It's absurd to label a whole generation this way.
Gen Z does not dream of labor
141–150 of 510 posts
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#142> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…
American boomers grew up in lot of privilege after winning world war 2. Now is a different time where the world is more competitive. A lot of jobs in manufacturing have gone to China, in the services sector to India. Dancing off on Tiktok and working at Starbucks won't give you a comfortable life like your parents had. So better start grinding those leetcode questions like the rest of the world does. American hegemony is all but over.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#143“For millennials and for some members of Gen Z, they’ve witnessed two recessions, back-to-back. This is a very different labor market experience than what their parents and grandparents encountered.”
I don't for a moment deny that kids entering the workforce today are entering an environment that's challenging in many ways, but this particular claim is inaccurate. Let's take a look at the list of US recessions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...
We're not in a recession now (though that could change very soon). The most recent recessions are 2020 (COVID) and 2007-2009. Just over ten years in between. Turns out that's the longest recession-free interval in the nation's history. Back to back, my ass. I graduated from high school just before the 1981-82 recession, but I was fully in the workforce for the next four - every six to ten years. By the author's reasoning, that would mean I had it far harder than today's kids.
Recessions are not the problem. (They're a problem, but not relevant to OP.) The problem is wage inequality, and stagnation of wages for the lower echelons even during good times. Today's kids are not facing economic uncertainty because of a few events, but because of a continual downward slide in the value of low-end wages vs. low-end expenses over decades.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#144> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…
The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…
>Most simple labor will be automated very soon anyway.
It's not clear if there's a simple correlation between "training required" and "automation ready". For example, people have been talking about automating radiology for years, although I'm currently finishing up a study on one such system and we certainly aren't there yet. Meanwhile, the relatively "low skill" job of construction is considered very difficult to automate due to the high variability in environments and materials.
This uncertainty means that reluctance to join professions that "may" be automated in the coming years might be interpreted as a result of risk-aversion, and that risk is higher when the job training is longer.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I quite like being a programmer. This job is truly an anomaly. There are very few careers where you can earn top 1% income with no degree, no physical exertion, under 8 hours a day "on the clock", the freedom to quit any time and have multiple new offers within days, etc, etc.
That’s the thing. I know this sounds glib, but the barrier to entry is so low ($20 5th hand laptop will do just fine to do first-steps development), I can’t understand why the market isn’t flooded with coders. So many people say “oh I could never do what you do”, and I’m like “I’m a shaved ape who wanted to play computer games and accidentally ended up learning stuff, you absolutely can”. Then they just go on saying…
> I can’t understand why the market isn’t flooded with coders
let me guess: because not anybody wants to be a programmer? different people have different ambitions, not anybody needs to be a coder
and life would be pretty mundane if all people were doing is writing code
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…
> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.
Growing, but still rural city in the Midwest I visited a few weeks back has decent homes for sale in the 50-80k range. This is not an outlier.
Roughly 2/3 of Americans own homes.
If you live in an area where homes are priced like luxury investments, then yes, you'll have a hard time buying when you also cannot afford other luxuries. If you live in an area where they are not, it isn't unattainable at all, especially if you combine income with a marriage partner.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…
> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.
I honestly don't understand. When I bought a home I was literally making the US median income and bought an average priced house. My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. I had normal student loans and regular bills too. It wasn't easy but it didn't feel like a miracle either. Not saying someone making minimum can do this by any means, but there's a huge demand for labor in decent paying areas right now. I genuinely feel like I'm missing a big piece of this puzzle.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the Boomers had hippy subculture. Was everyone a hippy? Plato complained about young people in his time too. For reference, I'm part of Gen Z, and no one I know doesn't want to work. It's just that everyone wants meaningful work. This article is ridiculous and unfairly generalizing.
> Plato complained about young people in his time too. Athenian society was in decline during Plato's lifetime, falling out of the 5th century golden age. His observations were likely lucid.
Fair enough. I was thinking of Plato's recounting of Socrates complaining about the proliferation of writing reducing young people's ability to remember things.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…
> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.
I don't agree. I made under $80k in household income when I bought my first home in 2014. This was in (well, just outside) Seattle, which was and remains one of the more expensive markets in the country. I saved up for a down payment; it took years. It wasn't my dream home, but it allowed me to build equity and continue saving for the one that was. I am not ready to say "kids these days want everything handed to them," but I will say that if you can't commit to a decade-long, multi-step process, then it may seem impossible, when it's just rather hard.
Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor
#150> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…
If my kid had this mindset I would consider myself a failure as a parent. I grew up edge of starvation poor, my wife is also from low income family. Both of us are multiples of median income now and can provide a stable home for our son in mid 30s. It took 10 years of doing stupid shit and wasting time because I didn't have support or direction in life. Realistically, if I had better role models for success, I could have reached my current level of income 5 years earlier, and be much better off in life now. If my kid expected to have everything sorted out at 20 I would think hard about how I failed to give him enough reality checks.