06-08-2016, 01:27 PM
(06-08-2016, 01:13 PM)Nately120 Wrote: That's all well and good, but with that change might come the change that minimum wage service positions become careers far more than they did before. I haven't been in the sort of service sector for a while but between semesters of college some of my friends worked in fast food and some of us (myself included) took summer positions at the extrusion plant where our fathers worked.
Neither job was rocket science, but we made almost twice as much per hour being in dangerous, hot, noisy, and carcinogen-filled environments. So, there was always that sort of option when you needed to free up for minimum wage job for some teen. I'm not saying things need to go back to that way (my hometown is almost humorously stuffed with empty factories), but we need to readjust our views of work as the nature of work changes.
You make the assumption that the way it was before was right. Technology helped eliminate a lot of jobs, and honestly will eliminate more before it's said and done. McDonald's is trying out order taking kiosks. Machines can do dumb repetitive jobs for far less. If people are unwilling to learn skills or even the personal scales to sell the technology replacing them, then there isn't a ton we as a society can do about it. We should help those though that want to be helped through continuing education.
