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I hold a masters degree in business systems as well as a separate four year degree in medical management.
I agree with the OP.
Despite what level of college education percentage dictates, the U.S. will still need unskilled labor in which to survive.
One of the largest shortages in qualified employee's is not engineering but in truck driving.
Desirability of the profession of commercial truck driver aside, it stands in defiance of the statement that the only positions paying a living wage are those requiring at least a four year degree.
Here in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania 90 miles west of NYC, there is a shortage of workers for warehouse positions that have pushed the wages of a starting employee to approx. 15.00 an hour.
The requirements for these positions are listed as high school diploma or equivalent .
Craft Foods being one of the premier warehouse employers here starts their unskilled warehouse workers at 14.25 per hour including full medical and a 401K plan.
Again they require high school or equivalent.
Can everyone physically handle this type of work? No of course not but I mention these positions as a rebuttal to those that say one is out of luck if one does not have a four year college degree.
Really? I live in the Lehigh Valley and a number of people I know have been getting laid off from warehouses left and right. They don't hire people over 40 either because of the physical nature of the work. I can't see warehouse work being a lifelong career unless in management/corporate.
I have been a long time advocate for easily accessible secondary education, whether it be college or technical schooling. They have successful programs like this set up around the world in many technologically advanced, first-world countries (Germany, Sweden, Korea). Heck, I dated a girl from Bangladesh not that long ago and I believe her government heavily subsidized her college education. This is a social problem in the United States, not entirely an economic one. We have an extremely independent culture even to this day.
Ironically, education also means more there I believe.
Especially in Korea, the amounts of people who flood US graduate schools just to have a degree, sometimes in anything shows that.
In the US, people with high school degrees who are making good $ laugh at people with doctorates who they outearn.
Perhaps. But I know a lot more unemployed philosophy and women's studies majors than engineering or computer science.
Interesting. I literally know none. A lot of them go on to business school, law school, or grad school.
My degree is in political science w/ emphasis in economics. I've been working since graduation in 2008 (the midst of the recession). Not in politics or economic policy mind you, but there was a company that believed in me enough to get me started in an entirely different field. Now my experience is more important than my degree (and I make $20k more than when I first started five years ago). There's certainly opportunity. I think the key is to be practical. A lot of the philosophy or women's studies majors I've met tend to allow their philosophical views get in the way of making a good living. That is, until they buy in to the system. That's when they drop the organic supermarket clerk gig or coffee shop gig to enter in the rat race in the Corporate America setting they loathed so much before.
Really? I live in the Lehigh Valley and a number of people I know have been getting laid off from warehouses left and right. They don't hire people over 40 either because of the physical nature of the work. I can't see warehouse work being a lifelong career unless in management/corporate.
That' strange because not only is Craft Foods hiring so is Cold Storage, Fed Ex, C&S Wholesale Grocers, HTSS Inc., Uline Shipping Supplies, A. Duie Pyle along with 25 immediate openings for Leidy's foods in their Warehouse located at 1820 Union Blvd. This as of today's date 09/01/2013.
Perhaps the people that you know weren't working out at their respective employer's.
It would behoove you to forward my reply to your original post to your unemployed friends so they can reap what is obviously a windfall of warehouse work in the Lehigh Valley.
Interesting. I literally know none. A lot of them go on to business school, law school, or grad school.
My degree is in political science w/ emphasis in economics. I've been working since graduation in 2008 (the midst of the recession). Not in politics or economic policy mind you, but there was a company that believed in me enough to get me started in an entirely different field. Now my experience is more important than my degree (and I make $20k more than when I first started five years ago). There's certainly opportunity. I think the key is to be practical. A lot of the philosophy or women's studies majors I've met tend to allow their philosophical views get in the way of making a good living. That is, until they buy in to the system. That's when they drop the organic supermarket clerk gig or coffee shop gig to enter in the rat race in the Corporate America setting they loathed so much before.
Right, but the overall quality of life was significantly less compared to the advanced society we have now. You still have an opportunity to visit one of these places. Feel free to visit the Congo, Cameroon, Uganda, Sudan, Panama, Costa Rica, etc. When you can get back, tell us how it compares to your experience in the United States. Or you can even come here to Detroit, like I mentioned before. Then go to a place like Cupertino, Boston, Denver, Austin, Madison, Minneapolis, etc. See how the quality of life differs between those places and report back to us.
I'm not sure I agree.
In fact, using Detroit as your example, you sort of prove the other poster's point. Detroit was at its greatest at a time when just about anyone who was standing on two legs and breathing could go out and earn a decent living, even if they were high school dropouts. Surely, those people had much higher quality of lives than their children and grandchildren living in Detroit do now.
And although this is magnified in Detroit, this was the case all across the country during majority of the 20th century.
Now we live in a society where, although the quality of lives of those who have managed to become successful has improved, there are far more people who are finding it harder to achieve that status.
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