| BMaker11 said: I know that someone needs to stock the groceries, flip the burgers, mop the floors, etc. But don't pay those jobs so much that it lowers the incentive to do jobs in more fulfilling fields. Those jobs shouldn't be given a wage that's in the middle class. They should pay exactly what they're meant to do: keep a person out of poverty. And an engineer is definitely "more important" than the construction worker (not to seem condescending to construction workers, but I don't have a better term). Construction is manual labor and following illustrated instructions. Anybody with muscle and machinery know-how can do that. The engineer is the one who designs the buildings (engineers do more than buildings though, for the record. Software engineers, industrial engineers, electrical engineers, etc. All very different jobs). The engineer has to be mathematically correct to the tiniest minutia and know the physics behind how the steel girders are to be placed in relation to the building's foundation to make sure everything is right. Otherwise a literal gust of wind could knock the whole building down, expansion or contraction of the metal (due to hot or cold temps) compromise the intergrity of the building, and much more. You wanna tell me playing adult lego is more "important" than that? And even so, the average salary of a construction worker is $35,000. So your point is moot, because they already make more than $15/hr, and in the right cities, make almost $28/hr. And to become electrician is to learn a trade. That takes training (as opposed to stocking shelves). And the first year salary of an electrician is $42,000 (again, over $15/hr). Electrical engineers start out at $57,000 (at least, I would assume that the lowest 10% would be starting salaries). But you need to understand that there's a difference between designing and execution. If the electrical engineer messes up designs, and your electrician friend fixes them, the fact that there is a pay discrepancy between the two is because of the career fields (designing plans vs following plans), not the competancy of the engineer. If your cousin is always fixing designs, he must be surrounded by shitty engineers (a good engineer wouldn't need his designs repeatedly fixed), and if your cousin is so good at fixing designs, he should try and electrical engineering job himself. Or can he only "fix" slight mistakes, as opposed to designing a whole circuit himself? Oh, and btw, when construction workers have to adapt the plans, they consult the project manager (who should be an engineer, himself, since you're required to have expierence in that field to hold that position. That goes for any project manager for any company in any field of work). Guess who the project manager is contracted by and has direct access to? That's right, either the engineer who designed the plans himself or the engineering company. And when a nurse can perform any kind of surgery with pinpoint accuracy otherwise things go horribly wrong at best, and at worst, the patient dies, then get back to me about putting in more work. "More work" doesn't necessarily equal "more hours" (see my above post referring to "hard work" not meaning "putting in 40+ hours a week" but instead "obtaining skills to make yourself more attractive to employers of better paying jobs"). And even if we were to use that argument, at least nurses get days off. Doctors are on call 24/7, so they could work beyond their standard work day. If I'm not mistaken, though, a nurse does what a nurse does after being told by the doctor what to do. When to check up on the patient, what medicines to administer and when, etc. The nurse doesn't determine that, just executes it. Again, design vs execution. It's why engineering majors get paid more than engineering technology majors. Why people who design planes get paid more than people who fly them. Why the entrepeneur who came up with a business model gets paid more than the low level worker who actually does the "work" that makes the business operate. Otherwise, by your logic: Don Thompson may be the head of the company, makes the decision in what financial moves to make and what to invest in, product-wise, to becoming more appealing to the consumers, but it's the fry cooks who make my fry's and burgers. I've never seen Don Thompson walk into a McDonald's and cook my food everyday. Fry cooks put in more work and more hours than Don Thompson, why are they compensated less? People would be hungry just as easily without fry cooks. |
You're not understanding. I never said construction workers are paid terribly (They're not), the point I'm trying to make is that there's a place for everything. If you think only engineers should be paid highly then there shouldn't be any buildings cause they still have to be made. You say you understand everything has to be done, but only the poor should be doing it just shows how much of a horrible human being you're sounding right now. The other thing you're not understanding is that there's only so few engineering position, IT positions, management positions, etc. Do you have any idea how many people with degrees aren't in their fields? Hell look at Spurge who created this thread. Three degrees and, until he was promoted, was working night shifts at his Walmart. This is the biggest thing you're not understanding; there aren't enough jobs that keep people in middle class even if they have education. People are forced to work grocery or flip burgers because these are the only jobs for the majority of the population. Hell I have a computer science degree and just completed my education degree, I'm working at a grocery store stocking, triming produce. Hell when I came back after school the department's sales rose almost 10 grand weekly. I'm the direct cause of that, do you still think I shouldn't be compensated for it?
One other thing you're missing that others have explained; is that wages have gone down compared to inflation. Not having a middle class is terrible for the economy, incase you haven't noticed, and most of the jobs that provided that class have gone over seas. So what would you have people do? Get a degree to not have a job after they finish university?
Nurses do far more than any doctor does. There's actually a push here in Canada to let nurses prescribe more medication because they are that good(They recently got more power to do so). They're as needed as the doctors who cut people up, or diagnose. Why is there a huge pay discreprency of nurses vs doctors (Family doctors really, I understand you're point with surgeons) when nurses do what doctors can't? Should doctors get more? Of course, but there's a difference between paying a family doctor 300k a year vs 40k for a nurse.
Same with your Don Tompson example. I don't think he should be paid that much more than his employees because, to be frank, he'd be unemployed flipping burgers for another company if it wasn't for his workers. Same with large corporations: hoarding money isn't helping anyone. There's something wrong when companies are posting billions of dollars in profits just to turn around and go on mass firing sprees and slash wages.
My cousin can draw plans, he does them well, he just can't stamp. He wanted to get his electrical engineer degree, but he can't since he'd have to go back to school full time and that's not an option considering he has a family to support.
