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By what metric? If someone has gone through four years of college to get *any sort of degree* isn't it on them to figure out how to get a job?
Not everyone needs or should go to college.
Perhaps to help pay off their labs that they needed to get just to goto college because it was the gateway to the middle class. Yah that rhetoric you heard in high school.
By what metric? If someone has gone through four years of college to get *any sort of degree* isn't it on them to figure out how to get a job?
Not everyone needs or should go to college.
It's not a matter of "figuring out how to get a job". It's having a healthy and growing economy, which we do not have right now.
It's not a matter of "figuring out how to get a job". It's having a healthy and growing economy, which we do not have right now.
Welp if you know the economy sucks and a degree won't guarantee you a well-paying job, then don't on to get a four-year degree. Go work construction or manufacturing or salesw where you can make $15-25 an hour, or much more, and no student loans (or burdening your parents with college debt.)
Magical thinking is immature and won't get you anywhere. People who launch into a six-figure education KNOWING this is not a "healthy and growing economy" have no right to whine and snivel about not making $25 an hour.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Strikes and marches are not going to do anything. A lot more participated in the Occupy movement and nothing was accomplished other than make people with good jobs mad. Tiny cities like Seatac can get such laws passed (barely, subject to recount) but will soon learn that it will backfire when businesses start moving out. I don't think Seattle will do it either, too many voters making $30-60/hour
that won't want to be reduced to 2-3 or even 4 times what a burger flipper makes.
$15 an hour for a person that works a low level job is so wrong. Especially if the 'government' gets involved and requires that the minimum wage become $15 an hour like when it becomes law next year in the City of SeaTac, Washington. It's like, the 'free market' should just be allowed to determine how much money somebody makes. . . . .
The government should only get involved in things like allowing the ultra rich to keep all of their assets protected (while avoiding significant taxation) in trust funds that meet IRS guidelines. And allowing upper middle class people that claim bankruptcy to keep their house if it is a primary residence as well as up to $100k in IRAs and a 401k while still 'legally' being bankrupt.
Back to minimum wage. . . . I'm not sure what is worse. Eventually watching it get raised to $15 an hour or wondering how all of the 'poor' college kids that feed off of government financial aid and student loans (both are a form of welfare) get by without having to work at all, and while extracting far more money from the economy so they can go to school than a person trying to survive does while working an entry level job and just wanting to make enough to pay their rent and buy food.
Please companies are asking for science grads to work in their labs for less than $15 an hour.
Yep. A co-workers daughter is working as a chemist at a major research center. She has a Masters in Chemistry. She is making $12.50 and is happy to find that. It is pathetic that we're told over and over again that we need more H1-Bs and foreign students because there are no STEM candidates available, yet you see people with advanced degrees making less than some retail and fast food employees.
Very unreasonable in my opinion. Point is, the nice thing about fast food jobs is that anyone can probably get a job doing it. It's a position that is expected to have high turnover and younger folks (read teens, college students) working at it.
The thing that always baffles me is that many "adults" are trying to make this their long term career. (hence wanting $15 an hour) If anything, working min wage retail or fast food should always be a stepping stone to better things. Whether that is progression to higher paying positions in the company, just something to gain some skills and work experience for your next job, or a way to pay the bills while pursuing a better job, these positions are not meant to be super long term, well, not meant to be a career at least!
Despite all of America's problems, one thing this country has going for it is the option to pursue so many different lines of work and be successful. The thing is, it won't fall into your lap. Go get a loan and attend a 1-2 year vocational degree. Many tech/trade schools can get you working in a $50k yr position right out of school. The same with associate degrees. Start your own business. Build new skills or do training in your spare time. Take an internship or apprenticeship. Like I said, these opportunities won't fall into your lap, but they are out there for the people willing to work for them. No reason anyone complaining about min wage shouldn't be looking to pursue the education/training for a better paying job.
There are too many "work your ass off" jobs that pay less than $15/hr for that to ever be a go. This strike non sense is silliness. Go work as a CNA or bottom rung construction laborer if you want to make a case of being underpaid relative to the work you do. At McDonalds, you don't even have to flip a burger or pour a drink. They've automated the work to the point that basically anyone can do the job... Even those who would otherwise be unproductive.
My advice to those capable of doing more? Do something else. Basically, anything else.
Wow!..whose fault is it that "the grads" are making less?
People should be happy for them, and more supportive, and quit being so petty.
Obviously you're the one who made the "mistakes in life" if a fast food worker could make more money than the college grad.
I think it'd be very challenging (to say the least) trying to raise a family and maybe pay off a mortgage on less...don't you?
Why would it bother you to see someone make more money?
are you envious?...or jealous?
You have quite an active imagination if you can read that much about me into my post.
Fast food is not a raise-a-family-and-pay-a-mortgage-career and if you think it is, expect to live in poverty. By and large, people are paid what their labor is worth. Could employers raise the price of burgers by a nickel and give their workers a better salary, sure they could, but there is no compelling business need for them to do so.
I don't care if people make more money but it does bother me that people think that low skill, low education jobs should pay $15.00 an hour. Are all of the people working semi-skilled jobs in the 12-15 dollar an hour range going to demand that their salary be doubled as well or will they vacate their jobs for fast food employment and leave a significant void in semi-skilled labor? And if that happens, the poorly educated and the high school drop outs who depend on fast food jobs will find themselves unemployed because there is an educated and skilled work force willing to take their place at the drop of a hat.
If it were to happen, and god knows if they put it to a vote it might, they will find McDonalds firing half their work force, and being sure anyone working is on part time, so they wouldnt have to pay benefits. They will expect people to actually be able to do their job swiftly and efficiently; if not, they will fire them because they will have a dozen others wanting that job who will work twice as hard to get that $15 an hour.
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