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Comment by Krisjohn | Hacker News Reader

Crap article.

The problem is that the maths doesn't work anymore. Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a person's life, caused by the pandemic pushes McJobs into "working there makes a loss" territory.

Every single employer that crawls out from under their rock and howls some version of "nobody wants to work anymore" is saying "I pay crap wages for my crap job, and expected to do so forever". When the boss and all the customers spend every moment of every day taking a dump on you, they should be grateful when the worst that happens is you stop turning up.

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> Every single employer that crawls out from under their rock and howls some version of "nobody wants to work anymore" is saying "I pay crap wages for my crap job, and expected to do so forever".

Even worse, they also expected to make obscene profit off the backs of those workers being paid crap wages.

McDonald's, as one example, makes $10B in profit every single year. [1]. Their profit went up during the pandemic, 13% YoY.

How anyone thinks they shouldn't increase wages and be content with only a few billion in profit is insanity.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/gros...

McDonald's has been reducing their number of workers and franchising as per their 2016-2017 plan. So most of the people that work at McD are not even their employees (since McD the brand is now just a real estate/leasing business).

That’s not how it works. Most fast food restaurants are franchised, not company owned. An average McDonald’s owner (franchisee) only makes about $150k per year off it [1]. And that’s after investing a rather large sum of money into the business in the first place. I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”.

[1] https://work.chron.com/average-income-fast-food-franchise-ow...

> I’ll let you do the math on how much wages could go up for workers before that number turns into “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”.

Then that is exactly what should happen.

The world isn't better because McDonald's is in it and everywhere. If there were less, there would be more locally owned burger joints, and more "regular" folk making money instead of corporate giants.

> “I would make more money doing anything else with my capital”.

Workers should choose to walk away from the current bad deals.

Franchise operators should walk away from the bad deals that result from paying enough to fill out their work force.

Eventually, corporate McDonalds should face a choice about whether to lose market share or stop extracting so much rent from their franchisees.

Isn't that how markets are supposed to work?

That seems to be exactly how the market is working.

>Workers should choose to walk away from the current bad deals.

Right, but they should also face the consequences (ie. not getting paid). Imagine a world where a SaaS vendor rejects an offer from a customer because they think the price is too low, but the government steps in and pays the SaaS vendor anyways.

That is a ridiculous comparison.

A business going under is very ethically different from people starving and being homeless.

As a result, the people who own and operate businesses have a choice to decline business in a manner that people in poverty don't.

That lack of choice prevents markets from functioning property. You seem to be advocatibg removing that choice.

Is this actually true? I remember my grad level engineering classes in which I was the only American. And these weren't tiny grad classes either, at least 10-20 students.

Now I'm starting to think all of this is simply the endgame of our education system.

Actually, I would argue that is simply economic rationality.

1) A PhD is generally an economic disaster. For 6+ years you are making less than minimum wage, and only the most technical fields benefit from it economically. Those 6 years put you almost $250K behind someone earning a decent engineering salary--and the working engineer has a 6 year experience record and corresponding professional network. If you have to spend a couple more years as an underpaid Postdoc, you never catch up economically.

2) A quick Master's generally makes good economic sense in a technical field--get it as cheap and fast as you can. It's generally worth a nice salary bump, and it puts you into a slightly different category when layoffs and stuff come around. (Master's degrees often can be considered for "R&D" positions that a Bachelor's is considered unqualified for even with 20+ years of experience--HR rules are stupid.)

3) Advanced degrees in non-technical fields are a HUGE net negative economically.

In addition, a non-trivial amount of foreign grad students are sponsored by their government to be there. Colleges love them because they pay full, non-resident prices in cash.

I'd say a large majority of Americans complaining about student debt today have advanced degrees in non-technical fields. The extra earning power you get in the U.S. for STEM degrees far outstrips any cost of college or healthcare compared to Europe.

What you're ignoring is that employers have been using "has a degree" as a filter for decades now.

Any type of position, including the lauded "learn to code" ones, starts with "do you have some type of degree?". This is the rule, and while exceptions exist, they're not common or reliable. It is still generally looked down on to only have a high school education.

I concur. As an engineering manager, I had recruiters question my decision to hire people without degrees, even after they had verified work history and has passed objective tests proving they had the necessary skills.

So I need to figure out how to translate my recently acquired OMSCS degree into more money, apparently. My current company gave me a lot of 'attaboys' but it has no value otherwise.

Easy, find a new job.

Switching jobs is by far the simplest way to increase your compensation.

Have you asked for a raise, and ideally also for increased responsibilities? My experience is that people don’t usually get raises without asking for them, and specifically without seriously looking at other jobs. By far the best way to get a raise is to find another job you like, get the offer, then give your boss the chance to match. But if you like the job and would rather keep it, then I recommend telling your manager about this before you start interviewing, so they have time to work the machinery and try to materialize an increase for you if they want to keep you (and have any internal leverage).

Unfortunately most company HR programs are f*** up and won’t authorize anything other than token raises for existing employees, whereas the recruiting team will authorize much higher pay in order to actually sign candidates that managers want to hire. Thus you’re really anchored to wherever you started at any given company, and if you want to see a big change in role and comp it’s almost always necessary to change jobs.

> By far the best way to get a raise is to find another job you like, get the offer, then give your boss the chance to match.

Don't do this--especially if you like your boss.

Invoking "job offer match" machinery is a royal pain in the ass for your boss. If there's a solid chance you'll turn it down anyway, you've just pissed off your boss for no good reason. Just give notice.

It's better to simply leave on good terms saying "It's just a really good opportunity" which blocks match offers but leaves open the door to come back in a couple of years for a much higher salary.

And, if they can't take that, well, then you probably don't want to be working there anyway.

> A PhD is generally an economic disaster.

At the same time, there are a number of perks that come with getting a Ph.D. that are hard to get without one. For instance in my job as a lecturer, which requires a Ph.D. for the position:

- I only work 9 months out of the year, and I'm paid a salary most people don't earn over 12.

- I get 9 weeks paid vacation each year (5 weeks between fall and spring semester, 2 weeks at the end of spring semester, 1 week in the fall semester, 1 week in the spring semester).

- I only work 4 days a week during regular semesters. Of those 4 days I work maybe 4-5 hours a day.

- I can choose to work over the summer semester if I want more money, or I can just take off for 3 months.

- I don't really have a boss. The department chair is essentially just another faculty member who fills the role for a while. If I wanted to I could even step up and do it for a couple of years. But other than getting my classes assigned to me, I'm completely autonomous. There's no one monitoring when I come to campus or when I leave. As long as I show up to class, no one cares.

- I have the option to go for tenure which gives me unparalleled job security.

- I get an assistant to whom I can offload the more boring parts of my job (grading).

- I get full tuition for myself if I or any of my dependents want to take classes. This more than makes up that $250k if I want to put my kids through school at my institution.

- I can spend 20% of my time contracting for extra income. I've found people pay a premium for the Ph.D. after your signature for things like expert testimony, credential evaluation, and tutoring (rich people who want their kid to get into a top college will pay $300 per hour for a tutor with a Ph.D.).

- I have access to a campus community including the libraries, fabrication labs, gyms, pools, cafeterias. You might find these at large tech companies, but you typically won't also find a theatre, sporting events, and concerts right outside your office.

- I don't have to work in a high cost of living tech hub. My job is in-demand basically everywhere in the world. If I want to move for a year I can be a visiting professor somewhere else for a while and come back.

I don't know of any other job that's really comparable, and a Ph.D. is a hard prereq. More than worth the early economic hit in my opinion.

IF you get a job as a professor.

And how many of your classmates also became a professor?

Sure, winning the lottery is an excellent way to get through life.

You just can't plan around it.

I was a lecturer for a semester, many years ago. In my view the wages and working conditions of lecturers is highly variable. Your case may be unusual, or you're in a specific field where lecturers are treated particularly well.

In my case, there were no full time lectureships, only half-time, which came with no benefits. (I simultaneously applied for positions in two separate colleges of the university, which made up 100%, and then they had to give me benefits, but that's a freak event). The policy of no benefits for part-timers predates Obama.

You are not a permanent employee, but have to re-apply for whatever is available each semester. You sign a form waiving many of your labor rights. In my state, public employees can't unionize, except for the police.

Lecturers in the humanities get paid a pittance and often have to work at multiple schools to make ends meet.

In most fields, the fact of being a lecturer disqualifies you from applying for a tenure track job because you have not been doing full time research to build up a publication record and funding proposal. Lecturers and post-docs face the same brutal odds against ever getting onto the tenure track.

> Lecturers in the humanities get paid a pittance and often have to work at multiple schools to make ends meet.

Lecturers in technical fields get paid a pittance. I can't imagine how bad it is for the humanities.

I got paid $5000 for a 14 week CS course that was about 40 hours/week of work. To put that in perspective, if I give that course to professionals I easily pull that $5000 in a single 40 hour week.

You seem to be contrasting the proportion of US citizens in postgrad education (in your experience) to GP's point about supply and demand in the labor market for low skill, low wage service jobs. What's the relationship there? I don't understand at all.

Yes you are right. However, my gripe is related. I've seen tens of articles posted here about the lack of available talent in engineering and thought there may be parallels to less skilled work.

Ha ha, sounds like my DSP class in grad school. 27 Asians and three white guys.

>Wages have been flat for so long that the slight increase in costs, distributed around a person's life, caused by the pandemic pushes McJobs into "working there makes a loss" territory

Just to be clear, you think working at a McJob actually costs you money?

Job may require you to have a car/commute or pay for public transport, pay for services you'd otherwise have time to do yourself, to pay to put children into childcare (my childcare is AU$122 per day, per child).

I think the term you'd want to research is "Welfare Cliff".

Businesses have operating expenses that mean they operate at a loss despite selling product, why is it in conceivable the same might apply for laborers? Transport, shelter, food, tons of jobs offer pay such that at the end of the month, you're losing money and still living in substandard conditions.

Whether you make enough at a McJob to pay for everything is a different claim than the one the GP made. Their claim, at least how I read it, is that you lose money by working a McJob.

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