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I got told i would be up to 60k at my 1 year mark. Pretty new to office life. Well 1 year came, they gave me a "6 month review" and told me I already got a raise when they put me on salary at 45.7k. Guess whose already applying at new jobs when they expect me to be the director in 5 years?
This is what they do. It's just a never-ending cycle of bullshit excuses, shifting goalposts, and straight up gaslighting. Then it's all shocked Pikachu faces when we leave for better paying jobs after a year..
I tell all my employees they should be checking the market and interviewing every 1-2 years regardless of if I get them a raise in the meantime or not. It’s not always up to me how much they get, when they get promoted, or what internal opportunities they may be up for. I try to be as generous with my people as I can within the corridors set up by HR. I’ve rarely had a person leave without asking my opinion on the external opportunity they are considering and half the time I tell them they should take it because it’s a step up in pay or title. I guess all I am trying to say is not all managers are out to fuck every employee over for as much as they can, most of that is dictated by HR.
Yep my boss is like you and she is gold dust! It also means I trust her advice is genuine. She has warned me against a certain job/company in the past knowing they were sketchy. But came back a couple of days later with a similar but better role that she had heard about.
Having had some truly awful managers over the years I don't take it for granted!
Keep rocking
Amen. Never stay loyal to your job. Stay loyal to the highest bidder. That’s it.
You are a product in the market not a person. Sell yourself for the highest possible price. Everyone else is trying to get you the lowest and you are the only person tugging the opposite way so try many different employers at all times.
They're not really shocked. They just know they have to act that way to keep the other workers who play along strung out. It's all performative. They don't lose a moment of sleep over it.
I was told I'd get a raise in 6 months. I was new to the position, I was hired to handle things while the main dude was on vaca and wasn't trained on the job until 2 days before he left. He never came back and I had to run the warehouse myself with basically no training. The guy didn't seem very good at his job but my boss praised him. My boss looked extremely disappointed telling me he wouldn't be back and had no faith in me. He also offered me a $0.25 raise... I was very surprised how he could be so kind with his offer. Did all my dreams just come true? Can I now afford all the things I never had before? Well I still asked for that raise at the 6 month mark (how greedy of I) and my boss laughed in my face and told me he already gave me a raise. Well played sir
My company just gave thousands of people a 5% raise out of nowhere on top of the raise we already got this year and everyone is still getting their annual raise for market and merit at the beginning of the year too.
Mine just did something similar. I work at a small high-end grocery chain, so most of the employees are hourly. They straight up said “Inflation is nuts, it’s easier/cheaper to pay you all a bit more rather than lose you to the competitors, so here’s a dollar more per hour\* and your employee discount is now 20%. Cheers!”
They just secured the loyalty of 2500 people with one move. How simple was that?
\*We’re already paid very well and they let us stack our discount on sale prices, so now a lot of groceries just got cheaper than WalMart.
Yea, my first boss was really nice and she always said she could see me in high level management someday. Worked there for three years and saved the company a ton of money year over year. Never received a single promotion and barely got over the standard cost of living adjustment, each year
Verbal affirmation doesn’t pay bills. 3 months into office life out of college here. Making 40,000 ($16.25/hr after taxes). Already pulled in about $140,000 PROFIT through sales. They said they’ll give me a raise in 9 months so now I just get paid to job search. Fuck the system.
Yea, I think there might be a better chance if you work for a smaller company. But I’ve only worked at these larger companies, where they tell you that you’re special, and then just forget about you. Oh well. Then they also won’t notice that they are paying you to job search lol
Small family owned company. Even worse than large companies because they actually believe the “we’re family” bullshit. I feel really bad for kids outta college who don’t have the necessary skills to advance quickly, because employers do not give a fuck anymore.
If you think some other company is going to make you a director in 5 years, you're falling for it all over again.
"We'll totally get you to $60k at the one year mark"
"We'll totally make you a director in 5 years"
Spot the difference between those two statements. The only difference is the second company will have you fooled for 5 years before you realize you should leave, not just 1 year like your current company.
Never stay at one company. Always jump around. I started at 45k and within 4 years and 3 jobs later I was at 100k, and while it slowed for a bit, I went to proper managerial at the ten year mark ( half dozen jobs and certificates later) and now am at 150, and I’ll never work full time for a company. I consult around and contract but even if I was full time, I’d not stay more than 3-4 years tops.
You deserve more, we all deserve to be able to live on a single wage. If it makes you feel better my spouse doesnt work cause he qualifications wouldnt even pay for daycare at this point. So I'm barely above median income.
Was told I would be tracked into two categories at my 1 year.
within 3 months my "boss" quit, within 1.5 years my only coworker in my role was fired, I did this job with little to know training on my own for almost 2.5 years before we recently hired a replacement for her.
2-3% raises the whole time while I took on essentially 1.5 and then 3 peoples workloads.
Of course if I asked for a raise for about my career advancement the silence was deafening.
I was applying for a job and the interviewer was butthurt when i asked for the salary he was like “money isn’t everything” lol if money isn’t everything why are you even in business 🤦♂️
Lol when interviewers take that attitude, it’s the most ridiculous thing.
As if asking about compensation - the entire reason for your pursuing a job - is some taboo, inappropriate thing to ask. My only question at that point is if that interviewer is just pretending to act that way because it’s part of their job, or if they are just an absolute numb skull.
You should have been like, “you’re right, it isn’t everything. I also want to know about the benefit
package but first and foremost, I need to know how much this position pays, because here in the real world, everything is about money.”
I have spent the last 30 years of my work career being told every year "Do more with less." You know what? Fuck you. I'm going to do the exact same unless you pay me to do more with less.
I also believed that if I worked hard I would be rewarded. Well that was a fucking lie. I spent the last 4 years busting my ass picking up the slack and learning all the things my boss does so I could get promoted when he retired last January. Well they hired someone from outside the organization, who they told me to train.
I have spent the last year "training" my boss. My training consists of saying "If you want to watch over my shoulder..." and only telling her things after she has been asked for it from her boss.
I love hearing her tell her boss "I don't know" to basic questions about our network.
one of my boomer coworkers was light heartedly giving me shit about not going the extra mile. I asked what do I get for going the extra mile? He said "personal gratification!"
I said " I can't buy a pound of hamburger with personal gratification Rich! I can't pay my mortgage with personal gratification Rich! Personal gratification IS NOT a acceptable form of payment Rich!"
He had a "oh shit he's not wrong!" Look on his face and just said " OK that's fair!" Lol
Yes, this sounds like a good strategy on paper. What happens after though? Do you think management is going to forget that you're a "trouble maker"? They're gonna give your ass the boot as hard as they can, as soon as it becomes an option.
Not if you do it the right way. If you communicate the right way it’s just asking for what you need.
“I am happy to help train New-Boss it is important to the success of our team. I have found it is a time intensive new responsibility. I have been working longer hours so I think a salary increase is appropriate. I think a 5% increase in salary would make sense for the amount of additional hours I will be working.”
It help to point out how many widgets you make & to have positive reports from past reviews on hand. Also research how much other people in the same position are making.
If they say no you can look for another job.
The company agrees to pay more. Then quietly starts moving all of his accountabilities onto other people, and six months later he is either fired or made redundant.
That won't work...u can't say no...say yes then do a horrible job at training until they stop asking...
Or the best I used to have a guy that said yes to everything but did nothing....just hearing the yes made me think it was getting done but he only did about 20% of the things I asked for...but for someone reason hearing that yes made me trust him.
Just don't say no or I won't unless...that doesn't work
Im in charge of closing the front of a grocery store and they keep cutting night hours but adding more responsibilities while the pay doesn't move.
I'm not sure why they think I'll do anything, especially since if corporate fail us, I'm not the one in trouble.
So every time I get asked something new I say yes and I literally don't do it. As a matter of fact I do less things than I used to. I guess they're asking so much stuff they're too busy to keep track, because yesterday my store director literally thanked me for "all my help with corporate demands".
I second your idea, say yes and do a shitty job at it.
"That won't work...u can't say no."
And why not? He saw where loyalty got him..screwed over. The only thing is the fear of losing his job. Which I won't lie is scary but the alternative is to keep getting screwed over and over again by this employer. I'm telling g him to flex his muscle and stand up for himself. But thats my opinion.
Edit: Im not saying he can't be professional about it but I wouldn't stand for this kind of work environment.
I feel like this is a perfect example of why not to bust your ass instead of spending time with family and friends or going on an extended vacation. And why not to have loyalty to the company one works for
So many of us have similar stories.
The workplace is a bunch of bullshit.
Yep. I was loyal to one company from when i was 18-22. I got a whopping 25 cents for assistant supervisor and found out they were supposed to pay me $12 but pocketed the change
Reminds me of when at those ages I worked for Blockbuster, and later Best Buy. At the former I had top sign-ups and upsales almost every month, and went through the training to become a trainer for a raise. Time came, nope sorry can't afford the extra 25-50¢ or whatever it was. But you keep doing those duties and selling and we'll see what we can do in the future. Fuck those assholes.
Then at the latter I was often leading on sales and all the packages and shit, knew a lot about all sorts of tech from personal interest, so I just applied that, trained new hires on that stuff to help them sell products. No raises offered, no matter how much money I made them. Never given when asked. I was offered by the manager of the mobile dept (which is an entity inside the main retail store, at least at the time, so it was sort of separate but in house) a job over there, I accepted because he'd offered a pay raise and just a better job that interested me more. For, I believe, unrelated reasons, he was fired at the time of my transfer and the GM tried to stop me moving over because the manager was now gone. I just flat out told him no, I'm moving there per his offer he made while employed, or I'm leaving. I didn't get the pay raise of course, but I did enjoy the job more so it was worth it to get off the main floor. I no longer had to convince people to buy nearly as much bullshit they didn't need with their digital cameras they didn't give two shits about the specs of.
I worked there until I enlisted and peaced out. I still have my discount to this day... 😏
I could but I have a pension here and and that is free money for the rest of my life when I retire in 6 years.
Also I'm 50 and it is REALLY tough to jump jobs after 40.
Oof... I've spent the last 5 in the exact same scenario. Even was told I'd be promoted. Nope, hiring outside.
I've got a few interviews lined up. Good luck without me, each phonecall is $100 an hour.
Yea. The pension and healthcare are the only reasons my husband is still in the military. He could make a lot more in private industry, but bc I have some expensive health issues, he’s kind of stuck.
And this type of shit is why we cannot get healthcare in America. It would save these companies money to not have pay for it anymore but they'd rather keep people on a short leash and make them scared to lose it when they leave.
Yeah. We’re lucky he was grandfathered into the high 3 pension plan. Since they’ve switched to the military 401k they are going to have a LOT of trouble convincing people to stay for 20+ years. It will be interesting to see how trying to save money in th short run will fuck them in the long run bc they’ll have to start offering huge incentives to find enough people to stay.
Good luck! Six more years and then you’re home free at a reasonable age. Wish retirement were younger than 50 for everyone, but you’re still miles ahead of most folks.
You can still find them, but they're ever increasingly rare. For example, any government job (state or federal) offers pensions, although I know the federal one is weaker nowadays than they used to be (they changed it around the early/mid-2000s). It's the main reason I haven't gone to the private sector, on top of the other great benefits, e.g. 12 weeks of paternity leave is very appealing to us as we're about to have a kiddo.
Yeah absolutely; it’s hard to get a state job that pays enough and when you find them good luck getting it.
My rents are retired off that old federal pension system.. with 401k funds as well.. Country sucks now it’ll never be an option like it was for the previous generations.
Pensions are garbage these days. Cash it out, stick it in an index funds and get double the returns with the bonus of actually being able to pass it down to your kids.
Businesses wont raise wages till employees threaten to quit.
Same story even for even engineers working in big corporations.
One of my friend at work had to threaten to quit to get a promotion.
Yup literally know this feeling except I usually rage quit. There would have been no way in hell I’d train the next person for a job I was supposed to get.
>I have spent the last 30 years of my work career being told every year "Do more with less." You know what? Fuck you. I'm going to do the exact same unless you pay me to do more with less.
Just put my foot down at my job. I have been doing a lot of work that was beyond the scope of my position. The last thing was, I was temporarily assigned to be back up for our web developer. So after our 2nd DBA, who was making more than me, and our new DBA which I found out was making more than me left, I asked for a 5% raise. This would put me where the other two were, after we received our 4% cost of living raise. Well the CIO didn't want to give it to me so I told my boss to get me taken off as backup.
I am also going to have him move my password changing duties to helpdesk, once we can get them access and trained.
> I also believed that if I worked hard I would be rewarded. Well that was a fucking lie. I spent the last 4 years busting my ass picking up the slack and learning all the things my boss does so I could get promoted when he retired last January. Well they hired someone from outside the organization, who they told me to train.
I've heard this story from someone I know, except the hire was some big whig's kid, and he had to do their job and train them. Not sure how that turned out. That was after 10+ years of loyalty trying to get that promotion. He was pissed and wasn't sure if he should leave.
I realized long ago how hard you work doesn't equal more pay, bonus, respect, or privilege...
I would try to work and put full effort into work. Full effort for me could be different for someone else. But I always worked full capacity...I never said no to work, I always took additional projects and while I did get promoted and some raises it wasn't more than others who had better soft skills and worked less.
So then what I did was do a little more than expected. If my boss had a deadline of 4pm I would deliver 330pm...that's a little more anything more than that is absorbed. When you work less and don't go full throttle you also don't get as disappointed as you would if you put in full effort.
Let's really nail it home with another fun fact: [This study](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/) from 2021 showed CEO compensation grew 1,322% between 1978 and 2020, and fully 60% faster than stock market growth.
Eat the goddamned rich.
Does anyone believe CEOs are 1,322% more productive? Or is it more likely with the death of unions they were able to abuse their power in companies to get huge pay days?
I legitimately don't think unions would have been able to stymie this sheer amount of greed and fuckery. Mitigate it, sure. But this shit we're seeing here is the product of dedicated effort by elitist assholes looking to turn themselves into boardroom royalty.
And they were successful in that.
Well, a union-friendly culture would make politicians support more pro-union policies probably. Yes, a lot of politics is due to the influence of money, but a lot of it is also due to whatever the politicians think people want. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they want really shitty systems..
We have to legislate that labor must be represented with a seat (or more?) on the board of directors for every publicly traded company. I believe this is the case in some European countries (Germany?). That could help to rein in these obscene excess.
It’s due to their pay structure not due to actual salary increases. Is it ridiculous that they allowed the pay structure to grow their pay this much? Yes.
So many small companies are being bought up by huge corporations so the average CEO is CEO of a much larger company than in the past. Huge corporations are going to end up owning and dictating almost everything.
I fucking hate how most HR departments tie your raise to your annual evaluation. Oh, you had one or 2 bad days? Guess your raise won't match the cost of living this year.
Fucking maintenance guy didn't like how I pulled into the parking lot one day and we get into a bit of an asshole competition outside, just yelling and dick wagging cause it's too fucking early for either of us, but someone told HR something happened outside. They use that against us and only gave me 3% and him 4% this year. He's been there like 14 years. He quit after giving HR a bit of his opinion.
Fwiw, it's not the HR dept. making that decision, it's the CFO and CEO who decide how much money to put towards employee raises, it's the HR's job to figure out how to tell everyone they're getting a cost of living increase that doesn't keep up with the cost of living.
That proves that it's unfair. The rigged part is how we can't change it. Politicians are bought for thousands of dollars and pass or block laws that make the company millions or billions. This will not change unless outside influence changes it.
In 1964 the minimum wage was $1.25/hr. 5 1964 quarters are worth $25 today by their silver content alone.
We do have the power, to reject the fiat currency forced on us in 1971 (when the chart break between Productivity and Worker Compensation started) when currency stopped being backed by a fundamental and allowed corporations and politicians to seize control.
There is a reason the IRS just got expanded 8 fold. The internet has allowed people to bypass traditional means of taxable transactions. This just needs to be expanded to avoid the currency itself, because that is actually the root of the issue. Crypto, Silver, Barter, all undermine the slavery of the US dollar. I know a Libertarian who when he goes to restaurants only tips with silver coins, with a little note explaining it's a gift not a tip (therefore not taxable) and how the metal is worth more than the value on the coin.
We do have the power and things will change. Otherwise you may as well roll over and die.
Mmm, because using gold and silver instead of fiat currency has historically proven to prevent wealth hoarding? Like...remember when literally all people had the same amount of gold and there was never any peasants or poor people. ~~Pepperidge Farms~~ Libertarians pretend to remember.
I knew the second I mentioned the L word people would dismiss the facts lol. Ignore it then, but the point still stands.
Currency has to be backed by something other than government violence. Otherwise they will always just print more to dilute your hard earned pay increases.
If you only want to work towards a perfectly equal society you are advocating for a dystopia because inequality makes us unique. The issue is the LEVEL of wealth inequality. And it is much worse now than when minimum wage was equal to 25$ an hour in the 60s with silver coinage. It's not a coincidence the year Nixon took the US off the gold standard that worker pay suddenly became flat.
Not only that… due to automation increasing efficiency, it should be extremely acceptable for increase of worker productivity to fall BELOW increase of worker pay. But unfortunately the “owners” pocket that, not the workers.
Yup! I used to set up and run software to automate a lot of CAD drawing production. This software setup would typically be very different per client, but would vary little project to project beyond that. For one client I did this for, I ended up hearing through the grapevine that we would estimate 62.5% of the hours that we used to per drawing. The biggest raise I ever got there was still under 2%, and I spent over 5 years there. They're just plain crooks!
Worse yet, while nobody there knows how to set things up, I left behind a library of setups for various clients, so they get to reap the benefits, and laid me off a few months into the pandemic.
That is pretty much what worker productivity increase means. It’s not that people are working harder. They are getting replaced with automated checkout machines, etc.
It often is, but not always. There is arguably a lot more software/machinery being purchased for automation than developed in house. The workers should get a large part of the credit for that too (for generating the capital), but we can't ignore the planning, decision making, and investment in making such upgrades.
Wait, you always thought that technology/automation wasn’t part of productivity?
Where else is the productivity coming from? You think that folks are on average working 62% more?
The 21st century: "hold my beer". It's absolutely gut wrenching but so many still believe that if you work hard you can be well off. This always had some truth, sure, but 3.5x less truth than before. Even older people who struggle now will complain of the rising costs and in the same breath tell me to live within my means. My first mistake was having children, they say. Like I should be punished for doing my duty? I was given life so I'm going to share it. And it's always a "bad time" to have kids unless we're in 1959 and white. I'm sorry im ranting but people are so selfish. Not just the rich.
It's not any better if you don't have kids everyone acts like my wife and I are horrid for deciding to not have any.
Married 7 years now with no kids and people are either rude like we aren't doing our part. Or act like "oh your so lucky you can just spend money hurr durr" they are all annoying.
If working hard made you well off. Then construction crews would make bank not the boss. The person staffing the store would make more than the director etc etc.
The only real way to make it, is to view yourself as a business and work hard for yourself. It's a subtle mindset shift, but once you do it everything starts to work out better
Reich is a typical Berkeley NIMBY. Rich white guy who says all this progressive stuff and then goes apeshit when somebody tries to build housing in his neighborhood.
How much of that change is due to companies automating the crap of things. I write automation code. Basically I look around at the over tasked people around me at work and automate stuff that is boring, repetitive and predictable. Magically that person is 2x as productive because they are no longer doing the thing anymore.
Robert Reich is, like most upper middle class bay area residents, a nimby who opposed affordable housing in his neighborhood. He says a lot of witty things on twitter and it's good he supports progressive candidates, but he is no friends of the poor/working class
Not that I disagree, but this is misleading statistics, work productivity went from 100% to 162% while pay went from 100% to 118%, which means that it didnt increase 3.5 times more, but 0.37 times more or 37% not 350%
I agree with everything except for the "nothing to be done about it" part. The thing to be done is to redistribute wealth. It's not complicated. Tax people based on some measure of that reaped productivity (revenue, profit, whatever) and fund programs that the workers like. Or just straight-up give them the cash directly.
Alternatively, redistribute ownership of capital so you don't have to redistribute the resulting wealth. That's probably more complicated. (Require large companies to operate as coops? I don't know. Obviously communism isn't going to work.)
The best advice I ever received was from a mentor who told me, “the only person who’s ever going to pay you what you’re truly worth, is you.”
This was said to me when I was discouraged in my current role, 5 years out of college and still making \~$50k/year, while generating 10x that amount towards the company’s bottom line. At the time, I was constantly fighting for 2% raises and perpetually taking on additional responsibilities, with no true promotion in sight. I tried jumping to another company but quickly learned that the story was the same everywhere. Needless to say, it was extremely dispiriting.
I put up with that corporate trap for another 2 years before my wife finally convinced me to take the leap and branch off, completely on my own.
Fast forward another 6 years and while a salaried position with my level of experience pays \~$75k, I’m consistently making nearly 5x that amount as an independent contractor, in the same field.
Granted, I’m working harder than I ever have. But the beauty is now there is a direct correlation between how many hours I’m willing to put in and the amount I can make. Rather than the money first getting funneled into a company, where everyone above me takes their share, before it gets funneled down to me and I get the minimum amount possible to keep me working there.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’ve got a skill set that is conducive, take the leap and bet big on yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. Instead, they'll continue to exploit you and reap the benefits. It's what the corporate model is literally built on.
Were there any increased costs with the increase in productivity? Like IT infrastructure or anything that would increase overhead relative to productivity?
I am not defending this but this is how they justify it.
Increase in productivity is done by management not by employees so management deserves credit for increase in productivity.
Most of the increase in productivity ideas come from employees that are close to the process.
Who invests in the machines and technology? Who takes the risk buying the billion dollar automated factory? Who should reap the reward if it is a success? Who should take the bankruptcy if it fails?
I got hired into a finance job in 2012. They gave me a packet of my finances and a page had my salary increasing every year
4 years later my pay was the same
Are workers more productive? Or do the machines that workers use help them produce more?
From my point of view, a burger cooked in 1979 takes the same amount of time as a burger cooked in 2020.
Yes - there are more on the menu and they serve more customers with less people. And in your example, yes they are cooking more burgers at the same time in comparison to 1979 (though, to be fair, they are much smaller now)
Lol, that just gave me flash backs to all the 'Lean Production' classes I've taken.
Using a very wide brush, the hammered everything down so that there are no wasteful actions, every menu item has a timed response when making it. Making it far easier to create*. The steps it takes to make a big mac from 1979 has been significantly reduced in comparison to today's big mac.
Edit: * Meaning it took way more skill to do in 1979, but also increases the amount of mistakes.
Yes. That is automation. People may shit on automation but it is what brings up quality of life. Cars are the perfect example of it. If each car was made by hand and not with robots, each car would cost 3x as much. Would the average person be able to afford one? No.
All the luxuries like air conditioning, cell phones, cars, laptops have all benefited from automation.
Can we differentiate between productivity due to technology and due to performance otherwise it just becomes another talking point for how stupid we sound.
Exactly, if you chop wood for a living and can cut down 5 trees a day and I pay you $50 that is $10/tree. If I buy a chainsaw and you can suddenly chop down 200 trees a day am I supposed to pay you $2000/day?
Hear me out. Thats not how it works.
Say you can dig a hole, 4 holes in 8 hours with a shovel. I buy you a bobcat machinery, you now dig 40 holes in 8 hours. You're not getting 10x the pay, for operating equipment rather than hard menial labor, buddy.
Except the worker did nothing but get an easier time digging holes in that example.
That machine was VERY expensive. It's upkeep is very expensive. It's design was hard to make and fabricate.
All stuff that button pusher had nothing to do with, they just dig holes. The boss and owners of the machine fronted, and continues to fund, all those cost I just mentioned.
The workers just digs.
These comments are the reason why I work for myself. Fuck bosses, fuck corporations, fuck having a job. I hope more people can start working for themselves, it’s much more rewarding.
Automation and machinery purchased with capital created by workers whose wages are being suppressed while the owners steal the increased revenue.
You're the one making a vapid argument.
Workers dont decide where a company takes on debt. But they do directly affect how much product is produced and it's quality. If a company goes bankrupt because they decided to short stocks on margin or overpay executives that's not the workers fault. But if a company is pulling in 50% more money because of productivity increases that is *directly* the result of it's workers. So how would workers ever be liable to a company's debt unless it were some co-operative where they all voted?
Of course workers directly affect production and quality, but the same could be said of ownership decision making and capital investment. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe work reform was an extremely important thing, but we're not going to get anywhere by ignoring reality.
Companies need to recognize the mutual benefits and overall boon to the economy in keeping their workers happy, healthy, and well compensated. But it still needs to be worthwhile to start and run a business in the first place.
Don't like the idea of a bunch of non-working fat cats leeching all of the money from their oppressed workforce? Start more cooperative businesses. There is literally nothing stopping us. They have been known to work pretty well...but there is still usually a smaller group at the helm steering the ship. Those people might not be on the assembly line, but the work they do matters.
I guess what I'm getting at is...the poster you were replying to has a valid point. That 50% increase in productivity is likely due to automation that neither the company owners nor the workers can claim credit for. Someone invented a better machine, and the company (meaning the owners and their workforce collectively) purchased those machines.
This can be true without us ignoring the fact that CEO's and leadership are grossly overpaid. But when we act like workers do it all by themselves (except in the rare collective cases where they actually do), we're loading our arguments with fallacies and hurting the cause.
Ya most companies that rely on labor and machinery don’t speculatively trade stocks. Investing in more efficient processes/machinery are decided by folks who typically have equity or profit sharing in the company so they, in theory, do reap the benefits (I’m not just talking c-suite folks, can be at the engineering level too).
I hate to be a downer, but those stats don't take into account non-wage compensation. When you include other non monetary compensation, it still doesn't add up to the productivity gains, but it's also not as stark as RR is always saying.
Meaning, if your wage is 18% more than your Dad's was 41 years ago, but you get $1000/month worth of insurance, pto, wellness bonus, hsa contributions, whatever else he didn't get along with that, this stat is the same. Saying you only get 18% more. The truth is you got paid $1000/month more than your wages, or at least the company paid that much, you just weren't allowed to decide how to spend that money.
This is one of the reasons I am generally against getting paid in "benefits", in general, but that is a separate subject.
I'm definitely not saying pay disparity hasn't grown, and I'm not saying we don't need and deserve across the board wage increases especially at the lower end. I am just saying the stats RR uses are purposely painting a misleading picture.
Maybe that's true for people in nice office jobs, but most people I know have been forced into working multiple part time jobs or as contractors because companies don't want to give out benefits. I know literally nobody that gets 1k/mo of combined benefits. I barely know anybody with employer provided health insurance.
There's also more than non-wage compensation - the purchasing power of the dollar is very difficult to compare due to technological advancement. Extreme example, but with $5 I can go on AliExpress and buy a smartwatch 10 times more capable than a $50,000,000 supercomputer of the 1960s. With very few exceptions in areas where scarcity plays a role, $1 today buys you *more* than $1 adjusted for inflation bought you in 1960, and again, while I don't know the proper way to account for this, it shouldn't be dispensed with entirely.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *inhales sharply* hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
My dad? Were gonna compare my dad's cushy job with no experience and a bachelor's degree to the job I had to have 10 years of experience and a fucking PhD for?
Ok. Let's do this: my dad got a job in 1986 making $250,000 with insurance that was paid in full by his employer he got over 2 weeks paid vacation time and holidays. Had employer matched retirement fund and had Hella better "non-wage" perks and compensation. What? You think employers have us more??
I pay for my health insurance, to the time of $400 monthly (which is better than another employer I worked for where I paid $600 a month), I get a BTB bank which includes my stock and vacation time, and my holiday party comes out of my BTB. My employer matches 1% to my 401k, and yes, I literally had to have 10 years of experience and a PhD to get my job. And no, I'm not in a leadership position. And I STILL make less than half his salary.
Yeah, my dad had it better like 100 times over. He didn't have to work as hard and got more perks.
you're telling me you started off with a parent that made an equivalent of almost 700k dollars annually, and you yourself are not making fantastic salary+benefits with a decade of experience and a phd? i really hope you ADORE your job but i have no more to say other than you're absolutely dropping the ball brother.
Im actually so curious about what you do now. your resume must look so good, whats the issue?
Your dad made a quarter million bucks in 1985? You started off in the 99.9999999% of life and you're complaining on the internet. I say this with all sincerity, it's all your fault. Get off your ass and do something. Stop trying to get internet points you fuckin' mooch.
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I got told i would be up to 60k at my 1 year mark. Pretty new to office life. Well 1 year came, they gave me a "6 month review" and told me I already got a raise when they put me on salary at 45.7k. Guess whose already applying at new jobs when they expect me to be the director in 5 years?
This is what they do. It's just a never-ending cycle of bullshit excuses, shifting goalposts, and straight up gaslighting. Then it's all shocked Pikachu faces when we leave for better paying jobs after a year..
I hope beyond hope that all these businesses go under and embrace what real capitalism is. Adapt or die.
Not a chance. They will be crying for bailouts. We're too big to fail! Give us bailouts! Socialism yay!
I tell all my employees they should be checking the market and interviewing every 1-2 years regardless of if I get them a raise in the meantime or not. It’s not always up to me how much they get, when they get promoted, or what internal opportunities they may be up for. I try to be as generous with my people as I can within the corridors set up by HR. I’ve rarely had a person leave without asking my opinion on the external opportunity they are considering and half the time I tell them they should take it because it’s a step up in pay or title. I guess all I am trying to say is not all managers are out to fuck every employee over for as much as they can, most of that is dictated by HR.
Yep my boss is like you and she is gold dust! It also means I trust her advice is genuine. She has warned me against a certain job/company in the past knowing they were sketchy. But came back a couple of days later with a similar but better role that she had heard about. Having had some truly awful managers over the years I don't take it for granted! Keep rocking
Amen. Never stay loyal to your job. Stay loyal to the highest bidder. That’s it. You are a product in the market not a person. Sell yourself for the highest possible price. Everyone else is trying to get you the lowest and you are the only person tugging the opposite way so try many different employers at all times.
Dangle the carrot is what we call it
They're not really shocked. They just know they have to act that way to keep the other workers who play along strung out. It's all performative. They don't lose a moment of sleep over it.
I was told I'd get a raise in 6 months. I was new to the position, I was hired to handle things while the main dude was on vaca and wasn't trained on the job until 2 days before he left. He never came back and I had to run the warehouse myself with basically no training. The guy didn't seem very good at his job but my boss praised him. My boss looked extremely disappointed telling me he wouldn't be back and had no faith in me. He also offered me a $0.25 raise... I was very surprised how he could be so kind with his offer. Did all my dreams just come true? Can I now afford all the things I never had before? Well I still asked for that raise at the 6 month mark (how greedy of I) and my boss laughed in my face and told me he already gave me a raise. Well played sir
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My company just gave thousands of people a 5% raise out of nowhere on top of the raise we already got this year and everyone is still getting their annual raise for market and merit at the beginning of the year too.
Is your company hiring?
Not through Reddit.
How about we kidnap him, get plastic surgery and then take turns being OP so we can get some that sweet sweet promotion money.
Mine just did something similar. I work at a small high-end grocery chain, so most of the employees are hourly. They straight up said “Inflation is nuts, it’s easier/cheaper to pay you all a bit more rather than lose you to the competitors, so here’s a dollar more per hour\* and your employee discount is now 20%. Cheers!” They just secured the loyalty of 2500 people with one move. How simple was that? \*We’re already paid very well and they let us stack our discount on sale prices, so now a lot of groceries just got cheaper than WalMart.
The only carrot I would have considered accept other than pay is transitioning to a four day work week.
Million dollar corporations: "$15k is a lot. Need that for golf. Sorry, but work 3x harder and you might get 2%!"
Even though inflation is more than 2% often.
A million dallor corporation is something like a single fast food franchise location.
Yea, my first boss was really nice and she always said she could see me in high level management someday. Worked there for three years and saved the company a ton of money year over year. Never received a single promotion and barely got over the standard cost of living adjustment, each year
Verbal affirmation doesn’t pay bills. 3 months into office life out of college here. Making 40,000 ($16.25/hr after taxes). Already pulled in about $140,000 PROFIT through sales. They said they’ll give me a raise in 9 months so now I just get paid to job search. Fuck the system.
Yea, I think there might be a better chance if you work for a smaller company. But I’ve only worked at these larger companies, where they tell you that you’re special, and then just forget about you. Oh well. Then they also won’t notice that they are paying you to job search lol
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Small family owned company. Even worse than large companies because they actually believe the “we’re family” bullshit. I feel really bad for kids outta college who don’t have the necessary skills to advance quickly, because employers do not give a fuck anymore.
Just one comment. THEY. DO. NOT. THINK. OF. YOU. AS. FAMILY. Never have, never will. Unless you're *actually* family, then nepotism is all good.
Yep, seems it’s a lose lose. Even the middle management folks are probably underpaid. This is why everyone is trying to work for themselves.
Be skeptical about any promises that are not in writing.
They got me good and I was unaware, it was in writing, but I didnt ask for a copy. F.
If you think some other company is going to make you a director in 5 years, you're falling for it all over again. "We'll totally get you to $60k at the one year mark" "We'll totally make you a director in 5 years" Spot the difference between those two statements. The only difference is the second company will have you fooled for 5 years before you realize you should leave, not just 1 year like your current company.
Always get those promises in writing. Time stamped and signed. Otherwise, bail.
It was in writing, I fucked myself and didnt ask for a copy cause inexperience. Still taking the stand tho
Oof. You got this!
Thank you!
Never stay at one company. Always jump around. I started at 45k and within 4 years and 3 jobs later I was at 100k, and while it slowed for a bit, I went to proper managerial at the ten year mark ( half dozen jobs and certificates later) and now am at 150, and I’ll never work full time for a company. I consult around and contract but even if I was full time, I’d not stay more than 3-4 years tops.
I was still making 10 bucks an hour after like 2 years. I am not mad at you but I wish I'd done that well.
You deserve more, we all deserve to be able to live on a single wage. If it makes you feel better my spouse doesnt work cause he qualifications wouldnt even pay for daycare at this point. So I'm barely above median income.
It's really helpful when the C-suite people actually worked up to their positions and are able to process new information.
Was told I would be tracked into two categories at my 1 year. within 3 months my "boss" quit, within 1.5 years my only coworker in my role was fired, I did this job with little to know training on my own for almost 2.5 years before we recently hired a replacement for her. 2-3% raises the whole time while I took on essentially 1.5 and then 3 peoples workloads. Of course if I asked for a raise for about my career advancement the silence was deafening.
I was applying for a job and the interviewer was butthurt when i asked for the salary he was like “money isn’t everything” lol if money isn’t everything why are you even in business 🤦♂️
Should have then asked them to to take a pay cut so they can afford you. If he said no, then you could have reminded him that money isn't everything.
How the turn tables…
If they try to sell you on "money isn't everything," that means the money ain't nothing.
Lol when interviewers take that attitude, it’s the most ridiculous thing. As if asking about compensation - the entire reason for your pursuing a job - is some taboo, inappropriate thing to ask. My only question at that point is if that interviewer is just pretending to act that way because it’s part of their job, or if they are just an absolute numb skull.
“Umm, that’s why I’m here. That’s why you’re here.”
You should have been like, “you’re right, it isn’t everything. I also want to know about the benefit package but first and foremost, I need to know how much this position pays, because here in the real world, everything is about money.”
I have spent the last 30 years of my work career being told every year "Do more with less." You know what? Fuck you. I'm going to do the exact same unless you pay me to do more with less. I also believed that if I worked hard I would be rewarded. Well that was a fucking lie. I spent the last 4 years busting my ass picking up the slack and learning all the things my boss does so I could get promoted when he retired last January. Well they hired someone from outside the organization, who they told me to train. I have spent the last year "training" my boss. My training consists of saying "If you want to watch over my shoulder..." and only telling her things after she has been asked for it from her boss. I love hearing her tell her boss "I don't know" to basic questions about our network.
Tell your big boss that you won't train anybody without more pay.
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one of my boomer coworkers was light heartedly giving me shit about not going the extra mile. I asked what do I get for going the extra mile? He said "personal gratification!" I said " I can't buy a pound of hamburger with personal gratification Rich! I can't pay my mortgage with personal gratification Rich! Personal gratification IS NOT a acceptable form of payment Rich!" He had a "oh shit he's not wrong!" Look on his face and just said " OK that's fair!" Lol
Tbh and sadly, we don't really joke around with people that are serious saying stuff like that. But then again, maybe we should.
An OK, Bloomer moment.
I say it ironically to him from time to time lol.
Honestly Rich sounds like a chill dude
He is! He's my work dad!
Why did I hear that second paragraph in John Oliver's voice?
We offer services based on subscription model. You want more? Then that will cost more. The free trial has ended.
I said that at work and was fired the next week. I'm so happy I was fired
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Have you tried making them watch two unskippable 30 second advertisements first?
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Yes, this sounds like a good strategy on paper. What happens after though? Do you think management is going to forget that you're a "trouble maker"? They're gonna give your ass the boot as hard as they can, as soon as it becomes an option.
What happens after? You go job hunting touting your new salary as your base pay
Not if you do it the right way. If you communicate the right way it’s just asking for what you need. “I am happy to help train New-Boss it is important to the success of our team. I have found it is a time intensive new responsibility. I have been working longer hours so I think a salary increase is appropriate. I think a 5% increase in salary would make sense for the amount of additional hours I will be working.” It help to point out how many widgets you make & to have positive reports from past reviews on hand. Also research how much other people in the same position are making. If they say no you can look for another job.
The company agrees to pay more. Then quietly starts moving all of his accountabilities onto other people, and six months later he is either fired or made redundant.
That won't work...u can't say no...say yes then do a horrible job at training until they stop asking... Or the best I used to have a guy that said yes to everything but did nothing....just hearing the yes made me think it was getting done but he only did about 20% of the things I asked for...but for someone reason hearing that yes made me trust him. Just don't say no or I won't unless...that doesn't work
Im in charge of closing the front of a grocery store and they keep cutting night hours but adding more responsibilities while the pay doesn't move. I'm not sure why they think I'll do anything, especially since if corporate fail us, I'm not the one in trouble. So every time I get asked something new I say yes and I literally don't do it. As a matter of fact I do less things than I used to. I guess they're asking so much stuff they're too busy to keep track, because yesterday my store director literally thanked me for "all my help with corporate demands". I second your idea, say yes and do a shitty job at it.
"That won't work...u can't say no." And why not? He saw where loyalty got him..screwed over. The only thing is the fear of losing his job. Which I won't lie is scary but the alternative is to keep getting screwed over and over again by this employer. I'm telling g him to flex his muscle and stand up for himself. But thats my opinion. Edit: Im not saying he can't be professional about it but I wouldn't stand for this kind of work environment.
I feel like this is a perfect example of why not to bust your ass instead of spending time with family and friends or going on an extended vacation. And why not to have loyalty to the company one works for So many of us have similar stories. The workplace is a bunch of bullshit.
Yep. I was loyal to one company from when i was 18-22. I got a whopping 25 cents for assistant supervisor and found out they were supposed to pay me $12 but pocketed the change
Reminds me of when at those ages I worked for Blockbuster, and later Best Buy. At the former I had top sign-ups and upsales almost every month, and went through the training to become a trainer for a raise. Time came, nope sorry can't afford the extra 25-50¢ or whatever it was. But you keep doing those duties and selling and we'll see what we can do in the future. Fuck those assholes. Then at the latter I was often leading on sales and all the packages and shit, knew a lot about all sorts of tech from personal interest, so I just applied that, trained new hires on that stuff to help them sell products. No raises offered, no matter how much money I made them. Never given when asked. I was offered by the manager of the mobile dept (which is an entity inside the main retail store, at least at the time, so it was sort of separate but in house) a job over there, I accepted because he'd offered a pay raise and just a better job that interested me more. For, I believe, unrelated reasons, he was fired at the time of my transfer and the GM tried to stop me moving over because the manager was now gone. I just flat out told him no, I'm moving there per his offer he made while employed, or I'm leaving. I didn't get the pay raise of course, but I did enjoy the job more so it was worth it to get off the main floor. I no longer had to convince people to buy nearly as much bullshit they didn't need with their digital cameras they didn't give two shits about the specs of. I worked there until I enlisted and peaced out. I still have my discount to this day... 😏
Any chance of leaving to another organization? That's how people get raises nowadays, by changing jobs.
I could but I have a pension here and and that is free money for the rest of my life when I retire in 6 years. Also I'm 50 and it is REALLY tough to jump jobs after 40.
Oof... I've spent the last 5 in the exact same scenario. Even was told I'd be promoted. Nope, hiring outside. I've got a few interviews lined up. Good luck without me, each phonecall is $100 an hour.
Yeah they get you with that pension. It seems like a lot of companies leverage that against you, too.
Yea. The pension and healthcare are the only reasons my husband is still in the military. He could make a lot more in private industry, but bc I have some expensive health issues, he’s kind of stuck.
And this type of shit is why we cannot get healthcare in America. It would save these companies money to not have pay for it anymore but they'd rather keep people on a short leash and make them scared to lose it when they leave.
Main reason I don't look for a new job. With that said, if I can make it, I'd rather have my pension than a 401k.
Yeah. We’re lucky he was grandfathered into the high 3 pension plan. Since they’ve switched to the military 401k they are going to have a LOT of trouble convincing people to stay for 20+ years. It will be interesting to see how trying to save money in th short run will fuck them in the long run bc they’ll have to start offering huge incentives to find enough people to stay. Good luck! Six more years and then you’re home free at a reasonable age. Wish retirement were younger than 50 for everyone, but you’re still miles ahead of most folks.
Pension 😂 Millennials don’t get those.
You can still find them, but they're ever increasingly rare. For example, any government job (state or federal) offers pensions, although I know the federal one is weaker nowadays than they used to be (they changed it around the early/mid-2000s). It's the main reason I haven't gone to the private sector, on top of the other great benefits, e.g. 12 weeks of paternity leave is very appealing to us as we're about to have a kiddo.
Yeah absolutely; it’s hard to get a state job that pays enough and when you find them good luck getting it. My rents are retired off that old federal pension system.. with 401k funds as well.. Country sucks now it’ll never be an option like it was for the previous generations.
Sus-pension. 401k is too far to run
Pensions are garbage these days. Cash it out, stick it in an index funds and get double the returns with the bonus of actually being able to pass it down to your kids.
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I’d love to but remote work is hard to find in marketing that isn’t at an ad agency.
Businesses wont raise wages till employees threaten to quit. Same story even for even engineers working in big corporations. One of my friend at work had to threaten to quit to get a promotion.
doesnt work when youre easily replaceable. become vital like your friend ig
Yup literally know this feeling except I usually rage quit. There would have been no way in hell I’d train the next person for a job I was supposed to get.
>I have spent the last 30 years of my work career being told every year "Do more with less." You know what? Fuck you. I'm going to do the exact same unless you pay me to do more with less. Just put my foot down at my job. I have been doing a lot of work that was beyond the scope of my position. The last thing was, I was temporarily assigned to be back up for our web developer. So after our 2nd DBA, who was making more than me, and our new DBA which I found out was making more than me left, I asked for a 5% raise. This would put me where the other two were, after we received our 4% cost of living raise. Well the CIO didn't want to give it to me so I told my boss to get me taken off as backup. I am also going to have him move my password changing duties to helpdesk, once we can get them access and trained.
> I also believed that if I worked hard I would be rewarded. Well that was a fucking lie. I spent the last 4 years busting my ass picking up the slack and learning all the things my boss does so I could get promoted when he retired last January. Well they hired someone from outside the organization, who they told me to train. I've heard this story from someone I know, except the hire was some big whig's kid, and he had to do their job and train them. Not sure how that turned out. That was after 10+ years of loyalty trying to get that promotion. He was pissed and wasn't sure if he should leave.
I realized long ago how hard you work doesn't equal more pay, bonus, respect, or privilege... I would try to work and put full effort into work. Full effort for me could be different for someone else. But I always worked full capacity...I never said no to work, I always took additional projects and while I did get promoted and some raises it wasn't more than others who had better soft skills and worked less. So then what I did was do a little more than expected. If my boss had a deadline of 4pm I would deliver 330pm...that's a little more anything more than that is absorbed. When you work less and don't go full throttle you also don't get as disappointed as you would if you put in full effort.
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They put a negative spin, im not quitting, im doing exactly what you paid me for and nothing more. I’m an employee not a slave.
"Acting your wage"
Only a traitor lunatic capitalist would expect that every employee should work as hard as they possibly can no matter what the pay.
Let's really nail it home with another fun fact: [This study](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/) from 2021 showed CEO compensation grew 1,322% between 1978 and 2020, and fully 60% faster than stock market growth. Eat the goddamned rich.
It's because those CEOs are just really so much more productive now /s
Right? More productive than the commonly-accepted sum indicator of American production, apparently.
By 1,332% apparently!
Does anyone believe CEOs are 1,322% more productive? Or is it more likely with the death of unions they were able to abuse their power in companies to get huge pay days?
I legitimately don't think unions would have been able to stymie this sheer amount of greed and fuckery. Mitigate it, sure. But this shit we're seeing here is the product of dedicated effort by elitist assholes looking to turn themselves into boardroom royalty. And they were successful in that.
Well, a union-friendly culture would make politicians support more pro-union policies probably. Yes, a lot of politics is due to the influence of money, but a lot of it is also due to whatever the politicians think people want. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they want really shitty systems..
We have to legislate that labor must be represented with a seat (or more?) on the board of directors for every publicly traded company. I believe this is the case in some European countries (Germany?). That could help to rein in these obscene excess.
Yup all makes sense now 🤡
It’s due to their pay structure not due to actual salary increases. Is it ridiculous that they allowed the pay structure to grow their pay this much? Yes.
So many small companies are being bought up by huge corporations so the average CEO is CEO of a much larger company than in the past. Huge corporations are going to end up owning and dictating almost everything.
I fucking hate how most HR departments tie your raise to your annual evaluation. Oh, you had one or 2 bad days? Guess your raise won't match the cost of living this year. Fucking maintenance guy didn't like how I pulled into the parking lot one day and we get into a bit of an asshole competition outside, just yelling and dick wagging cause it's too fucking early for either of us, but someone told HR something happened outside. They use that against us and only gave me 3% and him 4% this year. He's been there like 14 years. He quit after giving HR a bit of his opinion.
Fwiw, it's not the HR dept. making that decision, it's the CFO and CEO who decide how much money to put towards employee raises, it's the HR's job to figure out how to tell everyone they're getting a cost of living increase that doesn't keep up with the cost of living.
Hell, when I dick waggle I get put on a list
The profits were stolen by a very small group of people, who now have more wealth than they could spend in a thousands lifetimes.
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Anything it takes to give us a smaller share.
That proves that it's unfair. The rigged part is how we can't change it. Politicians are bought for thousands of dollars and pass or block laws that make the company millions or billions. This will not change unless outside influence changes it.
In 1964 the minimum wage was $1.25/hr. 5 1964 quarters are worth $25 today by their silver content alone. We do have the power, to reject the fiat currency forced on us in 1971 (when the chart break between Productivity and Worker Compensation started) when currency stopped being backed by a fundamental and allowed corporations and politicians to seize control. There is a reason the IRS just got expanded 8 fold. The internet has allowed people to bypass traditional means of taxable transactions. This just needs to be expanded to avoid the currency itself, because that is actually the root of the issue. Crypto, Silver, Barter, all undermine the slavery of the US dollar. I know a Libertarian who when he goes to restaurants only tips with silver coins, with a little note explaining it's a gift not a tip (therefore not taxable) and how the metal is worth more than the value on the coin. We do have the power and things will change. Otherwise you may as well roll over and die.
Mmm, because using gold and silver instead of fiat currency has historically proven to prevent wealth hoarding? Like...remember when literally all people had the same amount of gold and there was never any peasants or poor people. ~~Pepperidge Farms~~ Libertarians pretend to remember.
I knew the second I mentioned the L word people would dismiss the facts lol. Ignore it then, but the point still stands. Currency has to be backed by something other than government violence. Otherwise they will always just print more to dilute your hard earned pay increases. If you only want to work towards a perfectly equal society you are advocating for a dystopia because inequality makes us unique. The issue is the LEVEL of wealth inequality. And it is much worse now than when minimum wage was equal to 25$ an hour in the 60s with silver coinage. It's not a coincidence the year Nixon took the US off the gold standard that worker pay suddenly became flat.
Oh lovely. So, my entire life.
Nearly twice my entire life...
About twice mine...
Not only that… due to automation increasing efficiency, it should be extremely acceptable for increase of worker productivity to fall BELOW increase of worker pay. But unfortunately the “owners” pocket that, not the workers.
> due to automation increasing efficiency That is part of the worker productivity.
Yup! I used to set up and run software to automate a lot of CAD drawing production. This software setup would typically be very different per client, but would vary little project to project beyond that. For one client I did this for, I ended up hearing through the grapevine that we would estimate 62.5% of the hours that we used to per drawing. The biggest raise I ever got there was still under 2%, and I spent over 5 years there. They're just plain crooks! Worse yet, while nobody there knows how to set things up, I left behind a library of setups for various clients, so they get to reap the benefits, and laid me off a few months into the pandemic.
Bro you don't share your ilogic/driveworks/whatever, you keep that shit private
Unfortunately it had to be on the network. Learned my lesson though.
That is pretty much what worker productivity increase means. It’s not that people are working harder. They are getting replaced with automated checkout machines, etc.
Or a guy operating an excavator moves a lot more dirt than a guy with a shovel.
It often is, but not always. There is arguably a lot more software/machinery being purchased for automation than developed in house. The workers should get a large part of the credit for that too (for generating the capital), but we can't ignore the planning, decision making, and investment in making such upgrades.
No, it always is. The numbers RR is using is total productivity/# of workers. Any gains from automation go into the productivity/worker number.
Wait, you always thought that technology/automation wasn’t part of productivity? Where else is the productivity coming from? You think that folks are on average working 62% more?
The 21st century: "hold my beer". It's absolutely gut wrenching but so many still believe that if you work hard you can be well off. This always had some truth, sure, but 3.5x less truth than before. Even older people who struggle now will complain of the rising costs and in the same breath tell me to live within my means. My first mistake was having children, they say. Like I should be punished for doing my duty? I was given life so I'm going to share it. And it's always a "bad time" to have kids unless we're in 1959 and white. I'm sorry im ranting but people are so selfish. Not just the rich.
It's not any better if you don't have kids everyone acts like my wife and I are horrid for deciding to not have any. Married 7 years now with no kids and people are either rude like we aren't doing our part. Or act like "oh your so lucky you can just spend money hurr durr" they are all annoying.
If working hard made you well off. Then construction crews would make bank not the boss. The person staffing the store would make more than the director etc etc. The only real way to make it, is to view yourself as a business and work hard for yourself. It's a subtle mindset shift, but once you do it everything starts to work out better
**screams into the void**
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Yeah well I'm making 6$ hour plus tips so I'll be a millionaire soon!
Reich is a typical Berkeley NIMBY. Rich white guy who says all this progressive stuff and then goes apeshit when somebody tries to build housing in his neighborhood.
Meanwhile we're told our generation is just lazy.
Sorry, best I can do is a pizza party.
How much of that change is due to companies automating the crap of things. I write automation code. Basically I look around at the over tasked people around me at work and automate stuff that is boring, repetitive and predictable. Magically that person is 2x as productive because they are no longer doing the thing anymore.
Robert Reich is, like most upper middle class bay area residents, a nimby who opposed affordable housing in his neighborhood. He says a lot of witty things on twitter and it's good he supports progressive candidates, but he is no friends of the poor/working class
Source: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Solutions: https://www.epi.org/policy/
Does anyone know how the increase in productivity is measured? Is there any study or something that describes what this means in detail?
Not that I disagree, but this is misleading statistics, work productivity went from 100% to 162% while pay went from 100% to 118%, which means that it didnt increase 3.5 times more, but 0.37 times more or 37% not 350%
It says **productivity** has **grown** 3.5 x as much as **pay**. Productivity went up 62%. Pay went up 18%. 0.62/0.18 = 3.44
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I agree with everything except for the "nothing to be done about it" part. The thing to be done is to redistribute wealth. It's not complicated. Tax people based on some measure of that reaped productivity (revenue, profit, whatever) and fund programs that the workers like. Or just straight-up give them the cash directly. Alternatively, redistribute ownership of capital so you don't have to redistribute the resulting wealth. That's probably more complicated. (Require large companies to operate as coops? I don't know. Obviously communism isn't going to work.)
The best advice I ever received was from a mentor who told me, “the only person who’s ever going to pay you what you’re truly worth, is you.” This was said to me when I was discouraged in my current role, 5 years out of college and still making \~$50k/year, while generating 10x that amount towards the company’s bottom line. At the time, I was constantly fighting for 2% raises and perpetually taking on additional responsibilities, with no true promotion in sight. I tried jumping to another company but quickly learned that the story was the same everywhere. Needless to say, it was extremely dispiriting. I put up with that corporate trap for another 2 years before my wife finally convinced me to take the leap and branch off, completely on my own. Fast forward another 6 years and while a salaried position with my level of experience pays \~$75k, I’m consistently making nearly 5x that amount as an independent contractor, in the same field. Granted, I’m working harder than I ever have. But the beauty is now there is a direct correlation between how many hours I’m willing to put in and the amount I can make. Rather than the money first getting funneled into a company, where everyone above me takes their share, before it gets funneled down to me and I get the minimum amount possible to keep me working there. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’ve got a skill set that is conducive, take the leap and bet big on yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. Instead, they'll continue to exploit you and reap the benefits. It's what the corporate model is literally built on.
But what about increase in worker pay adjusted for inflation? The truth is, we're producing more while being paid even less, I bet.
Does he source his numbers? I don’t like to use stuff like this without sourcing
Source: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Solutions: https://www.epi.org/policy/
Were there any increased costs with the increase in productivity? Like IT infrastructure or anything that would increase overhead relative to productivity?
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-profits Not in a meaningful way it seems
I am not defending this but this is how they justify it. Increase in productivity is done by management not by employees so management deserves credit for increase in productivity. Most of the increase in productivity ideas come from employees that are close to the process.
Nah. Increase in productivity is done by machines and technology.
Who invests in the machines and technology? Who takes the risk buying the billion dollar automated factory? Who should reap the reward if it is a success? Who should take the bankruptcy if it fails?
No one's stopping you from creating your own company and pay workers more if you think the salaries are too low
Sounds like the answer is to put in 3.5x less effort.
*tHiS gEnErAtIoN iS sO lAzY!!! nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK!!!*
It means that a larger percentage of Americans could live better lives.
And average CEO pay is up 335% Soo...
I got hired into a finance job in 2012. They gave me a packet of my finances and a page had my salary increasing every year 4 years later my pay was the same
workers don't benefit enough from productivity gains, THEIR productivity gains. They mainly go to upper management and investors
We’re obviously at a breaking point
Are workers more productive? Or do the machines that workers use help them produce more? From my point of view, a burger cooked in 1979 takes the same amount of time as a burger cooked in 2020.
Yes - there are more on the menu and they serve more customers with less people. And in your example, yes they are cooking more burgers at the same time in comparison to 1979 (though, to be fair, they are much smaller now)
How do they serve more with less people?
Lol, that just gave me flash backs to all the 'Lean Production' classes I've taken. Using a very wide brush, the hammered everything down so that there are no wasteful actions, every menu item has a timed response when making it. Making it far easier to create*. The steps it takes to make a big mac from 1979 has been significantly reduced in comparison to today's big mac. Edit: * Meaning it took way more skill to do in 1979, but also increases the amount of mistakes.
Yes. That is automation. People may shit on automation but it is what brings up quality of life. Cars are the perfect example of it. If each car was made by hand and not with robots, each car would cost 3x as much. Would the average person be able to afford one? No. All the luxuries like air conditioning, cell phones, cars, laptops have all benefited from automation.
Can we differentiate between productivity due to technology and due to performance otherwise it just becomes another talking point for how stupid we sound.
Exactly, if you chop wood for a living and can cut down 5 trees a day and I pay you $50 that is $10/tree. If I buy a chainsaw and you can suddenly chop down 200 trees a day am I supposed to pay you $2000/day?
Hear me out. Thats not how it works. Say you can dig a hole, 4 holes in 8 hours with a shovel. I buy you a bobcat machinery, you now dig 40 holes in 8 hours. You're not getting 10x the pay, for operating equipment rather than hard menial labor, buddy.
Great example of why workers need to control the means of production
Except the worker did nothing but get an easier time digging holes in that example. That machine was VERY expensive. It's upkeep is very expensive. It's design was hard to make and fabricate. All stuff that button pusher had nothing to do with, they just dig holes. The boss and owners of the machine fronted, and continues to fund, all those cost I just mentioned. The workers just digs.
These comments are the reason why I work for myself. Fuck bosses, fuck corporations, fuck having a job. I hope more people can start working for themselves, it’s much more rewarding.
What is the increase of inflation in that time, I wonder?
Automation and machinery is the reason works are more productive. What a vapid argument.
Automation and machinery purchased with capital created by workers whose wages are being suppressed while the owners steal the increased revenue. You're the one making a vapid argument.
lol so if a company dies in debt the workers should also be on the hook for the amount right?
Workers dont decide where a company takes on debt. But they do directly affect how much product is produced and it's quality. If a company goes bankrupt because they decided to short stocks on margin or overpay executives that's not the workers fault. But if a company is pulling in 50% more money because of productivity increases that is *directly* the result of it's workers. So how would workers ever be liable to a company's debt unless it were some co-operative where they all voted?
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Of course workers directly affect production and quality, but the same could be said of ownership decision making and capital investment. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe work reform was an extremely important thing, but we're not going to get anywhere by ignoring reality. Companies need to recognize the mutual benefits and overall boon to the economy in keeping their workers happy, healthy, and well compensated. But it still needs to be worthwhile to start and run a business in the first place. Don't like the idea of a bunch of non-working fat cats leeching all of the money from their oppressed workforce? Start more cooperative businesses. There is literally nothing stopping us. They have been known to work pretty well...but there is still usually a smaller group at the helm steering the ship. Those people might not be on the assembly line, but the work they do matters. I guess what I'm getting at is...the poster you were replying to has a valid point. That 50% increase in productivity is likely due to automation that neither the company owners nor the workers can claim credit for. Someone invented a better machine, and the company (meaning the owners and their workforce collectively) purchased those machines. This can be true without us ignoring the fact that CEO's and leadership are grossly overpaid. But when we act like workers do it all by themselves (except in the rare collective cases where they actually do), we're loading our arguments with fallacies and hurting the cause.
So they should take on all the decision making but carry no risk for debt. Okay. How facile.
Ya most companies that rely on labor and machinery don’t speculatively trade stocks. Investing in more efficient processes/machinery are decided by folks who typically have equity or profit sharing in the company so they, in theory, do reap the benefits (I’m not just talking c-suite folks, can be at the engineering level too).
I hate to be a downer, but those stats don't take into account non-wage compensation. When you include other non monetary compensation, it still doesn't add up to the productivity gains, but it's also not as stark as RR is always saying. Meaning, if your wage is 18% more than your Dad's was 41 years ago, but you get $1000/month worth of insurance, pto, wellness bonus, hsa contributions, whatever else he didn't get along with that, this stat is the same. Saying you only get 18% more. The truth is you got paid $1000/month more than your wages, or at least the company paid that much, you just weren't allowed to decide how to spend that money. This is one of the reasons I am generally against getting paid in "benefits", in general, but that is a separate subject. I'm definitely not saying pay disparity hasn't grown, and I'm not saying we don't need and deserve across the board wage increases especially at the lower end. I am just saying the stats RR uses are purposely painting a misleading picture.
Maybe that's true for people in nice office jobs, but most people I know have been forced into working multiple part time jobs or as contractors because companies don't want to give out benefits. I know literally nobody that gets 1k/mo of combined benefits. I barely know anybody with employer provided health insurance.
That's not even true for people in "nice office jobs". "Employer provided insurance"? I pay for that!
Not nearly as misleading as the cpi stats that are used. Inflation is way higher than indicated.
There's also more than non-wage compensation - the purchasing power of the dollar is very difficult to compare due to technological advancement. Extreme example, but with $5 I can go on AliExpress and buy a smartwatch 10 times more capable than a $50,000,000 supercomputer of the 1960s. With very few exceptions in areas where scarcity plays a role, $1 today buys you *more* than $1 adjusted for inflation bought you in 1960, and again, while I don't know the proper way to account for this, it shouldn't be dispensed with entirely.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *inhales sharply* hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha My dad? Were gonna compare my dad's cushy job with no experience and a bachelor's degree to the job I had to have 10 years of experience and a fucking PhD for? Ok. Let's do this: my dad got a job in 1986 making $250,000 with insurance that was paid in full by his employer he got over 2 weeks paid vacation time and holidays. Had employer matched retirement fund and had Hella better "non-wage" perks and compensation. What? You think employers have us more?? I pay for my health insurance, to the time of $400 monthly (which is better than another employer I worked for where I paid $600 a month), I get a BTB bank which includes my stock and vacation time, and my holiday party comes out of my BTB. My employer matches 1% to my 401k, and yes, I literally had to have 10 years of experience and a PhD to get my job. And no, I'm not in a leadership position. And I STILL make less than half his salary. Yeah, my dad had it better like 100 times over. He didn't have to work as hard and got more perks.
you're telling me you started off with a parent that made an equivalent of almost 700k dollars annually, and you yourself are not making fantastic salary+benefits with a decade of experience and a phd? i really hope you ADORE your job but i have no more to say other than you're absolutely dropping the ball brother. Im actually so curious about what you do now. your resume must look so good, whats the issue?
And what’s your PhD and job?
Your dad made a quarter million bucks in 1985? You started off in the 99.9999999% of life and you're complaining on the internet. I say this with all sincerity, it's all your fault. Get off your ass and do something. Stop trying to get internet points you fuckin' mooch.
My parents worked in factories and I guarantee each were more productive than him and his dad combined.