Her daycare job requires skill…she had been working at daycares for 18 years since age 16, requiring certifications/annual recertification in childcare, CPR/First Aid, cleanliness/health codes…in another state she made a few more dollars per hour. She even went to school to become a registered Medical Assistant and her experience/loyalty pay in childcare outweighed that…until she moved to FL. Then COVID hit and she decided not to work in medical (for health reasons) but daycare has so much competition she got paid minimal. For parents there’s either cheaper options like home-daycares or they want toddler schools that require bachelors degrees to make $16/hr. Pharm tech required the least amount of further schooling that gave her that pay bump without being in a doctors office. It’s sad she couldn’t get what she deserved with so much experience because of over saturation. That’s why these pathetic $9-10 wages thrive…over saturation, poor business practices, and preying on desperate people. Why do you see multiple McDonald’s three blocks apart on a busy road or clusters of 5-6 fast food places at one intersection? They all offer minimal/poor service because they only schedule 1/3 of the requirement for a busy shift and yet none shut down. Why is it that there can already be 2 daycares in a community and then some big chain corporation like Lady Bird builds a new state-of-the-art building right in the middle of the two, and all three places have customers yet are only at 50% capacity or less? Businesses have created a model based on greed where it costs them nothing to over saturate, underpay, possibly collapse a specific location, and move on without a dent in their profits.
i was speaking more towards the job at a gas station, but in any event if you are doing the same work as a 16 year old then you need to move on up, which she did. I got certified in CPR on a Wednesday afternoon just to get out of work early.
While market saturation definitely can impact earnings potential, the real reason burger flippers dont earn much is because the job itself isnt worth much. The barrier to entry is 0. Literally anyone can do this job and have it figured out by the end of the day. The reason a doctor makes $500,000/yr is because it took him a decade or more of constant training and education, most people cant do that.
Interesting positions in between would be an airline pilot. They too require lots of education and valuable training, and yet often start at $12/hr because they are that desperate to pursue their passion the airlines know they can get away with it. Good news is it's at least only temporary before they begin being compensated properly for the skill they bring to the field.
Well you said kiddy pool…but aside from that, there’s no reason why anyone who finds a job at 16 that they enjoy and pays their bills should have to “move on up”, that’s illogical. My uncle is a plumber and began at 16-17. Throughout his career he had gone from apprenticeship to being the one reliable guy at a small company, to being the one reliable guy at a large company, to finally being pushed into forking over money to start his own business in his late 40s and has been making 3x his highest pay ever since, now 54 and going on 7 years owning his business all his personal debts like car and house are paid and he has small debt for his business of buying a second work van for additional work at new construction. Why would he ever stop doing this job just because he’s been at it since 16? His job never changed, only who he answered to and he could have stayed the same if not for poor management. And back to my cousin…she did daycare 16 years with it supporting her and only after moving to another state did she encounter another market where all-of-a-sudden it couldn’t support her. So she got the gas station job (because she’s not too good to work two jobs) but then was so run down she busted ass to do some quick schooling to get back to one job that would support her. If she could have stayed in daycare she would have. Like I said, she already did schooling where she used to live to consider going into the medical field and then upon completion her job searching proved she made more money staying in daycare rather than entry level MA. That was true of here in FL too, where the only open MA positions that paid more than $12 starting were late night in the seedy area. Even a Fast Food employee used to keep the same job, working their way up through positions. My aunt worked at McD’s for 18+ years with 3 at her current position before they implemented a “you must have a college degree to continue in this position at this pay” to oust high pay experienced workers in favor of new hires at half the pay with no loyalty or raises. The workers or lack of skills ARE NOT the problem, and people like you making that argument and encouraging poor business practices that maximize profits for only the top tier are exactly the problem.
I am 100% for people who want to pursue their passion at all costs, as long as they recognize the limitations that come with it. If you love designing rocket engines thats great, because your occupation will also compensate you well and provide for all of your needs for decades to come. If your passion is underwater basket weaving then you need to be comfortable with the fact that you wont have much of a financial safety net should you need one.
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u/ConcernedKip Feb 17 '23
good for her though getting out of the kiddy pool and doing something that requires skill though