Sunday, December 9, 2018

Low-wage work really is a dead end

There is a good point to know about Dead End Jobs and how
in small towns not being able to do better.
It's a mix of the good old boys system, corruption, fighting wage growth
in that the wages are much the same where ever you go.
A manager job at the Denny's restaurant was the same pay as a Walmart worker.
A QuikTrip Store clerk was the same pay as a new Teachers job.
Years ago Georgia Pacific would hire people but found anyway to fire them
before 6 months so they didn't have to pay benefits. So the workers caught
on to it and planed to work there for a short time. And so many other places
where like that also and the workers acted like it's a temp job.

My past girlfriend working at Walmart tried to move up to a department manager 
position but as expected she didn't get the job. No one there really got
anything. Your not able to do better! All of this is small town corruption and
so is common. Many in small towns spent their life at their dead end job only to
retire at it. Minimum wage retirement is common in small towns.
People walking with no cars. And I am saying walking like 10 miles all
over town. Or riding a bike, etc the same. Living with no AC or heat to save money.
Hyper mile their car to save on gas. As many are broke the first week of the month 
looking confused about others talking about shopping online? 
"I only have $20 in the bank how??????" Too broke to shop on-line!

Just a big mess of crap overall added to issues in the changing job skills that 
will be needed with no foundation for it. How are you to do better when you
are holding your breath running a marathon? Change is needed!

And so for the workers to know otherwise they don't know then wonder what
is slapping their ass? Not to be unaware thinking it happens for 
no reason just out of the blue. Life runs over you so it's best to be aware!
There is a need to be brought up sometime keep a eye ahead to be ahead!

Bigger cities have more resources for learning. Noted why they say your 
education is only worth their paper it's printed on.
There might that time to migrate to a better environment.

~~~~~For millions, low-wage work really is a dead end
The U.S. economy is booming, unemployment is at a 17-year low and wages appear to be picking up. So what's not to like?

If you're one of the approximately 65 million Americans in low-paid service jobs, getting a share of that economic prosperity may be unbearably difficult. Jobs may be plentiful, but finding one that pays better than your current gig is much more rare than commonly believed, according to new research paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

"If you start in one of those low-wage occupations, you have a higher probability of becoming unemployed than moving up the career ladder," said Todd Gabe, a co-author of the paper, titled "Can Low-Wage Workers Get Better Jobs?" 

The answer seems to be, "With extreme difficulty." 

The authors looked at 175,000 workers in so-called low-quality jobs -- with low pay, unpredictable scheduling and few or no benefits -- and examined how those people's jobs changed over a six-year period ending in 2017. Of this group, only 5.2 percent were in a higher-paying job one year later, the authors found. By contrast, more than 10 percent left the workforce and 6.7 percent became unemployed. 

In other words, a low-wage worker was three times more likely to stop working altogether than to move to a better job in a given year.

Among those who did move from low-wage to higher-wage work, some common threads appeared. Typical jobs they upgraded to included work as nursing aides, customer service representatives, administrative assistants or wholesale and manufacturing sales. None of the "better" jobs typical for workers leaving low-wage work were in production, the paper notes.

The single most common "better" job that low-wage workers moved into was truck driving. About one in 300 made this move. That's in line with other research that has found some kind of truck driving a common "opportunity job," paying around the national average and accessible to people without college degrees. Other opportunity jobs included clerks, automotive technicians and repair workers.

Those who had a four-year college degree and were younger were also more likely to move into higher-paid work than their peers. "Don't underestimate the value of getting an education," Gabe said.

These findings directly contradict the rosy discussion of today's job market. Those who favor minimal regulation and oppose raising wages for service jobs often say such jobs are short-term and entry-level, providing workers with a first step on the ladder up job mobility. 

The New York Fed study's authors say, "If low-wage jobs are simply a stepping stone to higher-quality jobs, then the problem of low-wage work can be solved via the labor market." But, they added, "If, on the other hand, people tend to get trapped in low-wage jobs that are difficult to escape, then some more proactive policies may be warranted."  

However, proactive policies don't seem to be coming. Instead, public policy is pushing more people into the workforce while rescinding many protections working people have previously enjoyed.

Still, the role of low-paid work in the U.S. is important. Nine years after the Great Recession began, the largest and fastest-growing sector of the economy is in low-paid, "service class" jobs. 

Labor advocates and some academics have argued that rolling back economic polarization requires upgrading the jobs at the very bottom. As Richard Florida, a co-author of the New York Fed paper, said in another paper he co-wrote: "The only way to create a large number of family-supporting jobs that will rebuild the middle class is by upgrading the millions of precarious, low-skill, and low-wage service class jobs we already have."