How about the adults in those jobs, which are paid at the market rate for their job, deciding this job is not what I want or need to support myself long term, so I am going to go to night school/join an apprenticeship program/start some online classes/whatever it takes to move up? If they did this, in theory the pay would move up because the jobs could not be filled. Or maybe all those high school and college kids that used to have these jobs could fill them again.
What jobs are they going to get? Do we have a bunch of jobs sitting waiting for them? Or will they get degrees and find there is no demand for their expertise?
+1
Because, we could literally have a country filled entirely with people with degrees in medicine, accounting, engineering, law, science, computers, etc. and ... someone is going to have to clean the toilets and flip the burgers! So it would be the C engineering student and not the A engineering student. Or it would be the accountant whose parents don't "know" anyone, not the accountant whose daddy works at the company.
SOMEBODY HAS TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH. I guess I don't understand the people who say "go to school! Better yourself!" when they NEVER address this issue!
It used to be that a college degree was your ticket. Literally. Few people got them, and if you did - you were made! Now, it's like a high school diploma. Many many jobs that never required a degree - well they do now. And college is more expensive.
So Billy and Betty go to college, because their parents told them it was a ticket to a better life. But their parents didn't understand much about the cost of it, or the usefulness of the degree, and now Billy and Betty are up to their eyeballs, working at jobs that 20 years ago didn't require a degree.
But that's not all! John and Jane are in their 50's and "worked their way up!" in jobs that didn't require a degree. But now they do! John and Jane find themselves unemployed, and unable to get a job, because you can hire a 30-something with a degree for less than an experienced 50-something.
It used to be that fast food jobs were for "kids". Just like bagging groceries (that was my HS job). But now it seems we've expanded the jobs for "kids" - both in numbers and in types. What % of jobs out there are service/ fast food/ retail - compared to 30 years ago? What jobs are considered "easy" and "not worthy of more than minimum wage" compared to 30 years ago?
When I was a kid, in the dark ages of the 70's and the 80's, lots of people had manual labor jobs that were hard work - and nobody looked down on them for it. You bagged groceries at the store, then you moved up to stocking shelves (where you could get benefits), and then you could move up to the deli or to be a cashier. That was a solid job! No, it wasn't living the high life. But two parents working one job each could make it.
Well, nowadays, ask anyone, a grocery store job is easy! It's for teenagers! Those people don't deserve benefits like medical or dental -they should have gone to school!
What next? What's the next "useless" job we are going to add to the list? When did it become SHAMEFUL to work hard at a job?