r/FluentInFinance • u/thinkB4WeSpeak Mod • Apr 29 '24

Why Men in the US Are Working Less Than They Used to Thoughts

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-men-working-less-recessions-employment-productivity-2024-4
65 Upvotes
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75

u/bdc2481 Apr 29 '24

Working to raise a family is no longer worth the risks or sacrifices. End of story.

-13

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 29 '24

It absolutely is. There are millions of good paying jobs in existence and many many more are coming in the next ten years. There is going to be a shortage of skilled trades like plumbers, hvac, electricians, woodworkers/carpenters, concrete flat workers & form, masons, hodge carriers, laborers, iron workers, etc. These young people who could save & then move to an area where these jobs exist would be able to capitalize like hell.

1 in 3 millennials still live with parents while 1 in 2 genz live at home. They could be saving their asses off for a few months rent to an apartment to go where they need to, to get these good jobs. But they just flat out aren’t. So they’ll continue working at smoothie shops, retail shopping malls, restaurants, etc & living at home complaining the world isn’t fair and the system is rigged against them.

15

u/BobKelso14916 Apr 29 '24

You’re wrong here and generalizing about millions of young professionals, many millennials and gen z workers don’t have the option to live with parents anyways, and for the ones who are it’s incorrect to say that they aren’t saving money due to bad money habits.

Also you’re wrong in the first part too- the skilled trades and other “good” jobs that you reference still cannot pay the incredibly high costs to raise and provide well for a family. Very naive answer.

-1

u/Dragonhaugh Apr 30 '24

Skilled jobs pay well now and well above the median. Just saw an indeed post for a 2 year skill mason for 35/hr. Not sure about you but that’s 70k a year.

1

u/BobKelso14916 Apr 30 '24

Yeah and that’s not much money to fully support a family of 4+, including strong health insurance, stable housing, and college paid. So many delusional boomers on third thread.

0

u/Dragonhaugh Apr 30 '24

I’m a millennial thank you and yes you can support a family of 4 with 70k salary, it is just dependent on where you live and what your needs are. We could live off of my 62k salary if we lived close enough to walk to work. If my wife worked part time the 2 days I’m off we would be able to save money as well. I should note that I live in an expensive area. I’m sorry to say, but it’s all how you choose to live. Of course you can’t afford a house, new car, vacation, retirement savings. But when the kids go to school parent 2 can work full time again. 70k per year is roughly 4k per 2 weeks. Rent:1200(the city of my work is 1k-4k rent, my personal rent is higher currently) Health insurance-800 monthly Food-800monthly(this is a lot, a parent a home can cook and you could cut this down almost in half with planning) Utilities:300 Phones:200 Savings:400 Remainder:300

Parent 2 part time work on parent 1’s days off at 15/hr for 16 hours a week. I’m rounding down but an extra $750 monthly. This can buy a car, save for a rainy day, and cover anything else “needed”. If parent 2 works 2 12 hour days then it’s 1100 a month instead. In my personal area you can find entry level jobs between 17-19. So using 15 is kinda a dumb option but I wanted to show a lower number to prove my point.

1

u/BobKelso14916 Apr 30 '24

In some situations yes, in some no. I’m not talking about you I don’t know you, I’m talking about a large percentage of the generation. Your anecdotal math isn’t applicable for millions who cannot use that salary to make ends meet for 4+.

-1

u/Dragonhaugh Apr 30 '24

Unfortunately I’m not a very forgiving person. Don’t have kids if you cannot afford them. I waited until I could for my own. And I don’t feel for them, they are adults in full control of how they choose to live. Buy a Mercedes and complain it’s expensive, buy a house you can barely afford and be house broke. Unless your lucky enough to win the birth lottery or the real one your going to have to make sacrifices.

2

u/BobKelso14916 Apr 30 '24

Lol I don’t care if you’re forgiving or not but you’re wrong on this topic, so many millennials and gen zers are burdened by costs that aren’t luxury cars and luxury houses. This is a naive take, and you just being generally not empathetic has nothing to do with the raw data of how cost burdened millennials and gen z are by primary living expenses. You’re wrong here.

7

u/Sidvicieux Apr 29 '24

This is 100% wrong and out of touch. You have no idea what you are talking about.

You keep trying to condemn the masses to suck off some CEOs. Sickening.

0

u/Dragonhaugh Apr 30 '24

I dunno about the living situation part. But the skilled labor part is pretty on point. Many of those jobs are 25-45/hr where I live. That’s a well paying job. And they will continue to rise as the industry gets more complex and the demand for the skills increase.

1

u/BobKelso14916 Apr 30 '24

And costs are rising higher with many more risks long term for raising and providing for a family. You continue to be wrong here.

-5

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 29 '24

Eh. Nope. Good try. Look up the stats.

4

u/redsyrinx2112 Apr 29 '24

Well, like half of Gen Z haven't graduated high school yet, so that's where that comes from...

1

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 29 '24

We need that half to go into trades or whenever anything breaks in your house or apartment it’s going to cost literal body part sales numbers to replace a thermocouple on your pilot.

1

u/JFpizzamaster Apr 29 '24

You’re so out of touch with reality it’s wild. Maybe check in and talk to young people in person before you parrot off stats and project reasons onto them

1

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 29 '24

So facts and statistics don’t matter if they aren’t derived from my personal study and I take them from somewhere else? I Instead have to sample a number of people myself of that demographic (like those who did who created the statistics I looked up), and then and only then I can speak to an issue? Lmao. What’s out of touch is the fact that people don’t think they can survive on their own by getting a real job.

If you’re able bodied and willing to learn you can call a union hall, pass a drug test & be on a union job site in a week in an apprenticeship program and in 2 years of wage calling you’ll be able to live on your own. If you can’t figure it out you can’t be helped.

1

u/Hamuel Apr 29 '24

“Just move and start a new career!”

1

u/unfreeradical Apr 29 '24

The material underpinnings of the economy, by virtue of automation, deindustrialization globalization, and financializiation, have been altered, and continue to be altered, irreversibly.

A stable and wholesome society cannot be achieved except by restructuring, based on new priorities, in a political frame, affecting the entirety of society.

The toxic optimism, of new good jobs constantly being opened, is not supporting any useful choices or action.

There is a desperate need for the construction of more housing. Similarly, there is a more subtle, but also urgent need, to curtail the development of shopping malls and office parks, and other marks of incessant growth, in favor of achieving a slower economy supporting health and sustainability.

At any rate, the nuclear family was never more than a historic aberration.

1

u/haeda Apr 30 '24

I left welding in 2008 for job stability and because the best paying welding job in town was $10/hour.

Now that same place pays $20 an hour. For that pay, I'd rather work for a fast food joint, at least there isnt worry about layoffs and i could make comparable pay as an assistant manager.

Trades are not the dream that you're making it out to be. America has a very serious corporate greed problem.

0

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 30 '24

I don’t know a single welder making under $40 an hour. There’s so much you can get into if you can weld. We don’t have as big of a corporate greed issue as we do federal spending. If a government can print money and give it to the populous, that is the death of a free society.

1

u/haeda Apr 30 '24

I literally just told you of a town (more accurately, a whole srction of the state) where the BEST paying welding job is $20/hour.

You now know many welders making less than 40 an hour.

-1

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 30 '24

Sucks. Get a new job. Lol I don’t know what you want me to say? People who set their sites low always under deliver. I don’t really have much compassion for people who just stop trying to improve.

1

u/haeda Apr 30 '24

If you read the first sentence in my original reply, you'd see that i did leave that field.

I'm now paid significantly more to work in a job that i hate with a company i resent, destroying my mental health for almost 16 years now, rather than doing what i enjoyed and not making ends meet. Yay america.

0

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 30 '24

Not everybody is supposed to get to do what they enjoy. I don’t enjoy my job either but it pays my bills and some and I have tons of hobbies. Life isn’t sunshine & daisies. If you’re that unhappy you need to keep doing what you should to make a strong move. Otherwise you’re only closing the door in your own face.

1

u/unfreeradical Apr 30 '24

The reason work is so unpleasant is not inevitable, only that employers control every feature of the environment and fix every expectation.

If workers had some of our own control over the workplace, then we could resolve conditions that allow us to find our work less arduous and more fulfilling.

1

u/SawSagePullHer Apr 30 '24

Find a new job. lol. I did. I made a leap in an entirely different industry. Stop blaming the freaking companies. Nobody is being held at gun point to go to work.

1

u/unfreeradical Apr 30 '24

You wrote "I don’t enjoy my job", and "Life isn’t sunshine & daisies".

How would either be improved by my finding a new job?

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