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The 2012 presidential election can be seen as offering a choice between two visions of how to return us to this country’s golden age — from roughly 1945 to around 1973 — when working life was most secure for many Americans, particularly white, middle-class men. President Obama said his jobs plan was for people who believed “if you worked hard and played by the rules, you would be rewarded.” Mitt Romney explained his goal was to restore hope for “folks who grew up believing that if they played by the rules . . . they would have the chance to build a good life.” But these days, many workers have lost a near guarantee on a decent wage and benefits — and their careers are likely to have much more volatility (great years; bad years; confusing, mediocre years) than their parents’ ever did. So when did the rules change?
The downward spiral started in the 70s and its increasing at an increasing rate. Those just starting out in the workforce are going to have a long, bumpy career unless they have something pretty unique to offer a potential employer -- or they can chose to go it alone.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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What they say started in the 70s didn't really start until closer to the late 80's, and it's the attitude of workers that changed. People stopped being content to stay at the same job for 30-40 years and then retire. Many of the people I worked with in the 80s are about to retire, with pension and social security together will get close to 100% of what they make working. When people began changing jobs frequently to find something more fun or with better pay, they found themselves vulnerable to the changes in the economy, buyouts and mergers, and outsourcing. Then along came the recession starting in 2009 or so.
As for college degrees, naturally back then with only 11% of people having degrees they could expect to get better jobs. It became so important to parents that the market has become flooded with graduates so of course it
won't ever mean what it did back then. People will still need a degree to get good jobs, but will have to learn to compete with people having advanced degrees and experience. For many the cost of college will
end up a waste of money.
"People stopped being content to stay at the same job for 30-40 years and then retire. " this came about when the employers started treating employees as a resource... pretty much like toilet paper. Why be loyal? Makes NO personal economic sense.
And yes everyone will have to have a college degree because EVERYONE else does. If EVERYONE has one, you will not get past the HR department unless you have that on your resume. Their screening software will bounce you. Does not matter if you have 20+ years of experience, and are superman - HR needs that qualification. If they say you need a BA to screw on toothpaste tube caps, you need a BA to get the job at ABC corporation. You will not get promoted anywhere without a Bachelors either, even if you do manage to slip in the backdoor and are working at some corporation.
Yes, college should be more affordable to the middle class. The lower incomes get scholarships. We are reaching a crisis in the making now, many about to enter college will have parents who did NOT save any money for the education merely because the parents went through extended layoffs, are now working for salaries that are half what the parents earned 10 years ago, or the funds they used to save - tanked and there is not enough money to cover expenses.
College degrees appear to be more affordable in other countries. I don't know if this is true or not.
People will still need a degree to get good jobs, but will have to learn to compete with people having advanced degrees and experience. For many the cost of college will
end up a waste of money.
Why are you using the future tense? This has been the case for years.
The real problem is that there is a worldwide oversupply of cheap labor.
Good article; but its theme is actually rooted in how much the American economy has changed, and not so much the "power" of a college degree. In fact, the theme can be found in the very first paragraph, where it says "-- when working life was most secure for many Americans, particularly white, middle-class men." It goes on to talk about a more competitive workplace, created by advances in technology and the outsourcing to cheap labor -- making today's job market one where only the truly stellar can succeed in.
But the truth is, we can't return to the way things were. And I think that is the problem with a lot of the remarks being made about how bad our present economy is. It (the present economy) is being compared to America's Economic Golden Age....the period after WWII up until the 1960s. But in all honesty, that economy was atypical. The country was in rapid expansion stage, changing its social landscape drastically, and had a lot of extra money in its coffers due to the manufacturing blow dealt to Europe. I'm sorry, but such luck is not likely to come upon this country again (does lightening strike the same place twice)?
My working life is so much different from that of my Grandparents. They think that I'm suffering...and that I got shafted. They never went to college (in fact my Grandfather didn't even finish high school), yet they were able to buy a home and raise a family (they were not middle class...but they weren't starving either). They look at me with my student loans, college degrees, and wonder "Why aren't you rich...or at least upper middle class"? But then again, my Grandparents (who are Black) never had a Black schoolteacher, saw very few Black professionals, and came from a time where the majority of married women stayed at home or just worked part-time (like my Grandmother did). The workplace today is far more diverse, competitive, and unstable. It's a totally different world....and I understand that; even if they don't/can't.
What the article talks about but the headline misses is that not all college degrees are the same. A college education (i.e., a real, old-fashioned education based on writing and critical thinking) is more valuable now than it ever was. Many more people have degrees, but not the education that they used to imply because so many degrees are quasi-vocational.
This is my take on our current situation and based off of what I'm currently learning in one of my college courses: Due to technological improvements and increasing globalization, we don't need 100 people to get work done, we just need 5 or maybe 10 people. As the article explained, during the Mad Men era you needed lots of employees to get the job done whereas now, you need only a few due to the various software and technological resources available to companies.
Its time people began to seriously consider cutting back on their families, you do not need 5 kids, 1 or 2 is plenty. Kids are expensive to raise and with jobs harder to find, I expect our nation's birth rate to drop and family sizes to shrink (that is only if the government stops food stamps and other taxpayer funded programs for the poor). The pendulum is swinging back towards the East and unless employees in India or China start to clamor for higher wages and it becomes cheaper to hire Americans than Indians, jobs will continue to go elsewhere.
One commentator made a good point about taxes and wages of CEOs. Why the **** do corporations pay CEOs millions of dollars when they could use that money to hire more employees and make the company more productive? Most CEOs do nothing at all and are usually let go within a few years.
The 2012 presidential election can be seen as offering a choice between two visions of how to return us to this country’s golden age — from roughly 1945 to around 1973 — when working life was most secure for many Americans, particularly white, middle-class men. President Obama said his jobs plan was for people who believed “if you worked hard and played by the rules, you would be rewarded.” Mitt Romney explained his goal was to restore hope for “folks who grew up believing that if they played by the rules . . . they would have the chance to build a good life.” But these days, many workers have lost a near guarantee on a decent wage and benefits — and their careers are likely to have much more volatility (great years; bad years; confusing, mediocre years) than their parents’ ever did. So when did the rules change?
The downward spiral started in the 70s and its increasing at an increasing rate. Those just starting out in the workforce are going to have a long, bumpy career unless they have something pretty unique to offer a potential employer -- or they can chose to go it alone.
Many people overlook the trades that are required jobs but dirty and very unglamorous. A plumber, and electrician etc. can make good money on jobs with a constant demand and safe from exporting of the jobs.
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