Low Income Does Not Equal Low Skill/Intelligence

Intellect and skill only matter if you are actively using them to do the job at hand. You could be the second coming of Einstein and a rocket scientist, but if you are flipping burgers, you are only going to be paid for flipping burgers. What you get paid for a job is dependent on what kind of skills and intellect it takes to do that job, not what you actually have when you take the job and are doing it. And if you go to your boss and demand to be paid like the rocket scientist you are even though you are only flipping burgers, he'll fire you and tell you as you walk out the door that, "It ain't rocket science!" he's asking you to do.

What skills and intellect will do for you ideally is help open doors to bigger and better things. If you have the skills of a rocket scientist, then there are realistically only so many other rocket scientists around to compete against you when you try to compete for the next rocket science job. And when you get that job the pay will reflect the relative rarity of actual rocket science skills as compared to the skills needed to flip burgers.

That's why people say, "Get a skill." It's because the rarer your skill set is, the more marketable it should help make you. The fewer people there are in your area with your skill set, the easier it will theoretically be for you to land that next job demanding your skill set and the higher the pay ought to be reflecting the rarity of your skill set.

The thing about college degrees is that thanks to government taking over loans and helping make college more "affordable" for everyone, degrees are anything but now, and there are very few degrees that are actually good investments against their projected rate of return for starting wages and career projected earnings. Government won't do anything about it either until the whole system collapses. Think about it. Government is starved for money, and this way, they get whole generations mired in debt they pay to government and won't get out of while also taxing the same base. It's double dipping!

say 'learn a skill.' We mean 'get a degree.' Intelligence itself means little to nothing in this society. Degrees matter.

I think a big problem in society today is that exact mindset. Forget about the building trades, right?

All this high tech stuff that is thought up by some pretty bright people you think is built in buildings that a couple of hillbillys with a pickup truck and a hammer built?

I make a decent living, $49 and change an hour, thats on the upper middle of the scale compared to some areas. Love my job.

I agree work ethic and intelligence work very well together
this isnt rocket science


Add another branch coming out at a 30 degree angle.... I could be laying that out in 3/8" stainless, could be 6' round or 10' round...

" Low Income Does Not Equal Low Skill/Intelligence "

Nor does high income = high Skill/Intelligence.

Especially when you consider all the highly educated people responsible for all the big bank busts that financially ruin people and families and kill off jobs.

2008 made some pretty high income intelligent people into low income beggars and paupers regardless of their education.

a reply to: Fylgje

My older brother is similar here. He was a high school drop out, but a computer whiz. He got himself certified in just about everything an IT could be certified in, and holds no college degrees, just certifications. He worked his way up the ladder for years, and ended up pretty high up on the ladder at one company he worked for. Things changed with the bust, his company went under, and he's been shifting around between lower paying jobs for years now. He'd likely be in the same place if he had a degree, with his immense amount of experience & excellent work record. It's not that easy out there for ITs anymore.

His only downfall was that he lived well beyond his means, and is drowning in colossal debt now. I bet if he knew this change in his work life had been coming ahead of time, he'd have saved instead of wildly spending.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

Yeah, but there's also a "work ethic" club of alpha dog narcissists who believe that they work harder and smarter than everyone else and unless you share their exact mentality, you are excluded from the benefits of a generous compensation package. Everyone else except for extreme specialists like doctors, engineers and tradesmen are extremely underpaid in this country. These hogs basically pile up this huge banquet for themselves and throw enough to everyone else to keep their whimpering to a minimum, and if someone who isn't part of the club dares to step up to the table for their equal share, they are quickly smacked down.

The sad thing is, the real rulers of this world care little for orgies. They are sophisticated enough to be dining at a separate table entirely, and if these alpha dogs really think they have a free pass to the future just because they are living high on the hog now, the joke is on them. When it comes right down to the wire, everyone at the buffet is disposable, only the hosts have true privilege, and if we could understand this and work together to remedy our mutual problems, we could create a totally new world where almost everyone is truly satisfied.

a reply to: tinner07

Nope, learning how to be a skilled builder/tradesman equates to leaning a skill. But what I said above still holds. You could be the most skilled electrician around, and if you are flipping burgers, you are still only going to be paid for flipping burgers.

a reply to: ketsuko

The only point you seem to have made is that it is possible if not likely that a high skilled worker would need to be flipping burgers.

Therein lies the problem.

a reply to: Nyiah
Sorry to hear about your bro. Hopefully, he can get back into the loop.
As far as my brother goes, electrical engineering wizards do not go long without work. A couple companies he worked for changed hands but he was scooped up by competitors, only because he's known in the biz. And he doesn't live beyond his means. He lives in a doublewide trailer on 3 acres with his family. LOL! But it's nice. By looking where he lives and how he lives, you wouldn't know he earns six figures a year. But he has all he wants or needs. But he gets worked to death, even on most holidays.