I
was reading some articles on the death of the middle class and the
reasons why, I will post here below. Also some articles on the hidden
rich in America, and I decided to do some quick calculations. I googled
who the richest actor is, people we generally think of as the richest of
the rich, Seinfeld topped the list at 825 million. Then I looked up
simply the richest American, and no surprise it was Bill Gates at 81
billion. So 100x more than the richest actor.
I also read in one of the articles that the starting wage in the early 60s in say a steel mill, shoveling coal into a furnace for 8 hours payed in today's dollars $17/hour. Essentially an annual salary of $32,000 today. Some of you might be thinking that looks like the average starting salary for an entry level position requiring a Bachelors. Because I did. Which leads me to one of two conclusions: 1. jobs are vastly underpaid for the skills and education they require and employers are getting a great deal on labor; or 2. jobs require a bachelors degree the way that jobs of yore only required a high school diploma.
We need to figure out why our skills and education, which are harder and harder to come by, keep losing value, or we need to make undergraduate education free again (like it mostly was in the 60s) as it is the new minimum. Although that doesn't take into account fast food and retail, unless you add the loss of unions into the mix. Some economists want to scare us into believing that if we raise the minimum wage, which would be $20 today had it kept up with inflation, we would have high prices and fewer jobs, but the only tangible result I can see from all the data I have looked at shows the ability to lower wages at the low end of the wage scale drags all other wages down with it.
Now we are at a point where a computer programmer fresh out of college in 2014 can expect to make the same amount as a high school drop-out shoveling coal into a furnace in 1962 who walked in off the street. And the kicker, the computer programmer in 2014 probably has about $35,000 in student loans to pay back.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/rip_the_middle_class_1946_2013/
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/30/the_middle_class_myth_heres_why_wages_are_really_so_low_today/
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/21/clueless_rich_kids_on_the_rise_how_millennial_aristocrats_will_destroy_our_future/
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/the_big_middle_class_rip_off_how_a_short_sale_taught_me_rich_peoples_ethics/
I also read in one of the articles that the starting wage in the early 60s in say a steel mill, shoveling coal into a furnace for 8 hours payed in today's dollars $17/hour. Essentially an annual salary of $32,000 today. Some of you might be thinking that looks like the average starting salary for an entry level position requiring a Bachelors. Because I did. Which leads me to one of two conclusions: 1. jobs are vastly underpaid for the skills and education they require and employers are getting a great deal on labor; or 2. jobs require a bachelors degree the way that jobs of yore only required a high school diploma.
We need to figure out why our skills and education, which are harder and harder to come by, keep losing value, or we need to make undergraduate education free again (like it mostly was in the 60s) as it is the new minimum. Although that doesn't take into account fast food and retail, unless you add the loss of unions into the mix. Some economists want to scare us into believing that if we raise the minimum wage, which would be $20 today had it kept up with inflation, we would have high prices and fewer jobs, but the only tangible result I can see from all the data I have looked at shows the ability to lower wages at the low end of the wage scale drags all other wages down with it.
Now we are at a point where a computer programmer fresh out of college in 2014 can expect to make the same amount as a high school drop-out shoveling coal into a furnace in 1962 who walked in off the street. And the kicker, the computer programmer in 2014 probably has about $35,000 in student loans to pay back.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/20/rip_the_middle_class_1946_2013/
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/30/the_middle_class_myth_heres_why_wages_are_really_so_low_today/
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/21/clueless_rich_kids_on_the_rise_how_millennial_aristocrats_will_destroy_our_future/
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/the_big_middle_class_rip_off_how_a_short_sale_taught_me_rich_peoples_ethics/
