this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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Kind of a messed up take here but migrants are used as a tool by the proletariat to keep wages low and to push down wages. I see the perspective that C-Suite Individuals (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) keep wages low and pocket the multi-million dollar change, but how do they justify it? "Market Rate" is a good way to deflect blame nowhere. Everyone's moving labor outside of the US, and at least for me as a USA born working class individual, it weakens my ability to earn for my family.
We need well-paying low-education manufacturing jobs in this country. I say it so much that I literally just auto completed that sentence. I don't know what these rich fucks are thinking, who is going to buy their meaningless bullshit and baubles when you have to spend your whole check on rent and food?
Super agreed. We used to be a country where a janitor was able to get a house for themselves and their kids, and provide for a family on a single income. I'm basing this off of a real example too lol! My middle school janitor in Queens, NYC is a dope dude. Granted things are different now, the population size is expanding and there is a space/space-to-person ratio crisis, but that can't mean that engineering apprentices, or technicians, or low-volt electricians have to live making < $50k (explicit examples that I've seen in my HCOL area). There once was a gradient for a middle class, now it's just either high income or broke lol.
Would you say that limiting yourself to only "working class" jobs, whatever that means to you, is also weakening your ability to earn?
Dude never said "working class" they said "middle" and their point is that a diverse field of labor used to and should earn that sort of status. The winnowing and undermining of the pay structure has pushed more people lower than they should be. What their place is inside that structure is not relevant to the opinion. This has nothing to do with their personal financial circumstances.
First, the poster I replied to literally says "working class", I'm not sure if you read the wrong post.
Second, the point I'm making is that its silly to expect a field of labor to exist forever, and to pay well forever. Sure it would be easy and nice, but thats not reality. When the cycle of change happens yearly now, and we can live 100+ years, we need to accept that we need to be ready for change and the learning that comes with it.
I understand the reluctance though, its far easier to just dig in and defend what you have.
The world changes all the time and it really would benefit people to move with it when possible.
How can people efficiently move with it when the cost of college/higher education is what it is?
By making retraining/advancement programs cost-prohibitive, we are creating and perpetuating a permanent underclass. Particularly when we are also defunding and attacking public K-12 education
It does not seem prudent or accurate to blame the working class for the societal conditions in which they exist
I'm sorry if I'm being dumb but I don't get what you're asking. I work as a unionized engineer and then always try to keep a second side hustle job (cashier, waiter, etc.). When I was a non-union engineer I saw third party companies hiring people that were underqualified and across the globe, remotely taking jobs. As a waiter/cashier however, I didn't see this at all. Although I was working minimum wage so I don't think anyone would necessarily ask lower.
The point I was trying to make is that, when I was making $35 an hour non-unionized, firms would offer to have remote engineers for $30 an hour. So now I'm effectively "over" market rate, and am at risk of being fired. This weakens my ability to earn for my family. If the latter didn't exist, I could have asked for $40 an hour even. Thankfully I'm now unionized at around that rate so I'm okay. But for my friends that aren't minimum wage, but aren't flying stacks of money rich, they are constantly at risk of just being another budget issue.
i mean, the employers in your industry are the ones deciding where to source talent. The engineers in these remote markets are just picking up jobs that are likely paying above-average for their locale. Which opportunities only exist because employers extend them...
Wholeheartedly agreed. The existence and ability to just easily off-shore everything and reduce costs, to a business; is like candy to a baby. You don’t blame the candy, or the baby, but you blame the circumstances that lead the candy to the baby. Keeping jobs at home is the only way towards the prosperity of the middle class. We unfortunately have policies that just favor the wealthy class over the middle class, and things like this happen.
In this case, the baby is part of a global group of babies (the baby-ouisie?) that persuaded many of the governments of the world to pass free-candy-for-babies laws so they could save money in their candy budgets and deliver higher return to their shareholders, so in this case, i'll 100% blame the baby
Honestly also very true. Something reductionist (and wrong) about my statement - the baby doesn’t have autonomy. They just go after impulse. Corporations do have autonomy, and typically choose to go against the middle class.
I did lol at the idea of a group of global babies trying to take over the world though 😂
A variation in pay ranging from 30 an hour to 40 an hour, working full time puts you between 62k a year and 83k a year, if my math is accurate.
I understand noone wants to make less money ever, but you are doing well no matter if you had to eat a pay cut or not, and you even say yourself you didnt have to. You either care more about making this extra money than your friends or were better qualified/had better connections so that you could maintain what you wanted.
I dont understand how you can possibly say you have a stake in this argument. You are doing just fine, even if you choose to bring up all your past experiences and choices that make it so you "need" more money.
So your argument is basically, I can't sympathize for the common man because I'm doing well? After OT I make $103k a year. After taxes and union dues I make $64k a year net (about $5,400 a month) My apartment mortgage costs me $2,100. In 2021 my dad was let go as a cost cutting measure. Which is actively what I'm advocating against in my previous comments that you're railing on. His mortgage, which includes my mom and brother is $3,200 a month.
My brother is a student and my mom is a cashier, I pay for both places. Because my mom works and my dad recently landed a part time job not even making a third of what he made, we're still pretty fucked but can just get by. I literally have to work two jobs after OT on my first, to keep myself cushy. Which I'm okay with because I'm really young, and I'm grateful for what I'm working towards. But I have to ask, what the fuck are you going on about?
Edit: I looked at your post history and now understand what you're going on about. You're just one of those folks that defend the 1%. Lolol I was confused at first but now I understand.
Defend the rich? I'm arguing you have too much shit. You dont need so much. Its simple.
Edit to add: those mortgage prices are stupid. If you and your family dont realize there are choices in where you live, that you aren't owed the same house for all eternity, and to work in the same job for your whole life.
Wow. I didn't think about that. Holy heck. Let me just take my wife, my brother, my parents, and move half way across the map where, the cost of living will be lower but the cost of salary will be exponentially lower; because a stranger on the internet told me to! Shouldn't take me more than a week to uproot my whole life and move somewhere else. Thanks fam!!! 😀
(Major /s, if you already haven't noticed)
I'm saying there are choices, and you choose the selfish ones. Thats it. Claiming friends and family doesnt make it not self serving. I still stand by what I said, you aren't struggling, you just like to complain you get to be a bit less selfish.
And yes this is from some random internet stranger you are, again choosing, to argue with. People like you who refuse to learn and grow are the real problem, and are why younger generations just have to wait for older ones to die off for real change to happen for everyone.
Real talk, you do understand that most of those places that have cheaper housing will pay me significantly less? I actually took the time to look at NJ (where the average cost of housing in Teaneck NJ is $830k for the same single family 3br home my folks have). A job in Teaneck NJ which is literally what I do pays $65k a year. A mortgage for $830k right now is about $7k a month with current rates, but with the equity I have in my home would probably be around the same $5k a month I’m paying. But I’d be earning almost half my salary. You’re taking this idealized view “oh just move, you’re being selfish if you stay in a HCOL area,” but you aren’t realizing that EVERYONE has been affected. House prices in the suburbs have shot up. Which is okay if wages kept pace, right? But they haven’t.
Edit: I’m also not old, I’m not even 28
Since you and your family are owners, the housing prices going up at worst is a wash, and at best you make a profit.
You and your family made many choices to benefit an enrich yourselves, all I'm saying is you dont get to then complain you were forced into your position. You aren't the abused people in this scenario, you are benefitting from it. See the point about someone owning an asset complaining its gained tremendous value year over year.
Edit to clarify: I'm actually advocating for far more than "just move", I'm saying people need to be ready to change and learn everything, even if it came down to a new city, field of study, field of work, or even language (although right now there is no place in the US that would require this leap).
We both bought during COVID, and only because the rates were so low. Our home prices have gone up, but not crazy (we had to pay extra for property taxes due to the appraised home value though), but I didn't mean to come off as abused. I'm doing well, and knock on wood whenever I get the chance [edited, spelling incorrect], but I also know I'm on a thin fucking tightrope - due to what I'm about to bring up next.
However, and this is what caused our discourse, I don't believe it's right for jobs like my father's to just vanish to the other end of the world. That has real life implications for everyone, someone's family, their mental health; it just messed him up for a while dude. To go back to the main topic of the thread, "Migrants aren't pushing down wages, its your boss," while you believe that we may not be promised anything in life (and this is true), what's the point of upholding this social contract, going to work and producing towards a GDP, towards a country, and doing your fair share; when you can't even be promised your end of the social contract, the American Dream? At that point, I'm sure my dad would have just made the decision to stay in India instead of coming to the US in 1996.
In one of my other comments, I talk about how my middle school janitor came to this country (back in like the 70's or the 80's), and purchased a house on a Janitor salary. Dude was unionized and was based af. From my experiences today, the American Dream is dying and not the same as what it once was. Whether it be Migrants, companies, the policies that allow for labor to be off-shored; it's infected and (in my honest opinion), not worth chasing atm. We aren't a third world country, but we're not a country that can provide that social contract for its youth. The youth works to enrich the old and rich, kept oppressed by low wages and replaceability (the off-shoring of work), no longer do the youth work to enrich themselves.
"what's the point of upholding this social contract, going to work and producing towards a GDP, towards a country, and doing your fair share; when you can't even be promised your end of the social contract, the American Dream?"
I agree completely (despite everyone having their own version of "the american dream"), I just think we have different ideas of how to get there. I dont know all the answers but I do know going back to any place we have already been is just worse with corruption, accountability, abuse, and disparity in quality of living.
I think the main difference now is that groups that were originally on the side that generally benefitted from all of this abuse, are now being targeted for wealth extraction themselves and they can no longer live happy middle-income lives. Everyone besides the wealthy are being pushed downwards.
I'd also argue that what you mentioned your father going through is a mental health issue, and it would benefit us all if we acknowledged the need to help people transition to new skills or ways of life that fit the new reality.
If we focus on moving backwards the world will leave us behind and we will suffer for it. Looking forward means embracing change, and those who are good at changing quickly will have the advantage.