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[CornBurrito]

Should have majored in STEM

Don't certain STEM degrees (biology) have shit employment prospects? Unless you go into medicine with that biology degree. What you really mean by STEM is medicine or engineering.

 

[Culex]

Took me 5 years with my company to finally move up the ranks to hit 50k a year.

I'm not complaining, but it's expensive where I live. If my wife didn't work, i'd be making JUST enough to cover the bills.

 

[Noirulus]

Could never find a single internship or co-op through the normal application process either. 100s of applications for 1 position.

At times like this is great to have a mom that is out open and have friends. Got many internships and experiences that way.

In the end it's all about connections. Heck I landed my current job because I was going to an interview through a recruiter that got cancelled and my mom talked about it to a friend that worked at that company, and then learned that the job manager and she were collegues. Got an interview the next week, and I got the job. Stars aligning shit yo.

Sure it's not as romantic as getting your job own your own... but gotta take what you can get.

Yeah, having connections/networking is definitely the best path to finding a job.

 

[Anno]

Good times or bad, collections hums along. I wish the industry wasn't so vilified, though certainly it has brought a portion of that on itself. Great way to have a flexible schedule, decent benefits and the ability to make a solid wage.

 

[RedSwirl]

That's the relationship. The more you pay your workers, the greater your expenditures are, thus lower profits.

So is the post trying to suggest that the main way companies have been able to raise profits during the latest recovery is by decreasing wages?

 

[endresults]

So is the post trying to suggest that the main way companies have been able to raise profits during the latest recovery is by decreasing wages?

Don't forget cutting the jobs or intentionally understaffing and letting the remaining employees pick up the slack.

 

[LuffyZoro]

My 4-person family makes just under 50k before taxes, and still manages to have a house, two cars, and take international vacations every year or two.

 

[equippedwithtowel]

That's the relationship. The more you pay your workers, the greater your expenditures are, thus lower profits.

Because better payed workers never increase production...

 

[Ezduo]

Don't forget cutting the jobs or intentionally understaffing and letting the remaining employees pick up the slack.

Ugh, my boss has been doing this recently. We have just enough people working in our store to scrape by but some nights are absolute hell and I'll have to end up staying well past when my shift ended just to help so the other workers don't have to stay an hour after close cleaning up.

My boss also does a really fucking shitty thing to avoid paying us overtime. He runs two pizza stores but has it set up where his father technically "owns" one of them, even though it's rather obvious the father doesn't have any power or any control over it. If any of us get close to over forty hours a week he either cuts us from the schedule or makes us work at the other store which, since it's technically owned by someone else, means it doesn't count towards our overtime and is instead basically a second job. One of my managers works six days a week at about 10 hours a day and gets no overtime whatsoever.

 

[sans_pants]

Because better payed workers never increase production...

what? why would more money make a cashier more productive?

 

[this guy]

What retail job pays 25 grand a year? I make $8.50 an hour....

 

[equippedwithtowel]

what? why would more money make a cashier more productive?

When people refer to hypothetical job cuts caused by wage hikes they generally aren't exclusively referring to cashiers.
Basic service jobs aren't the only under-payed positions these days.

 

[Dennis]

In the future there will be only the 0.1% ultra rich and the 99.9% dirt poor.

 

[CodonAUG]

Don't certain STEM degrees (biology) have shit employment prospects? Unless you go into medicine with that biology degree. What you really mean by STEM is medicine or engineering.

I can attest to this.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Because better payed workers never increase production...

Actually there was a TED talk about this. Studies have shown money has an inverse relationship with production when used as a reward

 

[CornBurrito]

I can attest to this.

Did you happen to go to graduate school?

 

[Ezduo]

what? why would more money make a cashier more productive?

Well, I know I'd be a lot more content with my job if I was getting paid anywhere near decently. Psychologically it's huge but on a more tangible level you have people who don't have enough money to pay for medical care and end up working while sick or in pain which obviously makes productivity go to shit. I had a manager who held off going to a doctor for as long as possible until he was literally in so much pain that he had to go to the hospital in the middle of his shift, I'd like to think if he had enough for some proper insurance or at least enough to go see a doctor that he could've avoided that. And then there's people who either don't make enough to engage in many leisure activities or who work so much that they literally don't have the time for them which can easily lead to you feeling like your entire life revolves around a job that's usually not very fulfilling. That's a crummy feeling and, personally speaking, tends to make you feel pretty depressed a lot of the time. I've unfortunately had a few instances of customers asking me if I was upset or angry at them because I've not been able to keep my depression from leaking out in my tone of voice or whatever.

It's just a shitty way to live your life when you're doing a job that usually isn't very fun or interesting and know you're getting paid barely anything for it. It's incredibly hard not to let it get to you sometimes.

 

[ThisWreckage]

what? why would more money make a cashier more productive?

Retail workers, waiters, etc. are largely apathetic, burned out, and hate their job. An increase in pay would solve most of that and it would work wonders for their self esteem...which translates to a better work ethic.

 

[sans_pants]

Well, I know I'd be a lot more content with my job if I was getting paid anywhere near decently. Psychologically it's huge but on a more tangible level you have people who don't have enough money to pay for medical care and end up working while sick or in pain which obviously makes productivity go to shit. And then there's people who either don't make enough to engage in many leisure activities or who work so much that they literally don't have the time for them which can easily lead to you feeling like your entire life revolves around a job that's usually not very fulfilling. That's a crummy feeling and, personally speaking, tends to make you feel pretty depressed a lot of the time. I've unfortunately had a few instances of customers asking me if I was upset or angry at them because I've not been able to keep my depression from leaking out in my tone of voice or whatever.

It's just a shitty way to live your life when you're doing a job that usually isn't very fun or interesting and know you're getting paid barely anything for it. It's incredibly hard not to let it get to you sometimes.

im not disagreeing with you there, im a college grad who spent a year making about minimum wage. i just dont think there are a lot of lower wage jobs where productivity can be increased all that much. a cashier is a cashier, the company doesnt really care(though they should) about their mental well being

 

[Sanky Panky]

So is the post trying to suggest that the main way companies have been able to raise profits during the latest recovery is by decreasing wages?

Yup. Actual revenue/sales growth has been non-existent, so the main driver for profits this time around has been "trimming the fat". This is why the output gap in the economy is not closing, and there is no real recovery.

 

[Maxim726X]

If by "where I live" do you mean your city or the apartment/house that would be beyond your means at 68k/yr?

I live on the north shore of LI, where it is very expensive... But yes, I assumed that it was household income and not single.

68,000 K here would be comfortable.

 

[Dead Man]

Actually there was a TED talk about this. Studies have shown money has an inverse relationship with production when used as a reward

Pay everybody zero, 100% productivity increase? There are limits to those sorts of studies, as the authors usually point out for very good reasons.

 

[sans_pants]

Retail workers, waiters, etc. are largely apathetic, burned out, and hate their job. An increase in pay would solve most of that and it would work wonders for their self esteem...which translates to a better work ethic.

i guess so. but in todays climate, the manager can just fire the employees every 6 months before they get completely tuned out

 

[Vilix]

Ugh, my boss has been doing this recently. We have just enough people working in our store to scrape by but some nights are absolute hell and I'll have to end up staying well past when my shift ended just to help so the other workers don't have to stay an hour after close cleaning up.

My boss also does a really fucking shitty thing to avoid paying us overtime. He runs two pizza stores but has it set up where his father technically "owns" one of them, even though it's rather obvious the father doesn't have any power or any control over it. If any of us get close to over forty hours a week he either cuts us from the schedule or makes us work at the other store which, since it's technically owned by someone else, means it doesn't count towards our overtime and is instead basically a second job. One of my managers works six days a week at about 10 hours a day and gets no overtime whatsoever.

Do you get two W-2s with two different tax IDs?

 

[Dion Blaster]

The world is really depressing when you think about it. A giant competition to not have the shittiest job.

 

[I'm an expert]

Do you get two W-2s with two different tax IDs?

I'd assume it's under the table.

 

[Nato]

Don't certain STEM degrees (biology) have shit employment prospects? Unless you go into medicine with that biology degree. What you really mean by STEM is medicine or engineering.

I'm working on a PhD in cell biology making $24k/yr. If I decide to finish my PhD I'll make $35-40k as a postdoc for another 5-10 years while I try to find a "real" job, which might start around $50-60k. Mind you this would be after 10-15 years of postgraduate education. Meanwhile, people that majored in engineering or computer science get starting offers for that amount right out of undergrad. It's not just biology, either. The same thing happens in other sciences like chemistry and physics. The reply really should have been "Should have majored in TEM".

 

[Lagspike_exe]

So is the post trying to suggest that the main way companies have been able to raise profits during the latest recovery is by decreasing wages?

The companies themselves didn't really selectively reduce wages. What happened was that during The Great Recession many middle class jobs dissapeared, but instead of coming back they were transformed into low paying positions. The major factor that led to this was that the goverment didn't inject enough cash through fiscal stimulus back in early 2009 when it was needed the most and the lack of aggregate demand resulting from the fallout of the housing catastrophe led to this situation. So, it wasn't really up to companies, they just exploited the situation.

Because better payed workers never increase production...

Unfortunately, not enough to offset the possible cost savings.

Actually there was a TED talk about this. Studies have shown money has an inverse relationship with production when used as a reward

Depends. When the job involves creativity and figuring out how to make something work, rewards may hamper job performance. When the job revolves around repeating something (like in manufacturing), stimulus increases productivity.

 

[Dead Man]

I'm working on a PhD in cell biology making $24k/yr. If I decide to finish my PhD I'll make $35-40k as a postdoc for another 5-10 years while I try to find a "real" job, which might start around $50-60k. Mind you this would be after 10-15 years of postgraduate education. Meanwhile, people that majored in engineering or computer science get starting offers for that amount right out of undergrad. It's not just biology, either. The same thing happens in other sciences like chemistry and physics. The reply really should have been "Should have majored in TEM".

Yeah, it's really just engineering or medicine. Pure science grads get fucked unless they go into primary industry or some sort of engineering branch.

 

[Sanky Panky]

The companies themselves didn't really selectively reduce wages. What happened was that during The Great Recession many middle class jobs dissapeared, but instead of coming back they were transformed into low paying positions. The major factor that led to this was that the goverment didn't inject enough cash through fiscal stimulus back in early 2009 when it was needed the most and the lack of aggregate demand resulting from the fallout of the housing catastrophe led to this situation. So, it wasn't really up to companies, they just exploited the situation.

I wouldn't say that it wasn't enough. I would say that it was entirely misplaced with the Fed hoping that banks would start lending again by cleaning up their balance sheets, and that the public would start spending again if they saw the Dow hit record highs (the "wealth effect").

Now we are stuck with an even bigger problem, on top of the original ones.

 

[Big-E]

Yeah, it's really just engineering or medicine. Pure science grads get fucked unless they go into primary industry or some sort of engineering branch.

Which is why I hate people going off on STEM like it is guaranteed to be making 6 figures. Fact is that the vast majority of college graduates, no matter the field, are going to have a hard time finding a career early on after graduation no matter what if you only have a bachelors.

 

[Angry Puppy]

i dont find 68k a lot at all, that would be too poor for me. I couldn't take anything less than 100k without feeling poor

but i guess thats just my perspective, plenty of people are happy with that amount. Everyone has a different threshold on what salary makes them happy.

 

[Ezduo]

Do you get two W-2s with two different tax IDs?

We get two W-2's.

 

[Dead Man]

Which is why I hate people going off on STEM like it is guaranteed to be making 6 figures. Fact is that the vast majority of college graduates, no matter the field, are going to have a hard time finding a career early on after graduation no matter what if you only have a bachelors.

Yeah, pretty much. There are about three undergrad degrees that will equal good job prospects with high pay. Everything else is either luck of the draw or requires post grad work.

i dont find 68k a lot at all, that would be too poor for me. I couldn't take anything less than 100k without feeling poor

but i guess thats just my perspective, plenty of people are happy with that amount. Everyone has a different threshold on what salary makes them happy.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

The world is really depressing when you think about it. A giant competition to not have the shittiest job.

Thats a shitty way of looking at things, but it is kinda true lol. Now you've made me sad.

 

[ThisWreckage]

i guess so. but in todays climate, the manager can just fire the employees every 6 months before they get completely tuned out

That's what they think, but that's not realistic. It is actually hard to find people to work retail that are willing to stay there. For example, when I worked at CVS I had to attend classes and I had on and off the job training. That is a big investment for a company. They're wanting to keep employees, if anything, but retail is such a shitty job people still leave in droves despite how bad the economy is.

 

[LuffyZoro]

I'm working on a PhD in cell biology making $24k/yr. If I decide to finish my PhD I'll make $35-40k as a postdoc for another 5-10 years while I try to find a "real" job, which might start around $50-60k. Mind you this would be after 10-15 years of postgraduate education. Meanwhile, people that majored in engineering or computer science get starting offers for that amount right out of undergrad. It's not just biology, either. The same thing happens in other sciences like chemistry and physics. The reply really should have been "Should have majored in TEM".

Does math have good job prospects, or is it actually just TE?

 

[RedSwirl]

The companies themselves didn't really selectively reduce wages. What happened was that during The Great Recession many middle class jobs dissapeared, but instead of coming back they were transformed into low paying positions. The major factor that led to this was that the goverment didn't inject enough cash through fiscal stimulus back in early 2009 when it was needed the most and the lack of aggregate demand resulting from the fallout of the housing catastrophe led to this situation. So, it wasn't really up to companies, they just exploited the situation.

I've been meaning to ask around about that: Is that the "failed stimulus" that all the Romney campaign commercials kept talking about? By what degree did it "fail" and if so why? I understand that it kept things from getting worse, but not much more than that.

Also, if that strategy isn't being talked about anymore, then what the hell else CAN they do?

 

[Nato]

Does math have good job prospects, or is it actually just TE?

Someone else with more knowledge can chime in, but I think that math majors are pretty versatile and valued highly be employers. Finance, actuarial science, statistics, math-intensive programming fields, etc.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

I wouldn't say that it wasn't enough. I would say that it was entirely misplaced with the Fed hoping that banks would start lending again by cleaning up their balance sheets, and that the public would start spending again if they saw the Dow hit record highs (the "wealth effect").

Now we are stuck with an even bigger problem, on top of the original ones.

I'm talking about $600b fiscal stimulus, which was much smaller than the output gap back then.

I've been meaning to ask around about that: Is that the "failed stimulus" that all the Romney campaign commercials kept talking about? By what degree did it "fail" and if so why? I understand that it kept things from getting worse, but not much more than that.

Also, if that strategy isn't being talked about anymore, then what the hell else CAN they do?

It succeeded in stopping more jobs from being lost (which were being eliminated like insane when the credit crunch started), but it didn't manage to kickstart growth immediately. The reason why that happened was its size - $600b wasn't nearly enough considering the gap back then. CBO predicted a $2,9T gap in 2009-2012 period. $600b couldn't fix that.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

I've been meaning to ask around about that: Is that the "failed stimulus" that all the Romney campaign commercials kept talking about? By what degree did it "fail" and if so why? I understand that it kept things from getting worse, but not much more than that.

It failed because it was government meddling in the 'free market' and that it didn't magically fix things overnight.

 

[TxdoHawk]

No surprise there. The majority of jobs we've gained back in the recovery are lousy, low-pay service jobs.

Even worse: Companies, having cut staff levels to the bone, are now finally looking at technology to eliminate the remainder of their expense problems (a.k.a. the paycheck they pay you).

Bottom line is, it's only going to get worse for low-skill/no skill workers from here on out. If you can feasibly picture a robot or a piece of technology doing your job, you better honestly think about what your next career move is going to be while you still have time to think about it.

 

[Amory]

i dont find 68k a lot at all, that would be too poor for me. I couldn't take anything less than 100k without feeling poor

but i guess thats just my perspective, plenty of people are happy with that amount. Everyone has a different threshold on what salary makes them happy.

If you'd feel "poor" making say $90,000, I have to question if you know what poor actually means, or the circumstances for people who are actually poor.

I get where you're coming from, if by the time I reach the peak of my career I'm making less than $100,000 I'd be disappointed, but there's a difference between feeling disappointed and feeling poor.

I'm saying this assuming you're speaking as a single person, and not the head of a large family (in which case you still wouldn't be impoverished, but it might feel more like it).

 

[Grinchy]

Yeah, history! There's a useless field! Not like that dictates everything or anything like that.

My useless English degree has me earning well over the median household income just a few years removed from school. It's funny how people with science degrees tend to make poor scientists and have little skill in communication.

Sorry to nitpick, but I get annoyed when English majors get shat upon. It's not really the degree, it's how the person uses it.

Going out an limb here, I would assume that the average history major is not holding us back from the singularity.

Not to slight history majors though; having taken multiple history electives, their citation standards are borderline masochistic.

You could profit from a little history. For example, what happens when everyone goes for a fad profession.

hahahaha, oh you guys

You should have taken "Bait Refusal 101" while you were wasting time with your worthless degrees.

 

[Wellscha]

ITT: 68K is a non livable wage.

 

[RedSwirl]

It failed because it was government meddling in the 'free market' and that it didn't magically fix things overnight.

Okay but seriously. What's the process usually like when a stimulus doesn't work as intended?

 

[Krappadizzle]

I made 63k last year. I must be poor. Woe is me.

 

[Cloudy]

They are the most common jobs for a reason....

 

[CornBurrito]

I'm working on a PhD in cell biology making $24k/yr. If I decide to finish my PhD I'll make $35-40k as a postdoc for another 5-10 years while I try to find a "real" job, which might start around $50-60k. Mind you this would be after 10-15 years of postgraduate education. Meanwhile, people that majored in engineering or computer science get starting offers for that amount right out of undergrad. It's not just biology, either. The same thing happens in other sciences like chemistry and physics. The reply really should have been "Should have majored in TEM".

I figured as much, though I expected chemistry to have slightly better prospects.

I wish I enjoyed math enough to like engineering and/or computer science. Instead I have a stupid passion for zoology.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Okay but seriously. What's the process usually like when a stimulus doesn't work as intended?

Not entirely sure. It's really unprecedented [save for the 30's and wwII]