Since this article focuses on the U.S., how much of this is related to the slowdown in illegal immigration?
How many people have ICE deported this year compared to previous years?
Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
501–510 of 606 posts
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
They say "There are no bad dogs, just bad owners." I think the problems are cultural. (a) Two working parents or a single parent family may result in children "being raised by wolves" to some extent. These are good parents/people but child rearing is a time intensive business. (b) Lack of jobs for young people. In my neighborhood, a lot of lawn mowing jobs are done by services instead of the neighborhood kid. The "en…
That's a good list...a lot of it rings true, especially point B. The chances for me to work when I was young were everywhere . I did mow lawns, I raked leaves, painted houses, and every other odd job that a 13 year old would be allowed to do. Now I imagine explaining to my friends or wife that I hired a 13 year old to paint our house. With 0/0 stars on google, angies list, etc. It's hard for young people to "break in…
Yep. When I was a teenager, I had a job delivering newspapers. I had to get up and out very early in the morning, even in bad weather, and deliver papers on my bike, and collect the payments for them in the evening.
Nowadays, far fewer people get newspapers, and the newspaper deliver jobs are looking for someone with a car. And I assume they pay for them online.
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. No person owns an infinite number of dollars. But I will happily bake you a loaf of bread for $10,000 each. In fact, I’d quit my day job to do that. That shortage wouldn’t last long.
Bread is fungible, construction workers (or any kind of employee or contractor) much less so.
> Bread is fungible
In what society?
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. No person owns an infinite number of dollars. But I will happily bake you a loaf of bread for $10,000 each. In fact, I’d quit my day job to do that. That shortage wouldn’t last long.
Can you bake a loaf of bread worth $10k?
If someone will buy it he can.
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be okay with drug tests that didn't fail you for weed. That can show up on a test weeks after it's been consumed. The drugs that would actually significantly impair you (alcohol, opiates) clear out of your system in hours/days.
TBF weed will significantly impair you. Driving a car or operating machinery on weed is super dangerous. Just not weeks after consumption...
TBF it depends on the weed, but yes, I agree that it can significantly impair you.
My point is that the test is testing the wrong thing. A sobriety test would be best.
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#506But, but, but... automation! Singularity! Boston Dynamics robot backflips!
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#507I keep hearing how great blue collar josb are, but looking at glassdoor, most of them seem to be in the $30k - $50k range in my state
Heh. $50k isn't too bad, is it? Don't nurses start at that?
I mean, it depends on where you live I guess. Out here, you can probably live well on $50k
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#508ITT a bunch of white collar software engineers discuss subjects about which most have zero familiarity.
When blue collar wages rise it is due to flawed economic policies!
When white collar tech wages rise it is because they are creating an incredible amount of economic value and deserve all of it! It is absolutely all because of their own genius!
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
YouTube is awesome for DIY, I moved to older house two years ago and with youtube helps I've added crown moldings, repainted all rooms, replaced baseboard, built patio, deck - lots of fun, I think without youtube I wouldn't done any of it, zero experience before. Funny, my dad did a lot of renovations, and a lot of times I'd get more details/better tips on youtube than asking him :) But youtube is great for common DI…
Would you say, for example, your painting is good as a professionals (e.g., paint lines are straight with respect to adjacent walls / ceiling, etc)? As someone who anticipates being a homeowner in a few years, I wonder if it's possible the first time you learn how to do something (without having the best technique for the skill) to get the best outcome. I wouldn't want my home improvement projects to look half-assed…
Well it all depends, how good professional is, how much time you spend and how much you care about details.
From my experience comparing to the jobs my nieghbord/friend had done by contractors - I can do better :) Though they didn't hire expensive contractors, I'm sure there professional who can do much better. But as mentioned in other comments, for average contractor time matters and they don't pay attention as much as you can. So if you care about details a lot and can't/don't want to hire expensive contractors, better do yourself.
Painting is especially easy, if you screw up some spot, you can always return and repaint (worst case you'll have to do that couple times :)) Painting equipment is (relatively) cheep, you can cover floors with plastic covers/blue tape and don't worry about screwing floors/doors while you learn :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNagIA8sKY0 watch these videos and you'd be ready to start. Cutting wall/ceiling line by hand is not that hard (the video has a trick), there're also "helper tools" for cutting lines in home depot/lowes. One trick is that if you go with light color on walls, perfect line with white ceiling doesn't even matter, you won't notice small deviations anyway.
If have doubts in your own skills (I did), try starting with closets and bedrooms. Only then move to living rooms/kitchens. If you screw up closet or your bedroom - it's not that of big deal. Though if watch above video series, it's really hard to screw up too much.
Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
#510But, but, but... automation! Singularity! Boston Dynamics robot backflips!
If backflipping robots do the easier work, then what is left for humans is the more complex well paying work. When you remove the lower paying jobs from the average calculation, the average will rise. Indeed the article even states that at 89%, male prime-age [labour market] participation remains close to a record low. The article also has an opinion quote stating that some of the recent wage gains are misleading, because they have occurred in industries, such as textile manufacturing, in which employment continues to fall.