I apologise to the OP for taking part in diverting this thread way off topic.

Well, income difffers by region, but would you say that for the most part 50K is a "solid" middle class income?

So, are you saying that someone with a high school diploma is skilled and someone without is unskilled? If this is the case, how would you classify someone with a general equivalency diploma? Are they skilled or unskilled?

 

Actually not everyone had a TV in the early 70s.
You are correct, most still were Black & White TVs, either purchased new or like ours purchased used from someone who could afford to get a color TV.
Actually people got a lot of stuff from Garage & Yard sales. Hand me down clothes were the norm in the early 70s.
Cars from the early 60s were still quite common in the early 70s, as not that many could afford to get a new car.

not too sure where you got that from, you are the one saying it was better before. I am telling you this is BS.

Actually know 1 guy that used to work in a radiator shop in the late 90s now works in the IT section at a school. He took a few courses, and got the MS certs. This is someone with a HS diploma, no college. Not too sure where you get the requirements from, but actually know a few that are HS only with a good paying IT job working on computers with some certification courses. Wow, pay reward ( + >=12.00 / hr ) for a little investment, no MBA needed.

Don't worry the Democrats will never allow this to happen. They are trying to make minimum wage a living wage. Now that would put us in a good spot, right ?
What does a big mac cost when the guy taking your order is making 32 K / yr, and what does that do to what you make ( you would get a huge pay cut ).

I gave 2 examples that I have called in the last 45 days, not too sure what support you are calling..

None, but by your account you should get rewarded for making the investment in your education ( your more pay for a Master Degree tag line ), so the converse should hold true, you should be penalized for not making an investment in your education.
Not too sure why you think it is the responsibility of the population to pay for those who do not want to work their way through life.
Kind of ironic considering your thoughts on an automatic pay increase just for getting a master degree.
If it is not they should have a good paying job for dropping out, it is entitlement plans should not be cut so they can live well by what I get from your posts.

 

Certainly 50k is a solid income to be considered middle class.

No I don't see a person with or without a high school diploma as being skilled. Either way, without additional training/college, they are pretty much in a no-win spot and are not going to find good paying jobs for the most part.

 

Yes people buy new things today and rarely buy used because of the cheap cost of goods. Most things are made with (almost) slave labor and certainly makes things cheaper. The cost to repair an item makes salvaging things hardly worth it.

People can occassionally find jobs available with some certs, I will give you that but there are a whole lot more that need bachelor degrees and masters degrees to get an interview. Again without any skill set you are not going to find a good paying job. Most people walked into factories with little skill and were shown what to do and went at it.

Do you think getting rid of the minimum wage would be good?

I agree that I am torn on the living wage/minimum wage argument. I do see both sides and understand the pitfalls.

Certainly there needs to be personal responsibility. Many people seemingly have forgotten about that and do expect to be cared for regardless of effort and that needs to change.

 

Yeah, well high school isn't exactly designed to provide us with the skills needed to get us through the rest of our lives. If we think that it is, we're bound to fail.

At a minimum, people should get trained in something, shouldn't they? You don't need a high school diploma to be trained, do you?

You don't see that there are multiple options for people seeking to learn a skill? You don't see that if people want to, they can seek out the training they need to learn a skill? What, do you think that we should use our tax dollars to seek out thoes who may need to learn a skill and lead them to training?

 

Ahhh, you want the jobs that even a monkey could do. You want to make sure that even people with ZERO ambition and earn a "living" wage.

Employers saw that they could purchase a machine to do that factory task for less money than teaching an "unskilled" laborer to do the job. A machine doesn't need health insurance, sick time, maternity leave, workmans comp, vacations time, unemployment insurance, ect, ect.

There are less factory jobs here because employers cannot make money employing "unskilled" individuals. If a business doesn't make money, there isn't much sense providing a good or service. If the government had less of a grip on commerce in this country, there would be more breathing room and more could prosper.

 

So is it better now or then armed with this information ? ( more of the masses can enjoy entertainment, and if they choose, what passes for news these days ).

Not in the IT world. I know of 2 that were spooks that laid out Ethernet cable in the sand in advance of the gulf war back in the day and one that was the comms person for Navy teams.
They had very good paying jobs at vendors with getting shot at laying cable as the back ground. Same as the example above, they worked for what they got, after getting the job ( self taught, self motivated ).


Not all of them were great wages, some were OK wages ( not middle of middle class by any stretch of the meaning ).
Unions made unskilled labor a high paying job, that we are paying for dearly today.

I never brought this up, you introduced the topic...why I have no idea.
This is one of those, there is enough work to be done on getting the current mess cleaned up, why add work to the pile ?

Be careful there, that is some Republican talk you have going on there.

No doubt about your statement. If someone wants to have a family, they need to figure out how to support it, prior to creating it ( which would also make them consider the size of it ).
Going at it from the other direction just makes problems.

 

I just had this discussion with you in another thread about comparing our lives now to not too long ago. Even if wages are lower in some areas, they are higher in others. We also have much nicer products and services today than just a decade ago. The reason wages are lower in some areas is because those areas have become more competitive. Where there is more competition, there is better prices and better service.

How am I disconnected from the rest of the world when I kill you argument after argument?