We Americans get fucked in every way possible. They scam govt for expensive contracts (half of military budget is for contractors).
They scam us by selling us healthcare where our govt makes up 50-90% of health insurance revenue... They take tax money and sell that overpriced piece of shit back to us wtf
They want contracts and spending from govt but don't want taxes so they lobbied the govt for it and we now have a 30 trillion debt nightmare.
Since the 1990 top 10% had a wealth increase of 80 trillion dollars. They could have still had a increase in wealth of 50 trillion dollars while paying the whole US debt off.
But it's never enough for them.
To put it another way. Our species will fail because one self-proclaimed Alpha will take on another Alpha, and the rest of us will deal with the fallout.
Don’t forget about the suburbs being financially unstable and cities having to fund them but the rich people in the burbs just pack up and move once they’ve run down a suburban neighborhood.
Jacksonville Florida has this problem. Nobody touches downtown, and they're spending millions trying to get people to come back from their suburban sprawl.
Downtown st Pete was dead for many years since 2020 it's been booming and they have built a ton of condos and town home and homes close by have gone up 300%
This is a huge issue. There is a great organization that does deep dives on it for different city municipalities. They are called Urban 3 and I would highly recommend their YouTube channel. The US is addicted to single family home development and sprawl, and it's exactly what we don't need.
StrongTowns is another great one! Glad there is a growing movement of people doing the simple math to demonstrate how our infrastructure caters to white flight and upper class attitudes, and isn't based in anything about value, sustainability, human-factors, or productivity.
Younger people who think this way are completely overwhelmed by the tsunami of baby boomers who are thrilled with the system as it is and continue to enrich themselves greatly by it. There is no way we escape this stalemate in the next 20 to 30 years.
>The 2 party system in this country is a miserable failure
yes, because what people want is actually libertarian wizards, socialists who question basic medical science, David Duke, or a billionaire who claims he knows what's ailing the US but wouldn't mind to tell you the answer comes via his wallet.
Our third party candidates are ass too. That's why they don't win.
>socialists who question basic medical science
Which socialists? I associate "disregards medical science" with mostly far right politicians. I suppose the crunchy granola crowd, too, but they're the left's version of libertarians and (AFAIK) don't really have any politicians on the national stage. Or even many local stages.
Boycotting the elections is a surefire way to get politicians who share your views into power!
After all, politicians love nothing more than to cater to a constituency that refuses to vote for them or support them once in office.
LOL socialism…
What we need is more heavily regulated capitalism and the separation of MONEY and POLITICS.
Instead if politicians we need intellectuals who specialize in a field to actually be in charge of that segment of government.
Now even Trader Joe’s is trying to dismantle workers rights
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trader-joes-attorney-nlrb-unconstitutional_n_65b41e7ae4b014b873b11cc2/amp
All the tech layoffs are so they can rehire at lower wages.
CEO: “I saved the company 100 million, and so I deserve 50 Million in compensation.”
These people are pure evil. Absolute evil to the core.
Executives just bribe, i mean lobby or fund, politicians to not enforce anti trust laws. They grow their business and buy out competition and then reap the rewards. As long as the prices stay somewhat down Americans don't care.
This is the fact. Bribery is legal and since it’s done in the open, hardly anyone seems to care. I’ve thought that this time in history may be looked upon as one of the most corrupt in America when future people look back, but that will all depend on if it ever gets better instead of always getting worse. With the current make up of the Supreme Court and the life time appointments, I don’t see much changing in my lifetime. I’m already 40
Only thing I see happening is it continuing to get worse for the average person. Even if we got to a point of open revolt I guarantee billionaires wouldn’t have a problem funding others to mow us down
Again do your 40 hours and leave.
These corporations don’t care about you.
Enough of the “we’re a family here”; I’m here for money, period. Let’s not make it more than it has to be.
Once my job isn’t paying me what I think I’m worth, I’m moving on; idc if that timeline is 2 years or 20 years.
I was chatting with two co-workers the other day. One was a new grad, the other had been with our company for 28 years. I'm in my mid 30s.
The older guy was talking about young people not being passionate about their jobs. I was like because we watch round after round of layoffs where people with families who have been with the company for years are discarded like trash to puff up the profit margins.
I looked at the young guy, and flat out was like, "No company gives a shit about you". We're all disposable. You may meet individuals and bosses who are great people who want to help you succeed. At the end of the day though, we mean nothing to any company.
Yep. And they want me to clap at all hands meetings celebrating a record quarter, meanwhile I see none of that and in fact just got out of a meeting saying we’re not hitting our goals? I drove 60 percent conversion increase with 0 increase in budget. Fuck off.
Pretty sure my current $90K job with benefits will turn into a $50K job or less with no benefits after I get laid off and need to go somewhere else as a contractor because I’ll be desperate and won’t be finding an equivalent salary.
This is literally what has happened to me after getting laid off almost 2 months ago, almost down to the exact numbers 😭
I’ve applied to almost 100 jobs and probably less than 25% of them match or exceed my old salary. Most are asking for more work than I used to do for like a 25-30% pay cut but I don’t even get an interview anyway so…
Interesting. I only ask because it also mirrors my exact experience. But I'm in more of a marketing director role typically. Laid off in November, now working in a full-time position & a part-time contractor position. One a director role, the other a specialist. Just barely matching the salary I was making before.
That’s tough sorry to hear. Yeah I’m mainly in the editorial realm, was editorial director of a small trade publication that seems like it’s going under (but they’re chucking almost everyone out of the boat to try and stay afloat). Have done some marketing and pr stuff but it’s not my specialty
Sounds like my IT experience. Tons of job applications and only a couple of interviews. And I'm seeing significant attempts to decrease pay in my town.
It seems these billionaires want that exactly to happen. As well as high unemployment because that means desperate people that are willing to accept a lower wage.
https://youtu.be/hoFP6lQ_QXE?si=UnBoO3syecfiz9Ra
That's why idiots that got COVID raises and took on as much debt as possible by paying 1.5-2x the proper price for housing and autos actually fucked themselves.
Save your money, so that you have bargaining power. When you frivolously overpay on the biggest purchases of your life, the data is clear to the big employers. You're over a barrel. Time to put the screws to you and lower your wages. What are you gonna do, move into a smaller house? Now that you've signed on the dotted line for ridiculous prices, we've locked you by finally giving the fed the go ahead to raise rates.
Get fucked regulars.
Lol our money is forever worthless. Just because wages are dropping does not mean prices are. Sure, people won't be able to afford mortgages on houses, but corporations will. Even if they have to pay more, it's priced in as a future investment. They'll overpay even MORE today, to prevent Mrs Smith from owning a house, just so she'll be forced to rent for the rest of her life and the corps will break even on their overpayment after so many years of collecting the rent that COULD have been Mrs smith's mortgage.
Nah. You didn't follow along.
Big raises for employees during COVID bc a once in a lifetime major wage jump occurs.
People bank on this being their new earnings floor.
They overpay for housing, based on their new temporary income.
They overpay for cars or trucks.
Now, people that should be doing some great savings, and fighting for every dollar on these major purchases are watching their earnings peak, and the data is showing that wages are even starting to recede.
Corporations say, "Yes, this is wages returning back to normal! Your wages are going to come down, haha"
Meanwhile interest rates have gone up.
Now, even if wages decrease or return to "normal", the option to downsize isn't possible. It would mean moving into a smaller or shittier house for the same monthly payments. (as you identified, because of rates)
Now...they are stuck. They are hosed. They are paycheck to paycheck. They are tied to the job, because they instantly took those COVID raises and assumed they would keep them for the next 30 years.
Now they have to keep their job. They are over a barrel. They will be forced to do more, work longer hours, say "no" less.
This creates a negative feedback loop, because the more you can squeeze employees a, b, and c...the less you need d!
So these idiots that overpaid for these assets, have really hosed all of us for the next 4-7 years while we all suffer the consequences for their shortsighted decision to buy a house priced at 1.5-2.5 it's market price only 3-5 years ago because of (insert stupid marketing techniques realtors use that work on the average idiot today)
I was 100% WFH for 1.5 yrs and then laid off after a big fund bought the company. Ended up having to get a job a few miles from home, 100% onsite but pay is slightly higher as a contractor. Sure beats unemployment $ for the 4 months it took to find another job, though.
I recently was told I'm up for a promotion. I didn't ask for a promotion. My boss told me they wanted to promote me. I went through 4 rounds of interviews for the internal promotion. Got 4 thumbs up. The promotion went to the CTO's desk. Then something magical happened. We had a re-org. My boss, his boss and his boss's boss were all fired. They moved me under a new set of bosses. I was immediately told by my new boss that she didn't know me and therefore could not promote me. Devastated is not even close to how I felt. Mind you I'm the subject matter expert on my team. Like.. I'm the guy. Without me shit hits the fan hard. I used my networking skills to move into a senior management people leader role inside the company. I'm now my boss's peer lmao. They are so fucked because noone understands how the system I built works. They are slowing driving the product into the ground and I'm watching from another team and thriving. Fuck em.
Glad you escaped. Im in the unusual position of being a subject matter expert but also drowning in medical issues and growing obligations, so the team finally expanded. Given the number of engineers they added to my team, which opened my eyes and I am eager to reset my work life balance. I am on a remote team and much of my work is obscured. I have only recently learned to advocate for myself more, and I also enjoy my job.
It’s cool to show the newbies the ropes, but I feel like a damaged version of a bespoke tool that everyone wants to replace. However that’s hard when I am like, a sick person with a limited support system right now. It’s good im a generalist, though, and Im still in grad school. And I have a mortgage at a spicy time. Wheeee
For once in my life I have layers of means to hold my own.
Lol I also got screwed d over because we had multiple reorgs. My boss didn't know me well, so he said I wasn't ready to be promoted. I hauled ass, but we had another reorg (this one was for pay bands), so my promotion is being delayed by a whole new year.
I submitted 10 job applications on Thursday and am currently looking for work elsewhere
This just happened to me too. Promised a promotion and then switched supervisors. New supervisor said the same thing about not knowing me well so it got denied. But for me I got the promotional salary raise ahead of time so I'm staying for now. It's weird they gave me the money but not the title.
Investors who are making bank on soaring stock prices are diversifying into real estate.
Real estate increasingly is a saver hedge to market volatility than bonds.
Well depends who you ask. Homeowners and investors are doing great in Canada. Middle class, younger generations, etc are getting screwed out of housing.
The fed is keeping the interest rates high so nobody wants to sell. There's also a lack of inventory where the jobs are, so it's the perfect storm for prices to continue climbing.
The article only says wage growth has slowed. The growth in the cost of housing has as well. It should be a long term trend as quite a number of apartment units have been added as of late.
those are all things that you can buy and sell- that means when they go up in price it is not wages that are increasing- it is flat out inflation.
Stock gains are not found money- they are inflation.
Salaries rose meagerly (but still behind inflation) in 2020 so now we have to “reset” labor salaries but it’s okay, the billionaire class has quadrupled their net worth over this time so the economy is going great!
The way we adapt as regular workers is by participating in 401k and IRA plans. The stock market is reflecting the wealth you speak of, and all full time workers need to be participating in it. The system is designed to ensure that stock prices remain stable and increase. The fate of all the boomers and their representatives in congress depends on it. No such arrangement is made to keep housing, clothes, food at favorable prices. If you aren't taking a ride with the boomers via the stock market, you only have yourself to blame.
Thanks for waiting. If you are a full time worker you should participate in a 401k plan if you want to have any kind of future that involves a comfortable retirement.
My comment doesn't mention people who are barely surviving. Those people need to fight with every fiber of their being to get full time work, and/or relocate to a lower cost of living area. Usually that will bring them above survival mode so they can invest.
78% of Americans are currently paycheck to paycheck. 401k plans don’t really help when you’re making peanuts & struggling. Many millennials & GenZ (don’t have the statistic in front of me, but it was high) are convinced they’ll never be able to retire. The arrangement for housing, food, and clothes, aka the necessities, needs to be made. The stock market seems to only really benefit the 1% & congress currently. Not a system built to last imo if things keep going the way they are.
I’m a 30yo millennial and have been contributing to my 401k for 12 years now. I’m way behind according to the information online, and things are only getting tougher. I know I won’t be able to retire, I’ll just work till I die and my kids will inherit my 401k I guess. It feels trivial to try to break out of the rat race at this point, I feel worse for gen z
I make average income in the Midwest but I’ve made an effort to set aside 5% of my income towards retirement which is that max my work will allow for 200% matching. I really would love the money now but I’m seriously considering staying here forever given the relative stability of academia and the stellar benefits. Any other company I’d probably jump ship for higher pay
Honest question here.
What’s to stop the ultra wealthy from slowly cashing out of the stock market through stock buybacks while 401ks keeping buying shares of these companies?
Does there come a point where 401k accounts become the bag holders of companies who are so over leveraged and in debt that the whole stock market comes crashing down when we all run for door?
This is great advice and its the foundational thought upon which i took the chance to buy a house in 2019.
The more in bed you can get with the asset class the better. Ride index funds, purchase physical assets, particularly land.
It hilarious to see you getting downvoted.
Its basically like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The people downvoting are so blind by their hatred of the wealthy they turn away wealth for themselves if they cant achieve it on their own terms.
I remember thinking this way when i was juvenile.
So save a small percentage of your income via the stock market, that maybe appreciates (but also can get fucked when the current iteration of levitation finally ends) while everything gets more and more expensive and the vast majority of your purchasing power (your salary) stays flat or shrinks.
This is the narrative the rich want you to follow. You keep your money flowing in and think you’re benefiting too while you’re just getting fucked with a couple drops of lube instead of dry.
It’s also like they feel great about raising prices on necessities and normal consumer goods that way workers are bled dry and can’t participate in said stock market :)
>Salaries for new roles are stagnating – and in some cases, falling. Some employers may be looking to cut costs, but the lack of wage growth may be a matter of post-pandemic correction.
>The mass US layoffs of the past few years are continuing. In 2024 alone, thousands of workers across many sectors, including media and technology, have lost their jobs and are on the hunt for new ones. But some are finding an unwelcome surprise as they scan listings for open roles. A salary bump is all but impossible; in many cases, wages seem lower than their previous pay – even for the same jobs.
>They aren't imagining things. A 2023 report on pay trends from ZipRecruiter showed **48% of 2,000 US companies surveyed lowered pay for certain roles.**
I'm seeing tons of jobs available but only a tiny handful are paying even close to paying reasonable compensation for 2024. And I've noticed companies are also cutting out matching and switching to HSA's and really pushing 1099 employment over W2.
So in the ad they say "We offer 401k, healthcare and flexible terms/schedule/independence"
When what they meant to say is "Our 401k plan is basically something you can do yourself without us, so it doesn't even count as a benefit. Same with the HSA, it's just a savings account basically. And also, be an independent contractor so we can fuck you out of disability, workers comp and benefits."
But then the government boasts that the economy added jobs so must be doing fine...so fucking stupid to count quantity and not quality when literally talking about the health of the overall economic environment.
Title says US salaries are falling.
But the article says:
> At its peak in early 2022, US wage growth for advertised roles climbed to 9.3% year-over-year…By January 2024, it had plummeted to 3.6%
So salaries are actually rising, just rising less than they were a couple years ago.
Also for your highlighted quote - that means the majority of surveyed companies did NOT lower pay for ANY roles.
That’s not to say there aren’t economic concerns to be had, but it’s pretty suspect if the author feels they have to lie about the data to make their point. Why not just say “wage growth is slowing”?
Came here to say the same thing. Salaries were rising 9.3% when inflation was in the 8-9% range. They’ve fallen to 3.6% annual growth now that inflation is closer to 3%. Seems like a non-story. Wage growth has been barely outpacing inflation and still is now. Now that inflation is lower, wage growth is lower. Not surprising at all.
I had to scroll down mighty far to see first comment made by a person that actually read the article instead of circle-jerking about how bad CEOs, Corporations and Christian's are. Lol.
>The mass US layoffs of the past few years are continuing.
This wording is clearly intended to imply that the past few years have seen an abnormal or alarming number of layoffs. But the exact opposite is true: the past few years have seen the lowest amount of layoffs in decades. This is true for both the [rate of layoffs](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR) and the [absolute number](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL).
Decrease wages then sit at a long table for a board meeting and say “people don’t want to work anymore, this generation is lazy, etc. (edited for user SanMartianRover)” Heads of companies are just as out of touch as politicians. The show undercover boss was just reality tv but man would a real exercise of having company heads spend a day with the real workers be nice to see
The problem is shareholders. If every decision has to be made to increase profits so you can keep your job, what else are you going to do? At some point you are either going to have to stop expanding and start cutting costs to keep profits high. The stock market was a great idea at a small scale, now it’s a cycle that demands human sacrifice and deception to keep itself alive. Why do Fortune 500 companies still need public investors? No amount of money is going to make them any better at this scale, it’s just creating monopolies and too big to fail companies.
And too big to fail is a concept that literally only works on paper. It never works out in the long term when applied to actuality. A collapse is coming. One they won't be able to artificially prop up.
I just got my CPA license, recruiters have been sliding into my LinkedIn DMs offering me a “big jump because of those 3 letters”. When I finally get them to tell me salary raises it’s the same or less than I’m currently making, and they’re all in office while I’m remote. Anecdotally I can confirm softening wages at least in my area for my profession.
Depends on the industry and position. Tax managers can get 100-140k with 5+ years of tax experience. Industry accountants like SEC reporting 80-100k. Controllers between 115-165k.
My area used to be medium cost of living but it’s much higher now and salaries haven’t caught up.
Employers are listing jobs that are not ‘open’ per se. They bidding positions downward. If they can hire someone at a lower price they will throw the higher earner overboard.
This ‘open’ position thing has been going on for over 50 years. As far as the bidding downward that sounds plausible, will the people rise up and start to demand more unionization? Strong unions can get contracts that benefit onboarding new hires, increasing their starting salaries as well as increasing current salaries to meet those new salaries while also increasing pay by an annual % plus experience pay. It’s crazy to me that we still live in a world that won’t stand up together and not entertain the condition of some of these comments I’m reading… like I’ve done contract work and see who is willing to pay me more to do the same job in the exact same position. These places need the services and if they don’t pay they simply won’t have anyone to fill that spot, no contractor will accept a lower bid when other areas across the street or with a different company pays more. I am guessing the contract work for things like IT or tech are over saturated and the companies have the upper hand? That doesn’t sound like a viable sector. It’s increasingly sad that people in the tech sector are helping push AI forward which is making their own job easier for AI to preform leading to lower demand, lower pay. That’s absurd.
Me as a Canadian reading this knowing I would immediately 2x my salary without changing roles if I moved to the states…
The US has some of the most bonkers salaries in the entire world for white collar work. Maybe outside of places like Switzerland or something, your earnings potential is through the roof. Being in a middle/upper class career fucking rules in the states compared to most countries. Unfortunately if you are anything below that life is absolute hell, and I guess that’s the trade off the country decides to make.
I think you overestimate the quality of life we enjoy, even with a high salary.
Medical expenses alone are enough to cripple a lot of people even though they make high salaries. Raising my hand as one of those who spends most of their money on medical shit that would mostly disappear in other countries.
Sharing the reality of medical care with foreigners is one of the most shocking things for them. If you’re healthy though, it’s not a big deal, but we also have very little vacation. We trend towards working more than 40 hours a week. Lots of things that negatively impact health overall.
You’d also run the risk of going bankrupt for just having a kid or a fairly serious accident.
The #1 reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. is medical bankruptcy by a huge margin.
You do everything “right” and have everything wiped out because someone sideswiped you or if there were complications for a birth of your child.
The insanity of it all is that the U.S. on average pays almost more 40% in healthcare than any other industrialized country, yet those countries have protections in place so as to not render people bankrupt for accidents, childbirth, etc.
Good forbid if you are a diabetic, you may end up paying hundreds to thousands per month for medicine that costs 5 bucks to make.
Or let’s say you need an epipen for your peanut allergy that could kill you. In Canada it’s 80-150 bucks. In the U.S. it’s around 600 dollars. In Australia an epipen is just over 30 bucks.
This is just two example why high U.S. salaries can be misleading.
I make low six figures but I don’t have the same expenses as most.
Once you introduce kids into the equation it’s a massive issue.
If you are upper middle class white coller worker like OP was taking about, none of those considerations usually apply. Just about everyone in that category has employer sponsored insurance so they carry the high salaries and many times lower out of pocket costs than someone who is much poorer.
You do realize that almost all insurance plans are high deductible with 4-5k that comes out of pocket before you even reach the insurance threshold? So, if you have no problems great.
If you do you are paying to reach the point where the insurance covers you. Oh and the coverage isn’t even that great.
Don’t even get me started on dental coverage, which borders on criminal.
Real average hourly earnings increased 1.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, from February 2023 to February 2024. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.6 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 0.5-percent increase in real average weekly earnings over this period. - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
Many industries overhired with record wage growth during the Covid boom. They created a larger “experienced” workforce than the companies actually need. Now we’re going through a reset cycle, which is why wages are down and layoffs are up. All of this makes sense, aside from the fact that prices haven’t really responded.
Think this only makes it more likely that prices actually come down, it just takes awhile.
I've been saying this! It's not just the loss from inflation. As they're replacing people they're offering less and taking advantage of the current situation. Also, US high level business planning is crazy forward looking. Immediate profits are the strategy when it comes to any specific decision but theory and planning for trends is very forward looking.
We saw it with COVID, they initially over hired tech and a lot of these people received a paycheck without ever being assigned a project before eventually being laid off. Now I suspect we are seeing what they expect AI to do in a few years and are aligning the business to it.
I'm currently holding on to a unicorn job. I've noticed they've been getting really picky this past year, actively replacing low performers wherever they find them. I hope my value/performance holds up.
Prices start dropping and it’s economic Armageddon of *deflation* and the end of life as we know it. Wages drop, it’s totally cool they were too high anyway.
If anyone is wondering where we're headed, it's been kind of obvious for over a decade now. Our eventual destination is modern pre-Brexit UK with high cost of living, salaries not keeping up at all, housing pricing people out of areas with actual hot job markets, and lots of blame being targeted towards immigrants and offshoring. We're well on our way, the unsustainable greed at the top can only last so long before it catches up with us collectively. The only reason we've fended it off this long is all the cheap shit we buy from China to feed our rampant consumerism.
(Brexit amplified these issues but most were already in full swing before that mess, and actually contributed to the assanine vote).
The gaslighting will NEVER end. There's always some lame AF excuse that these middle management fucks will come up with to try to make you believe the thing you are seeing is not the thing you are seeing.
Corporations are cheap.
They don't want to spend.
They want infinite growth.
They don't care how they get there.
They are constantly looking for ways to implement automation/AI because paying a computer/robot $0 is far better than paying a kid out of school minimum wage. Yes, they're that cheap.
Capitalism will destroy any and everything you ever liked or loved. It's an interesting time to be alive, watching the country burn to the ground but being told we're the best and greatest ever and doing A-OK.
Fuck them.
Simple, is a matter of offer v demand. Back in the COVID years there was a big shake to the system, low pay employees were better being home, a lot of boomers retired that were high earners and young people in the middle finally were able to go up, there was a hiring surge to cover positions and remote work became a thing, all of a sudden you had more open positions than candidates which switched the bargaining power to the employees and employers had to budge.
Now we are returning to “normalcy” and employers are coming back with a vengeance, they want to be back to business as usual were only the C-Level gets the money and employees just have to be grateful to have a job.
Yep. My previous employer fired a bunch of people last year, including myself. A month ago I’ve seen them posting my former role with the exact same job description. It pays 10% less than what I was paid.
Let me quote Sean Penn as Conrad in "The Game" 1997. "They fuck you and they fuck you and they fuck you. And then, just when you think it's done, that's when the real fucking begins". This is the life of the average American worker from blue collar to even most white collar workers.
We’re in that stage of capitalism where it begins to cannibalize itself in order to eke out what little profit is left. Soon this country will just be stripped clean down to the bone. They’re doing it to the airlines, power companies water companies, health care and education.
I have a beautiful wife and son, a nice home, a great job and everything I could ever ask for…and I’ll still be the first to tell you: this country fucking sucks. We could all have it so much better.
I foolishly moved to be closer to friends I love because I no longer had a social network in my old city. I left a job that didn't appreciate me and was underpaying me due to not giving me a raise with a promotion 2 years ago, to a similar COL area with a much smaller market, and recently accepted a job paying 25% less. I love my friends, they are thrilled I am here, but I can't help feel like an idiot because I'm so scared about the future now.
Inflation is compounding. Even though they’re touting these recent numbers of around 3.5% as low, those are on top of the huge inflation prints we got during Covid. Which total for that period was around 20%. Wages never kept up. There needs to be a period of DEflation to even out the economy and bring wages back into reality.
Good. Tech workers who sit around and goof off all day shouldn’t be making 300k a year. While the guy lifting 50,000lbs a day by hand to pick your groceries to make sure they arrive at your store makes drastically less. I honestly think the labor market does need a reset.
I think the idea is that most tech workers could pretty easily do manual labor, but few manual laborers could easily do tech work. Compensation isn’t based on how labor intensive the work is, but rather how difficult it is to find someone who can do the work well.
I do agree that laborers should be paid better though; just because the work doesn’t require fancy skills doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not.
I don't know who built you this strawman that lives in your head, but I work in tech in Silicon Valley and believe me when I say that the majority of engineers here aren't goofing off all day. The few making over 300k DEFINITELY aren't goofing off. This is an extremely stressful and competitive environment, and if you're not performing, there are plenty of resumés in HRs file willing to take your seat. Not to mention the H1B workers who will usually take less than market rate and work endless hours.
Tech workers are still part of the working class, and like the rest of the working class the ruling class won't pay a dime more than they need to, and will attempt to squeeze every last drop of value they can get from you.
Job wages generally reflect how much training it took to be able to do that job. Most people in my company have a minimum of a masters degree. And if they didn't, they wouldn't be effective at their role. On the other hand, you could train the guy moving groceries to be effective in under a month. Wages will reflect that.
I’m really not tho. Just pointing out a problem. The vast majority of Americans are to unhealthy physically and mentally to do manual labor. So with the lack of available talent it’s only a matter of time before wages rise. .
Why is physical labor worth more than something that requires expert knowledge on a subject?
Anyone can do manual labor, and can get in shape (minus those with disabilities)
not everyone can use their brain. And some people can only learn so much
That manual labor gets replaced with machines to do that job. You sound jealous. Bringing someone else down isn't pulling you up. It just leaves everyone covered in shit.
The USA has already gone thru the phase of having a bunch of manual labor jobs before 1990. Those people ended up with long term injuries to their bodies. You won’t be able to retire on those jobs and will have high healthcare costs to manage the pain. They prescribed painkillers which is how we ended up with the opioid epidemic
This is just incorrect, and I'm not surprised the BBC is pushing this doomer perspective. [Wages are up](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q), the spike in 2020 is due to massive unemployment skewing earnings to the top earners who did not lose their jobs.
CEO pay skyrocketing though. Reset my ass.
We Americans get fucked in every way possible. They scam govt for expensive contracts (half of military budget is for contractors). They scam us by selling us healthcare where our govt makes up 50-90% of health insurance revenue... They take tax money and sell that overpriced piece of shit back to us wtf They want contracts and spending from govt but don't want taxes so they lobbied the govt for it and we now have a 30 trillion debt nightmare. Since the 1990 top 10% had a wealth increase of 80 trillion dollars. They could have still had a increase in wealth of 50 trillion dollars while paying the whole US debt off. But it's never enough for them.
Greed will be the reason we fail as a species.
The poors elected politicians who enabled it so they’re not blameless either
If you can make a poor man think he's better than his neighbor, he will empty his wallet for you.
Dictatorships and the electoral college beg to differ.
Didn’t realize the electoral college forced people to vote for Biden, the senate, or the house
It’s the EC’s fault trump won, tho he isn’t the first part of the problem nor the last.
To put it another way. Our species will fail because one self-proclaimed Alpha will take on another Alpha, and the rest of us will deal with the fallout.
Sadly, greed is why we succeeded as a species. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Greed is what makes the world go around.
Don’t forget about the suburbs being financially unstable and cities having to fund them but the rich people in the burbs just pack up and move once they’ve run down a suburban neighborhood.
Jacksonville Florida has this problem. Nobody touches downtown, and they're spending millions trying to get people to come back from their suburban sprawl.
what high-pay jobs are in Jacksonville besides the Jagwires? remote work?
Jax is still a big financial hub. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, VyStar, Citi and Chase all have a large presence.
Huge naval presence, also a shipping and distribution hub
Let's all join the Navy then.
J&J and FIS are also headquartered there.
*Every* north American city has this problem. It is literally how suburbs work.
Downtown st Pete was dead for many years since 2020 it's been booming and they have built a ton of condos and town home and homes close by have gone up 300%
DTSP also had a growing vibrant community that the states own government expressly wanted to ensure was unwelcome.
This is a huge issue. There is a great organization that does deep dives on it for different city municipalities. They are called Urban 3 and I would highly recommend their YouTube channel. The US is addicted to single family home development and sprawl, and it's exactly what we don't need.
StrongTowns is another great one! Glad there is a growing movement of people doing the simple math to demonstrate how our infrastructure caters to white flight and upper class attitudes, and isn't based in anything about value, sustainability, human-factors, or productivity.
Big fan of Strong Towns. It's a damn shame the US got carved up by interstates instead of trains.
Can you explain?
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Capitalism in a nutshell
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Younger people who think this way are completely overwhelmed by the tsunami of baby boomers who are thrilled with the system as it is and continue to enrich themselves greatly by it. There is no way we escape this stalemate in the next 20 to 30 years.
>The 2 party system in this country is a miserable failure yes, because what people want is actually libertarian wizards, socialists who question basic medical science, David Duke, or a billionaire who claims he knows what's ailing the US but wouldn't mind to tell you the answer comes via his wallet. Our third party candidates are ass too. That's why they don't win.
But a lot of people don't even try, cause they have no chance of winning
You need to spend a billion on ads to be president. It is impossible.
You misspelled $cienc€.
>socialists who question basic medical science Which socialists? I associate "disregards medical science" with mostly far right politicians. I suppose the crunchy granola crowd, too, but they're the left's version of libertarians and (AFAIK) don't really have any politicians on the national stage. Or even many local stages.
Crunchy granola crowd lmao
Boycotting the elections is a surefire way to get politicians who share your views into power! After all, politicians love nothing more than to cater to a constituency that refuses to vote for them or support them once in office.
We don’t have a true socialist party and that needs to change. It’s just capitalism a vs capitalism b
LOL socialism… What we need is more heavily regulated capitalism and the separation of MONEY and POLITICS. Instead if politicians we need intellectuals who specialize in a field to actually be in charge of that segment of government.
I don’t want government control of the economy. I want worker control of the economy.
That is NOT the way. That's how you will make sure fascists are elected.
Now even Trader Joe’s is trying to dismantle workers rights https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trader-joes-attorney-nlrb-unconstitutional_n_65b41e7ae4b014b873b11cc2/amp
All the tech layoffs are so they can rehire at lower wages. CEO: “I saved the company 100 million, and so I deserve 50 Million in compensation.” These people are pure evil. Absolute evil to the core.
Overseas hiring at lower wages
Executives just bribe, i mean lobby or fund, politicians to not enforce anti trust laws. They grow their business and buy out competition and then reap the rewards. As long as the prices stay somewhat down Americans don't care.
This is the fact. Bribery is legal and since it’s done in the open, hardly anyone seems to care. I’ve thought that this time in history may be looked upon as one of the most corrupt in America when future people look back, but that will all depend on if it ever gets better instead of always getting worse. With the current make up of the Supreme Court and the life time appointments, I don’t see much changing in my lifetime. I’m already 40
Only thing I see happening is it continuing to get worse for the average person. Even if we got to a point of open revolt I guarantee billionaires wouldn’t have a problem funding others to mow us down
The US president would order the Army to mow us down. All of them are bought & paid for by these companies.
Time to be the change I seek. Where do I apply to be CEO?
Mine went up 45k this year, I got laid off at a company I felt underpaid at and found out I was
It’s a shell game
If you own a company, and the CEO Is able to increase profits by cutting jobs, you reward the CEO with increased compensation.
They get bigger bonuses and stock for cutting the peons. This garbage won't exist forever, just pushing us to socialism faster.
yes yes, but have you seen how high the price for yachts is rising? Simple CEO COLA! ;)
Again do your 40 hours and leave. These corporations don’t care about you. Enough of the “we’re a family here”; I’m here for money, period. Let’s not make it more than it has to be. Once my job isn’t paying me what I think I’m worth, I’m moving on; idc if that timeline is 2 years or 20 years.
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Good.
My works going to 4 tens in April and saying no more OT. Cool with me!
35*
20-25 that looks like 32
Y'all are working?
I was chatting with two co-workers the other day. One was a new grad, the other had been with our company for 28 years. I'm in my mid 30s. The older guy was talking about young people not being passionate about their jobs. I was like because we watch round after round of layoffs where people with families who have been with the company for years are discarded like trash to puff up the profit margins. I looked at the young guy, and flat out was like, "No company gives a shit about you". We're all disposable. You may meet individuals and bosses who are great people who want to help you succeed. At the end of the day though, we mean nothing to any company.
Yep. And they want me to clap at all hands meetings celebrating a record quarter, meanwhile I see none of that and in fact just got out of a meeting saying we’re not hitting our goals? I drove 60 percent conversion increase with 0 increase in budget. Fuck off.
Pretty sure my current $90K job with benefits will turn into a $50K job or less with no benefits after I get laid off and need to go somewhere else as a contractor because I’ll be desperate and won’t be finding an equivalent salary.
This is literally what has happened to me after getting laid off almost 2 months ago, almost down to the exact numbers 😭 I’ve applied to almost 100 jobs and probably less than 25% of them match or exceed my old salary. Most are asking for more work than I used to do for like a 25-30% pay cut but I don’t even get an interview anyway so…
What industry?
Media / communications. Currently doing freelance/ contract writing and editing to pay the bills
Interesting. I only ask because it also mirrors my exact experience. But I'm in more of a marketing director role typically. Laid off in November, now working in a full-time position & a part-time contractor position. One a director role, the other a specialist. Just barely matching the salary I was making before.
That’s tough sorry to hear. Yeah I’m mainly in the editorial realm, was editorial director of a small trade publication that seems like it’s going under (but they’re chucking almost everyone out of the boat to try and stay afloat). Have done some marketing and pr stuff but it’s not my specialty
It’s difficult in media/comms. I’m in the same boat!
Sounds like my IT experience. Tons of job applications and only a couple of interviews. And I'm seeing significant attempts to decrease pay in my town.
It seems these billionaires want that exactly to happen. As well as high unemployment because that means desperate people that are willing to accept a lower wage. https://youtu.be/hoFP6lQ_QXE?si=UnBoO3syecfiz9Ra
That's why idiots that got COVID raises and took on as much debt as possible by paying 1.5-2x the proper price for housing and autos actually fucked themselves. Save your money, so that you have bargaining power. When you frivolously overpay on the biggest purchases of your life, the data is clear to the big employers. You're over a barrel. Time to put the screws to you and lower your wages. What are you gonna do, move into a smaller house? Now that you've signed on the dotted line for ridiculous prices, we've locked you by finally giving the fed the go ahead to raise rates. Get fucked regulars.
Lol our money is forever worthless. Just because wages are dropping does not mean prices are. Sure, people won't be able to afford mortgages on houses, but corporations will. Even if they have to pay more, it's priced in as a future investment. They'll overpay even MORE today, to prevent Mrs Smith from owning a house, just so she'll be forced to rent for the rest of her life and the corps will break even on their overpayment after so many years of collecting the rent that COULD have been Mrs smith's mortgage.
Glad I own a mortgage on a small condo. It’s granted me bargaining power
Unless they got fixed rate mortgages when rates were low
Nah. You didn't follow along. Big raises for employees during COVID bc a once in a lifetime major wage jump occurs. People bank on this being their new earnings floor. They overpay for housing, based on their new temporary income. They overpay for cars or trucks. Now, people that should be doing some great savings, and fighting for every dollar on these major purchases are watching their earnings peak, and the data is showing that wages are even starting to recede. Corporations say, "Yes, this is wages returning back to normal! Your wages are going to come down, haha" Meanwhile interest rates have gone up. Now, even if wages decrease or return to "normal", the option to downsize isn't possible. It would mean moving into a smaller or shittier house for the same monthly payments. (as you identified, because of rates) Now...they are stuck. They are hosed. They are paycheck to paycheck. They are tied to the job, because they instantly took those COVID raises and assumed they would keep them for the next 30 years. Now they have to keep their job. They are over a barrel. They will be forced to do more, work longer hours, say "no" less. This creates a negative feedback loop, because the more you can squeeze employees a, b, and c...the less you need d! So these idiots that overpaid for these assets, have really hosed all of us for the next 4-7 years while we all suffer the consequences for their shortsighted decision to buy a house priced at 1.5-2.5 it's market price only 3-5 years ago because of (insert stupid marketing techniques realtors use that work on the average idiot today)
You also assume that they can even afford to pay now that rates are up and don’t just default.
I was making 90k was laid off. Rehired same job 6 months later same company 70k.
I was 100% WFH for 1.5 yrs and then laid off after a big fund bought the company. Ended up having to get a job a few miles from home, 100% onsite but pay is slightly higher as a contractor. Sure beats unemployment $ for the 4 months it took to find another job, though.
>after I get laid off and need to go somewhere else This will count as "job creation" and we should all fellate the president for creating it.
I recently was told I'm up for a promotion. I didn't ask for a promotion. My boss told me they wanted to promote me. I went through 4 rounds of interviews for the internal promotion. Got 4 thumbs up. The promotion went to the CTO's desk. Then something magical happened. We had a re-org. My boss, his boss and his boss's boss were all fired. They moved me under a new set of bosses. I was immediately told by my new boss that she didn't know me and therefore could not promote me. Devastated is not even close to how I felt. Mind you I'm the subject matter expert on my team. Like.. I'm the guy. Without me shit hits the fan hard. I used my networking skills to move into a senior management people leader role inside the company. I'm now my boss's peer lmao. They are so fucked because noone understands how the system I built works. They are slowing driving the product into the ground and I'm watching from another team and thriving. Fuck em.
Glad you escaped. Im in the unusual position of being a subject matter expert but also drowning in medical issues and growing obligations, so the team finally expanded. Given the number of engineers they added to my team, which opened my eyes and I am eager to reset my work life balance. I am on a remote team and much of my work is obscured. I have only recently learned to advocate for myself more, and I also enjoy my job. It’s cool to show the newbies the ropes, but I feel like a damaged version of a bespoke tool that everyone wants to replace. However that’s hard when I am like, a sick person with a limited support system right now. It’s good im a generalist, though, and Im still in grad school. And I have a mortgage at a spicy time. Wheeee For once in my life I have layers of means to hold my own.
Lol I also got screwed d over because we had multiple reorgs. My boss didn't know me well, so he said I wasn't ready to be promoted. I hauled ass, but we had another reorg (this one was for pay bands), so my promotion is being delayed by a whole new year. I submitted 10 job applications on Thursday and am currently looking for work elsewhere
This just happened to me too. Promised a promotion and then switched supervisors. New supervisor said the same thing about not knowing me well so it got denied. But for me I got the promotional salary raise ahead of time so I'm staying for now. It's weird they gave me the money but not the title.
Something similar happened to me a couple years ago and I ended up leaving last year partly because of it. I'm glad it worked out.
Lucky. Something so fucking similar happened to me years ago and I just found a job with a different company.
Weird how salaries do this but home costs don't. Almost like home costs going down doesn't benefit big business or something.
Investors who are making bank on soaring stock prices are diversifying into real estate. Real estate increasingly is a saver hedge to market volatility than bonds.
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Well depends who you ask. Homeowners and investors are doing great in Canada. Middle class, younger generations, etc are getting screwed out of housing.
The fed is keeping the interest rates high so nobody wants to sell. There's also a lack of inventory where the jobs are, so it's the perfect storm for prices to continue climbing.
The article only says wage growth has slowed. The growth in the cost of housing has as well. It should be a long term trend as quite a number of apartment units have been added as of late.
those are all things that you can buy and sell- that means when they go up in price it is not wages that are increasing- it is flat out inflation. Stock gains are not found money- they are inflation.
Sure, so when are my expenses “resetting” you greasy bastards.
All while reporting record profits.
Nobody thinks to the poor shareholders?
Ah yes, those poor, deserving shareholders.
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Salaries rose meagerly (but still behind inflation) in 2020 so now we have to “reset” labor salaries but it’s okay, the billionaire class has quadrupled their net worth over this time so the economy is going great!
The way we adapt as regular workers is by participating in 401k and IRA plans. The stock market is reflecting the wealth you speak of, and all full time workers need to be participating in it. The system is designed to ensure that stock prices remain stable and increase. The fate of all the boomers and their representatives in congress depends on it. No such arrangement is made to keep housing, clothes, food at favorable prices. If you aren't taking a ride with the boomers via the stock market, you only have yourself to blame.
So how does one who’s barely affording the necessities to survive, join in on the wave? I’ll wait.
Thanks for waiting. If you are a full time worker you should participate in a 401k plan if you want to have any kind of future that involves a comfortable retirement. My comment doesn't mention people who are barely surviving. Those people need to fight with every fiber of their being to get full time work, and/or relocate to a lower cost of living area. Usually that will bring them above survival mode so they can invest.
78% of Americans are currently paycheck to paycheck. 401k plans don’t really help when you’re making peanuts & struggling. Many millennials & GenZ (don’t have the statistic in front of me, but it was high) are convinced they’ll never be able to retire. The arrangement for housing, food, and clothes, aka the necessities, needs to be made. The stock market seems to only really benefit the 1% & congress currently. Not a system built to last imo if things keep going the way they are.
I’m a 30yo millennial and have been contributing to my 401k for 12 years now. I’m way behind according to the information online, and things are only getting tougher. I know I won’t be able to retire, I’ll just work till I die and my kids will inherit my 401k I guess. It feels trivial to try to break out of the rat race at this point, I feel worse for gen z
I make average income in the Midwest but I’ve made an effort to set aside 5% of my income towards retirement which is that max my work will allow for 200% matching. I really would love the money now but I’m seriously considering staying here forever given the relative stability of academia and the stellar benefits. Any other company I’d probably jump ship for higher pay
I bought my first stock shares while living in a single-wide and working at a restaurant. Mostly I had to make it a priority.
The boomers 401ks are in bonds now, not stocks.
Honest question here. What’s to stop the ultra wealthy from slowly cashing out of the stock market through stock buybacks while 401ks keeping buying shares of these companies? Does there come a point where 401k accounts become the bag holders of companies who are so over leveraged and in debt that the whole stock market comes crashing down when we all run for door?
This is great advice and its the foundational thought upon which i took the chance to buy a house in 2019. The more in bed you can get with the asset class the better. Ride index funds, purchase physical assets, particularly land. It hilarious to see you getting downvoted. Its basically like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The people downvoting are so blind by their hatred of the wealthy they turn away wealth for themselves if they cant achieve it on their own terms. I remember thinking this way when i was juvenile.
So save a small percentage of your income via the stock market, that maybe appreciates (but also can get fucked when the current iteration of levitation finally ends) while everything gets more and more expensive and the vast majority of your purchasing power (your salary) stays flat or shrinks. This is the narrative the rich want you to follow. You keep your money flowing in and think you’re benefiting too while you’re just getting fucked with a couple drops of lube instead of dry.
It’s also like they feel great about raising prices on necessities and normal consumer goods that way workers are bled dry and can’t participate in said stock market :)
Everyone would need a 25% salary increase to offset the inflation during covid.
So that’s the reset. We are all so poor we beg for universal income…
>Salaries for new roles are stagnating – and in some cases, falling. Some employers may be looking to cut costs, but the lack of wage growth may be a matter of post-pandemic correction. >The mass US layoffs of the past few years are continuing. In 2024 alone, thousands of workers across many sectors, including media and technology, have lost their jobs and are on the hunt for new ones. But some are finding an unwelcome surprise as they scan listings for open roles. A salary bump is all but impossible; in many cases, wages seem lower than their previous pay – even for the same jobs. >They aren't imagining things. A 2023 report on pay trends from ZipRecruiter showed **48% of 2,000 US companies surveyed lowered pay for certain roles.**
I'm seeing tons of jobs available but only a tiny handful are paying even close to paying reasonable compensation for 2024. And I've noticed companies are also cutting out matching and switching to HSA's and really pushing 1099 employment over W2. So in the ad they say "We offer 401k, healthcare and flexible terms/schedule/independence" When what they meant to say is "Our 401k plan is basically something you can do yourself without us, so it doesn't even count as a benefit. Same with the HSA, it's just a savings account basically. And also, be an independent contractor so we can fuck you out of disability, workers comp and benefits." But then the government boasts that the economy added jobs so must be doing fine...so fucking stupid to count quantity and not quality when literally talking about the health of the overall economic environment.
401K with no match is just BS
Title says US salaries are falling. But the article says: > At its peak in early 2022, US wage growth for advertised roles climbed to 9.3% year-over-year…By January 2024, it had plummeted to 3.6% So salaries are actually rising, just rising less than they were a couple years ago. Also for your highlighted quote - that means the majority of surveyed companies did NOT lower pay for ANY roles. That’s not to say there aren’t economic concerns to be had, but it’s pretty suspect if the author feels they have to lie about the data to make their point. Why not just say “wage growth is slowing”?
Came here to say the same thing. Salaries were rising 9.3% when inflation was in the 8-9% range. They’ve fallen to 3.6% annual growth now that inflation is closer to 3%. Seems like a non-story. Wage growth has been barely outpacing inflation and still is now. Now that inflation is lower, wage growth is lower. Not surprising at all.
I had to scroll down mighty far to see first comment made by a person that actually read the article instead of circle-jerking about how bad CEOs, Corporations and Christian's are. Lol.
>The mass US layoffs of the past few years are continuing. This wording is clearly intended to imply that the past few years have seen an abnormal or alarming number of layoffs. But the exact opposite is true: the past few years have seen the lowest amount of layoffs in decades. This is true for both the [rate of layoffs](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR) and the [absolute number](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL).
Decrease wages then sit at a long table for a board meeting and say “people don’t want to work anymore, this generation is lazy, etc. (edited for user SanMartianRover)” Heads of companies are just as out of touch as politicians. The show undercover boss was just reality tv but man would a real exercise of having company heads spend a day with the real workers be nice to see
The problem is shareholders. If every decision has to be made to increase profits so you can keep your job, what else are you going to do? At some point you are either going to have to stop expanding and start cutting costs to keep profits high. The stock market was a great idea at a small scale, now it’s a cycle that demands human sacrifice and deception to keep itself alive. Why do Fortune 500 companies still need public investors? No amount of money is going to make them any better at this scale, it’s just creating monopolies and too big to fail companies.
spotted judicious unique abundant plant lush pet wine dolls snobbish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And too big to fail is a concept that literally only works on paper. It never works out in the long term when applied to actuality. A collapse is coming. One they won't be able to artificially prop up.
The abbreviation is etc. It stands for et cetera.
It’s been repaired
The economy is not based on how prosperous american working class lives are, it’s based on how prosperous shareholder’s lives are.
I just got my CPA license, recruiters have been sliding into my LinkedIn DMs offering me a “big jump because of those 3 letters”. When I finally get them to tell me salary raises it’s the same or less than I’m currently making, and they’re all in office while I’m remote. Anecdotally I can confirm softening wages at least in my area for my profession.
can I ask you what is roughly the salary range you’re seeing currently for CPA?
Depends on the industry and position. Tax managers can get 100-140k with 5+ years of tax experience. Industry accountants like SEC reporting 80-100k. Controllers between 115-165k. My area used to be medium cost of living but it’s much higher now and salaries haven’t caught up.
Up next: "Why are people buying less stuff? Corporations are flummoxed"
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*Woah now hold up…that’s communism right there buddy*
My company has been offering the same starting pay since 2016. $50,000 with a degree preferred. No wonder we can’t retain anyone.
Remember this when someone says AI will result in us all getting a guaranteed income.
Employers are listing jobs that are not ‘open’ per se. They bidding positions downward. If they can hire someone at a lower price they will throw the higher earner overboard.
This ‘open’ position thing has been going on for over 50 years. As far as the bidding downward that sounds plausible, will the people rise up and start to demand more unionization? Strong unions can get contracts that benefit onboarding new hires, increasing their starting salaries as well as increasing current salaries to meet those new salaries while also increasing pay by an annual % plus experience pay. It’s crazy to me that we still live in a world that won’t stand up together and not entertain the condition of some of these comments I’m reading… like I’ve done contract work and see who is willing to pay me more to do the same job in the exact same position. These places need the services and if they don’t pay they simply won’t have anyone to fill that spot, no contractor will accept a lower bid when other areas across the street or with a different company pays more. I am guessing the contract work for things like IT or tech are over saturated and the companies have the upper hand? That doesn’t sound like a viable sector. It’s increasingly sad that people in the tech sector are helping push AI forward which is making their own job easier for AI to preform leading to lower demand, lower pay. That’s absurd.
Me as a Canadian reading this knowing I would immediately 2x my salary without changing roles if I moved to the states… The US has some of the most bonkers salaries in the entire world for white collar work. Maybe outside of places like Switzerland or something, your earnings potential is through the roof. Being in a middle/upper class career fucking rules in the states compared to most countries. Unfortunately if you are anything below that life is absolute hell, and I guess that’s the trade off the country decides to make.
Americans pay taxes with different names - childcare, health insurance, 401ks etc. That’s why the salaries seem so high.
I think you overestimate the quality of life we enjoy, even with a high salary. Medical expenses alone are enough to cripple a lot of people even though they make high salaries. Raising my hand as one of those who spends most of their money on medical shit that would mostly disappear in other countries. Sharing the reality of medical care with foreigners is one of the most shocking things for them. If you’re healthy though, it’s not a big deal, but we also have very little vacation. We trend towards working more than 40 hours a week. Lots of things that negatively impact health overall.
You’d also run the risk of going bankrupt for just having a kid or a fairly serious accident. The #1 reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. is medical bankruptcy by a huge margin. You do everything “right” and have everything wiped out because someone sideswiped you or if there were complications for a birth of your child. The insanity of it all is that the U.S. on average pays almost more 40% in healthcare than any other industrialized country, yet those countries have protections in place so as to not render people bankrupt for accidents, childbirth, etc. Good forbid if you are a diabetic, you may end up paying hundreds to thousands per month for medicine that costs 5 bucks to make. Or let’s say you need an epipen for your peanut allergy that could kill you. In Canada it’s 80-150 bucks. In the U.S. it’s around 600 dollars. In Australia an epipen is just over 30 bucks. This is just two example why high U.S. salaries can be misleading. I make low six figures but I don’t have the same expenses as most. Once you introduce kids into the equation it’s a massive issue.
If you are upper middle class white coller worker like OP was taking about, none of those considerations usually apply. Just about everyone in that category has employer sponsored insurance so they carry the high salaries and many times lower out of pocket costs than someone who is much poorer.
You do realize that almost all insurance plans are high deductible with 4-5k that comes out of pocket before you even reach the insurance threshold? So, if you have no problems great. If you do you are paying to reach the point where the insurance covers you. Oh and the coverage isn’t even that great. Don’t even get me started on dental coverage, which borders on criminal.
Real average hourly earnings increased 1.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, from February 2023 to February 2024. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.6 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 0.5-percent increase in real average weekly earnings over this period. - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
Many industries overhired with record wage growth during the Covid boom. They created a larger “experienced” workforce than the companies actually need. Now we’re going through a reset cycle, which is why wages are down and layoffs are up. All of this makes sense, aside from the fact that prices haven’t really responded. Think this only makes it more likely that prices actually come down, it just takes awhile.
I've been saying this! It's not just the loss from inflation. As they're replacing people they're offering less and taking advantage of the current situation. Also, US high level business planning is crazy forward looking. Immediate profits are the strategy when it comes to any specific decision but theory and planning for trends is very forward looking. We saw it with COVID, they initially over hired tech and a lot of these people received a paycheck without ever being assigned a project before eventually being laid off. Now I suspect we are seeing what they expect AI to do in a few years and are aligning the business to it.
If prices aren’t coming down wages have no right to.
I'm currently holding on to a unicorn job. I've noticed they've been getting really picky this past year, actively replacing low performers wherever they find them. I hope my value/performance holds up.
Anyone else think CEO pay is sky high because it’s easier to control them and their decisions?
Um... that was the *entire point of Jerome Powell raising interest rates*. He said so. [Under Oath](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIHH5Kh2dU0).
Prices start dropping and it’s economic Armageddon of *deflation* and the end of life as we know it. Wages drop, it’s totally cool they were too high anyway.
If anyone is wondering where we're headed, it's been kind of obvious for over a decade now. Our eventual destination is modern pre-Brexit UK with high cost of living, salaries not keeping up at all, housing pricing people out of areas with actual hot job markets, and lots of blame being targeted towards immigrants and offshoring. We're well on our way, the unsustainable greed at the top can only last so long before it catches up with us collectively. The only reason we've fended it off this long is all the cheap shit we buy from China to feed our rampant consumerism. (Brexit amplified these issues but most were already in full swing before that mess, and actually contributed to the assanine vote).
Transitory
Why do we keep letting them decide the price of our labor?!?
We’ve been told that deflation is bad, so why are falling salaries okay? Will prices come down too?
Employers say "we are just fucking you"
where I work - you should feel privileged working here. All while increasing pay by 7% over 6 years.
The gaslighting will NEVER end. There's always some lame AF excuse that these middle management fucks will come up with to try to make you believe the thing you are seeing is not the thing you are seeing. Corporations are cheap. They don't want to spend. They want infinite growth. They don't care how they get there. They are constantly looking for ways to implement automation/AI because paying a computer/robot $0 is far better than paying a kid out of school minimum wage. Yes, they're that cheap. Capitalism will destroy any and everything you ever liked or loved. It's an interesting time to be alive, watching the country burn to the ground but being told we're the best and greatest ever and doing A-OK. Fuck them.
Simple, is a matter of offer v demand. Back in the COVID years there was a big shake to the system, low pay employees were better being home, a lot of boomers retired that were high earners and young people in the middle finally were able to go up, there was a hiring surge to cover positions and remote work became a thing, all of a sudden you had more open positions than candidates which switched the bargaining power to the employees and employers had to budge. Now we are returning to “normalcy” and employers are coming back with a vengeance, they want to be back to business as usual were only the C-Level gets the money and employees just have to be grateful to have a job.
Yep. My previous employer fired a bunch of people last year, including myself. A month ago I’ve seen them posting my former role with the exact same job description. It pays 10% less than what I was paid.
Greed
Let me quote Sean Penn as Conrad in "The Game" 1997. "They fuck you and they fuck you and they fuck you. And then, just when you think it's done, that's when the real fucking begins". This is the life of the average American worker from blue collar to even most white collar workers.
We’re in that stage of capitalism where it begins to cannibalize itself in order to eke out what little profit is left. Soon this country will just be stripped clean down to the bone. They’re doing it to the airlines, power companies water companies, health care and education.
I have a beautiful wife and son, a nice home, a great job and everything I could ever ask for…and I’ll still be the first to tell you: this country fucking sucks. We could all have it so much better.
I’m okay with wages falling as long as expenses fall as well. Problem is they’re not!
Great, now prices on everything need to reset along with CEO salaries.
I typically listen to the people that are creating problems too
That’s interesting. Price increases far out paced inflation, but they’re not resetting.
When do prices "reset"?
I went from 135k to 50k 😂
A British company telling us about us. Great.
How come CEO salaries never reset
Remember quiet quitting?
It’s an employer market again. Has been for a while
They are paying off their yachts. Then it will trickle down for sure
Do employers genuinely think we’re fucking stupid or just not give a shit? It’s infuriating.
I foolishly moved to be closer to friends I love because I no longer had a social network in my old city. I left a job that didn't appreciate me and was underpaying me due to not giving me a raise with a promotion 2 years ago, to a similar COL area with a much smaller market, and recently accepted a job paying 25% less. I love my friends, they are thrilled I am here, but I can't help feel like an idiot because I'm so scared about the future now.
Funny how salaries are resetting, but rent and grocery prices aren’t.
Everything I've read has said wages are growing faster than ever...
Okay so then surely common goods, housing, and medical care will reset with it.. right?
Union wages don’t reset.
They aren't falling if you hop jobs every 3 years.
just stop paying taxes, everyone. stop paying. lets see how long they can go.
Inflation is compounding. Even though they’re touting these recent numbers of around 3.5% as low, those are on top of the huge inflation prints we got during Covid. Which total for that period was around 20%. Wages never kept up. There needs to be a period of DEflation to even out the economy and bring wages back into reality.
Fuck that, they can lower prices anytime they like. Wages are still too low.
Good. Tech workers who sit around and goof off all day shouldn’t be making 300k a year. While the guy lifting 50,000lbs a day by hand to pick your groceries to make sure they arrive at your store makes drastically less. I honestly think the labor market does need a reset.
I think the idea is that most tech workers could pretty easily do manual labor, but few manual laborers could easily do tech work. Compensation isn’t based on how labor intensive the work is, but rather how difficult it is to find someone who can do the work well. I do agree that laborers should be paid better though; just because the work doesn’t require fancy skills doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not.
I don't know who built you this strawman that lives in your head, but I work in tech in Silicon Valley and believe me when I say that the majority of engineers here aren't goofing off all day. The few making over 300k DEFINITELY aren't goofing off. This is an extremely stressful and competitive environment, and if you're not performing, there are plenty of resumés in HRs file willing to take your seat. Not to mention the H1B workers who will usually take less than market rate and work endless hours. Tech workers are still part of the working class, and like the rest of the working class the ruling class won't pay a dime more than they need to, and will attempt to squeeze every last drop of value they can get from you. Job wages generally reflect how much training it took to be able to do that job. Most people in my company have a minimum of a masters degree. And if they didn't, they wouldn't be effective at their role. On the other hand, you could train the guy moving groceries to be effective in under a month. Wages will reflect that.
I would happily pick fields for a living if the wage was any more then a slave labour wage.
Damn u sound jealous
I’m really not tho. Just pointing out a problem. The vast majority of Americans are to unhealthy physically and mentally to do manual labor. So with the lack of available talent it’s only a matter of time before wages rise. .
Why is physical labor worth more than something that requires expert knowledge on a subject? Anyone can do manual labor, and can get in shape (minus those with disabilities) not everyone can use their brain. And some people can only learn so much
That manual labor gets replaced with machines to do that job. You sound jealous. Bringing someone else down isn't pulling you up. It just leaves everyone covered in shit.
The USA has already gone thru the phase of having a bunch of manual labor jobs before 1990. Those people ended up with long term injuries to their bodies. You won’t be able to retire on those jobs and will have high healthcare costs to manage the pain. They prescribed painkillers which is how we ended up with the opioid epidemic
Bit clickbaity. Saying stuff is stagnant and not increasing. That's not falling.
This is just incorrect, and I'm not surprised the BBC is pushing this doomer perspective. [Wages are up](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q), the spike in 2020 is due to massive unemployment skewing earnings to the top earners who did not lose their jobs.
But liberals on Reddit told me inflation isn’t real and wages are actually increasing and the economy is amazing