Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#41

Post by deboflo » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

YawningAngel wrote: post #25

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

Who on earth employs a "solutions architect" whose only qualification is some random certificate that tests AWS trivia?

More employers than you would think. The professional certs are legit. Also, 50% of some cloud native DevOps and infrastructure engineering roles are covered by the pro certs.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#42

Post by cimmanom » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #10

" middle-class life to those without a college degree " Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset. I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree." A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?…

Only a couple generations ago, college was not a proxy for "middle class".

Lots of blue-collar jobs (especially industrial ones) paid enough for a "middle class" lifestyle and financial security. Small businesses were competitive and many of their owners were not college educated either.

College wasn't a necessary qualification for most blue-collar jobs, including some for which it now is (such as police work, in many places) or even for many entry-level white-collar jobs - you could start out as a file clerk with a high school degree and work your way up into middle or even upper management (at least if you were white and male).

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#43

Post by spinach » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

swampthinker wrote: post #2

My tinfoil hat theory is that this is being caused by the increasing concentration of wealth. Which is being enabled by increasing levels of automation and efficiency.

Which is being driven by the concentration of powerful computers, where the likes of Google, Facebook, etc, rise to the top quickly and have a lot of power, while using the data of it's users. Even though the users provide data for them, such as big data for AI, they see no return. Can we really solve the problem of lower income jobs without recognizing that people provide useful data and content for these companies without seeing anything in return?

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#44

Post by purplezooey » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #10

" middle-class life to those without a college degree " Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset. I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree." A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?…

eh splitting hairs a bit. In a recent span of 5 years we had 150k new jobs and built 14k new housing units (sfba).

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#45

Post by duxup » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

YawningAngel wrote: post #25

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

Who on earth employs a "solutions architect" whose only qualification is some random certificate that tests AWS trivia?

It goes both ways.

Who thinks they're ever gonna do any cloud service right employing some dude who only has worked with traditional servers?

You'd be surprised how many insanely expensive and dorked up cloud setups out there that honestly could have been solved / way cheaper by some guy with a random AWS cert.

I'm not talking former barista turned AWS guy in a couple weeks, some background is required for that and random server guy of course, but the barriers are dropping.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#46

Post by andrewla » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #10

" middle-class life to those without a college degree " Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset. I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree." A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?…

Part of the problem here when discussing specifics and trends like this is that we use a term like "middle class" to mean two things; either the simple middle quantile (1/3 or 1/5 or 3/5 depending on who you talk to) of income or the more historical definition of less-than-upper-class (those people who do not need to work; who have sufficient capital that they can live off of passive income from it) and more-than-working-class (those who have to work; who do not have sufficient income to accrue savings).

And even the more-than-working-class definition clashes with other trends; some pundits seem to define "working class" as nothing more than "does not have a college degree", which means that some trends, rather than being interesting demographically, instead just become a restatement of an underlying trend (like you said, the increased prevalence of college degrees).

And the final problem of all attempts to analyze this is that we don't really have comprehensive data that supports a single way of measuring these aspects historically, because the definitions and criteria keep changing. Even when there is insightful research, it really is hard for it to be applicable outside its direct area because the definitions and proxies for historical values are not guaranteed to be uncorrelated with new phenomena that are attempting to be measured.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#47

Post by e40 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #10

" middle-class life to those without a college degree " Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset. I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree." A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?…

A lot has been written about people with college degrees working at Starbucks, having a lot of student loan debt, and never being able to save for retirement.

So, I agree, have a college degree is only a proxy for skill if that degree is in something that is marketable. Comp Lit is not marketable, hence the reason a lot of people at Starbucks have degrees.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#48

Post by grawprog » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #28

collyw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for the unskilled workers out of a job.

In the short term yes, but in the long term it will benefit them too. If there is less work to be done in the world, then everyone will work less on average. I firmly believe that one of two things will eventually happen: • We will find new industries which replace the old jobs. Companies in these industries will by necessity find ways to fill positions, either by paying enough that (even) more people can afford coll…

As someone who's been on employment insurance before. I can't understand the appeal of ubi. Getting a small amount of money to do nothing is excruciating. It's really not a fun way to live.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#49

Post by cirgue » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

swampthinker wrote: post #2

My tinfoil hat theory is that this is being caused by the increasing concentration of wealth. Which is being enabled by increasing levels of automation and efficiency.

That's not super tinfoily, it's pretty much what undergraduate economics implies should happen with increased wealth disparity in a city (the wealth disparity part, not necessarily the automation part).

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#50

Post by zanny » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #26

> So what’s to be done in order to help mid-skilled and non-college workers live decent, middle-class lives? ... build lots more housing in cities, driving down rents and making cities more livable for everyone. This is a nice idea in theory, but isn't this a temporary fix? For the first five years, housing prices will lower. But as more companies (demanding higher-educated individuals) realize more people are availa…

So five years later you build more housing.

We as a species are capable of building absurdly dense cities that are probably per-capita the cheapest place a person can live (since you cram so many into every skyscraper). We choose not to because "property values" and "my view from my window" and "I don't want those people living here".