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"Census data suggests that in 1980 a college graduate could expect to earn about 38 percent more than a worker with only a high-school diploma. Since then, the

"Census data suggests that in 1980 a college graduate could expect to earn about 38 percent more than a worker with only a high-school diploma. Since then, the difference in their wages has only widened as our economy has shifted to bestow greater and greater rewards on the well-educated. By 2000, that number was about 57 percent. By 2011: 73 percent." Regardless of how I feel about this, I wonder a bit what these numbers would look like if you took the one percent out of the equation. The distribution of wealth right now is totally nuts and concentrated at the very very top. If we were to remove them my suspicion is that it still would be trending up but maybe somewhat less severely.

withdavidli 12y ago
Didn't think of this, very good point. I also have a feeling this is by gross income. When we factor in college debt I think it will level off a lot more.
autokad 12y ago
This article doesnt state what census figure explicitly it was pulling from; however, its the norm to use median household income (or some other median value) as to not be skewed by outliers. In that case, removing the top 1% wouldnt make a difference.
- vannevar 12y ago
  Yes, if it was from here: https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/earnings/call1usboth.html https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/earnings/call1us... then the median figure was used.
VLM 12y ago
"has shifted to bestow greater and greater rewards on the well-educated." I'm old enough to have seen that the lifestyle and quality of living for the average college grad has decreased quite a bit over than interval, its just decreased MUCH further for non college grads, who are generally now found only in the trades, unemployed, manual labor, or are special and unusual anecdotal snowflakes. The numbers are of course better because we reward numbers. I'm writing about actual lifestyle and quality of life. Inherently there's no reason why credentials result in better bartenders, waiters, baristas, receptionists, file clerks, but it does make it somewhat more likely that a given individual will have any job at all. This gives the article a different tinge. Much as the future is already here, just unevenly distributed, some cities for arbitrary reasons may simply be more or less decayed than others. There may be some survivorship bias such that peculiar theories can be manufactured out of fundamentally random data. That city was in the FIRE business and is now rich, that city was in the automotive business, and isn't rich.
imaginenore 12y ago
I feel like it's more due to automation. Unskilled workers will make less and less and less. It's not that hard to make a hamburger-making machine and then make thousands or millions of copies.
walshemj 12y ago
That is because most associate professional jobs that where avaible for hs diploma students have now become graduate entry. Nursing is now a graduate entry job as are may of the roles I entered the job market from high school. Thus the remaing jobs avaible to hs diploma kids are lower paid ones.

withdavidli 12y ago

Didn't think of this, very good point. I also have a feeling this is by gross income. When we factor in college debt I think it will level off a lot more.

autokad 12y ago

This article doesnt state what census figure explicitly it was pulling from; however, its the norm to use median household income (or some other median value) as to not be skewed by outliers. In that case, removing the top 1% wouldnt make a difference.

vannevar 12y ago
Yes, if it was from here: https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/earnings/call1usboth.html https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/earnings/call1us... then the median figure was used.

VLM 12y ago

"has shifted to bestow greater and greater rewards on the well-educated." I'm old enough to have seen that the lifestyle and quality of living for the average college grad has decreased quite a bit over than interval, its just decreased MUCH further for non college grads, who are generally now found only in the trades, unemployed, manual labor, or are special and unusual anecdotal snowflakes. The numbers are of course better because we reward numbers. I'm writing about actual lifestyle and quality of life. Inherently there's no reason why credentials result in better bartenders, waiters, baristas, receptionists, file clerks, but it does make it somewhat more likely that a given individual will have any job at all. This gives the article a different tinge. Much as the future is already here, just unevenly distributed, some cities for arbitrary reasons may simply be more or less decayed than others. There may be some survivorship bias such that peculiar theories can be manufactured out of fundamentally random data. That city was in the FIRE business and is now rich, that city was in the automotive business, and isn't rich.

imaginenore 12y ago

I feel like it's more due to automation. Unskilled workers will make less and less and less. It's not that hard to make a hamburger-making machine and then make thousands or millions of copies.

walshemj 12y ago

That is because most associate professional jobs that where avaible for hs diploma students have now become graduate entry. Nursing is now a graduate entry job as are may of the roles I entered the job market from high school. Thus the remaing jobs avaible to hs diploma kids are lower paid ones.