Anecdotal example of wages and the working class

[lostnfound]

As part of a "get-engaged with the front lines", a certain DUer who shall remain nameless worked side by side with coworkers in a job that has largely remained the same over the decades.

A job that has been augmented by technology but has not been replaced by it, and that cannot be outsourced to India etc.

The nameless DUer asked the coworker, who has been doing that job for 28 years, how much NEW employees in that job earn. The answer he gave was around $8.70 per hour. And he laughed wryly.

"When I got hired in 1987, i started at $9.20 per hour."

[Populist_Prole]

1. Highly recommended for visibility and truth

"The economy" might be doing well by many metrics, but most people aren't.

[hfojvt]

2. until I got promoted in November 1986

I was making $8.57 an hour - as a college graduate. My 'partner' (who got hired at the same time) was a step below me, making $6.70 or so an hour.

He - was a computer programmer. (Of course, he may have eventually gotten rich, at least his FB page made it sound like he was already retired, and he's a rightwing libertarian (which makes me think he is fairly well off).

Yeah, SOME people may have made $9.20 in 1987 if they had a really good job. Let's not pretend like that was the norm for the working class back then. In 1987 some workers were also making the minimum wage - $3.35 an hour (in real terms $7.04 today) There are probably still good paying jobs today - if you can get them.

[lostnfound]

3. These were union jobs, no college or special degree required..

Working outside in a variety of weather conditions.
And I just confirmed with a Google search that yes, entry level was $18,000 per year for that occupation, which is roughly $9.00 per hour, back in 1987 at another large employer of that era.

I would love to see a graph of entry level wages by occupation since 1980, for firemen, teachers, postal workers, garbage collectors, construction labor, baggage handlers, bartenders, etc. Occupational outlook numbers trended over time.

[hfojvt]

6. my point is that most workers in those days

did NOT have those jobs.

So a large employer was paying $18,000 a year. Most people were probably not lucky enough to work at that large employer. I know that because in 1987 40% of households were making less than $19,600. 60% of them were making less than $30,600. If one person was making $18,000 then their spouse was making less than $12,600 - and that's if they were in the middle quintile. 20% of households were making less than $10,325 in 1987.

[lostnfound]

7. Those aggregate statistics are interesting; but why should specific service jobs pay so much less?

Standard work done back then versus now, and this is not a manufacturing job, for which the explanation can obviously be production in cheap labor countries.

But why would a task performed by a service worker now be worth so much less than then?

A desperate workforce competing for fewer jobs overall?

The pie of value being provided by that service is getting split differently, with more of that pie going to owners and execs?

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. As a Draftsman, (does anyone still have that job title?) I made $1600 monthly in 1985 or $10/hr.

No union, no degree, working 8-5 indoors.

In 1989, I made $80k due to bonuses. Same job.

Now they call 'em "CAD technicians". Why aren't authors and writers called "word processing technicians"?

[hfojvt]

5. not sure what that is supposed to prove

except that you were well off and that I wasted a lot of time going to college and studying at college.

In 1989, only 5% of households made over $88,250.

In 1985, 60% of households made less than $28,000 a year - about $7 an hour for TWO full time workers.

Yes, some people had good paying jobs in the glorious past, but that was not true for all Americans. I made something like $6,000 in 1989, going to graduate school. I was going to graduate school because I could not find a job - ANY job, much less a job that paid $7 an hour. The MA I got - was not worth the paper it was printed on either.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. I was lucky.

I now make $21,000 in regular employment, another $10k or so in self employment and about that from investment income derived from the money I saved while I was in my twenties and thirties. Despite all those sources of income, plus a working spouse, our household makes less than we did 28 years ago.

The point is that we haven't left our kids a better world. Increasing levels of arbitrary education haven't improved the economy. It has simply changed the criteria by which job seekers are judged and created a huge debt headwind for the "winners".