90% Of Americans Are Poorer Today Than They Were 27 Years Ago

originally posted by: Night Star
Years ago, you could quit your job and get hired almost anywhere else in the same day. Now, if there are 5 openings there are 200 or more people applying for them at the same time. It is very sad what has become of America. Too many jobs outsourced, too many illegals holding jobs, too many part time instead of full time jobs. You could at one time work an 8 hour day and have weekends off. Now people are working 12 hour shifts or multiple jobs just to survive. Many companies, instead of hiring enough employees, will just have the workers they already have doing the work of two people. It's insane and becoming the norm. And we wonder why people are stressed to the limits. Where is the quality time spent with family?

There's your star.
What family... and quality is a very subjective term like tasty.
Once in a while I looked up from the grindstone to see others
kids growing or starting their own families... and I wondered
how crazy it was to bring anyone into this kind of slavery.

originally posted by: buster2010
Well if they would just give more tax breaks to the wealthy all of this would change. This is what we have been told since Reagan was in office and we are still waiting for that fairy tale to start to work. Besides everyone knows if you are not wealthy or well off then it's because you are just lazy or too stupid.

I would make the argument that ending all taxes against both business and the individual would be a step in the right direction.

And getting rid of the majority of government regulations in regard to commerce.

But 27 years ago.. they didn't have the Internet, or Smart phones, or big ass OLED TV's, or Virtual Reality, or Netflix, or Xbox One's etc etc etc....

I would say we are far richer today because all of the above is affordable by the 90% who are poorer today than 27 years ago!

Korg.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Yep, that war on poverty seems to really be making headway.

But, maybe the Govt just needed/needs more money to fix the problem.

originally posted by: lme7898354
Back in the day any kid could graduate from high school and get a pretty good job and stay there til they retired. Now that same opportunity requires changing careers several times during your lifetime.

The people making the money are those who have chosen wisely in their career paths and those who have the initiative to go out and start a business or invent a new product or idea.

I've talked about this before, great length on ATS:

Up to the 1940 a person could get just about any job with an 8th grade education, but today you need a BA or Masters for entry level.

Why?

Because the government & big business figured out a long time ago that populations would certainly increase over time, but due to technology advancements, the availability of jobs would not expand to meet that population growth. There is a reason they don’t want people dropping out of high school and then at the same time, encourage those high school graduates to attend junior college, then a 4 year university and finally a Masters degree or PhD. They do so because it DECREASES the amount of people looking for full-time employment at the SAME TIME, chasing after jobs in a market that CANNOT provide employment for everyone looking for, able, qualified for and willing to work.

Look at it this way, when people could get a job with an 8th grade education, they went out and did it as soon as possible (opportunity cost). Then jobs got scarcer and the minimum requirement became a high school diploma, adding 4 more years of people NOT Looking for jobs within their cohort. Then jobs got even scarcer and the minimum became a 2 or 4 year college degree, adding an additional 2-4 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort. Now jobs are really scarce and may require a Masters or PHD, adding an additional 2-7 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort.

Basically the way the economy has been structured TODAY, we are looking at young people within their cohort whom are NOT looking for full-time, career type, employment for 6-15 YEARS, beyond K-12, all while they finish more school!!!

This has been done ON PURPOSE, to keep the number people seeking employment lower. In 1920 after 8th grade everyone who was able, went out to look for work and typically found it, that’s simply NOT possible today under any circumstances. Easily accessed welfare will soon add another 1-3 years of people within a cohort, to those “not seeking employment”. Not to the specific detriment of society, but to continue to mask the illusion that jobs and upward mobility are still available. So, if someone gets a graduate degree and collects 1-3 years of welfare on top of than, that’s ONE less person competing for scarce jobs. The extra years of welfare are then acting in the same way to the larger economy as the increased minimum education levels for employment, with the real goal of decreasing the number of able-bodied applicants out on the job market at the same time. This cohort of people "not pursuing full-time employment" also includes those in Prison, Government pensioners/SSI and the disabled on government assistance. If everyone needed to go out and “get a job” or “start their own business” TODAY, as many “capitalists” and "entrepreneurs" suggest these days, we would all be making 0.25 cents a day.

Keeping up with the basics in terms of education and on-the-job work skills won’t be enough for jobs requiring future tech, labor market, skill-sets (i.e. robot repair). The poor and even the middle class (not the upper middle class) will simply NOT be able to keep up with the skill demands for future employment, REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS, STATE LICENSING, etc, while earning wages AND keeping a roof over their heads. In the future these very high costs skills needed to stay “relevant” in ALL labor markets, will only be affordable to the rich, or at the very least, to VERY far forward thinking middle class families, willing to sacrifice everything financially to keep their offspring competitive in the larger job market.

With big business being hell bent on replacing living workers with machines, such comments as those in this post, miss a subtle point that ONLY the children of the wealthy will have the opportunity to become TRUE experts in such fields. Let me clarify, through the prior 20th century, a poor kid who studied hard could become a lawyer, engineer, accountant, even a doctor sometimes with the right combination of hard work, savings, scholarships, family support, etc, OR they simply went into the trades and learned on the job WITH pay. HOWEVER, in engineering and technician curriculum’s today, times are changing, which now favors kids whom have access to expensive software and hardware to “experiment” with and “practice” on before entering college or a particular training program. So when they finally get to college or to their first apprenticeship, those whom have had lots of free time to “play” with robotics and programming, outside of the classroom, WILL CERTAINLY outpace their less privileged peer, who flips burgers part-time, to pay rent and school expenses.

Before 1990, 40% of teenagers had part-time jobs while in school. This is a relevant statistic because today only 20% of teenagers in school have part-time jobs. Teens at one time made up a sizable portion of the workforce and such has changed dramatically in current employment practices.

Although not my primary point, I do think there is plenty of evidence that teens today do not have the opportunity to get part-time jobs, BUT at the same time, the wealthy ones are beginning to develop advanced skill-sets that COULD be MORE helpful in their future adult careers, than say, “working at a taco stand after school”. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are very good examples of people who made use of their free time and access to money, without having to EVER labor for pay when young, and ultimately developed specialized skills that could not be learned at a MINDLESS part-time job or even in formal schooling. In the end, they leveraged that free time learning, into long term careers.

Those whom are going to be rendered jobless by automation/robotics/tech are going to be the least likely to be able to pick up these pieces in the coming era of traditional jobs destruction. Its going to IMPOSSIBLE for the poor to go back to school, get a masters degree in robotics, in full-time-only engineering programs, that strongly discourage their admitted students from taking part-time jobs, while favoring students who have both the money and free time and don’t EVER work at an unrelated job to their majors, who then buy expensive robotics hardware/software to experiment with outside of class.

I believe “rich kid job mobility" is going to be a bigger problem for regular folks, beyond even what the previous "rich kid" pedigree typically brought in the 20th century. This unfettered access to endless money and time to “explore” academics and hands-on work, with NO consequences, is going to END job mobility of any kind for the lower and middle classes, even those whom have met the typical required higher education and work experience standards. Its going to be a superstar only job market, with no room for middle of road folks.

originally posted by: onequestion
We need a new social structure because the day and age of everybody needing a job is over and it's only going to get worse as technology continues to evolve.

Before I begin, I will admit that my solution sounds drastic, but keep in mind Americans have overwhelmingly rejected Unionization, the election of true progressive politicians, opposing all forms of immigration and taking violent action against "profiteers". So if we ELIMINATE these four strategies from the discussion that leaves only ONE with any possibility of working for the non-1% population:

Newborn babies, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants destroy the wage negotiating power of the 99% and the 1% know this. The "owners of capital" want to keep "baby making" as an "incentive". In contrast, taxing people who make too many babies and use more resources would quickly turn "baby making" into a "disincentive". Which is why they will NEVER do something like that, because more babies "on the way" gives the "owners of capital" absolute control over the wages of the 99%.

Basically we have TOO many people being born and not enough desire on the behalf of the "owners of capital" to employ them all for the sake of having a stable and safe civilization to live in day to day. The owners of capital want more people born, not simply for "growing the future tax base", but for the true purpose of DECREASING overall wages for everyone. More people MEANS less jobs and pay per person, affecting even the educated and highly skilled. Its actually quite simple for the peons/peasants of the world to start having more say in how the world is run. Simply don't have children nor support those having children (in fact, at this point economically, they should be demonized). The result of such, is soaring wages and diverse employment options expanding for all. Taxing those without kids MORE, per their public service consumption rate, is a subconscious way to influence the birth of more kids. Such a system punishes those whom are abstaining from having kids in their own best FINANCIAL interests and not giving in to the desires for the ever increasing population, coveted by both government and large corporations.

The "owners of capital" OWN us to a certain extent and the only times in history when the "owner of capital" had "less say over wages" was when the population of available labor was significantly smaller (i.e. Black Death). The bigger the pool of labor, the more control they have over all of us. The 1% are playing an age old game called, "pit the desperate against each other". Every newborn baby the 99% creates, the easier it is for "owners of capital" to play the game.

There has ALWAYS been an economic system at work in the USA that limited the number of able bodied workers whom would be PAID, versus those whom WOULD NOT be paid for their labor. The “owners of capital” learned their lesson about labor shortages POST the “Black Death” and figured out from that day forward how to keep wages down and the number of potential available laborers at maximum levels, while forcing these "peasants" to compete for scarce available "paid labor" positions.

In the past when there wasn’t enough money to go around to pay both wages & PROFITS the “owners of capital” simply brought in more indentured servant immigrants (Irish, Italians, Chinese, etc) or used flat out slave labor (Blacks, Native Americans, domestic prisoners, POW’s, etc). The only difference between now and then is that “owners of capital” can’t LEGALLY or publicly have slaves or indentured servants anymore, BUT they have the same pressures as before, to keep their high wages flowing and laborers working even when there isn’t enough “PIE” to go around to pay those laborers for services rendered. The mechanisms today that replaces slaves and indentured servants are the following: longer than needed formal education for basic employment, off-shoring of labor, forced retirement, prisoners and welfare.

Make note, my concern is NOT economic growth for the "owners of capital", only increased wages for the rest. A DELIBERATE cultural shift where "baby making" is reduced to zero, is only bad for the "owners of capital", not the laborers. If "labor" does not have the bargaining chip of Unionization, the election of true progressive politicians, opposing all forms of immigration and taking violent action against "profiteers", then all they have left, is to willingly decrease the population competing over scarce jobs in the larger market.

It makes sense that the poor aren't going to rebel against a giant system because they never had anything to begin with so they are stuck in a rut that they have always been in, but when some of them get more money and have it taken away is when you will have riots and anger and chaos, which is justified because all the money in the hands of less than 1% of the population is just absurd. Post about dark money mentions that 4 billion dollars was spent for this election cycle which is just disgusting. No telling how many families that could feed for however many years or how many kids could go to college.

originally posted by: 0bserver1
a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Good point we'll see if this model will hold.. As to my knowledge there was a test in a small village . Where they gave those citizens that basic income for period of time and it seemed to work.

But then again we only know if it's actually going to take place and I'm not sure if it's really going to happen?

When you have a closed economy where the amount of money in supply, the amount of goods manufactured, number of employers and employees remain constant, everything will reach a stable price and labour shared out.

If you increase the amount of money in supply, wages and prices all rise. But if you apply globalism economics to this, you end up with an infinite supply of employees, a shortage of housing and falling salaries, while prices rise to match the demand.