Ok.
I’ve been working shoulder to s with the people you’re disparaging and your perspective about opportunities is not their reality. Their reality is crippling student debt, skyrocketed rents and mortgage costs (NOT talking APR here I’m talking price per square foot), no ability to save substantial amounts of money for downpayment on a house because starting salaries coming out of school are dogshit vs the realized inflation rate vs. 40 years ago, and it’s very difficult to build decent credit score under those conditions. The economy is trashed right now for them as a cohort. People are forced to live with parents well into their 30’s because the jobs and the money aren’t in the same place. It’s an upside down world where a job at Starbucks is a better prospect than college.
One major problem is just as Mike Rowe described it. College isn’t and shouldn’t be for everyone. The trades are vital and lucrative but the system pushes the ”college or you‘re a piece of shit” message down everyone’s throats.
Good post. Scary post.
I see a handful of problems that give me fear for the future for a lot of us, and I'm well above that age group.
First, even when I was a teen, I never had to be told not to gamble on future earnings being able to pay for debt you take on today, so I don't quite understand that. I don't know any school-age kids, so I don't know if they yet teach basic financial skills in high school. If not, they need to. Learning how to manage money when you're young is vitally important. Knowing to steer clear from a credit card company offering you a $3000 (or whatever) line of credit when you don't even have a job, and realizing they're simply trying to get you addicted, not unlike the drug dealer giving out teasers, is also quite important.
And then you've got the lack of vo-tech in schools, the trades can't find decent help, and the song that has been overplayed to death is, "go to college." I was in the top 5% of my class, college-bound, but instead chose the trades, and I've done well my entire life, earning more than my college-educated friends were, even back then. That tired line has
got to change.
There's ways out, but as I see it, the first thing you gotta do is get out of expensive-to-live locales. I empathize with those living with that stress on a daily level. Oh and another item I believe is hurting this younger generation is the globalization of our economy. The disparity between the jobs today and the cost of living for these kids has been made much worse because of the cheaper costs of goods produced overseas. I don't agree with it.
For my part, I try, as much as I can, to hire young kids, even if it means they will cost me more due to training, because I'd rather teach good habits than fix old bad ones, and I know a lot of these kids need to be put on a path to self-sufficiency, and the trades can do just that. I also tell them to keep watch on how the industry changes around us, so they can make smart moves that will help keep them from getting replaced by a machine (which is yet a
nother problem that contributes to this crisis!) Just look at the guy whose only skill he ever learned was running the buffing wheel at a guitar manufacturer, then suddenly lost his job when the company bought a robot, trying to stay competitive with global markets, no less.
No easy solutions, but they're out there.
Worst case, it has a title, and more than one probably applies to some extent, so.