This WSJ/MSN moneycentral article ticks me off

[wildcat]

Men in their 30s lag behind fathers in pay - MSN Money

"Men in their 30s lag fathers in pay"

Basic message is people in their 30s (men are singled out) are not earning quite as much as their fathers did in their day. They seem to think it is possibly due to men not working as hard

Some of the responses posted on MSN (some of the noteworthy/ridiculous ones)

Letters from MSN Money readers - MSN Money

The most accurate one IMHO:
"Future generations of workers in the United States will face a lower standard of living as we compete in a global economy where we have priced ourselves out of the market. As developing economies mature, we will see pay level out. Unfortunately, the American standard of living will continue to decline to reach that level."

A mod can clean up the links -- a tad looooonnggg. Hey! It corrected automatically - cool.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Those good paying manufacturing jobs are going away. And as Bruce tells it - They ain't never comin' back !

So for many men without formal education I do believe that their pay is declining. For those with the math/science/IT or other professional skills there seems to be many well paying job opportunities available.

Add in the current culture in many circles where it's not cool for a boy/man to excel at school. This leads to the current situation where many men without a professional education are and will be frustrated with the kinds of jobs that are available to them.

So what do we do about it. Some of the liberals think that the haves (who went to school to get ahead) owe the have-nots something. My personal opinion is that you make your own life, so you should live by the consequences of the decisions you make.

So yes, in many ways I have to agree with the article that in some circles men should try harder to make something of themselves.

 

[eytonxav]

The Star-Telegram recently had a similar article that made me want to scream, as it compared average worker pay to CEO compensation:

30 years ago the median income for men in their 30s was $40k/yr and the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 35 to 1, while today's median worker income has dropped to $35K/yr and the ratio of CEO to worker pay has skyrocketed to 262 to 1.

This data certainly puts CEO greed into perspective and also squarely identifies an area where givebacks should be targeted vs continuing to take from the average joe's wallet. When up against things like rising healthcare costs, what ever happened to the concept of we are all in this together??

The other change that I have noticed with CEOs over the years, aside from the above trend, is that their level of business acumen/leadership/personal productivity/ethcis have moved inversely with respect to their increasing compensation.

While I am a capitalist at heart this trend is not good and I am not sure what it is going to take to turn this around. Do employees and shareholders have to show up with pitch forks and torches at the annual meetings

 

[MasterBlaster]

The Star-Telegram recently had a similar article that made me want to scream, as it compared average worker pay to CEO compensation:

30 years ago the median income for men in their 30s was $40k/yr and the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 35 to 1, while today's median worker income has dropped to $35K/yr and the ratio of CEO to worker pay has skyrocketed to 262 to 1.

This data certainly puts CEO greed into perspective and also squarely identifies an area where givebacks should be targeted vs continuing to take from the average joe's wallet. When up against things like rising healthcare costs, what ever happened to the concept of we are all in this together??

The other change that I have noticed with CEOs over the years, aside from the above trend, is that their level of business acumen/leadership/personal productivity/ethcis have moved inversely with respect to their increasing compensation.

While I am a capitalist at heart this trend is not good and I am not sure what it is going to take to turn this around. Do employees and shareholders have to show up with pitch forks and torches at the annual meetings

DFW:

The CEO overpayment/stealing from shareholders issue is irrelevant to this discussion.

The issue indicated is that real wages for men have declined since their peak in 1973. This has to do with globalization of manufacturing and the implications for the domestic workforce. Which also has implications for families and for society.

And for what it's worth pension funds and mutual fund companies are finally starting to pay attention to CEO compensation and are now voting their fiduciary duty to the shareholders. The trends with CEO pay you noted are reversing. However the CEO pay discussion needs another thread. Ditto for the effects and implications of rising medical costs.

 

[eytonxav]

MasterBlaster, Your reply to me is one of the most pompous, idiodic, and stiffeling responses I have ever seen on this forum!!!!

Please get off your high horse

DFW

 

[MasterBlaster]

MasterBlaster, Your reply to me is one of the most pompous, idiodic, and stiffeling responses I have ever seen on this forum!!!!

Please get off your high horse

DFW

Thin skin... sorry you feel that way.

Regarding idiotic posts, Tell me why you had to bring in all of that other stuff and how it relates to the original post.

 

[eridanus]

So for many men without formal education I do believe that their pay is declining. For those with the math/science/IT or other professional skills there seems to be many well paying job opportunities available.

This is the oft-quoted line. "Get a degree, and you'll be ok!" China and India have engineers, too. Offshoring isn't just for manufacturing anymore.

 

[brewer12345]

So what do we do about it. Some of the liberals think that the haves (who went to school to get ahead) owe the have-nots something. My personal opinion is that you make your own life, so you should live by the consequences of the decisions you make.

Put aside the rhetoric and BS for a moment and perhaps consider that some of your fellow Merkins might have different motivations for wanting to see the great [-]unwashed[/-] mass of their fellow countrymen earn a living, nay, good wage. You really want to live somewhere where the gap between those of us with good jobs or a lot of money and those who are "Jose sixpacks" gets a lot wider? Not me. I'd much rather not live in a place where I need bars on the windows, armed guards, etc.

 

[eytonxav]

Actually I am quite thick skinned, but I have a hard time for those that are closed minded and have condensending attitudes. I suspect, based on your comments you are a young man that has not yet learned to think. Please re-read my post and think about it and if you still don't get it, I will explain it to you.

 

[MasterBlaster]

This is the oft-quoted line. "Get a degree, and you'll be ok!" China and India have engineers, too. Offshoring isn't just for manufacturing anymore.

That is true, however there does seem to be at present a world-wide shortage of technical talent. The concerns of offshoring of technical jobs seems to be overblown. So at least for the near future, having technical skills is a ticket to a good middle class lifestyle here in this country.

 

[wildcat]

Yeah, I was going to add that it isn't just manufacturing jobs anymore and it is spreading to some white collar positions as well.

You really want to live somewhere where the gap between those of us with good jobs or a lot of money and those who are "Jose sixpacks" gets a lot wider? Not me. I'd much rather not live in a place where I need bars on the windows, armed guards, etc.

When this has happpened to other countries/civilizations in the past, it is usually followed by widespread instability -- politically and in society. If something like that were to ever happen in the US, everyone is fair game.

 

[FinanceDude]

The global economy has changed everything. The cushy lifetime manufacturing jobs are long gone, with the big pension and free or almost free health care.

Engineers in India get paid around $20,000-$25,000 a year. Anybody wonder why we outsource tech support oveseas? I don't know ANY engineers here making $20,000 a year...........

So I suppose it's true, folks need higher education today more than in the 70's........even those cherished UAW jobs that daddy/uncle/grandpa used to get junior are gone...........

 

[kcowan]

This is just a natural part of the evolution of world trade. Jobs disappear due to technology (e.g. buggy whips) and industrial evolution (e.g. from Britain to the US to Japan to Korea to India/China). This is no longer an issue of the education of education.

A big part of the problem is that our education and apprenticeship systems are slow to react to these changes. So we pump out surplus talent in areas that are no longer going to be in demand. Economies will adjust but with many dislocations along the way.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

That is true, however there does seem to be at present a world-wide shortage of technical talent. The concerns of offshoring of technical jobs seems to be overblown. So at least for the near future, having technical skills is a ticket to a good middle class lifestyle here in this country.

MasterBlaster, would you be able to provide a citation from an unbiased source on which you base the above statements? I'd be interested in reading it.

For those who are interested, here's an interesting (IMHO) dispatch from Stephen Roach, a well-respected economist at Morgan Stanley regarding the "powerful global labor arbitrage" entitled "Globalization's New Underclass".

Morgan Stanley - Global Economic Forum

From the link:

"Globalization has long been portrayed as the rising tide that lifts all boats. The surprise is in the tide -- a rapid surge of IT-enabled connectivity that has pushed the global labor arbitrage quickly up the value chain. Only the elite at the upper end of the occupational hierarchy have been spared the pressures of an increasingly brutal wage compression. The rich are, indeed, getting richer but the rest of the workforce is not."

[slightly modified for grammar]

 

[MasterBlaster]

VC: < I couldn't find my original source, here is a link from an informationWeek article>

Thu, 04/12/2007 - 3:20pm.
InformationWeek reported today that hourly wages of IT professionals have hit their highest levels since 2001. A study of wage levels found that the average hourly wage of IT workers rose 5.5 percent from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2007. Technical consultants are riding highest, pulling down an average of $83.72 per hour.
So what's behind the sudden jump in wages? "There's an unprecedented customer demand and not enough people," says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing at Yoh, the IT staffing firm that conducted the study.
But it's not only in the United States that demand for quality professionals in the IT field is beginning to outstrip supply, pushing up the price of labor. The salaries of IT workers from Central Europe to India to China have been rising—often by double-digits—every year. In India, around 1.3 million people applied to Infosys, India's IT behemoth, yet fewer than 2 percent were actually employable. The same is true for engineering, where only around one quarter of the 400,000 new engineers produced every year in India are ready to enter the real "job world." Could it be only a matter of time before outsourcing starts to look less than lucrative?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Here is a couple of other articles on the subject:

The Surprising Shortage Of Quality Global Labor: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

News-Leader.com | Business

Do a search, you'll find plenty on this subject.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

VC: < I couldn't find my original source, here is a link from an informationWeek article>

Thu, 04/12/2007 - 3:20pm.
InformationWeek reported today that hourly wages of IT professionals have hit their highest levels since 2001. A study of wage levels found that the average hourly wage of IT workers rose 5.5 percent from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2007. Technical consultants are riding highest, pulling down an average of $83.72 per hour.
So what's behind the sudden jump in wages? "There's an unprecedented customer demand and not enough people," says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing at Yoh, the IT staffing firm that conducted the study.
But it's not only in the United States that demand for quality professionals in the IT field is beginning to outstrip supply, pushing up the price of labor. The salaries of IT workers from Central Europe to India to China have been rising—often by double-digits—every year. In India, around 1.3 million people applied to Infosys, India's IT behemoth, yet fewer than 2 percent were actually employable. The same is true for engineering, where only around one quarter of the 400,000 new engineers produced every year in India are ready to enter the real "job world." Could it be only a matter of time before outsourcing starts to look less than lucrative?

Interesting. I'm on the fence as to whether to believe that the source is unbiased. But, regardless, here's something that contradicts the claim that there's a shortage, at least in the U.S., for tech workers. It's from Dr. Norm Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California and in it he cites a BusinessWeek article that implies a contradiction to the claim that there's a shortage:

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/SFChron.txt

From the link:

"A Business Week article has pointed out that starting salaries for new bachelor's degree graduates in computer science and electrical engineering, adjusted for inflation, have been flat or falling in recent years. This belies the industry's claim of a labor shortage. Additional analysis at the master's degree level shows the same trend, flat wages -- contradicting the industry's claim that workers at the postgraduate level are in especially short supply."

Also of interest (at least to me) is from a link on his web site on the F-4 visa:

Center for Immigration Studies


You might find interesting some other things Dr. Matloff wrote here: Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage:

 

[MasterBlaster]

VC:

I don't really have a position one way or another on this trend. I just see articles and take them for what they are. Based on that and personal experience it just doesn't seem like the end is near in the US for technical employment. At least not in the near term.

By the way, my experience when companies say that there is a shortage of engineers, what they mean is that they are having a tough time finding talent to work for $35k per year. There is plenty of talent if they go with prevailing salaries.

 

[dumpster56]

Well lets see a teacher with a masters degree and 10 years experience makes 45K in North carolina Public schools. The private fancy places even less!!

 

[MasterBlaster]

To further comment on technical employment trends, I believe that the young-uns will do well if they choose a technical career.

I don't ascribe to the fear monger theory that we are all headed for the mud-hut lifestyle.

Per the biased/unbiased sources, look beyond your own article. Some people (college professors especially) have an agenda to separate rich people from their money to the detriment of everyone. Keep that in mind as you find articles pontificating about who is to gain or lose in the global economy.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

....Some people (college professors especially) have an agenda to separate rich people from their money to the detriment of everyone....

I'm really not trying to pick a fight but - among other things, he cited a convincing BusinessWeek article. Do they have an agenda to separate rich people from their money as well?

I won't say any more on the matter. I'm really not looking to escalate things. For the record though, I'm really not sure who to believe - which is why I read everything I can get my hands on regarding the subject since it's such an important issue to me.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

I won't say any more on the matter. I'm really not looking to escalate things. For the record though, I'm really not sure who to believe - which is why I read everything I can get my hands on regarding the subject since it's such an important issue to me.

Oh screw it. I don't know why I'm being so timid. The truth of the matter is that I think the claim of a shortage of technical talent is complete bullshit.

Now - this REALLY is the last I'll say on the matter

 

[eridanus]

Oh screw it. I don't know why I'm being so timid. The truth of the matter is that I think the claim of a shortage of technical talent is complete bullshit.

I agree. Tech executives have been screaming about a tech shortage for years; even when there was an unemployment rate of near 10% in Silly Valley, they were lobbying for increased H1 visas (more supply=less salary).

 

[figner]

The last 10 years I've worked in IT, we've pretty much always had a shortage of talent. Though you get plenty of resumes for an open position, sifting through them to find someone good takes a long time. During the "tech wreck" around 2001/2002, we had two open positions for over a year which we had trouble filling - plenty of bodies willing to call themselves programmers and sysadmins, but not many who could walk the talk. I wonder if much of the unemployment during that time was due to market forces shaking out the marginally-skilled who had rushed into IT once it became hot.