From college, blue collar trade work, or even USPS and government careers to minimum wage and small business. Nothing works.
Go to college? Oopsies everyone already has a degree. Theres nothing special about you. No experience? Well too bad cause you need experience just for entry level and it’s minimum wage. But if you don’t have any college then you won’t have any chance of even entry level. Someone will also tell you “WeLl jUst gEt A UsEful DegReE oR SkiLL” even though there are people who do have useful skills like engineering who still can’t find a job with their degree because the markets absurdly competitive above min wage.
Trying construction, trade work or skilled labor? Well good luck even getting in. Your options are union or non union and trade school. If you chose union well great cause there are barely any room for new apprenticeships. Besides the lack of space you’ll have to deal with nepotism and crappy applications that make you jump through many unnecessary hoops all so you can compete with several hundred to thousands of people for a lottery or selected placement ranging from 10-100 people a month or total depending on the trade and state. The application is often only open for a few months per year so your chances of getting anything is low and you’ll have to reapply over and over again. But if you do get in, the wages and benefits are better than non unions. But non unions there is simply no point in doing it. Most company apprenticeships simply are inferior to union and can be rushed or even under train you and only teach you what you really need to know but not the rest. Plus you are always paid a lower wage compare to unions while having none of the benefits and having lower safety requirements. Same as trade schools. There are simply very little good reviews of them and they don’t always have good training but you still gotta pay THEM just to get in a career that cost a lot in health insurance and medical issues down the line. Really why pay to get work when you can get paid to work? If it’s construction it’s union or never. It’s always about the money and if you can’t get in a union you simply shouldn’t even bother with this industry.
Maybe USPS or government careers? USPS probably had no future when it is experiencing a hostile takeover with rampant and intentional mismanagement so it can collapse as a public service and become privatized. There is a recent across the broad decrease in wages for mail carriers even though their routes have become longer and they have to deliver more packages and mail. Government careers often have nicer benefits but their wages are either minimum wage or the ones with high wages are the same jobs that require several years of college followed by several years of unique experiences and specialized experiences with no training.
And this just leave min wage. I don’t think we even need to explain this one. It’s simply not sustainable as a wage yet it’s the only guarantee with the other options either taking too long, sacrifices or have too much luck and hurdles. Yet even at min wage where the supposed “labor shortage” is. Companies still manage to filter and reject people who want to work there even though a basic wage is all they offer.
Post is slightly exaggerated but also the truth. There simply isn’t a clear cut path for “catching up” and there’s simply too much luck involved nowadays that no choice is the right choice but not making a choice is also an automatic fail. Some people will inevitably end up in better positions through luck but for many of us, I feel like are stuck.