with someone's interpretation of economic data is worthy of downvoting?
toyg 15y ago
A UK factory job might not be fashionable, but thanks to unions, they pay fairly well, easily twice or three times what supposedly-educated people make at any call-centre (possibly excluding credit-collection ones -- they make some real dough in commissions). There is no "free overtime" or other white-collar euphemism for unpaid work, automation has made workload extremely light for almost everyone, and good luck firing them without hefty compensation. The problem with these jobs, apart from perceived low social status, is that they tend to be few and far between, mostly because of automation, high startup costs and low margins in the industrial sector.
- UK-Al05 15y ago
  No trust me. I had a family member in factory job. They did not like it at all. He gained arthritis from working there, then despite the fact he had been working there most of life without any complaint about his performance tried to performance manage him out a few years before he was due to retire. He earned less then my first grad job.

by UK-Al05 15y ago

jnbiche 15y ago

And yet the most amazing thing of all is that despite our expansive definition of the middle class -- the middle class is getting smaller.

tsotha 15y ago
The middle class is smaller because we've added fifty million immigrants (legal and illegal) to the bottom end. So of course the people who were here make up a smaller percentage of the total.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
Yes - the middle class is getting smaller because more people are reaching the top. http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott-winship-obama-administrations-questionable-mobility-claims-reihan-sal http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott...
- diogenescynic 15y ago
  50% of Americans made less than $26,000 a year in 2010: http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2010 Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices-stagnant-wages-chip-at-savings-rate/2011/11/23/gIQABV4rpN_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/higher-prices... And, if Federal Reserve created inflation hadn't destroyed their purchasing power, they'd be 20% ahead on wages at the bottom than they are today even if those wages had stayed at the same literal dollar amount they were at over forty years ago. The middle class is getting hammered and because they have less disposable income they save less and spend less, hence the economy grows slower. Wages as a percent of the economy are basically the lowest ever: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the-good-old-days-are-now.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/for-companies-the...
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, while healthcare costs and cost of living have skyrocketed This sentence is a jumble of confusion. Wages have not been "stagnant", wages adjusted for a flawed [1] measure of the cost of living have been. Nominal wages are way up. You are correct that health care costs increased, but those costs are mostly not paid for with wages [2]. In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably. Workers simply receive more of their benefits in the form of untaxed health benefits rather than taxable wages: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=1140 http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa... Further, the stagnation of wages themselves is due mainly to Simpson's Paradox. Immigrants enter the US and occupy low levels of the wage ladder, lowering the averages. But the immigrants are better off, as are non-immigrants (who's wages did not stagnate): http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-paradox-cause-the http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission [2] Those health care costs are, however, used to adjust wages downwards via CPI.
    - wisty 15y ago
      > In fact, total compensation for labor is up considerably Over 40 years, you'd hope for a little more than "considerably". Especially since a lot of growth is in worker productivity - people doing real work (i.e. those on minimum wage) work harder than ever.
      - yummyfajitas 15y ago
        Maybe 39% (from 1975-2005) isn't enough for you. That's your call. To me, it's a far cry from "stagnation". As for growth in worker productivity, I seriously doubt it occurred due to actions of minimum wage workers. Are you asserting that a burger flipper flips more burgers now than in 1975? If we follow Paul Krugman's logic [1], this is not the case. Workers tend to be paid their marginal product. This suggests that if wage gains were distributed more to the top than the bottom, this is because the productivity of high earners increased more than the productivity of low earners. [1] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creators/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creat...
jnbiche 15y ago
So now disagreeing with someone's interpretation of economic data is worthy of downvoting?

toyg 15y ago

A UK factory job might not be fashionable, but thanks to unions, they pay fairly well, easily twice or three times what supposedly-educated people make at any call-centre (possibly excluding credit-collection ones -- they make some real dough in commissions). There is no "free overtime" or other white-collar euphemism for unpaid work, automation has made workload extremely light for almost everyone, and good luck firing them without hefty compensation. The problem with these jobs, apart from perceived low social status, is that they tend to be few and far between, mostly because of automation, high startup costs and low margins in the industrial sector.

UK-Al05 15y ago
No trust me. I had a family member in factory job. They did not like it at all. He gained arthritis from working there, then despite the fact he had been working there most of life without any complaint about his performance tried to performance manage him out a few years before he was due to retire. He earned less then my first grad job.