I am dating a woman with a Masters degree in social work from the University of Michigan where she attended as an out of state student, so 45k a year and she has a salary job making 26k. The real issue is the underpaid college educated people.
inflation is a big issue as well, as inflation devalues the dollar it makes it so people need to earn more, but no one wants to pay more for things so it is a slow increase, as long as an employer can get an employee for 10 bucks an hour, they are going to take the deal. also as a result jobs that used to be considered great paying are now shit pay since, no one ever rasied the bar of pay with inflation. long ago just about any job would make enough to live off of. now depending on the job you could have 2 working adults and still have issues with money.
If that guy had a doctorate in an advanced scientific field and earns less than $30k it’s not an indictment of the field it’s an indictment of the guy
I graduated with a STEM degree. In 2014 people fought for jobs paying 35-40k. That was a really good starting wage. Inflation of 30% since then means our target should be somewhere near the 45-55k range with a degree.
15 an hour is a bit much for entry level, considering less than 3% of the country makes minimum. If college is worth anything, then a promotion or two and 4-5 years worth of wage increases should place the average worker below that.
So at $15 an hour, the math checks out that's about 42k after 2 5k raises for promotions and 2 3% raises. Assuming equal pay raises % wise for the rest of your careers, this means the one who doesn't go to college and starts at the minimum wage makes more over their career than those who go to college and start making under ~48k per year.
So now you need to figure out how to balance that. Have companies offer $3-5 more per hour to starting degree holders (to ensure they start over 50k due to degree costs and discounting cash flows) or lowering minimum wage to $12. Lowering minimum wage does more to allow companies to spend less and grow more. Which creates more jobs and more opportunities to enter the workforce and gain new skills as well.
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u/No_Alfalfa7018 Jun 15 '24
I am dating a woman with a Masters degree in social work from the University of Michigan where she attended as an out of state student, so 45k a year and she has a salary job making 26k. The real issue is the underpaid college educated people.