To feel depressed for the future for 'treadmill families'?

[user1478265589]

A report on the BBC website today says more and more people are having to run, just to stay still, and that's the experience of many people I know. I don't even know what can be done about it, it's just really depressing...

• Millions of workers - particularly women - are trapped in low pay

• Only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high-income earner as an adult

• From the early years through to universities and the workplace, there is an entrenched and unbroken correlation between social class and success

• Despite some efforts to change the social make-up of the professions, only 4% of doctors, 6% of barristers and 11% of journalists are from working-class backgrounds.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37987166

A degree is sold as the only route to riches.
Person does soft degree as ultimately they are not that bright.
Person wonders why they are not rich.

Where did you move SilentBiscuits? Room for some more?

I worry that degrees have become a waste of time and resources in many cases, and I disagree that school-leavers should simply be left to make the right decisions about this.

It seems to me that both universities and the government are in a better position to assess the value of degrees than students, and should take responsibility. Government does to some extent, in that it writes off loans from those who don't earn enough to repay. But I think responsibility should be extended, by telling the universities that they must refund to the government tuition in respect of students whose loans are written off. Then the universities would have an incentive to ensure their degrees were economically worthwhile.

"The cost of this is huge - why should it be disproportionally be born by the poorer sections of society when it is still shown that having a degree improves average earnings?"

Education has wide social benefits for everyone, though. I mean it's not like the millionnaire but non-graduate builder who has prostate cancer goes to a separate hospital to be treated by non-graduate doctors and nurses, driving along only roads that have been planned by non-graduate highways engineers, and seeing a non-graduate pharmacist for his drugs, before tuning into the TV for the non-graduate news channel.

It's almost like there's an answer here, where the state could reclaim some of the income from people who have done really, really well out of the system (success inevitably being a team effort), and give it to the poor to help them out of poverty. Like a tax on income, that starts very low for the poorest brackets and ends up at a hefty % for the wealthiest. Hey, we could even call it a "wage tax". Or something snappier - how about "income tax"?

Oh, and job creation is a matter of government policy. Universities have very little leverage over it.

Ha, I'm in South America - come on down!

scortja
Am I wrong in thinking that 'normal' jobs are disappearing too? Jobs that aren't celebrated or glamorous but pay enough to raise a family and offer some stability..

I think this is a huge part of it.

Not all "normal" jobs have disappeared, but a huge number have. All those middle tier admin jobs in banks, and skilled industrial jobs. Offshored or replaced by lower paid jobs in new and un-unionised industries.

BBC article on this from 2014:

Sir Charlie Mayfield drew attention to figures showing 22% of jobs demand only primary school-level skills. ...
He said job creation figures for last year [2013] in the UK showed that:
2.3 million higher-skilled jobs were created last year in the UK
two million jobs were created "at the bottom"
1.2 million jobs were lost "from the middle"
Sir Charlie, who also chairs the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, was speaking at the Daily Telegraph's Festival of Business.
This dwindling of middle-ranking job opportunities - which can provide a stepping stone for people advancing their career, could limit social mobility "at a time when we need more of that, not less", he said.
He contrasted the picture in the UK with that in the US and Germany, where the proportion of jobs which can be performed with just primary school-level attainment is much lower, at 10% and 5% respectively.
John Lewis chairman: UK workforce needs a step change

I'd love to move there!

That quote above supports the growing inequality, the us vs them mentality, the haves and have-nots theories that is making everything worse.

pausing - you might be interested in this - tho it is a year old. Nobel prizewinning economist, Paul Krugman, on how austerity ain't helping. Long read, but worth it

www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

So we're becoming an hour-glass economy. Bulge at the top; much bigger bulge at the bottom; not a lot in the middle.

I do think we need more social mobility, but I'm concerned that this is being seen as "the solution".

It's really not.

If we have an economy where the vast number of people are at the bottom, and the lives of people at the bottom are pretty horrible, then congratulating ourselves on a few getting a golden ticket into the top 10% doesn't really cut it.

If this is going to be the shape of our economy in the future, we have to think about how the lives of that bulk at bottom can be humane and meaningful.

Oh thank you for that, shove.

Really am going to run off thread now, but back later.

Less academic kids used to be encouraged to learn a trade - plumbers, plasterers, electricians were all well paying decent jobs and it was a good alternative for people to excel in areas other than traditional degree-orientated subjects.

Trying to shoehorn a kid with CCD at a levels into a lower standard uni where they will end up with a low degree isn't doing anyone any favours.

There's also fewer jobs where you can 'work your way up from the bottom', with management and higher positions being recruited via grad schemes.

In short, for a non-academic kid whose skills may lie in other areas it's a pretty bleak situation. Apprenticeships round here are rare as rocking horse shit.

I know loads of people working in admin, retail, and other low-paid jobs who have masters degrees from good universities. A masters degree really isn't a passport to riches.

No, but a master degree in a decent subject from a good uni is an indication you are clever and capable.

If you are hard working enough to get a masters, you are capable of applying and getting a graduate level job. That is a choice taken by your friends I woudl suggest to have a better work life balance for lower pay.

I do feel there is a big issue with 'wasted' education (mainly women) who end up in lower level jobs because of caring duties.

Exactly, Pausing. It's not about social mobility, it's about a more equal society. I like the John Lewis model of the highest earner not earning more than something like ten or twelve times the lowest paid partner.

I am one of those who has 'caring duties' - i.e. My hours are school time only. I have two degrees and am just a pinch above minimum wage. It's quite depressing. I also work two evenings a week. My DH also has two degrees and earns the average wage. We're both pretty bright, but it is hard to see a way out as there just aren't the jobs.
It does make me wonder if higher education is worth it. There doesn't seem to be any point in being bright and capable.

I think that part of the problem is the warped perception of how wealth is distributed.

There are a very small number of people who are massively wealthy - way beyond the levels that can be achieved by working hard. They either got very lucky by being a top rate celeb. or inherited it.

The number of people who are on the treadmill is huge - billions and billions.

Yet, the most hate seems to be between those who are in lower paid jobs, and those who have just a tiny bit more. Yes, a household where one person pays higher rate tax might be better off than where somewhere earns 30k, BUT there are people who have so much money that if they gave away just half of it, it would actually make a difference to the rest of us.

Yet, those are not the people who get vilified in the press so much.

We need more multi-billionaires to give away their money, it would actually make life better for everyone else.

I would not have a problem with state funding for mainly technical degrees such as medicine/nursing and a few others (can't think of examples) that are generally deemed to benefit society and where most people are employed by a public service PROVIDED there were conditions attached that required a set period of service (paid at the going rate obviously) in lieu of repaying fees before a graduate could leave the country or go into private/consultancy. As happens in the forces, or used to, when a student is tied into a fixed term commission for typically eight years service post-graduation. Any other degree would have to be self- financed.

We also need a more frank acknowledgement that capitalism requires an expendable surplus, those who work part time etc. These people will always get lower paid and under appreciated. The easy way to 'select' these people is to pick on the vulnerable, e.g. women, caregivers, younger, older etc etc. Historically it was also based on skin color, religion etc.

People can invent any number of ways to 'justify' why certain groups get more money than others, but ultimately it's because the economy requires some people to have less access to jobs, wealth etc.

at the idea that multi-billionaires would willingly give away their money. Most would continue to control its disbursement via Foundations.

OP, fwiw, I think the term "working class" is antiquated, and there simply are very few "working class people" left in the UK! How many still work in manufacturing, the mines, maybe some in construction (but lots of plumbers/builders etc. would class themselves as middle-class these days)

I have not met a working class person for years and years to be honest, lots of MC people though (higher, lower, middle). And people on benefits. Pensioners.

But labourers?

SO I am not even sure this kind of data is relevant, iyswim.

I would not have a problem with state funding for mainly technical degrees such as medicine/nursing and a few others (can't think of examples) that are generally deemed to benefit society.

I have a problem with this - being a big fan of education for education's sake, I believe all educated people are of benefit to society. Everyone should therefore have access to free education to as high a level as they want to go.

I think for me, apart from having really enjoyed my time at uni I'd say there are definite self-esteem benefits to having good qualifications.
I grew up on a HA estate and was in all the top sets at school so I was always a bit embarrassed at being poor as most of my friends were more MC than me (I know it's shallow but I was 14/15).
I also feel like I can 'hold my own' in an argument, even against 'middle class white men' (so most of my old seminar groups then).
I dunno, I guess I'm saying I got my pieces of paper and then suddenly it's like I had proof I was 'good enough'

God that was waffley, I guess I'm saying that there less tangible benefits to going to uni especially if you are poor/an ethnic minority/disabled etc.

Those who work in call centres are working class.

There are so many dozens of interpretations of class now - let alone historically - that it's hard to define. In some Marxist writing, "working class" refers to anyone who is basically salaried, doing waged work. Versus the "bourgeoisie", who own the means of production (capital and land) and could coerce others into working.

Of course, this is complicated now by the existence of things like shareholders, who can be both, or buy-to-let landlords who also have a waged job, etc. etc. etc. Also, by the rise of the service industry, which means "means of production" would have to be extended to things like warehouses with telephones in them, I guess.

Sociologically, of course, there are many other definitions of class- based on a whole range of indicators including consumption, mores, education, even social media usage.

And then there are those like me who'd make a case that class is really about how we talk about class, discursively, at any given moment in time, and that this is about far wider debates about how the reality of economics is interpreted at a given moment, given a given configuration of power relations.