Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have always said this: if you work a full-time job, 40 hours, at minimum wage, you should be able to comfortably (a third or less of your NET) a studio. That wouldn't be factoring in utilities which can also be an extra couple hundred bucks, health insurance, savings, a vehicle potentially, food, and just general life things that help keep the consumerism market going that support other jobs.
When I started working, minimum wage was $1.65/hr., which netted you about $45/wk. The typical apartment rented for around $200/month. Ignoring "utilities, health insurance, savings, a vehicle potentially, food, and just general life things that help keep the consumerism market going", you do the math.
When I started working, minimum wage was $1.65/hr., which netted you about $45/wk. The typical apartment rented for around $200/month. Ignoring "utilities, health insurance, savings, a vehicle potentially, food, and just general life things that help keep the consumerism market going", you do the math.
Just sayin'.
Well this must of been like 1963- 1964? And I like how you mention that is when you started working
but don't say if you lived with your parents or on your own.
Im just saying that is fine since "The American Dream" was still achievable for most then. Today it is not.
So apples and oranges.
What is going on here is that the renters are being raped by greedy landlords and large corporations. I get that the corporations don't care about the little guy - they never have.
But you would think that some of the landlords that only rent out a few investments would
be decent - I don't know I think that something really bad is going to happen here if this continues. You cant take a persons home from them and not worry about one of them getting
crazy mad and doing who knows what.
If you are looking at your kids and spouse that are now homeless, you work every day but don't make enough to live in a livable neighborhood anymore cause your landlord had increased your rent by $300-$500 a month - I think you have become a very angry desperate
individual.
People of Az need to write to your local rep, Sinema and the Govenor about this problem. Then go higher - if we don't this state will become just like Mexico or worse. The space that is growing between the haves and the have nots is too much too quickly. People will do crazy things when they are backed up against a wall. Go ahead and give me a bunch of bs stories about how it was or is for you - blah blah blah. None of this will do anything about the problem - which will soon be yours too if this continues.
Nope. I disagree with socialism, communism, nazism or any other form of big government totalitarianism. All forms of big government are about crony enrichment.
The political spectrum includes those types. I'm not on that political spectrum.
Then why the huge amount of pearl clutching as if I'm lying about the catch-22?
This is not about me.
So you're one of those who thinks "Well this person has an opinion I don't like so there must be something wrong with them" - which is the viewpoint that dominates C-D discussions.
Stop doing that. Stick to the issue.
And you're telling me that people who can't get past the catch-22 have something wrong with them, as if it is IMPOSSIBLE in your eyes, that someone can do everything right, get the useful major degree, at a decent good, get good grades - and then you think it is impossible for the catch-22 to hit them.
Never said that. That only applies to Ivy league. State U doesn't have this. These graduates have to basically be selected on merit.
So you agree with how bad things are.
No, it hasn't. There are six tons of unfilled jobs - and they all require experience - so the catch-22 is enforced even harder.
Many of these jobs are senior level roles. They should promote someone junior who's high performing into that senior level role and open up an entry level job to promote later into the junior role. But nope, they don't want to develop and groom their people for higher roles.
There's no business justification for this.
Employers prefer to whine about "talent shortage" rather than drop the catch-22. It is all about sociopaths being sociopaths.
Most boomers live paycheck to paycheck. They did not retire voluntarily, they were age discriminated out of the job market. They're living in poverty.
Those people, if the "talent shortage" narrative were true, would come back in a heartbeat and take the jobs back. But nope, they still age discriminate. All this talent on the sidelines, wasted.
Again, no business justification for this.
Like sales and Mcjobs.
Sales jobs with paid on 100% commission have high turnover because not everyone has a salesy personality type. Some take the job hoping to get SOME kind of experience and burn out from inability to sell because their personality doesn't fit.
Mcjobs suck - but employers don't count Mcjob experience for career non-sales roles. "Why is this barista applying for a financial analyst role?" the hiring manager says tossing the resume/cover letter with a finance degree with 4.0 GPA in the trash.
Tell me how someone can afford to move to a location if they're fresh out of college and broke?
Yeah. They deal with a different catch-22. Can't relocate until they have a place to live there, and they can't get that place to live there to live without money. They can't get the money until they actually have the job and worked there.
Sure, if someone has money to prepay several months rent the landlord will go for that - but that requires CASH, DINERO, MOOLAH that recent grads don't have.
Then let's talk about the career changer. Currently they're in their old field - probably has a family to feed. Let's pack up the entire family, ditch the old steady job and roll them bones on this "entry level job" paying squat in the middle of nowhere.
Personally, this plan worked for me, but it cost me $50K in costs to do it. I did make it happen only because I had the resources.
Most career changers don't have this kind of money lying around. They're blocked by lack of finances. They're hit by two catch-22's back to back.
Bankruptcy attorneys LOVE this idea for them.
So here you are saying I'm evil for railing against the catch-22 but you're here saying it does exist.
Colleges and universities lie and exaggerate about their placements. Every single one of them says "you can get an entry level job with our program with zero experience with our program and the catch-22 doesn't exist"
Someone works a Mcjob after graduation, they count as "gainfully employed" in those statistics, that is if they bother to fill out the survey.
Most students don't fill out the surveys - so those out of work are not counted in the stats because they don't fill out the survey.
The career changer? Stuck in their old role? If they fill out the survey, they count as "gainfully employed"
And after graduation the student has student loans to pay and can't find a job, where's the school? They don't care one iota. Their placement service has zero help about the catch-22.
Oh, and they don't count them in their placement surveys.
So your "placement" statistics don't reflect what you're trying to say. The catch-22 hits hard and it is a significant hit to both recent grads and career changers.
I'm "peal-clutching" because your summaries are skewed and over-simplistic in one direction. As in, a pseudo- bleeding heart. You are way off about Ivy's (I know dozens), you don't have a clue about what went on with early retirement (I'm living with HUNDREDS as we speak), you really summarize "a sales" person in a bizarre fashion, and you don't realize there is a massive shortage with people going into the trades (I'm friends with several business owners who are at the front lines).
It's never been easy to find the job that you really want. Because if it is an amazing job (location, wages, benefits, interesting work, etc), then, a lot of people want it. Generally, if you work your butt off towards your goal, great things happen to you. It's the way it has ALWAYS been. For most people, that requires sticktoitiveness, planning, and putting in the work. I'm talking about full-time job searching known as "pounding the pavement". By the same token, it's fairly easy for worthy degrees to find a job that is NOT ideal. Those millions of jobs go unfilled or underfilled.
I'll give you a personal one. Our DD went to AZ college for dentistry. MANY of her fellow classmates wanted to say in AZ. And they quickly concluded they wanted to live in Scottsdale. Or, if they are slumming it, they might settle for Tempe or God forbid, waaaay out West in Goodyear. Sorry, there aren't enough dentist jobs in Scottsdale. And if there was, there is a "catch-22" (the employer has dozens of applicants to pick and chose from WITH experience). Oh, the horrors! My daughter's friends worked her butt off in K-12. They went to 8 years of college. They have upwards of $400K worth of debt and cannot get what they want? And if they found something in Surprise, they will start them out at $90K a year with all the debt. Option 2. Go off to BFE in the middle of Texas or SD or OK where no one wants to go like several of her friends. OF COURSE they didn't need experience (in dentistry, experience == production and that's the golden ticket that EVERY employer wants). Because it was a bunch of ****hole towns, they are all KILLING it wage-wise. Most are making over $400K now or more with very little COL. They are banking it. My daughter was BEGGED to go to Olympia, WA. Not because she was a super dentist but because the practice could not get people to live in an adjacent town. My point is, that people on this C-D forum think it is their God-given right to live in PHX when it is getting expensive. That's the reality. If you are not a tier-one employee, you may need to pick a tier 2, 3, 4, 5, or tier 6 city.
Who do you think ends up in the best programs for IT, medicine, engineering, business, etc? The motivated and better-planned students. My factual statement is on career day, rest assured, top tier employers for to the better programs hire GREEN students. They are waiting in line to attract them. You keep on denying that basic and obvious statement. It's why I keep on harping about placement rates. Nearly all college grads who get placed after 6 months of pounding the pavement have NO EXPERIENCE. Are they in the minority (less than 50%)? Of course! But it takes three swipes with me typing something so obvious and you still are in denial.
When I constantly hear people moaning and complaining about how tough it is. In some cases, there are legitimate reasons. But for many thousand other examples, people don't want to compromise. No. The employer doesn't have to settle if they don't want to. But currently, they have to drop their standards. And it is cyclical.
In my life, I have compromised. I sacrificed. For decades, I worked long hours. I paid my dues. But some people think "it should be easy". As if, it's a God-given right to be single, have their own apartment, car, etc. Because they pay taxes. Not the way it's set up. I don't have compassion for whiners. I have compassion for people who have disabilities and I understand why the correlation exists for people who are poor. I don't like how the system is gamed for the wealthy and powerful and I would vote to change it. I am concerned about the inequities with racism and sexism as well. There is a reason for the correlations and it needs to be changed.
We live in a society, with government programs and systems and JOBS meant to handle these things. It is not my job to care for every single specimen on this earth, but I pay taxes for systems and pay support for other systems (companies, non-profits, etc.) to do these tasks at the benefit of myself and other people. I expect them to be able to achieve goals towards their mission statements and do it as efficiently as possible. Other people have jobs as social workers, teachers, homeless shelter administrators, etc. who are in these jobs expected to fill these needs in society. Again, I expect them to be able to do the job they are hired to do. The jobs exist for a reason. Not everyone needs to be a social worker, and with all of us working full-time and having personal lives, we do not have the time to volunteer. That's the point of specialists versus generalists. To select people who have the correct aptitudes for certain jobs so they can be done better and more effectively, so they can support others who are better for opposite tasks.
I work in occupational safety. I work at a warehouse where I am expected to provide basic medical treatment, and ensure the facility reduces its hazards so it's more preventative rather than reactive. Where people often spend 10 hours a day, I spend my time making sure they are in a better environment than they would be without my help, for hundreds of people. This is my JOB. I spend most of my waking life doing it. There are also people who don't do anything in their jobs that provide care or provide really any significant benefit to people other than support the auxillary systems, like IT specialists, but they also do their part to support the greater society. They also matter, as they work towards supporting the greater system. Just a different cog elsewhere. They also pay taxes to hopefully support programs like the Peace Corps and USAID.
I don't have to work for USAID or travel to Yemen twice a year to not care about world hunger or want it gone. I can however, pay trained professionals via taxes, to resolve the situation so I can fulfill another needed role in society. In fact, the people who do that work in USAID, get selected because they probably have the right skills and aptitude for it, where the money would be spent more effective, in comparison to me volunteering all of my time and not having a personal life.
People do not get to choose to exist. If they want to simply exist, they should be able to do so with the basics in life. We should have these anyway in case any one of us fall on hard times like losing our jobs during a Great Depression or such event at a personal level, which we often all will at least once in our lives. But people who want the reward that comes from a job accomplished, and the extra wants in life, should work for it.
And I said nothing about boomers. Stop projecting on me. Narcissists and sociopaths exist at every stage in life, it is a mental illness. Our system currently rewards this mental illness, and it's a problem.
When I bought my 1st house at age 21 (my wife was 20), I could have never afforded a home by myself. There are tax benefits to getting married. I also worked 20 hours a week in overtime for well over a decade. If I was single and worked 40 hours a week. I could have been complaining about how the system is broken too. I quickly figured out to work within the system. Good luck trying to change it. John's been posting to work within the flawed system about a hundred times. I just gave it one more try. Another option is to switch careers as well a few times.
Oh.. Thanks for the justification for why I can stop giving to global charities. Because I pay taxes. And if I pay 4x more taxes than you, I must be 4x more compassionate. In other words, you REALLY care about your situation 1st. Everyone else to a lesser degree. It sounds like we are on the same page after all.
I'm just saying that is fine since "The American Dream" was still achievable for most then. Today it is not.
So apples and oranges.
does this mean that unless you are brilliant you will not achieve the American dream? or that it takes a lot more sacrifice, planning, networking, assessing, and collaborating than it did in the Past?
does this mean that unless you are brilliant you will not achieve the American dream? or that it takes a lot more sacrifice, planning, networking, assessing, and collaborating than it did in the Past?
The bar has been raised because we are in a global economy. Companies and jobs are competing against cultures that have something to prove. They want when we have. They are willing to work harder and for less money. Now we can all point to greed and other factoids. But it's turned into an argument between people who are willing to work for it and those who don't think they have to.
We all remember the bear in the woods joke where one of the two campers puts on his tennis shoes and says: “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.” Like it or not, that's the world we live in. And in my humble opinion, with a little effort, almost all of us can outrun the average American. I suck at golf. But with some work, I can be better than average. I hate to eat and work out. But I have been doing so for a couple of years and I am getting healthier by the month (and not liking it). It's dog-eat-dog. And since 1/2 of the people chronically coast in life, you only need to jog at a snail's pace to outrun your friend in the woods.
The bar has been raised because we are in a global economy. Companies and jobs are competing against cultures that have something to prove. They want when we have. They are willing to work harder and for less money. Now we can all point to greed and other factoids. But it's turned into an argument between people who are willing to work for it and those who don't think they have to.
We all remember the bear in the woods joke where one of the two campers puts on his tennis shoes and says: “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.” Like it or not, that's the world we live in. And in my humble opinion, with a little effort, almost all of us can outrun the average American. I suck at golf. But with some work, I can be better than average. I hate to eat and work out. But I have been doing so for a couple of years and I am getting healthier by the month (and not liking it). It's dog-eat-dog. And since 1/2 of the people chronically coast in life, you only need to jog at a snail's pace to outrun your friend in the woods.
Spot on. The absolute best investment you can make is in yourself, and it doesn't take much effort. Most people just don't want to bother with it. They are comfortable, and getting uncomfortable is not something most choose to do. They would rather work their 9-5, go home and make dinner (or grab takeout), and fall asleep to Netflix. Rinse and repeat Monday through Friday and then party on the weekend or attend social events.
No learning of new skills. No reading non-fiction books. No networking with or befriending people in a higher socioeconomic class. No starting side hustles or their own business. You get the idea. And then complain about not moving up in life. This, unfortunately, is about 90% of society (I would guess).
...go home and make dinner (or grab takeout), and fall asleep to Netflix. Rinse and repeat Monday through Friday and then party on the weekend or attend social events.
Hey, I resemble that!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sno0909
No learning of new skills. No reading non-fiction books. No networking with or befriending people in a higher socioeconomic class. No starting side hustles or their own business. You get the idea. And then complain about not moving up in life. This, unfortunately, is about 90% of society (I would guess).
I hear what you are saying. But honestly, it can be done with MUCH less effort. Basic stuff like:
1. Showing up for work and applying yourself. Not calling in a B.S. sickness. Or actually having follow-through like calling people back. I bet 90% of the local contractors don't bother calling people back.
2. Going the extra mile at the workplace so that they see a positive pattern.
3. Take advantage of your K-12 education. And work hard at college (versus coasting and assuming that degree is your golden ticket). 25% of the kids don't pass the most basic standardized tests. Not because they can't. But because they don't want to work at it.
4. Take a compromising job in your field or tier 3 location so that you can buy a house (or whatever your dream is). Not everyone gets to live in their 1st through their 50th choice. I'm not living in my dream location either because I cannot afford it.
5. Actually save some money versus pissing it away.
6. Be willing to pivot when you see that your life choices aren't getting you where you want to be. etc etc.
In other words, do what most people don't do. As a whole, the competition isn't tough. With a goal and a little bit of common sense, over 100,000,000 Americans "got theirs". You can strip me of every nickel I have. I could do it all over again. I won't lean on excuses.
When I hear a sob story, 99% of the time they leave out where they messed up for years. Not a lot of people are willing to correct their shortcomings or admit their mistakes. That's tough love. That's how we raised our kids. I don't want to hear excuses. Tell me how you are going to fix it. That's done in a loving positive tone.
I'm "peal-clutching" because your summaries are skewed and over-simplistic in one direction.
Translation: You disagree but for something you can't put your finger on.
Quote:
As in, a pseudo- bleeding heart.
Nope. I'm pointing out how harsh the job market is.
Quote:
Because if it is an amazing job (location, wages, benefits, interesting work, etc), then, a lot of people want it.
True. Few expect those right off the bat for recent grads and career changers.
But you gotta go through the "entry level" jobs - which except for sales and Mcjobs - all require experience and get the catch-22 - which you pretend does not exist because you're disagreeing with me on it.
Quote:
Generally, if you work your butt off towards your goal, great things happen to you.
Only if one gets past the catch-22.
Quote:
Who do you think ends up in the best programs for IT, engineering, business, etc? The motivated and better-planned students.
Motivated and better planned students who have no experience get hit by the catch-22.
Medicine has a 3 year internship at hospitals so no catch-22 there.
Quote:
It's why I keep on harping about placement rates.
Which I provided evidence they are not reliable.
But you want to believe what schools tell ya (after all they make money off of this) that's on you. I see their $$$$agenda$$$ which you ignore.
Want to become an accountant? Experience required.
Auditor? Experience required.
Project manager? Experience required.
Cybersecurity analyst entry level? Experience required.
Data scientist entry level? Experience required.
Pentester entry level? Experience required.
You don't see that. Nothing I can do.
The catch-22 makes it so the bottom rung of the ladder disappeared. Can't climb the ladder if the bottom rung is gone.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And if there was, there is a "catch-22" (the employer has dozens of applicants to pick and chose from WITH experience). Oh, the horrors! My daughter's friends worked her butt off in K-12. They went to 8 years of college. They have upwards of $400K worth of debt and cannot get what they want? And if they found something in Surprise, they will start them out at $90K a year with all the debt. Option 2. Go off to BFE in the middle of Texas or SD or OK where no one wants to go like several of her friends. OF COURSE they didn't need experience (in dentistry, experience == production and that's the golden ticket that EVERY employer wants). Because it was a bunch of ****hole towns, they are all KILLING it wage-wise. Most are making over $400K now or more with very little COL. They are banking it. My daughter was BEGGED to go to Olympia, WA. Not because she was a super dentist but because the practice could not get people to live in an adjacent town. My point is, that people on this C-D forum think it is their God-given right to live in PHX when it is getting expensive. That's the reality. If you are not a tier-one employee, you may need to pick a tier 2, 3, 4, 5, or tier 6 city. 
Another option is to switch careers as well a few times. 
In other words, you REALLY care about your situation 1st. Everyone else to a lesser degree. It sounds like we are on the same page after all. 
Be Exceptional
