"Frankly, I struggle to understand the mindset of someone who sees a pamphlet advertising a $70,000 job at Panda Express and concludes that $70,000 jobs are widely available to anyone who wants one" ... good point ...
Coming from Europe and living in the US now, I see this as part of American culture: To always view every problem from the point of view of an individual and to refuse to take a systemic perspective. I very much appreciate that you emphasize the systemic point of view in your writing.
In 1987, I was making $14/hr working in a coffee packaging plant in South San Francisco and living in a $350/month one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco! Equivalent people today will make about $24 or less and pay $3,000/month for a one-bedroom apartment. See how far we have slid or plunged?
It's ironic that those who are judgmental about others not pursuing higher paying gigs, are the ones whose spending power is delivered by the very nature of business's reliance on low-paid, no benefits, part-time labor.
No need to guess at how much an assistant manager at Panda Express makes, you can look it up on their website. For the location, I chose, across from Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip it is $23-28 per hour. It seems to be a full time job so you can multiply by 2080 to get an annual rate. It comes with a full suite of benefits so will cost the company a great deal more. I assume there are regional differences. Vegas isn't San Francisco but it isn't Pueblo either. Vegas is one of the few cities the country with a robust private sector union movement and it is led by the Culinary Workers. There was one ominous note about being willing to work within a 50 mile radius which would require a reliable car.
We cannot forget the impact that arrest rates of young people that are 2-3 times what they were in previous generations being a ball and chain for mostly men. Many find this tough to overcome in the job market. The marriage rates, job prospects and lifetime earnings are all impacted often by mistakes made between 16 and 26.
In a complex labor market choices can be complex and uneven. Rufo is right work hard even without a lot of formal qualifications and you have a good shot at making a good wage the converse of that is that just because you went to HBS doesn’t mean you’ll get a stratospheric salary. The best combination is qualifications and energy. When I was there for a summer institute in the late 70s, my favorite T-shirt was there is no BS like HBS.
A comment on your review of Jonathan Chait's piece, Fareed Zakaria had a piece in the WP that also have observations similar to your own. He opines that the for many working class voters cultural issues are more important than economic issues. He notes that as the Democratic party moved to civil rights issues as far back in the 60s, the working class started migrating from the party. These observations resonated with me because I worked at a power generating plant on the labor gang as a young man (1972-1975) to put myself though college. I noted my white colleagues did not see their economic well being tied to black workers at the plant doing the same job.
I’ve worked both as a Fast Food Manager and as Parcel delivery driver.
And, I can confirm that the higher pay is warrantee because the inability of soooo many people who can do
The work. Neither job is as difficult as working the oil fields or digging ditches. But, the great amount of people I have seen hire in and drop out within 2 weeks to 7months is ridiculously high in both jobs.
Yes, indeed, there is a lack of quality work ethic, ability, or want in performing to the standards required to earn these wages.
Or how about this for a troll we surely agree on. Lying to victims of natural disasters, people who have literally just lost everything, about the federal aid available to them. And doing so merely for personal and political gain? It’s obvious that no decent human could countenance such behavior. Thank you for joining me in telling the truth. We have strength in numbers.
I totally agree. Exhibit A is the trolling Don and JD do of the very people the “new” right purports to support:). Or, do you actually believe the 2020 election was stolen? Or that the brown people next door are consuming Fido? Or that Don’s highest ranking former staff, the people he told us were “the best people”, are lying in their assessments of the “new” right leader?
Be curious, not judgmental. A fine admonition. The “new” right, led by Don and JD, could use such humility, no? I hear much judgement from them of the “old” right. In this telling, the old right intentionally caused today’s economic stress through mendacious policy, seeking to favor the wealthy at the expense of the masses. There is no room to account for the massive technological, communication, demographic and other changes that have swept the world. We’re told that a few more tariffs, and a few less brown people, will magically overwhelm these global trends. Then I look to the leaders of the “new” right, Don and JD. JD, a veritable butler for billionaires, a literal creation of the billionaire Pete Thiel, who greased JD’s wallet with Silicon Valley cash, then flooded his campaign coffers with yet more. And of course the billionaire Don, born rich, and now surrounded by a truly deplorable cast of billionaires. The world’s richest man, aka a major government contractor, after spending a quarter billion electing the self-proclaimed “very stable genius”, camps out at the castle. A parade of tech billionaires parades through. Surely they’re passing through to give their best advice on how to help the less fortunate, people they would never spend 10 minutes with. What serious person expects these self absorbed creeps to care about those on the lower rungs? Don and JD have shown us what they think of the rubes by gaslighting them with constant lies, from stolen elections to pet eating brown people. If they respected them, they would tell them the truth. JD was right about Don the first time, before he self-gelded. They’re not curious, they are judgmental. They’ve judged the rubes to be easy marks. How lovely. Good luck America.
"Frankly, I struggle to understand the mindset of someone who sees a pamphlet advertising a $70,000 job at Panda Express and concludes that $70,000 jobs are widely available to anyone who wants one" ... good point ...
Coming from Europe and living in the US now, I see this as part of American culture: To always view every problem from the point of view of an individual and to refuse to take a systemic perspective. I very much appreciate that you emphasize the systemic point of view in your writing.
In 1987, I was making $14/hr working in a coffee packaging plant in South San Francisco and living in a $350/month one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco! Equivalent people today will make about $24 or less and pay $3,000/month for a one-bedroom apartment. See how far we have slid or plunged?
It's ironic that those who are judgmental about others not pursuing higher paying gigs, are the ones whose spending power is delivered by the very nature of business's reliance on low-paid, no benefits, part-time labor.
No need to guess at how much an assistant manager at Panda Express makes, you can look it up on their website. For the location, I chose, across from Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip it is $23-28 per hour. It seems to be a full time job so you can multiply by 2080 to get an annual rate. It comes with a full suite of benefits so will cost the company a great deal more. I assume there are regional differences. Vegas isn't San Francisco but it isn't Pueblo either. Vegas is one of the few cities the country with a robust private sector union movement and it is led by the Culinary Workers. There was one ominous note about being willing to work within a 50 mile radius which would require a reliable car.
We cannot forget the impact that arrest rates of young people that are 2-3 times what they were in previous generations being a ball and chain for mostly men. Many find this tough to overcome in the job market. The marriage rates, job prospects and lifetime earnings are all impacted often by mistakes made between 16 and 26.
In a complex labor market choices can be complex and uneven. Rufo is right work hard even without a lot of formal qualifications and you have a good shot at making a good wage the converse of that is that just because you went to HBS doesn’t mean you’ll get a stratospheric salary. The best combination is qualifications and energy. When I was there for a summer institute in the late 70s, my favorite T-shirt was there is no BS like HBS.
A comment on your review of Jonathan Chait's piece, Fareed Zakaria had a piece in the WP that also have observations similar to your own. He opines that the for many working class voters cultural issues are more important than economic issues. He notes that as the Democratic party moved to civil rights issues as far back in the 60s, the working class started migrating from the party. These observations resonated with me because I worked at a power generating plant on the labor gang as a young man (1972-1975) to put myself though college. I noted my white colleagues did not see their economic well being tied to black workers at the plant doing the same job.
I’ve worked both as a Fast Food Manager and as Parcel delivery driver.
And, I can confirm that the higher pay is warrantee because the inability of soooo many people who can do
The work. Neither job is as difficult as working the oil fields or digging ditches. But, the great amount of people I have seen hire in and drop out within 2 weeks to 7months is ridiculously high in both jobs.
Yes, indeed, there is a lack of quality work ethic, ability, or want in performing to the standards required to earn these wages.
This deserves a wider audience.
Thing about the internet. You have to deal with the bots and trolls. Gets so tiring.
Or how about this for a troll we surely agree on. Lying to victims of natural disasters, people who have literally just lost everything, about the federal aid available to them. And doing so merely for personal and political gain? It’s obvious that no decent human could countenance such behavior. Thank you for joining me in telling the truth. We have strength in numbers.
I totally agree. Exhibit A is the trolling Don and JD do of the very people the “new” right purports to support:). Or, do you actually believe the 2020 election was stolen? Or that the brown people next door are consuming Fido? Or that Don’s highest ranking former staff, the people he told us were “the best people”, are lying in their assessments of the “new” right leader?
Be curious, not judgmental. A fine admonition. The “new” right, led by Don and JD, could use such humility, no? I hear much judgement from them of the “old” right. In this telling, the old right intentionally caused today’s economic stress through mendacious policy, seeking to favor the wealthy at the expense of the masses. There is no room to account for the massive technological, communication, demographic and other changes that have swept the world. We’re told that a few more tariffs, and a few less brown people, will magically overwhelm these global trends. Then I look to the leaders of the “new” right, Don and JD. JD, a veritable butler for billionaires, a literal creation of the billionaire Pete Thiel, who greased JD’s wallet with Silicon Valley cash, then flooded his campaign coffers with yet more. And of course the billionaire Don, born rich, and now surrounded by a truly deplorable cast of billionaires. The world’s richest man, aka a major government contractor, after spending a quarter billion electing the self-proclaimed “very stable genius”, camps out at the castle. A parade of tech billionaires parades through. Surely they’re passing through to give their best advice on how to help the less fortunate, people they would never spend 10 minutes with. What serious person expects these self absorbed creeps to care about those on the lower rungs? Don and JD have shown us what they think of the rubes by gaslighting them with constant lies, from stolen elections to pet eating brown people. If they respected them, they would tell them the truth. JD was right about Don the first time, before he self-gelded. They’re not curious, they are judgmental. They’ve judged the rubes to be easy marks. How lovely. Good luck America.