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The reason we don't have middle class growth is a lesson of demographics. Educational attainment has stagnated, job growth has stagnated, cost of living, taxes, and expenses have increased, and mediocrity + statism is the end result.
Not quite true, education intensive fields like universities and research split itself in two halves - peons (a.k.a. postdocts, lecturers, visiting researchers, research assistants etc.) and masters (a.k.a. staff scientists, tenured professors). Both groups have about the same "educational attainments" (usually Ph.D. or masters), yet the first group works for fast food wages (+/-) and it has very ephemeral chances to join the "masters" half. That's hundreds of thousands of people with advanced degrees we are talking about. You can't blame their pitiful salaries and no benefits on their lack of "educational attainments".
Last edited by RememberMee; 12-08-2012 at 11:20 PM..
Your speaking for your average entry level manufacturing job. It certainly doesn't require much. Neither do many other entry level jobs in other professions. When you looking deeper into the occupation is when you find the higher skill, higher paying and more knowledge intensive work. Yes, it's very easy to sit in front of a pre programmed machine and check parts. A few steps above is the guy who sets the machine up. Above that, you need a guy to program the machine. You also need people with the knowledge to build and design the machines, people to make tools, people to move equipment, and so on.
I'm talking of personal experience, I used to work for an agency that don't quite follow corporate paradigms, I was programming CNC (basic programs, but nevertherless) on the third day of on a job training. In 2 weeks more I was writing programs to machine quite intricate shapes. I had zero machining experience to start with and my title wasn't "machinist". And it's not just me, nobody who tried to learn CNC machining failed to program CNC machines, nobody. It's so much easier than old fashioned lathes etc. I don't believe anyone could master old fashioned machining in 2 weeks, meaning master it enough to manufacture useable parts and pieces. To succeed in CNC machining one just needs basic arithmetics, common sense and basic (very basic) programming skills and strictly speaking you cannot call that "programming".
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Regarding pay, $19/hr won't buy you a reasonably skilled and experienced machinist round these parts. No way, no how. Maybe a guy who can set some machines up, so long as someone is there to hold his hand along the way.
$19/hr is a top salary of a non union CNC machinist in Central Ohio. Starting wages $10-12/hr. Union machinists at a GM plant nearby used to make $30/hr, but they closed the plant down. An guess what? Captains of the remaining local industries didn't raise their wages a single cent to capture all that "talent" they beatch they cannot find. Those who could leave - left the area, the rest accepted non union wages or quit machining for other careers.
Central Ohio is not alone in $10/hr going rate. Eric Isbister, the C.E.O. of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer outside Milwaukee, told me that he would hire as many skilled workers as show up at his door. Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. Part of Isbister’s pickiness, he says, comes from an avoidance of workers with experience in a “union-type job.” Isbister, after all, doesn’t abide by strict work rules and $30-an-hour salaries. At GenMet, the starting pay is $10 an hour. Those with an associate degree can make $15, which can rise to $18 an hour after several years of good performance. From what I understand, a new shift manager at a nearby McDonald’s can earn around $14 an hour.
Manufacturing wages are decent in the cities because that's where the work is. Supply and demand. Companies get work done in the cities because they can't wait. That's the cost of doing business. Out in the sticks, or even in less densely populated suburbs, wages tend to be quite a bit more depressed.
Cities "concentrate" businesses and jobs, but they concentrate people too, including people willing and able to work in manufacturing. So it's a wash. Your extra wages are eaten by higher cost of living. See NY Times article above, Milwaukee is not in the sticks, yet it's $10-18/hr regardless. Out in the sticks it's $8, 9, 10/ hr, and if they offer you $9/hr to work in manufacturing, run to Wal-Mart, at least Wal-Mart' $9/hr is much safer and healthier.
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While I do believe corporations have very successfully shifted the burden of training onto workers, much of that has to do with the reduced demand for labor, and limited opportunities available. People are left to claw their way into anything that pays a livable wage. Naturally, nothing is free, including a chance at success. It also has to do with the culture. People want those office jobs. They view those jobs as the marker of success. If that's what they all want, than naturally, they most do something above and beyond the capacity of the general public to acquire those jobs. In this day and age, that means loading up on debt and getting a degree. There are still apprenticeship opportunities in other occupations where a business owner will pay you a wage to learn. They still come up short with regards to takers...
We are talking about blue collar manufacturing jobs. There is contradiction here. Corporations cannot cry "shortage" and, at the same time, shift training costs onto workers. Just imagine corporations do something like that during WWII and industrial boom it caused. They trained any warm body with a single brain cell to do those WWII era jobs, at no cost to trainees, they paid decent wages too. People in "demand" don't have to claw their way into anything that pays a livable wage.
Last edited by RememberMee; 12-08-2012 at 11:28 PM..
I'm talking of personal experience, I used to work for an agency that don't quite follow corporate paradigms, I was programming CNC (basic programs, but nevertherless) on the third day of on a job training. In 2 weeks more I was writing programs to machine quite intricate shapes. I had zero machining experience to start with and my title wasn't "machinist". And it's not just me, nobody who tried to learn CNC machining failed to program CNC machines, nobody. It's so much easier than old fashioned lathes etc. I don't believe anyone could master old fashioned machining in 2 weeks, meaning master it enough to manufacture useable parts and pieces. To succeed in CNC machining one just needs basic arithmetics, common sense and basic (very basic) programming skills and strictly speaking you cannot call that "programming".
Perhaps this is where the contradiction, and variation in wages lies. A machinist, in the typical sense, is supposed to have a background in the trade, not just punching buttons and drawing shapes on masterCAM. Very basic programming is, like you suggest, rather simple and easy to manipulate. There are still plenty of settings where conventional machining is alive and well, and those guys are not particularly easy to find anymore. The guys that can do conventional and CNC tend to excel in almost any setting and can gravitate towards the higher end of the payscale.
I used to work in a production shop that was all CNC. Most were paid crap. A lot of that had to do with the company's poor process methods, and their use of outdated equipment. In such a case, if I'm a programming 10 year old machines that are half as productive as my competitors machines, the only way my shop can win the bid is to skimp on labor. At some point, that shop will either have to invest in more modern equipment, or go out of business, because labor can only be pushed so far down. The race to the bottom does in fact have a breaking point.
But at any rate, production generally does suck, does pay crap, and it has been on a perpetual race to the bottom for years. It's an OK environment to learn, but not one I'd recommend anyone making a career in, unless the work is rather sophisticated. Shops that specialize in one off or small quantity/short runs tend to have much better returns, and thus, can offer better wages. That also requires a versatile workforce who can get the job done right the first time. Problem is, our school system says it's ok if you get some wrong, you'll do better next time... Not good preparation for decent paying careers these days.
The reason we don't have middle class growth is a lesson of demographics. Educational attainment has stagnated, job growth has stagnated, cost of living, taxes, and expenses have increased, and mediocrity + statism is the end result.
I do not believe educational attainment has stagnated. There is a higher percentage of college grads today vs. 1950.
I thnk middle class use to be defined by standard of living. IMO;its mush higher today for most ;not lower.Disposable income is as well.The midddle class once rarelt when out to eat at a restauran except o special occasion. The growth in restaurants has boomed to serve the masses eating out now.
Still reading it, but interesting to see the tie-in to the social situation.
Will the growing decline lead to social unrest.
Yet, perhaps, but not the kind people are thinking about. This seems to be a slo-mo stairstep process that started back in 1980 or maybe even 1970.
More things like family and interpersonal violence as the great unwashed take out their frustrations on each other. So the cost of this type of social unrest becomes a policeing cost via law enforcement/courts/penal system.
And if nothing changes, what then? What will be the effect--on families, on kids, on neighborhoods, on politics and public spending--as millions of less-skilled Americans, and then entire neighborhoods and demographic groups, slip beyond the reach of economic growth? No one really knows, because the experiment hasn't been tried.
....yes the experiment has been tried: Detroit, Camden, Gary.
....yes the experiment has been tried: Detroit, Camden, Gary.
That just means the residents of those cities are too lazy to move where the jobs are.
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