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Comment by tetranomiga | Hacker News Reader

He said, in a time of record unemployment and low wages that are impossible to live off of. Almost like there are other factors at play here than just men being lazy. HN loves to forget that not everybody can be a FAANG employee or has the desire to sit in front of a computer writing code their whole lives.

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I'm a male FAANG employee in my 30's living with my parents.

It's nice. My dad makes us lunches, my mom cooks dinners, and I do yardwork. My girlfriend lives a few miles away with her parents, who are great. We regularly eat with one family or the other, and we often sleep together at one house or the other. We use the family cars.

Except for the job, we'd be considered failures for this nice life.

It seems like you're not really starting adult life, and you're running out of years to do so. I started my 30's with 3 kids already, and ended my 30's with 9 kids. I bought a house. That house is my responsibility, without even an HOA. I don't have to ask mom for anything. I don't need parental permission. I got to pick the car I wanted to buy. If I feel like painting the house cyan or parking my car on the lawn, I can do so.

Bullshit. Oklahoma has a 4% unemployment rate and a very low cost of living. Some other states are similar. Anyone who's willing to show up and work hard can survive there.

You have to consider that deciding to stay unemployed is one of the few remaining ways workers can strike nowadays. Most of them have zero power on the negotiating table but they still have some power by choosing to not work at all.

I'd much rather stay on welfare/parents basement and play video games all day than move to oklahoma and work min wage

The US doesn't have perpetual welfare for non-disabled people. Hopefully your parents love you enough to not allow you to live as a parasite.

Boulder, Colorado has a McDonald’s offering $18/hour. Colorado is an awesome place to live and it’s more than double the federal minimum wage.

The contractor who just renovated my house in Colorado is actively looking for a low-skill, high-effort worker for $35/hour.

The mason who did some stone work for me is looking for an apprentice and will pay $25/hour.

The electrician in my area is moving away, leaving a huge gap in the market. He earns well north of $200k/year.

The jobs are out there.

Colorado is expensive as anything to live in and is only getting more expensive. $18/hour is NOT a livable wage in Boulder. $35/hour is only 72k a year at full employment (unlikely as a contractor employee) and probably will not receive benefits. That is also not enough to live in Denver or Boulder with a family.

The jobs are out there AND DO NOT PAY ENOUGH TO LIVE IN THE AREAS THEY ARE IN.

And before some genius comes in and says "Well don't live in those expensive cities then", those expensive cities still want burgers and stocked store shelves and everything else, they just don't want to pay people enough to live off of.

The US is not in record unemployment. Not in either direction.

It's recovering and that is a good thing.

Youth unemployment in Spain or Italy is clearly structural.

> Almost like there are other factors at play here than just men being lazy.

The story as conveyed by OP is textbook people being lazy.

You can live off of minimum wage. Maybe not in some places like big cities, but certainly if you moved to cheaper cost of living locations.

which might not have a job at all?

From what I understand, the problem is not minimum wages, but unstable employment. You may be getting paid an acceptable amount but at the drop of a hat your employer will say that you aren't working next week which is much harder to cope with than earning less but knowing you will have x in the bank every week.

Big cities still need people to do the jobs that only pay minimum wage. There was a whole thing last year about how important those minimum wage workers are, but you've probably forgotten already.

Never stated that they weren't important? Most minimum wage workers I know that work in the city live outside of it.

Unemployment is actually at a ten-year average at the moment, and entry-level wages are growing.

Entry-level wages are being heavily outpaced by inflation and COL increases, so they're not actually "growing".

The COL increases are real, but are largely driven by growth in average wages. (Techies moving into your town, and outbidding you on rent.)

You are correct to observe that people at the bottom are being left behind.

I make $15.60 an hour and I do ok.

> not everybody [...] has the desire to sit in front of a computer writing code their whole lives

Sure, I also have the "desire" to play video games and do nothing all day, I just realize that it's not going to end well for me...

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