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No matter what we do on trade, America is going to be mainly a service economy for the foreseeable future. If we want to be a middle-class nation, we need policies that give service-sector workers the essentials of a middle-class life.
I happen to agree with you, by the way - those jobs are great for local college-bound teens to learn the value of a dollar. No person is really supposed to make a living from them; in fact, I would suggest these jobs should feature a higher number of employees with shorter shifts so that any kid who wants that line on their resume can have it. (Meanwhile, non-college-bound teens may be placed on a vocational track while still in high school.)
This schema as I have framed it wouldn't really even preclude down-and-out recently-laid-off types from getting that tiny boost of momentum in the right direction while they send out resumes. Being unemployed can take years off a person's life expectancy; there's no reason any person should have to go through that against their will.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I have been out of work since November. I have a bachelor's degree but not in a good field for work (that's my fault). I apply to dozens of jobs per week, most only pay $10. In 8 months I have gotten one interview and didn't get the job. I have a perfect criminal record and can pass any drug test. God help those who have sinned worse than having to quit a job due to severe depression and anxiety. I am living off of SS Disability and as much as I hate it I know that it's likely for the next 4 decades of my natural life span I may never hold a job again. Our society is one strike and your out.
work that way for me, I can walk into almost any fast food/restaurant, ask for a manager, find out if they are hiring and more than likely get interviewed there or set one up for the next day. I don't get the obsession with people today and their insistence that if it isn't done "online", it doesn't work. It's like they are afraid of going out there and talking with people, and that's what they would be doing for their job anyways.
Yeah but that only works for restaurants right? Not for retail stores.
The discussion here is at a high school level -- that is, some of the commenters sound like high school students discussing the job market, having never before worked or even applied for a job.
For example, the naive and incorrect view that "fast food" is a dead end job that never leads to anything better. That's fallacious thinking. For a decent hard worker, work always leads to more work. If you work for two years at a Mickey D's or Burger King, that's some substantial experience you can add to your resume.
Everyone with any intelligence knows that fast food is hard and demanding work, sometimes dealing with tough customers, sometimes getting your hands dirty, always having to be punctual and quick and efficient. If I see someone's done this kind of work, they automatically go to the top of my list. It means they have a work ethic, they've learned how to function under stress, and they're not too proud. That's my kind of people.
In other words, "menial" work or "mcjobs" as the spoiled, trust fund types would call it, in fact are a springboard to better things.
Now if someone chooses to stay in that kind of work, or perhaps they don't have the education or skills to do other kinds of work, then so what? They have work. Life could be worse; they could have no work to do.
These kinds of discussions become tiresome when it devolves to Person A complaining about the imaginary one percenters, and Person B claiming that no one can live on $10/hour, no one can afford anything, and on and on. Sour grapes from a whiny, entitled generation that was never taught to tighten their belts, suck it up, and work really hard towards a better future.
There are people out there making it, by working 60 hours a week and also driving Uber at night, doubling up with friends or living with their parents, avoiding luxury expenses while paying off debts and saving up money until they can do something great with their lives.
True, it's harder today, but it's always, always been hard. It wasn't easy in 1950, either, nor in 1940, nor in 1935 when there was 25% unemployment. One of our main problems is growing up in a media-blitzed society of high expectations and vast materialism, without the kind of basic values of frugality and common sense living that used to help people make it through hard times.
Yeah but that only works for restaurants right? Not for retail stores.
Don't know, haven't worked large chain retail before. For small stores like pc repair, bike repair, etc it works too. I get to know the manager/boss and find out what kind of employee they want or even need.
That sounds nice and all, if only "the ladder" hadn't been pulled up/removed by the upper class and 1% years ago..... "the ladder" is no longer even there
Nowadays it's a situation where most people are given a poverty "McJob", a smartphone, and a Facebook account and told to sit down and shut up. Meanwhile at the top of the "wall" the rich and 1% gorge themselves on their ill-gotten gains, laughing at the peasants below, with "the ladder" collecting dust off in the corner
No but getting serious now, there is VERY little upwards mobility nowadays (unless you happen to get lucky w/ a business idea or got connections in high places)..... it's either you're a low-paid "McJob" peon, some random temp worker, a random part-time worker OR you are rich/upper class...... there is no in-between anymore.
I believe the managerial class never really regarded the workers with anything more than disdain.
Technology allows them to idiot-proof every job so that there is no more organizational learning curve for a worker to master; as these jobs become "jobs that anyone can do" so too does the workforce become more and more commodified (i.e. swappable in and out like lego bricks) and therefore each and every employee is becoming distinctly less "valuable."
That makes it easy for them to say "here is your job, isn't that what you wanted?" while letting you know that you're expendable -- at the same time without allowing for an upward mobility.
The lack of an organizational learning curve also makes it more difficult for unions as there is less of a need of an institutional memory to store knowledge about how to navigate (up) through the system. As far as I can tell, that has been effectively outsourced to what I call the "tribal" level (itself a code word for something more odious that I have seen expand quite a bit during the past eight years, leading up to the present-day nightmarish political dilemma).
Used to be, before 2000, a young man could get a manual labor job in construction earning the equivalent of $15/hr right out of high school but today those jobs are reserved for illegal aliens and I am not kidding either.
This is why we need to vote for Hillary so we don't have to do these icky hard work jobs.
And you think I'm kidding?
I think you are kidding or I think you're nuts when you said "vote for Hillary". She is VERY pro-Amnesty and illegal immigration and is pro-H1B visa.
I don't think getting a restaurant is all that difficult, if you are just wanting a waiter/waitress/cashier type of job. When I finished up school, I applied at one of the casual restaurant chains in the area, as I wanted a 2nd job to supplement my income and pay off some loans. I walked in with the application already filled out, turned it into the host at the front door and he asked me to wait and he took it to the manager on duty. The manager on duty glanced at my application, sat down at a booth and talked to me for 5 to 10 minutes, hired me and gave me a date to start training.
So, a job isn't all that hard to get as long as you are realistic in your expectations, don't have felonies and can actually display intelligence and converse like a decent human being.
You're not supposed to be able to afford a house and a good car with a McJob. Rent. Buy a used car. Acquire some marketable skills.
Where, on e-Bay? How are you going to get the marketable skills for the higher jobs if they want all this experience just to get in the door and they don't count McJobs as experience?
I don't think getting a restaurant is all that difficult, if you are just wanting a waiter/waitress/cashier type of job. When I finished up school, I applied at one of the casual restaurant chains in the area, as I wanted a 2nd job to supplement my income and pay off some loans. I walked in with the application already filled out, turned it into the host at the front door and he asked me to wait and he took it to the manager on duty. The manager on duty glanced at my application, sat down at a booth and talked to me for 5 to 10 minutes, hired me and gave me a date to start training.
So, a job isn't all that hard to get as long as you are realistic in your expectations, don't have felonies and can actually display intelligence and converse like a decent human being.
During the depth of the recession that was actually hard. I was living in Austin during those years which is already a place with cutthroat competition in every sector because it's a place everyone wants to be... people held on to server or bartender jobs with a vice grip. I remember beating the street applying for dozens of those types of jobs & being told they had nothing.
About 2 years ago things seemed to lighten up & now those sectors have a lot more turnover. Near me the restaurants seem to have a constant churn now. Speaking for myself, because I first hit the workforce in 2007, I really don't know what a good economy looks or feels like. All I can remember is an awful jobs situation. It's weird now to hear that restaurant jobs are "easy to get." I had jobs before than, but always retail, fast food, etc... the kind of stuff a student works - and I remember having to put out 30-40 applications to get a bite for those too.
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