Your thoughts on the lack of workers- Great Dave Ramsey with Mike Row video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM7wMX9SeCU


What are your thoughts? Are we truly getting lazier with a decreased threshold for discomfort? It talks about how we have become allergic to hard work, not just at work, but in life in general, as well as society's view of the trade jobs.

-T

 

People are much lazier nowadays and have much lower threshold for discomfort, absolutely. It makes complete sense if you really think about it. Amazon, ordering food and groceries to your house, car wash coming to you, smart/automated everything, etc. The trades thing I feel like has been around a while because people see labor as lower class. As an engineer I'll tell you that learning to patch drywall correctly was fun, challenging and much more useful to my life than the 100s of useless facts I got from school. But I will say there is a place for it all. I think the general thinking skills a d expansion of horizons from college was Irreplaceable though. Could you eventually get that on your own? Sure, maybe at 40 or 50, but probably not 25.

As my dad always says, we are not tourists in our own life. You have to work for things. Everything has a time and place, especially in America. There's a reason mortgages are 30 years, it gives you time to educate, fuck around, buckle down, start a family, work and work, then retire right around when your house is paid, THEN become a tourist of what you created and achieved.

 

Preface: I didn't watch the whole video. Mostly b/c Ramsey doesn't jibe with me and I don't have 2h+ to kill.

If you're seriously asking why people are giving up on work though, I can share my perspective. Not for the sake of debate, but just to lend a viewpoint.

I work in an industry with lots of young people entering it. These young folks are paid better than fast-food wages, at least doubly so, so there's less "F this shit, I'm out" mentality you get from jobs like, say foodservice, where people basically shit on you all day long while you get paid minimum wage [or] a fraction of minimum wage + tips. And on people being nasty, I'll tell you, my best friend owns a brewpub, I shoot the shit with his workers and they tell me customers - everyday folks like you and me - have gotten absurdly entitled, Karen-on-steroids level, and the pandemic has divided folks to the point the worker either gets extra respect or extra disrespect, nothing in between.

Anyway, I'm always checking in with the "kids" working for us because its been a f'n pain in the ass to hire anyone since 2020, so I do what I can within reason to keep them feeling appreciated, heard, and thus keep seats warm. I do this for multiple teams adjacent to mine, not just mine, b/c I've done all their jobs during my career, I've been in their shoes in life to some degree, and because nobody ever did it for me. Through that channel of communication, they often share things with me, quite often from the anti-work subreddit on Reddit, which show very clear examples of why people hate their jobs and don't want to work. It's their way of saying, "Don't be this person" and "If you see stuff like this happening from other managers, say something", because they know they don't have any voice, whatsoever, which is another major part of the problem, both work-wise, and societally.

I won't bombard anyone with the latest of those links, or any links, b/c nobody clicks links on internet forums for topics like this.

Instead, maybe a picture and some words. The picture is something one of the young ladies working on a team adjacent to me shared.

Within our business, their main beef is two things:

• The benefits, if you get any, usually suck because they don't cover enough to keep you from having to fork out at least 10% at the dentist or doctor, which with medical bills these days, 10% out of pocket can break you when living check to check. Example: Our oldest just got a shard of glass in her foot, and it worked its way pretty deep. Like, x-rays, MRI, and surgery deep. Surgery alone was $12k, of which we paid $1,300 out of pocket on, and my wife has ultra-Cadillac insurance that charged us $250 total to deliver that kid. That $1,300 would've left several of these young'uns at work unable to eat anything short of bread and ramen for the next month.
• The money they get in exchange for said labor is worthless in today's market, compared to yesteryear's market, which is clearly visible in the image shared with me below. They know no matter what they do, there's no amount of work they'll ever be able to perform in an 8-hour workday, 5 days a week, to have the same lifestyle I enjoy today, which is a motivation-killer. Up through the 1970s, working any 9-to-5 at 40hrs/week could afford you a house and college. They're further deflated after getting hammered with two major financial crises, being saddled with debt for schooling that cost 10x as much today while wages are only 2x or maybe 3x as high, education they were told was required to keep up with the Joneses and have that car, house, two kids, and a dog. All the while, business owners and older people have the nerve to blame it on their "laziness" and "lack of desire to work for it", when more close to the truth is you have business owners that are reaping profits yet too stingy to pay their people wages commensurate with having the same lifestyle and stuff a lot of us have readily enjoyed the last 30-50 years. "If I pay those wages, my business won't be profitable enough to justify it". ("Hey business owner, maybe you should cut down on Starbucks and avocado toast, eh?!")

Anyway, this is the pic she shared with me, and said, "this is the problem".

​

Compare that to today:

• You can't even rent a studio apartment for $12.4k/year; home ownership is a pipe dream, housing costs are astronomical.
• A new car back then was ~5 months salary. Today it's a full year if you're paid the national median income. It's 3-4 years at federal minimum wage salary. 1.5-2 years if you're lucky enough to get paid $15/hr. Imagine having to dedicated every penny of 2 years work to buy a new car?
• Base rent is up 10x, but wages only up 2x-3x in most cases.
• Tuition to Harvard is up 50x, education costs are astronomical, this is why kids are saddled in student debt, and they're still being told by parents and educators higher education is the only way to get that house/car/etc.
• Last movie I went to was $25/person, so that basic, classic entertainment outlet is up 25x.
• Gas is up at least 10x for most of us, 20x if you live in Californistan.
• Most food stuff has doubled accordingly but for a while, basics like eggs were up 20x more, bread 10x more, eggs are still up 10x more today.

The tl;dr here is simple. "What's the point in working when the money is meaningless, and nothing is obtainable?" Too many people are living paycheck to paycheck, at risk of one accident or injury making them homeless or medically bankrupt. It's hard for them to care about you or your business with the odds stacked against them. It has nothing to do with their buying Starbucks coffee or owning iPhones.

I challenged one of them, saying "Plenty of your generation make stupid choices like going out and spending way too much money on new vehicles though!". To which I got, "What else are we going to buy? A house seems so far out of reach, and if I lose everything, at least I'll have a nice place to sleep. I can survive with a car and a gym membership so I have access to a shower." In short, some of them are just aiming for the one ice thing they feel they can actually "afford".

Things are pretty effed up right now. There is no social safety net anymore, nothing close to what I and many of the older folks here enjoyed while younger. It's been obliterated as a 'waste of tax dollars', 'an unwarranted handout', 'too socialistic', and of course labeled as such by the same people who benefitted the most from those exact policies and programs back in the day. It's akin to kicking out rungs on the ladder as they climbed it. You can't expect people to work twice as much while getting half as much value for their input, much less expect them to be motivated when basic necessities like a house, something a janitor in 1960 could afford to buy, aren't attainable.

As much as nobody wants to take blame, or to blameshift on their laziness, we've ultimately allowed this to happen.

And furthermore, the number of people making fun of younger folks and how they're incapable fail to realize: The person making fun is also at fault: All of us in the 40+/50+ camp failed them. We failed to pass down the knowledge of how to turn a wrench, how to do basic household wiring, how to repair a lawn mower. So they're turning to YouTube to learn it, because they can't trust us.

 

I grew up in a primarily agricultural area way back when. The dairy farms were family run operations and the produce farms relied on the kids that were on summer break from either high school or college to work the fields. Somehow, most of what we did growing up eventually turned into "the jobs Americans just won't do". Part of it became scale. Mega-dairies are too big to be run by just one family. Produce farms, at least where I lived, were another story. The largest tried to keep doing business employing the local school kids but eventually went bankrupt as not enough would show up to work the fields. Blame it on the parents thinking they were providing a better life for their kids by not making them do the menial labor they themselves had to do growing up. The other large produce farm eventually brought in workers on H-2A visas and is still in business today.
A couple generations of parents thinking they were making their kids life better by not making them do the hard jobs has come home to roost. The long hours doing those menial jobs helped one to understand what real work was. That understanding served as both motivation and a baseline work ethic. Most of my friends wound up doing pretty well whether they stayed in farming or went into other occupations. I doubt the younger generations, without that background, will fare as well.

 

Excellent post. I'm 34, so firmly in the millennial category. I'm fortunate that I chose to forego university and instead entered the trades. I've always had work paying well above the Canadian average (officially $59,000/year) and have worked my way into a very well paying job in a supervisory role. I own a house, I have a 2022 Tundra, The Woman is able to be a stay at home mom and I'm able to save for retirement.

In order to do this I had to not only leave my hometown, but my home province. I had to move way up north to a city of under 70,000 where I don't have all the amenities but the cost of living is reasonable, the weather gets extremely cold and I knew nobody when I came up here. I consider myself extremely fortunate, yet realize I'm far from the average person so I was able to make it work. I'm wired for the small city/northern life.

Most aren't wired like I am or can't do simply up and move due to family or education/career limitations or don't aptitude for the trades or the willingness to sacrifice everything like I did. It's even harder to do it now than when I moved in 2011, simply due to the increased cost of living across the board. I still talk to friends back home who have university degrees and student debt and all the education still only nets them below the $59K average income or only slightly above it in an area where house prices start around a million bucks. Their cost of living is so high that they simply don't have the money to either move to a lower cost of living area or go back to school for a trade or something like that. Even my brother who is younger than me and a tradesman too, had to leave our home province in order to finally get ahead.

The world has changed. The days of a person having a 30 year career with a single company and affording a house/2 cars/spouse/2 kids/dog/house/white picket fence days are over. The future for young people seems very bleak and I understand a lot of where their lack of work ethic comes from. It's not laziness. It's hopelessness.

 

I’m 37. Started hanging sheetrock and now manage a soon to be global team responsible for nearly 60 million dollars of work. The difference I’ve seen is that instead of being willing to dig in and fight the hard fight to be successful, they blame others and use that “hopelessness” as an excuse. Life is hard. It was hard in 1959 and it’s hard in 2023. Things have changed but the one thing that hasn’t is hard work does pay off. Doesn’t matter if you have a college degree or not. It’s still a mf’er to make it in this world. I know this because I was told my college degree would make it easy for me and I bought that line. The difference between me and others is I realized real quick what it would take to get where I wanted and so I took on every opportunity I could to advance my life and in the process I’ve had to sacrifice a lot. After college I lived on coors light and lunchables and overdraft until I finally worked my way into my current field and worked my way up. It was a long and grueling 15 years but I did it.

 

Two facts of successful life.

1. Hustle. No school, college or university teaches it. Learn it. It is THEE differentiator.
2. To earn and accumulate a lot of money..........you've got to do a lot of work.

 

Is it a lack of work ethic? Is it that the previous gen let others (school, daycare, etc) raise their kids? Is it hopelessness and aimlessness? Is it that young people overestimate what can happen in a short time frame and underestimate what can happen in a larger time frame? Yeah, I think it's all of the above, from a variety of factors.

I'm a millennial. I grew up between two broken homes on food stamps in the one and around hardcore drugs and abuse in the other. I learned from a very early age that anything I want in life will come from working, not just working hard for hard work's sake, but working smart toward a goal. First in my family to college. First in my family with a master's degree. It has been a long, hard climb to the middle, lol. And knowing that all of the major institutions in our country will attribute my modest success to some kind of unearned privilege while expecting far lower standards out of others because they look differently than I do is, in my view, absolute bigotry.

People feel hopeless because they follow athletes/actors/influencers on social media who self-curate their own highlight reels. That is the very narrow picture of success that young people get. To me, success is a family owning a home, being smart with their money, raising their own kids and passing down their values and traditions (read: not letting public school or daycare raise their kids for them). Start small with the home if you need to. Build equity. It IS attainable in many large parts of the country.

Depending on where one lives, one can buy a 3 bedroom home on half an acre, raise chickens, and plant a sizable garden on a single <$100k/year income. But is that the picture of success that young people are getting on social media? Absolutely not. The hopelessness fomented by social media is the point. Every institution in America–from mega corps to the govt to Hollywood to academia–coddles and/or indoctrinates young people into this hopelessness because it can be used to cement the power that these institutions hold.

 

As a society - we don’t have a “lack of work ethic” problem - we have a “need go instant gratification” problem and a “need for more” issue.

No one wants to work and save for anything - and why should we are credit terms are infinitely easier than even 30-40 years ago. We see the value of our money weakening daily - so spend it now - pay tomorrow.

Then there’s the demand for more - it’s why I love the list of “what things cost in 19xx” list. Yes - a home cost 8k - but what did an iPhone cost - that’s right - we didn’t have them. Cable/internet bill - again - non existent. How much was a Starbucks ? You get the point - there are many things we feel are “needed” today - that didn’t exist 50 years ago. By adding more - we expend more and again devalue our money - more money in circulation- the less valuable it becomes. Even things we had then - cars, tvs, etc - we own more of - if you were lucky you had 1 tv (that got 3 channels) and 1 car (and it was likely 5+ years old and took regular maintenance beyond fluids). As we demand newer and better - again we bring out inflationary pressures.

Now - unless society as a whole changes, this will remain. I don’t see that happening- so either adapt or be be left out. Still plenty of room for consumers to be independent and not fall victim to their own greed and thrive. The gig economy allows people to work AND enjoy. It’s not about being lazier than we were - it’s about being smarter than we were before.

 

Absolutely.

 

Agreed. I think one-reason answers are silly - Gen-X, Gen-Z, Millennials, etc. blame boomers, and boomers fuss at the latter generations, and the silly thing is that both are somewhat exclusionary in their outlook.

Perspective, as you put it, is quite often the problem. For example (and it's quite a silly example but I like it) when I first met my then-girlfriend, now-wife, she was upset because she had a smaller chest than some, and one *HELL* of a booty. Meanwhile, having firmly bought into the scientific theory that fat bottomed girls do indeed make the rockin' world go 'round, I was thanking the good Lord above for His bounty. Now it's 24 years later and *EVERYONE* likes big butts and they can not lie.

Again, a silly comparison, but the point is that perspective has a *TON* to do with so many things in life. I'm firmly upper middle class, but I had to bust my butt for it. Probably the most valuable thing my parents did for me is a) raise me themselves and b) teach me the value of money and hard work. Without wanting to get preachy, there's value in simply knowing that a job was done well for its own sake. Yes, we should be paid for it...but many of us have/have had to grind to get where we are. A lot of the younger generations think busting their butts for little to nothing is unique to them, and it's not. If generations would listen to each other and learn about each others' perspectives and such, we might learn more.

 

Cell phones & social media are programming everyone that participates in them.

you are being taught to sit there & not hustle. While you play Xbox, I'm out getting new business.


Remember the movie Wall-E? We are there.

well, let me revise -- we are in a mix between Wall-E & Running Man.

compare news coverage of the last admin to this admin....it's staggering.

Hunker down....it's going to get exponentially worse in the next 18 months.

 

You can read the comments in this thread and see the two different opinions on this situation. There are vastly different takes on this depending on your age.

I'm 35 and I've been in my field 12 years. I own a home, I'm saving for retirement, and I have no debt other than my house. Having said that, I've always been good with money and I recognize that not everyone is as fortunate as me.

The older generations grew up in a time when loyalty was rewarded. You could work hard, stay with a company 20 years, and get treated well. Those days are mostly over. We now have to consider the benefits almost as much as the pay. Some years, I've paid $8,000 just to HAVE insurance. And that was while I was young and healthy.

In order to see significant increases in pay, I've had to job hop. The comment that "no one wants to work" is almost laughable at times. Of course no one wants to work, that's why companies have to pay us. For the first time in decades, employees have a little bit of power and can choose who they work for, and for what pay. I'm done selling myself short just for the hopes that I may get rewarded 10 years from now.

Years ago, I killed myself working 12 hour days. I was eventually promoted and the raise they gave was around $3,000. That was my first taste of what life is like now in corporate America. These companies care about shareholders above everything else. At best, employees might be 3rd or 4th down the list of priorities.

I do work hard and I'm successful in my career but I always try to keep things in perspective. Last year, I made my company just shy of $19M in direct revenue. I recognize that I could be let go tomorrow without a 2nd thought.

Times have changed. Employers trying to offer terrible pay and benefits are struggling to find people. They will either adapt, or die. All we can do is try to look out for ourselves and our families.

 

I've read through this thread and found a lot of wisdom in it from varying perspectives. I'd like to add that not all college degrees are the same. The college degrees that lead to the best outcome for most are the STEM degrees - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. A business degree might prepare you for success, but only if you have additional talents or skills to make it work for you. Same for marketing. Finance and accounting could easily be considered mathematics because it is the math and organization skills in those fields that make one successful. Even law degrees are not big guarantees of success. Teaching and criminal justice degrees are for those who want to matter, but are willing to accept low pay. If your degree is in pretty much anything else, you practically asked to be abused for low pay. Or to be jobless and homeless.

This said, there are made trades that will pay more than even a useful college degree, especially after you're done with the learning (apprentice) period. But our culture doesn't really emphasize those, unfortunately. There's the joke about the doctor who needed a plumber. When he got the bill, he called the plumber to complain, "You charged more for an hour than I make in two!" The plumber responded, "I know. I used to be a doctor, too. Until I needed a plumber."

 

A big issue is normalization of debt, and entitlement to the nicest of things from the beginning before you have earned them. Living in debt is not living well, despite how it may look to others on instagram. I’d feel desperate too if I was just starting out and had low income, but also saddled myself to a particular mediocre job that I had to keep because I had become accustomed to a particular lifestyle, even though I may not really be in a position to live such a lifestyle…yet. Sometimes you have to sacrifice niceties in order to maintain mobility and work toward greater opportunities. Live within your means and good things will come in time, as they are earned.

 

That only applies to a golden decade in US history. Take any other earlier point in time, people were poor, often starving. Pretty much like anywhere else on the planet. Since the end of WWII the abundant welsh slowly flowed from citizens pockets to a few chosen ones, so we are back to so-so averages.

Also US economy quickly converts to a services type economy where the margins are much higher. Lack of hands in the field will be compensated by automation. Humans are actually much more valuable asset than a poor substitute for cheap robots.

 

Then there is the flip side to where you've been in your field for 20 years, busted you ass to get into the position you're in and continue to, working from the bottom to the top to only get a 3% "raise" annually. I was one of the best at my company, to where after I left here we are 8 months later and they're asking me to come back, but only barely getting the minimum "raise". I can't remember the last time I got an actual merit increase. Now, some of you may say it's because I wasn't putting in the work, but as I have said, my company is asking if I would return.

 

All part of a bigger plan! Not a better plan for most either!

 

That is exactly why I have changed companies every few years. Companies do not reward loyalty. By staying with the same company 20 years you've most likely sold yourself short. If they want you back, throw out a ridiculous salary to them and see if they bite.

 

The latter two you mention (Bakershack) are likely going to be obliterated in the next 5-10 years bu AI/automation. Exactly to vtl's point, since you're touching on another part of the problem.

I'm actually in a field which is at risk of AI taking hold. At a time when businesses are looking for ways to cut corners and costs, it's a good I've already got retirement planned 5-10 years out, and I'm sitting on a fat ass nest egg as long as 401k remains solvent and we don't see another major crash.

With a 10- and 12-yo at home, this is the same thing we cram down their throat: You will choose something after high school, whether that's trade school or college. Don't care which as long as its able to produce a viable income, and the only exception is if you're actively doing something that's pulling in a life-sustaining salary before graduating (which my 10yo is arleady working on, believe it or not). Their mother finished college and makes at least 2x, or with recent promotion make that closer to 3x what I do. I "took a semester off" about 2 years into college and never went back, but have held a steady career in the digital security/cybersec/encryption sector for ~25yrs now with the same company, and it's European so salary increases have never been a prob. I still make enough to carry the entire family if she fell dead tomorrow. I'm proof finishing college isn't a hard requirement, but I also know I got lucky af and put in hardcore hustle for the first 5 years, 12, 14, 16hr days which aged me about 20 years.

 

HAHAHAHAHA, that's what my friends have said. The thing keeping me from going back was the toxic work environment that my ops manager placed on me so I peaced out. But they are offering me to basically make my own position and work from home so I don't have to deal with that manager again. But then again, they are only skating the real problem.

 

Most of the people in my trade that went in to it straight from high school make more than I do and are higher up than me because the experience they gained during those 4 (ok 5.5) years is far more valuable than any piece of paper I hold. We tell our kids that you don't have to go to college but you will find a job that pays a sustainable pay because I'm not supporting you. I'll help, but not support. There's a distinct difference.

 

I actually don't disagree with you (FYI - I'm 47, and therefore a Gen-X'er). If, for instance, you're in a tech company and you're not seeing any raises, any avenues for advancement, etc., then of course I wouldn't expect one to stick around for long.

But when you know literally hundreds of small business owners and *LITERALLY* every one of them has/has hard a hard time finding employees for the last 4 years, I think the issue is deeper than simply 'employees have a little bit of power.' I think the issue is a combination of work ethic, employees not being paid enough, flat out lethargy for some, and the like.

And it's not solely limited to prospective employees. Whether I'm sick or not, I work to ensure that others where I work can temporarily function w/o me, and/or have SOP's and how-tos. In other words, while I won't say I work to make myself replaceable, I do ensure that I minimize the impact to others and to my organization should I get sick or hurt, AND I'll notify people if I am sick/hurt. Meanwhile, others will just....not come in, not notify anyone, and then later tell their boss "I had to take a mental health day" or "I was sick" or what have you. That's flat out discourteous.

 

There's something to be said for this as well. My son constantly compares himself to me; the other day he said "You can just go out and buy yourself a vehicle or AirPods or what have you if you want."

He doesn't recognize that I had to bust my ASS to get to where I am; and that there's a 3-decade gap between himself and me. As recent as 5 years ago, if I needed a new set of tires, I had to plan out 2 to 3 months to minimize the impact on our finances. One of the most valuable things my father ever taught me was how to budget, AND how to live within my means, whether that meant getting an apartment, renting a room, renting a duplex, etc.

 

It's an interesting two-way street, rife with double standards. The anti-work rash is definitely blowing up right now, but as others alluded to or flatly said above, there's a reason for it. Business practices and status quo created this.

You're the kind of gem I love to see hired, because, while you risk writing the instruction manual that allows the company to hire someone less talented to replace you at a lower cost, which I see happen often, your work attitude and ethics help keeps things going smoothly for everyone. I seek out that type of dedication in staff, I hold onto them as long as possible, aim for their promotion any chance I get, until the inevitable happens: Either someone in finance looks at their fancy spreadsheet which says they're now too expensive to keep, or that person moves onto something else to get the salary we won't give, but they deserve.

Thus, what lends to that street:

In March, I watched 7 guys from a team I worked on until 2012 get let-go unexpectedly, escorted out the door same-day. The most junior of them with the company for 7 years, and the most senior had been here for 21. Granted, at least one found a new gig in ~6 weeks at a VP role which, way better than his role here, which was somewhere between director- and team lead-level. But the rest got sucker punched and are still hunting in a technology market which is seeing more layoffs than hires (in my area at least - "optomizations" or "right-sizing" are the latest terms circulating).

Interesting to see this, knowing we and most other places expect at least 2 weeks notice from employees, and up to 6 depending on your specialty, but the second the company finds you unworthy of keeping, though you've done nothing wrong, the courtesy isn't reciprocated. I've seen it reciprocated, and at least we paid them handsomely to go, but there's no legal requirement for that, and many companies don't. This is one thing inspiring the "quiet quit" movement you might've touched on. The company can let you go at any point as they please, but you're expected to go out of your way to accomodate them if you want to leave on your own.

We have expectation problems. Companies these days are more about bottom lines and - as also said above by others - generating revenue and profits for the board and/or stakeholders, that they don't give a flying fork about the staffer whose backs those profits were carried on.

It begs the question: Why should the employee give two shits about the company if the company, as many show clearly, doesn't give two shits about you? Why should they care?

The signs are totally obvious to the younger generations I talk to here. They're not treated the same. They're not respected as the loadbearers they are in many cases. And this results in exactly what you described. I would never do it, because I know a no-call/no-show day will disrupt my team and increase their workload. But I also give a damn about the people I work with, because they've shown they give a damn about me. Again, the exact reason why I lend my ear to the younger folks working for us and actually listen.

If you want to see change, be the change. Nobody likes "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" types. Right or wrong, that attitude is dismissive vs. inclusive. Lack of inclusion is why we're where we are today.

 

Oh, that just reminded me of another way the underlings know they're undervalued. Anyone want to take a stab at how much employee compensation below the C-suite has increased in the last 45 years?

This year, pay at the CEO level is up 1,460% since 1978.
In 2021 CEO pay was up 1,322% since 1978.
In 2019, CEO pay was up was 940% since 1978.

Compare that to the average houshold income which was $15,060 in 1978 is currently $34,987 in 2023, a whopping 132% increase. What the hell? Did CEOs suddenly become exponentially more important than the laborers under them, to the point that sort of increase is warranted?

People on the bottom aren't stupid. They see stuff like this. And CEOs are being paid absurdly for doing a piss-poor job.

Again, with stuff this glaringly obvious, how do you realistically expect anyone to give a damn when they're the ones whose sweat equity is buying the C-suite tenfold-sized raises?

In 45 years, the average American's income has increased the same amount as CEO incomine did in the last 12 24 months (can't brain today, probably drank too much last night). And since 2019, CEOs have seen 5x the pay increase the average houshold saw in 45 years. It's absurdly lopsided.

 

Going for the hat trick posting here

I really didn't expect to go down a rabbit hole here, but damn, here I am. Now I'm looking at it and spent some time reading today in assorted biz chronicles, you know what's worse?

I'm guessing less than 1% of the fine members of this forum are at the C-level. I sincerely hope the other 99% who are below the Cxx level realizes the scapegoating tactic being used on you right now. Those up above have folks charged and motivated to attack the "lazy folks who don't want to work" while they're quietly amplifying their take-home to astronomical levels. It's a classic distraction tactic to have you setting your targets on the younger/lower folks so you fail to miss their ginormous, rapidly increasing salaries and sweetheart packages they're setting up. If they keep you focused on the guy under you, you don't have time to pay attention to what they're doing.

They do the same thing with unions, trying to say it'll hurt your paycheck, it'll hurt the consumer. The reality is, they don't want workers to have leverage. They know leveling the playing field for workers will cut into margins, and interrupt their ability to raise their salary in the double-digit millions next year.

Then there's that common farce of "I deserve all this money because I'm job creator", it's the ultimate fallback cop-out when commonfolk realize the magnitude of what's happening, that CEO salaries have nearly doubled in the span of 6-7 years with no real change in anything significant to warrant it. Wanna know what's driving up prices? It's not the "lazy" guy who "doesn't want to work". It's not benefits and taxes. It's not social programs contributing to any social safety net. It's exactly the BS in the list below.

Sometimes it helps to visualize what things looks like. Here's a list of yearly salaries for the top 10 highest paid CEOs in this list from 2022 ... who in the Sam Hill is actually doing a job worth 0.85 BILLION* (not trillion) dollars per year? What does that look like, does this guy lift bars of gold with his nutsack 1,000 times a day to warrant that kinda pay? Why else could this person be worth 8,000x the average worker there?

Furthermore, why in the hell is Rivian, which could very well go under in the next three years with how fast they're eating thru cash, paying their CEO nearly half a billion*? The CEO's salary alone is going to be why they bankrupt the company, leaving 15,000 jobless? Robinhood is liable to go under soon too. It's total BS.

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Well, yeah, and that happened to me twice....which is why I'm a server admin *civil service employee.* LOL! Granted, I could get paid more, but at the end of the day, I want to make sure my family's provided for, and the IT market is (and can be) crazy. Plus, when you're in an IT job in the middle of nowhere (Ozarks, Missouri) your $ definitely goes further.

I agree with you 100%; and I definitely don't ever mean to give the impression that a) the younger generation can't be counted on to have a high work ethic and b) lack of worth ethic is limited to Gen Y/Z/Millenials/etc. I know plenty of people in their 20's and 30's who have one HELL of a work ethic...and I know some royal dirtbags in their 40's-60's who do as little as possible. The former impress me every bit as much as the latter bug the hell out of me.