Let’s take a look at the most common jobs in America. Click Here. Of the top 50, fewer than 10 require a college degree. Many are what we have been conditioned to refer to as “low skilled” jobs. This is a reference to defend the current practice of providing low wages for these jobs: “low skill = low wage”. Let’s call it what it is: Job Shaming. In fact, apart from registered nurses, none in the Top 10 have a yearly salary over $35,000 and the top 15 account for one quarter of our entire work force.
I ask that we stop calling these “low skilled” jobs and call them what they are: jobs vital to the economy and prosperity of all. These are vital jobs. Let’s also stop denigrating these jobs by saying if we raise wages, they will just be replaced by robots. The fact is that the proliferation of AI technology seems more likely to disrupt an unexpected population: skilled knowledge workers whose jobs involve data-driven decision-making. So yes, some may be replaced by automation, but that is a universal problem, not cause to ignore one facet of the working class.
Getting back to the most common jobs in America, these citizens live paycheck to paycheck, can’t save for retirement, and are one injury or illness away from bankruptcy. The remedy is not free college for all. The remedy is not more job training. The remedy is a paradigm shift in recognizing that vital jobs, no matter the level of education required, deserve a salary that allows the individual to support a family, save for retirement, and be secure in the knowledge that if injured or ill, all will not be lost. The remedy is sending people to Washington D.C. and Beacon Hill who will take on this challenge.
I have to add this personal anecdote:
I was 20 years old, going to college, and working at various part-time jobs to make ends meet. This particular night, I was working at a gas station on a very cold, very windy, and very wet night. I could hear the car coming from a mile away. It was an obvious flat tire sound. flop flop flop…..heading my way.
I worked at a gas station. There was no indoor garage, no vehicle lift. The driver of the car parked it outside the little office that I had, walked in and asked me to change his tire with his spare.
It was a very nasty night. Normally I would do it for nothing and normally, the person would be thankful and give me $5. This was 44 years ago. $5 was good money. But this guy looked cheap and I had been stiffed a few times. Plus, it was a very nasty night.
I told him, “Sure, but it’s your jack and it’s outside and it’s nasty weather, so it’s going to be $20. (about $100 in today’s figures)
He told me that was robbery. I told him he was welcome to drive to the Sears store down the road, and they would charge him at least $1o and he’d ruin his rim on the way – if he even made it there before they closed, or he could do it himself, or he could pay me.
He looked down at his fancy shoes, pressed suit of clothes and fine overcoat and said “Fine, you win” and handed me the $20.
Did I win? You tell me. I spent about 30 minutes in the cold rain, struggling with his jack and lug wrench and finally got the spare on. Clearly this was “unskilled labor”, hardly worth, in today’s world $200 an hour.
In my world, we both won. I made enough to pay for gas for the month’s commute to college and he saved his expensive suit and car rim.
That’s all I ask for in a new economy.
According to sites like this, the average price for a tire change (just changing the tire, like you did) is about $100. An alternative, even then, is to carry membership in AAA.
So — after all the shouting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, it looks to me as though the price of labor for a tire change has kept up with inflation.
I can’t speak towards your animosity towards people who pay you the going rate. I actually feel bad for you that after nearly fifty years you still feel enough pain about this episode to merit adding a comment to describe it.
What I can say is that this guy paid you the going rate, paid you more than you normally got, and gave you enough money in a half-hour to pay your gas money for a month. The data tells us that some college kid working the same job today would get about the same amount. I guess a hundred bucks still covers a month of gas if you don’t drive too far.
It sounds to me as though in fact the world for today’s college kid, at least in terms of this example, is about the same as it was for you and me in 1975. So whatever it is or was that drives the hostility you still feel towards this is coming from inside, rather than outside, yourself.
I just have to add that in this #metoo era, if you’re anything like me or any other college-age young man that I know, if the driver had been a woman — especially an attractive woman — the story would be COMPLETELY different. No money would have changed hands at all. A smile and a phone number (even if fake) would have floated my boat for weeks.
There were times when it was a woman. The only one I recall was a woman who told me she had no money, but would pay me later. I changed the tire and she did return later with $5. My ‘going rate” was whatever I felt like charging, or not charging. As I mentioned, this was not part of my job. I guess you could say that I was stealing from my employer by making money on company time.
Again, most people tossed me $5, which was appreciated.
What you are missing is this: What I was doing was unskilled labor. Anyone who drives a car ought to know how to do it. Instructions are in the owner’s manual. Left to loosen, right to tighten…..the “skill level” to do it on a warm sunny July morning was the same as a the skill level on that cold, raining, miserable night, so by that paradigm, I should have been grateful to get $5 either way as the skill level remains the same.
Yeah, I understand.
My observation is that the current inflation-adjusted rate for the unskilled labor of changing a tire is about the same as it was in 1975. So as much as we’ve gone back and forth about all this, in this example things are pretty much same today as they were 44 years ago.
For me the most telling description is when you say the guy “looked cheap”. I also generally assume men in suits (politicians, lawyers, etc) are going to try and screw me or any average guy but I wait until their intentions are clearer and react then. The guy might have been a plumber dressed up to go to a wake.
You want someone who runs a fryolator at McDonalds to be able to buy a house and retire to a comfortable life when the training for that job lasts 30 minutes? It is hardly a “vital” job. When I wind up at a fast food place now I prefer to use the kiosk rather than deal with the sullen, disaffected counter clerk who becomes baffled when I give them $10.20 for a $5.20 order – so I can get a $5 bill back. Someone who spends months training to be an electrician is always going to make more and they should. Someone else who spends years training for brain surgery is more difficult to replace and vital.
Someone who spends four years of college studying Polynesian literature is not as valuable as my plumber. The marketplace occasionally has some hiccups and well intentioned choices don’t always work out, but that’s life. Changing a tire has different skill levels. In the rain on the side of the highway it is worth more than in your driveway on a sunny day. Joining AAA is worth more than either option.
I’ve taken down 100 ft oak trees by myself. When I recently needed one taken down I paid $500 because it was 20 ft from my house. If I had received a low bid of $2000 I would have done it myself.
Yes. And since you do not, please explain to us how this person is supposed to survive.
It’s not? I know of no McDonalds that do not offer fries and fillet of fish. If you can produce one, I will agree that such a service is not vital.
Minimum pay yields minimum results….go figure.
The marketplace is rigged in favor of the wealthy. Please don’t expect us to believe otherwise.