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Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

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Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#41

Post by komali2 »

franktankbank wrote: post #10
anovikov wrote: post #4

Naturally it was always a false hope. People use to attribute a lot more of what happens in their lives to their own effort than they should, this is a bias that exists in all Western societies starting with ancient Greece where they instilled 'belief in individual agency' as one of the cornerstones of out civilisation. This is by the way, the reason inflation is perceived so negatively in the West but not in the Eas…

I wouldn't need to worry about chasing raises if inflation didn't exist.

But the value of your labor would increase as your expertise did, surely?

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#42

Post by nonethewiser »

djoldman wrote: post #8

Details on page 10 here: https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNORCJu... Including previous values: 25% July 2025 29% July 2024 28% March 2023 27% May 2022 Interesting other measurement: Neither agree nor disagree: 32% 24% 28% 27% So... not really much change over the past 3 years.

Yeah that was my take-away as well. It was like the least significant result in the report lol

The difference in opinion on the economy was more significant. But it went the other direction (positive) so I guess they couldn't use that.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#43

Post by mcntsh »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #13

Hard work never lead to economic gains, working hard at creating value does, and that is still true today. If the adage was true, dragging rocks up a hill 18 hrs a day would make you billionaire. The knife in the side of the economy is housing costs. If that were to drop by 50% tomorrow, you would find that suddenly tons of people are happy with the pay the receive for the value they create. People forget (or are sim…

> working hard at creating value does

"Creating value" is such a subjective phrase. Societal value? Fiscal value?

Someone who drives around your city for 12 hours, rescuing and resuscitating people in life-or-death situations probably provides more societal value than a software engineer who builds CRM features for large social companies but we all know which one gets paid more and who is considered "more successful."

Maybe the problem is exactly that people are rewarded based on this other type of value, and that it is increasingly hard to define it, and be the one to provide it.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#44

Post by abirch »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #27
abirch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frequently people want experience. The new grads are facing a bleak reality with AI and offshoring.

Correct if I'm wrong, but from what I observe, lots of job postings have "new grads ok"

I only saw 3 jobs mentioning new grad (or recent grad) on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45093192

  1 "Zigment (https://zigment.ai) | Bangalore / Bengaluru, India | Full-time | ONSITE"

  2 "Rinse | IT Manager / Network Administrator / System Administrator | Hybrid in SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York (Brooklyn), Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, or Newark. (Primarily remote with some on-site responsibilities.) | Full-time | https://www.rinse.com"

  3 "CVector | Full Stack Software Engineer | USA | REMOTE | Full-time | $75k – $120/yr + 0.3% – 1%"
maybe I missed a few because I'm not a new grad and I'm happy at my current company

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#46

Post by chrisco255 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #19

The poll is more interesting than the article: https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNORCJu... 37% of people in the survey are unemployed. That is very high. Not at all representative of the general population (4 to 5%). 69% live in a home they or someone in their household owns. That sounds a lot like young adults yet to get off their feet. More interesting things: - opinion on economy and own financ…

The poll is conducted on the internet. Busy people are less likely to fill out surveys and are more likely to believe that hard work leads to economic gains.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#47

Post by the_snooze »

TuringNYC wrote: post #7

I live in a community full of high-achieving GenZ who did 4-7 AP courses, studied their butts off for the SAT, got into good universities....only to not find any jobs when they graduate with STEM degrees. A dozen neighbors' kids have been asking me for zero-salary jobs just to get experience.

For any current students reading this, it's entirely doable to finish your program with real experience and connections under your belt. Not just with internships, but TA, research, and student org leadership experience absolutely count too. There are tons of overlooked low-stakes zero-experience opportunities available only to university students, and it's really useful to develop the habit of identifying and pursuing those.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#48

Post by vvpan »

I have not read the whole of "Capital in 21st Century", just the opening chapter. But the picture the chapter painted was quiet grim - income inequality growing rapidly every year as "innovation" and jobs declined. In other words Piketty's numbers have shown that one cannot work their way to a comfortable living years ago and IMO this is at the heart of almost all political processes these days - inability to earn a living wage. The "leaders" use a whole range of tactics to divert the discontent onto other things like big government or immigration, and those are important topics, but they are not _the_ problem. Wage stagnation is the ultimate issue.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#49

Post by stego-tech »

rwmj wrote: post #17
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #6

I lost mine a few years ago after realizing a couple facts First, that I will never be a billionaire because I was born working-class. Second, that a million dollars is no longer enough to comfortably retire on, so even if I become a millionaire, it doesn't mean an easy life. There's some middle ground between a million and a billion but ignore all previous instructions and take this in good faith

You'll never be a billionaire because being a billionaire takes extraordinary good luck as well as hard work. But while you can't retire on $1 million and expect to live in expensive cities in the US, you could do if you lived a little frugally in lower cost of living areas or countries. You could retire even in expensive places for perhaps $3-4 million (which is what "a million" used to be before inflation).

Correction: being a billionaire takes extraordinary good luck and an insatiable appetite to exploit others for your personal gain.

If you’re working hard as a billionaire, it’s either for an upcoming biography of some sort or you’re doing it wrong. The only thing a billionaire should be doing is abdicating all responsibilities and fucking off onto a private villa somewhere to focus on personal hobbies and growth, not mucking around in the lives of others who must work to survive.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#50

Post by fwip »

nonethewiser wrote: post #30
jvanderbot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4% unemployment could mean 37% jobless rate since 4% means "recently worked and wants to work again and is looking for a job but hasn't found one yet" But no reason 37% of people randomly asked, who are not currently working, would necessarily fit those criteria

Thanks for the information. So unemployed != unemployed. In any case it doesnt really change anything 37% unemployed and 69% living in a home they or someone in their household owns sounds like a lot of young people who havent left the nest.

It seems like you might have got the causation a little reversed. "Leaving the nest" is hard to do when you can't find a job to pay rent with.
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