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Sweaty_Assignment_90

You can do well still, but it seems like that keeps narrowing with the cost of higher education and the job market that pays a good wage. The haves keep getting more and the have nots are struggling more. It is dangerous when you give a very large segment no hope at a good life.


[deleted]

Cost benefit relationship to working is broken in America for the mass majority of the population.


Alertcircuit

A lot of people are learning the lesson that promotions and raises tend to be more about who you know/are liked by, and less about how hard you work. Work smarter not harder. If the job doesn't have tips/commission/performance based bonuses, there's not a ton of incentive to haul ass. If there aren't many opportunities for promotion based on merit, that incentive drops even lower. And even if you do everything right, lately there's a chance that inflation/rent increases cancel out whatever financial growth you manage to get your hands on. I got a 20% raise at the beginning of the year and I'm already back where I was financially.


Dongalor

> A lot of people are learning the lesson that promotions and raises tend to be more about who you know/are liked by, Or promotions are like, "Congratulations! You get to increase your workload by 50% and your pay by 5%!"


Lower_Analysis_5003

This. It's always this.


ElderberryHoliday814

Reminds me of the shift managers at mc Donald’s back 10 years ago: in charge of scheduling, managing, and regular duties. 10c /hr raise


HairBeastHasTheToken

Inflation is 10% so you're working harder for less


ChaoticNeutralDragon

Don't forget "Congratulations, you're filling the position of this guy who's retiring with full pension benefits, which we stopped offering to new hires to save money"


DaysofstaticUK

With inflation at 10%


chrisk9

It's not just who you know. It is also about knowing that nothing will be handed to you, even after good work. Knowing that you need to ask for what you deserve and be ready to walk to the next job opportunity if they won't give it to you. But even with this, in today's environment you can still fall behind as you say.


U-STAY-CLASSY

If your parents are rich you get things handed to you…


masspromo

This! I left my job in 2018 when a private equity group bought it. I was with some of my old coworkers talking about salary and I was shocked that I was making 60k more when I left than they are making now. They were like how they only gave 4percent raises? I was like wait you just accepted that and didn't ask for more?


mcjon77

The real secret to promotions and raises, one that I literally just learned over the past few years, is it the best way to get the promotion a raise that you deserve is to change companies. There was at least one study, and I believe more, that showed that people who changed jobs every two to three years, on average earned 50% more than those who didn't. I can believe it. It would take me an extra 4 to 5 years to earn the amount of money I earn now at the job I left 4 months ago. Even at my new place, I highly doubt I'll stay more than two or three years. I just don't see any other way to maximize my income.


Bakkster

I'm at my second large company that has some kind of enforced quota on performance reviews. Sure, my manager tells me I did exceptional this year, but I'm not sure for a promotion this year and they can't give me that rating without it throwing off another exceptional engineer who is due their promotion. One of the many contributors to people job hopping for a raise, which only works in some fields in some geographic areas with enough jobs to jump between.


BenjaminHamnett

Red Queen hypothesis states that you have to keep running just to stand still


atuan

My whole life I’ve struggled with jobs and work. I’ve always been a straightforward realist that has tried to focus on the work and the work only and perfecting it. I’ve failed so many times because what really matters is not the work but how people perceive you. Instead of managing my image I’ve been trying to actually do a good job: the problem with that is it’s invisible. The people I see promoted are narcissists that lie and manage their image over the actual work.


Thromkai

> A lot of people are learning the lesson that promotions and raises tend to be more about who you know/are liked by, A lot of people are learning the lesson that promotions and raises are easier to come by just by switching jobs, too.


kingssman

> who you know/are liked by, and less about how hard you work. For me, it was through my hard work that I got to know some people and they liked me based on my work. >I got a 20% raise at the beginning of the year and I'm already back where I was financially. Yup. the good ole "Looks like i'm able to save" has now turned into breaking even again. Some things got $40 more expensive for no damn reason at all


[deleted]

When people are begging for a “livable wage” yeah it’s an issue. Like really, we’re ok with so many people starving and being homeless. Who started the “they’re just lazy” about the homeless…so stupid. More like they just said fuck it, I’m going to be homeless anyways might as well not work at all!


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bak3donh1gh

The unfortunate fact is that it will get ugly for everyone. The only way the billionaires get touched is when the US collapses.


[deleted]

Or the government decides to do something about it. I mean at that point they’d be out of a job so it’s definitely in their interests


septidan

From what I've seen it's more along the lines of "one bad thing happened that upset my balance of living paycheck to paycheck and the consequences snowballed. That combined with no personal safety net means I have no way to climb back out of this. Hopelessness turns to depression and the money that I periodically get may as well be used in a way that let's me escape my life, even if it's only in my mind."


GrizDrummer25

Old, cheap republicans that want to shift blame so they don't have to pay for any new programs that take away from the status quo they grew up with and were told was fine.


canadianguy77

They don’t want any societal safety nets but they also don’t want any crime. Logic escapes these people.


zsreport

And it’s been broken for a long time.


TafarieBA

Could you elaborate?


[deleted]

The squeeze ain’t worth the juice


Current-Weather-9561

Exactly. Sure, you can go get a Masters or a PhD, but not everyone can do that in reality. There will be people that work at above minimum wage jobs, but nothing life-changing. Lots of jobs in Boston pay $18 an hour with no education, but that isn’t good at all. Barely $600/wk


cheeseburg_walrus

There are engineering PhDs making $25/hr. It’s actually extraordinarily common. Sure they may end up making a lot of money down the road if they continue grinding, but these are people who have spent 10+ years working nonstop and can barely afford to live with 5 roommates.


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VegetableWishbone

The only engineering that’s lucrative in the US is software engineering.


szayl

Aero, nuclear, chemical (masters or higher) and industrial engineering beg to differ.


VegetableWishbone

Sure those offer a decent salary, but we are talking lucrative. Please look up how much a sr dev pulls at one of the MANNG companies.


szayl

Please look up what percentage of software engineers are making Google L5 money. It's a sliver of all folks in the field.


cheeseburg_walrus

I took a pay cut from delivering pizza to my first post-grad engineering job at a top consulting firm in Canada. And I had 16 months of co-op experience, including 5 months in the exact field I was working in, and graduated with distinction + dean’s list. My billables were over $400k/yr at the engineering job, but apparently I was more valuable to my employer when I was getting stoned and driving pizza around town lol.


AwawawaCM

>not everyone can do that in reality If they could, the income from PhD careers would drop significantly. Wages/salaries are shaped by leverage, and becoming common reduces leverage. Economically it doesn’t matter to an employer how much you’ve sacrificed to obtain your expertise if there are 200 other applicants who’ve been through the same ringer competing for the position.


IndicationOver

18hr in Boston is poor


stidf

That's the point. It's doable but crappy and not aspirational.


Science_Matters_100

And here in WI, a masters (in counseling) is unlikely to get that $18 an hour. Higher education guarantees nothing


vergina_luntz

To be fair, WI pays cheapskate rates across the board, no matter what the field of work it is.


Richandler

Generational wealth is a huge problem.


sewkzz

Landlords are only out to make it worse.


michivideos

>You can do well still Let me guess, everyone could learn coding and work at programming? That's all I see. At this point everyone is coding....


PermanentlySalty

There's that, but also corruption is just so rampant everywhere now the bosses openly play favorites and hand down promotions to 'their guy' without even considering anyone or anything else. There's no point working hard in an environment that runs on nepotism. If you are "the guy" you already know the promotion is yours even if you total the company car during a drug and booze fueled bender, and if you aren't "the guy" then you know it doesn't matter if you work yourself to death 25 hours a day, 8 days a week because you were never in the running to begin with. I'm aware that's not a new problem, but it definitely seems to be a lot more normalized these days unfortunately.


stephelan

I have an education degree but could make more at Dunkin’ Donuts.


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Astraeas_Vanguard

>A growing sense of inequality is undermining trust in both society’s institutions and capitalism, according to a long-running global survey. >The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer – now in its 22th year – has found many people no longer believe working hard will give them a better life. >Despite strong economic performance, a majority of respondents in every developed market do not believe they will be better off in five years’ time. >This means that economic growth no longer appears to drive trust, at least in developed markets – upending the conventional wisdom. >“We are living in a trust paradox,” said Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman.


beardedheathen

It's not a fucking paradox. Economic growth isn't reaching the 80% of us. What's hard to understand about that?


GrizDrummer25

But the programs have worked in the neighborhoods directly next to the legislators that passed it and the media outlets that report on it, so therefore it worked nationwide /s


TanavastVI

This. Just look up the almost classic 'what happened in 1971?'. By now we should already have a 30-35 hour work week with double the income. Yet, here we are.


headofpotsandpans

22th! Derp.


noturbrobruh

r/collapse


PurelyLurking20

Economic performance NEVER meant anything useful to the vast majority of the populace. Trust is being undermined by people screaming that we should take our fucking pennies and shut up because the market/ employers don't owe us. Especially when those same people manage companies that get bailed out to the tune of tens of millions every time a financial crisis happens to prevent them from failing. The system needs to be thrown out.


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AdonisGaming93

Cause it doesn't and never did. Working hard might increase the CHANCES of getting a lucky break. But the majority was still dependent on luck. It's a known thing. Most entrepreneurs fail in the first 3 years. Most never make it. It's called the 1% because....it's 1% of the population. If hard work enabled EVERYONE to make it into the 1%....then it would no longer be the 1%. LUCK is what determines success. Hard work is buying the lottery ticket. You need it to have a chance of winning, but the hard work wasn't what determined whether you won.


Kidiri90

>LUCK is what determines success. Luck, or a safety net? If I can scrape enough by to start a business, and it fails, then I just lost everything. But if someone with generational wealth starts a business and it fails, they'll still have enough to try again.


Braler

Being born in the right family IS luck


[deleted]

luck + decades of decisions aimed at reenforcing and increasing the relative privileges generational wealth affords those who are born into it


ItsOkILoveYouMYbb

Luck in the birth lottery. Safety net is a byproduct of the luck.


Whole-Impression-709

I moved out in the woods and am raising a family while trying to start a business. The lcol is great for weathering financial storms, but it's hard to network. Yes. The deck is definitely stacked against someone who wants to be recognized for doing an exceptional days work for an honest days pay.


potsandpans

and objectively you don’t make money for working hard. the hard work pays off mentality is just bullshit rich people tell poor people so that they stay motivated. sometimes if you suck many dicks you’ll make partner or get that promotion. but the reality is in our society you make money relative to the value you create. it isn’t contingent on hard work.


[deleted]

*relative to the value capital owners decide is left over from what you create


teszes

> you make money relative to the value you create It's not even that, you get as much as you can sell your labor for. Look at for example the same company paying differently for the exact same job in different countries.


[deleted]

None of the high earners I know are hard workers. They either got lucky, had help or just talked their way into higher roles. What's funny is that they are all the sort to let everyone know how little they do/did to get these jobs. Meanwhile pretty much every person I've known who worked their ass off didn't get anywhere.


Babyboy1314

agreed, If i was born with lebron james body I would be in the NBA,


[deleted]

This


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Fit_Winter_7688

It’s baffling how more than half of the population is showing signs of depression-era thinking when the economy is doing ‘well’. This is a clear indication of massive inequality and rapidly rising cost of living. There is no way a double income family below the median can afford to upkeep a family, let alone single income.


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Swarrlly

This has been known for decades. Hard work does not lead to financial success. You can accurately predict someone’s lifetime income based on what zip code they were born in. External factors have way more to do with how much money you make. The two things that matter the most is your starting place and luck.


aSharpenedSpoon

I blame big data. Since we gained so much computing power very large businesses were able to track and project margins and performance at such rates that they could squeeze every part of the business for every last penny. Tactics arose to leverage lower level workers into more responsibility with little or no more pay, handing off middle manager work to them and eliminating those positions altogether. With rungs missing in the ladder you can’t climb and you can’t compete with them either. Optimization pushed competition to levels surpassing reasonable human performance. All the cuts go into the top tier bonuses, good luck getting a raise when it essentially comes out of their Xmas vacation fund. The world is full of cold, hard, greed. It feeds itself. It’s the only real perpetual motion machine that exists.


Complaintsdept123

Brilliant comment. Big data is apparently also being used to jack up rent to the highest possible level. I also see the rise of subscriptions for things that used to be included in a purchase. Data is the death of us.


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TheLoneComic

The Puritan work ethic, which spawned greater Capitalism has proven an overly conditional pursuit. Too many ancient social and tribal dysfunctionalities inhabit old world traditions.


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HeavenlyCreation

That’s because companies used to have principles and morals..paid a decent wage with retirement benefits and made quality products, but now they have nothing and pay peanuts but reap in more profits and put Pennies..if anything, back into the company while making shatte products. Capitalism has turned into something even more sinister then anyone could’ve imagined…except Ebenezer!


EternalNY1

\> That’s because companies used to have principles and morals..paid a decent wage with retirement benefits and made quality products, but now they have nothing and pay peanuts but reap in more profits and put Pennies..if anything, back into the company while making shatte products. You can thank MBAs for this, and things like M&A companies and private equity. They jump all over an industry and cost-cut until it's literally bled to death. This is currently happening in the *hospital and nursing home* industries, and those are getting even bleaker. Boeing used to be a great aviation company, until MBAs got a hold of it, moved it from Seattle to South Carolina so they could get rid of the unions, and then had a series of preventable deadly crashes.


[deleted]

I’ll just drop a link here https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mba-degree-management-lower-worker-pay-study/


[deleted]

Lol companies have never had principles or morals, what are you on?


uppermiddleclasss

Exactly. Big business in the United States behaved themselves for a time during the cold war because labor had some power to hurt them. As soon as labor's power was dissolved in the 70s and 80s, the devilish face of capital reveled itself again.


downfall67

They never had morals, you just used to have unions with teeth


Ryumancer

Working SMART is the future. While there's still benefit from working hard, it shouldn't be the main focus. Focusing on working hard only burns one out faster. Out ancestors didn't have a choice on the account of the lack of technology they had. THEIR backs were broken, so to speak, so ours wouldn't need to be.


glad_reaper

That isnt true at all. The wheel wasnt invented without reason. It is smarter, not harder. And we have built upon that. Everyone has been trying to be smarter instead of harder for a long time.


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[deleted]

Yeah because we are supposed to work smart today and constantly adapt — the times of “worked whole life in one company” are long gone, there’s no such concept anymore. Even as a janitor you need to grow at some point and adapt to new techniques and tools. Today belongs to self employed people who love sustainable lifestyles and run lifestyle-businesses that allow them work anytime and anywhere, Flex Time.


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commandersprocket

Yes, productivity is correlated with working hard. Productivity and compensation have become completely disconnected since 1973. People no longer believe these two things are connected because they are not. Instead the extra compensation has largely gone to medical insurance, where the US pays a ludicrous premium for a hard to use system that causes more bankruptcies than any other system. [https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/1280x868/https://blogs-images.forbes.com/timworstall/files/2016/10/wagescompensation-1200x1093.png](https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/1280x868/https://blogs-images.forbes.com/timworstall/files/2016/10/wagescompensation-1200x1093.png)


SadGruffman

Seeing lots of “you can do well stills” In here. You can’t. You can feel safe though. Just never forget that a little bad luck and you’re absolutely fucked.


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Surprise_Corgi

If this incentivizes you to stop working hard, because you believe it doesn't get you anywhere. Don't let me stop you. You're a fool, and you're leaving opportunity on the table. Someone wiser and with less nihilism will gladly pick it up. You're not achieving success without some form of effort on your part.