Hacker News Reader

Comment by kingTug | Hacker News Reader

Trailers and video games sounds preferable to any type of "customer is always right" retail job. Retail jobs are abusive and cause depression. They are not viable careers. I too would live on the poverty line before returning to that life.

View on HN

Easy solution: pay more. Easy to get people to go back if they get paid well enough! At some point, the employer will find enough people to go back to work - and that point is what (economically) the job is worth. A lot of people realized their number is higher than they thought because their alternative was not as bad as they thought.

It's still a dead end job though. Even if it pays $100k/yr, if that's all it'll ever be, it's just not worth if the alternative is something with an actual career path.

Any job making $100k/yr isn't "dead end". You don't need a career path because you've already reached the end of it. You can live quite comfortably almost anywhere in the US at that salary and thus need no further advancement. If $100k counts as "dead end" by your definition, then your definition is useless. What number would you put as the threshold if not $100k, or even something below it?

Considering the median wage in the US is around 35k, a 100k "dead end" job sounds pretty good.

It also doesn't remotely sound "dead end" to me at all. That leaves you set for life; you're better off than most people. And if your partner also works ...!!

Spoken like a true tech elite. Most of the country would kill to get a “100k a year dead end job”.

If retail paid well, even if it was still a dead end unto itself, would allow people to save money. They would have options. Retail is a dead end job and barely pays above poverty level. They usually don't get any healthcare coverage either. Unless a retail worker is lucky or lives like a monk it's hard to make enough money to ever get ahead. One bad illness or injury can ruin them financially.

Retail could be a starting point for someone. It doesn't have to be a career. But with low wages and no benefits it's usually just enough to keep someone barely living.

I agree, but on the flip side, these guys aren’t doing anything to better themselves. They can’t hold down relationships and they wouldn’t be able to support a family anyway.

I don’t think this is the kind of behavior we want to incentivize. But you are right - we have GOT to bring some jobs back that pay a decent wage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com