Pssst. Want a job?

October 5, 2010 8:54 PM

Where Young College Grads are Finding Jobs. Government has been the main hirer of young college grads over the past year . And why not? Government jobs are safer, they pay well, and have better benefits than the private sector. The next biggest hirer of young college grads is the broad category entitled professional and technical services, which includes such industries as law, accounting, computer systems design, and management consulting. These industries as a whole have not been expanding, or expanding only slow–but they have been shifting towards better-educated workers. Then comes the distressing category: Hotel and restaurants.
posted by storybored (101 comments total)

I'm graduating in December. I honestly don't know if I should do what all my friends are doing- namely, live with my parents and work food service while applying (largely in vain) for a 'real job'... or just fuck off, do WWOOFing and prepare myself for a life of subsistence farming.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:03 PM on October 5, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm working catering and going to grad school for librarianship (probably public). A few anecdotal data points:

- Most of my engineering friends work for the government in either an aerospace or defense related position (this is around DC, so that makes sense). The ones that work for private companies also contract for a lot of government work.

- I only know one person currently in finance.

- Most of the humanities graduates I know are either government employed (Teaching, NGOs and governmental nonprofits) or underemployed in restaurant and occasionally office jobs. A shitload of debt is usually involved for these people.

The article rings true to me, definitely.
posted by codacorolla at 9:08 PM on October 5, 2010

Data point: I graduated in May'09, worked a variety of odd jobs until Feb'10, when I was hired by a government contractor in a field completely unrelated to what I studied.

It's a like a government job, but with crappy benefits.
posted by schmod at 9:09 PM on October 5, 2010

I'd be interested in seeing a finer age breakdown within the 25-34 range.

It'll be interesting to see how certification creep (and the accompanying debt!) will impact young hires. We are going to wind up with a well-educated, underemployed, pissed-off layer of society.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:22 PM on October 5, 2010 [8 favorites]

I also graduated May'09 and couldn't get a job. Did Americorps, which was horrible. Gave up on non-profits and started working as a free-lancer, which was super exciting because I was making more than minimum wage! I got lucky and got hired in the education sector as a web developer. Everyone always asked me if I studied this stuff in school. Nope, my degree was in food policy, though I did work in IT all during college. I feel pretty lucky to have been flexible. I have a lot of unemployed classmates.
posted by melissam at 9:23 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did Americorps, which was horrible.

This was something I considered when I was floating around aimlessly in the first terrible unemployed year after college (living with my folks, worked a horrible phone service job, considered going back to school for web design), but I never actually applied. What made it horrible for you?
posted by codacorolla at 9:25 PM on October 5, 2010

where is the hired by alma mater for 70% of market rate?
posted by boo_radley at 9:33 PM on October 5, 2010 [4 favorites]

It'll be interesting to see how certification creep (and the accompanying debt!) will impact young hires. We are going to wind up with a well-educated, underemployed, pissed-off layer of society.

That's what happened in Japan during their "Lost Decade"
posted by delmoi at 9:52 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

codacorolla: "The ones that work for private companies also contract for a lot of government work. "

But defense has always been the huge destination for engineers. Basically, the middle class has been bailed out via defense contracting for ages in this manner.
posted by pwnguin at 9:52 PM on October 5, 2010 [3 favorites]

Then comes the distressing category: Hotel and restaurants.

Distressing? Really? I think this can only be a good great fantastic thing for the hotel and restaurant business. As for restaurants, for instance, anybody that's visited one of those trendy yet tasty food trucks rolling around can testify that the induction of college grads into the food industry has had a positive turn.
posted by jabberjaw at 9:54 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm now wondering how these numbers compare to the changes in the job market in the early 90s, when I came out of college in a significantly less serious recession than this one. You probably can't even make a comparison that makes sense, but the credentialism (the answer for us was "go to grad school) and the inability to get hired in your field, or in the humanities at all, sound very familiar.

All you folks coming out of school now have my sympathy, especially those of you who have to pay off huge debts for degrees that may not even help you get jobs.
posted by immlass at 9:56 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

The government, unlike private industry, is hiring.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:56 PM on October 5, 2010

I graduated in 2002 and make $200k/year. It's all about timing, friends.
posted by planet at 10:00 PM on October 5, 2010

Not to derail, but:

I did AmeriCorps, and I loved it, but I also ran into a lot of AmeriCorps kids who were in programs that I would've found infuriating. My program pretty much just involved a grant to a particular non-profit (Rebuilding Together) which allowed them to hire a bunch of free labor. Some of the other programs involved a lot more direct oversight – common housing, no personal transportation, miniscule stipends, tight regulations – and to my mind at the time basically treated their volunteers like little kids. It is possible that melissam is speaking of this sort of thing.

Possibly also she just got into a program that wasn't good for her or wasn't well-run. One doesn't always get the chance to really get a sense of what a given AmeriCorps tour is going to be like day-to-day before signing on, and there was one person in my own program who dropped out relatively early on when they realized that the experience wasn't what they had expected it would be. Everybody else had a good time of it, but I can see how it could be unfun for some people.

Me, I built houses in New Orleans. I enjoyed it immensely. So not everybody has a horrible time of it, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Just sort of a counter-anecdote there, y'all can get back to the topic at hand now. (Which is something that is actually pretty relevant to my own future, since after finishing AmeriCorps I now find myself back in school and wondering what I'm going to do once I finally graduate.)
posted by Scientist at 10:02 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Showbiz_liz (and other college seniors reading this), I strongly suggest WOOFing, travelling, teaching English in a foreign country, or some other activity outside the "real" economy after you graduate. There are just plain aren't jobs.

In hospitality and foodservice, the barrier to entry is so low, and the available labor pool is so large, that employers can treat you like shit, keep talking about how you're so lucky to be working at all, and if you stand up and demand to be treated like a human being, they fire you and have your replacement up and running by the end of the shift.

In many sectors, so many people are being laid off that all the entry-level jobs are being filled by people with 20 years of experience who have been out of work and have families to support.

If you happen to be an economics major, talk to me about how to create alternative economies that don't rely on continual capital expansion and stuff. Seriously. It's up to our generation to figure this shit out.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:04 PM on October 5, 2010 [12 favorites]

I frequently remember a conversation I had in November 2008, a week or so after the first big disaster. One of my friends was an international policy major, and she told us all... we're screwed. Everything we've been expecting just isn't going to happen. We won't just be able to graduate and get good jobs now. Well, we all laughed it off. After all, we were in a GOOD COLLEGE, and that was all that mattered. We'd all been told since grade school that we were the elite, destined for greatness, just follow this path without thinking too hard and you'll be golden.

That friend is a nanny now. I wonder if she remembers that conversation, too. I don't really have the heart to ask.

I'm resistant to the idea of teaching abroad or whatever else because I feel like I ought to be spending that time building my resume... but it probably doesn't matter. When the economy recovers, new grads will be hired. I feel like it's time to give up on ever having a good career, and I'm 22.

Distressing? Really? I think this can only be a good great fantastic thing for the hotel and restaurant business. As for restaurants, for instance, anybody that's visited one of those trendy yet tasty food trucks rolling around can testify that the induction of college grads into the food industry has had a positive turn.

That's good FOR YOU, not for the generation of kids who dreamed of something other than running a taco truck.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:15 PM on October 5, 2010 [20 favorites]

I will say one thing: I've met tons of people I never would've met through catering compared to a traditional career-track, middle class job. I've worked with people from all across Mexico and Southern America, people who came from non-college backgrounds, people who've lived totally different lives than myself. Also, I know what it is to be poor, and to be terrified that you might not get enough hours, or your car might break down, or you might get sick and not be able to work. It's also taught me what it's been like to be a servant - both to respectful clients and people who look down their nose at you. Food service has given me a range of experience that very few other jobs actually could.
posted by codacorolla at 10:21 PM on October 5, 2010 [6 favorites]

or just fuck off, do WWOOFing and prepare myself for a life of subsistence farming.

This is much, much more rewarding than you can even imagine. I'm doing a permaculture design certification (my not-job job) and the extent of the community is just flabbergasting - as long as you have a good attitude and are willing to work there is endless opportunity for education out there. After I'm done this course, if I want to continue, I just need to scrounge $3k to live another six months apprenticing. You don't just get by, you live well (holy crap the FOOD) and you learn something every day. And hell, in another 5 or 10 years the price of food will probably be up enough to make this a "real" career. If you don't know what you want to do and this interests you even a little bit, give it a shot. This whole civilization thing is overrated, anyway - and we're gonna need you.
posted by mek at 10:25 PM on October 5, 2010 [6 favorites]

I feel like it's time to give up on ever having a good career, and I'm 22.

Isn't that kind of what it's always like to be 22, and very much the more so if you are from the kind of socio-economic strata that goes to good colleges and has, you know, careers? I graduated from college in the mid-90s, and while the economy was better then than it is now, a year after graduation very, very few of my friends were making much "career" progress. Some were nannies, some waiting tables, some in grad school, a lucky few were in pre-crash dot-com jobs, others were doing Peace Corps/Americorps/Teach For America/etc.

Pretty much all of them have some kind of career-ish thing going on now, a decade and a half later. Maybe not the career they had in mind -- a lot more small businesses and freelancing than any of us would have guessed, for example -- but definitely not the dead-end barista-style jobs, or living in mom's basement, that most of us had at 22. Honestly, a lot of us -- now in our mid-30s, are only now starting to get the sense that even though a traditional single-track career may never be part of our lives, what had seemed like a disconnected hodgepodge is actually aggregating into a career-like thing, with a progression and some decent outcomes at times.

I'm not downplaying the current recession, nor it's disproportionate impact on younger people. But I do think that the "careers don't exist anymore" language sounds the same now as it did then, and the impact will (as always) fall most heavily on people who don't have access to good colleges. None of us will probably do as well as the boomers, or the (very tiny minority) who cashed in at the exact right moment on the dot-com boom. But neither are many of us likely to spend our lives subsistence farming. (Organic lifestyle farming, however, is considerably more likely, and a lot more profitable.)
posted by Forktine at 10:44 PM on October 5, 2010 [4 favorites]

That's good FOR YOU, not for the generation of kids who dreamed of something other than running a taco truck.

Whoa, whoa, whoa there. Don't piss on people that run gourmet food trucks. Calling them "taco trucks" minimizes the time and effort some of these people have put into something they love to do. I wasn't telling you to go out and start one. My point was, the fact that we have more educated, industrious, creative people in the food biz can only be good for the food biz.

But, if you want to shit on food service, then you can go to hell. Most of the best people I know worked in food service to tide themselves over until they fell into the a different line of work. Some of them stayed there and are running restaurants. Others learned tangible skills from working with food that have assisted their careers. If you're saying a generation of kids think that food service is below them, then they can go to hell too.
posted by jabberjaw at 10:53 PM on October 5, 2010 [13 favorites]

I'm graduating in December and I'm terrified. I'm in a little bit of a different boat; I spent my twenties scraping by with most of a bachelor's degree. I've spent the last two and a half years going to school nights to finish my education. I have a mortgage and a husband so I can't drop everything and teach English overseas or something similar, as fun as it sounds. I'm just hoping I can find something that will pay enough that I can pay my student loans. Grad school is pretty much my impossible dream.
posted by sugarfish at 10:54 PM on October 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think we misunderstood each other, jabberjaw. There's nothing wrong with food service and I've done it myself, but when it's the only option, that's a problem.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:04 PM on October 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

I sometimes wonder if I've had better luck than some because I write a good resume and interview well. Graduated in 2006, found an okay job about a month after graduation, left for grad school for two years, graduated from there in 2009 and found another okay office job a month before I graduated. Recently relocated and had a job offer within two weeks of moving (which I turned down for an opportunity to work from home, for what it's worth--a decision I've yet to regret for a second) despite the economy yadda yadda.

Over the years, I've helped friends and students with resumes and I realized that many people just really don't know what they're doing with that kind of stuff, and colleges really don't give them the preparation they need for it. We're talking basic "don't talk about how you want this job because it's great for you" kind of stuff.

Then again, I've never really looked for a career, or at least haven't in awhile; I have hobbies that I consider my career, so that might be it, too. But I have to say this: my method of job hunting has pretty much been to apply aggressively to entry-level jobs at universities, which I was more than qualified for with my liberal arts degree from a not-really-all-that-great college. They're pretty normal office jobs, but have great benefits (will pay for college classes, etc.), and if you're fairly willing to learn, the culture in such places often seems welcoming to employees staying around forever.

Also, I do not understand the food service haterage, because most of the waiters I've known have made better money, and worked better hours than, say, my friends in publishing.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:25 PM on October 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

I graduated in 2002 and make $200k/year. It's all about timing, friends.
posted by planet at 10:00 PM on October 5 [+] [!]

Do you indeed?
posted by atrazine at 11:27 PM on October 5, 2010 [10 favorites]

I'll second Forktine's comment: it took me ages to get a decent job, and the only reason I really have it is because of grad school. I graduated in the early 80's, into a recession about as bad as this; took jobs in retail, moved around, and finally realized that every time I applied for a job that didn't involve a cash register I was told "But we *have* all our young people". Said young people were the boomers, and they were (then) in their mid-30s.

So I said the hell with it and moved to Europe, where I could at least wait tables and ring up sales and scrub toilets in a different language. Spent 3 years there, came back, turned my BFA into a BA in English and was on my way to journalism school when I suddenly realised that I actually wanted to be a prof.

And yes, it felt like I was burning through my youth; I remember celebrating my 25th birthday, sitting in a hotel in Paris, thinking "I've lived for a quarter century and I've done NOTHING!!". Of course, I'd done a great many interesting things. And it didn't actually kill my chances at a decent career; I think it enhanced it.

Yes, it's easy to freak out. And yes, I had virtually no student debt, which made a vast difference. But don't panic yet. It takes a while to find your feet, and what you're doing now is NOT what you'll be doing when you're 35, unless you really want it to.
posted by jrochest at 12:45 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Member of the English-teacher diaspora here. Six years on, I'm a "translator". Learning another language and getting into translation has been an amazing experience, not only because yeehaw I speak me Mandarin. it's more because once you're in this industry, your clients have to teach you everything they know, and as you develop your relationship with them, they start to trust you.

As an example (and this is just one field!) I got started in translating subtitles, which got parlayed into a consulting gig at the advertising wing in one production company, offers of book translations from publishers who know directors I've worked for, on-set translation & assistant work, and offers to teach screenwriting courses at workshops. I'm also working with a director's sister right now to set up a translation company, and there's been talk from a few clients about asking me to co-author scripts or help scout investors.

I've bumped into similar hodgepodges in elevator parts sourcing (that's a field?), cement, and bar POS systems, among others. But you see how that works? If the client wants the document to reflect their original intentions and be something the target audience will appreciate, they take the time to help you figure it out, you ask pointed questions, they come to trust your instincts as you get to know their business...and sooner or later, you're not just a translator, you're a confidante, friend, and potential employee.

So the WWOOF/backpacker/English teacher route is actually quite practicable if you stick to it. The track tends to go English teacher-->language student-->trusted source on All Things American-->language expert-->integral part of Client X's business-->professionally employable in field X with built in network.

Translation is the only field I can think of where people pay you to learn the guts of their business and company's work process, and it's a natural evolution from getting a "fake" English teaching job abroad. And nobody asks about my degree/certification except in passing these days.

That "fake" English teaching job can actually pay pretty well if you're in the right place. Korea, for example, pays something upwards of $30/hour on average in a place where the cost of living (decently, not in dire poverty) can be as low as $20/day. At 25 hours/week, you can imagine that that'd knock out your student loans pretty quickly. And two years is long enough to achieve some fluency in Korean and have a few adventures.

MY particular job certainly doesn't pay 200K a year, but I'm not starving, I'm making way way more than I spend (overhead in China is LOW, I'm banking a solid $1k a month), the potential for more is there, there seems to be no shortage of work in any of the 20 directions I'm going at the moment, and I'm 26, whaddaya want from a guy?
posted by saysthis at 12:52 AM on October 6, 2010 [10 favorites]

Welcome to that great American institution, the working poor.

The presence of a large body of people too desperate to be choosy about jobs and working conditions is, as some will tell you, what made America the economic powerhouse it is today. Unfortunately, the working poor has, until now, been biased towards the low-skilled end of the market, reducing its utility. After this recession, there will be an influx of economically desperate labour with higher degrees and qualifications, boosting America's competitiveness in the cheap-labour economy.
posted by acb at 2:47 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Then comes the distressing category: Hotel and restaurants.

I would have thought the "distressing" category was Finance... holy crap... the thought of the industry dumping 70,000 grads back onto the market, added to the fresh influx of all the fresh graduates, it's not a pretty picture at all.

I'm in Finance and I can certainly understand the rationale: it's a position that provides intangible benefits to the company making it ideal for near term sacrifice. You could fire all the Finance staff tomorrow and you could still run your company, making X widgets per day, except that you would have no idea if you were making a profit or not. As for the others, you still need to keep Accounts, IT, Manufacturing, Services, etc, or everything would grind to a halt immediately.
posted by xdvesper at 3:28 AM on October 6, 2010

I'd be interested to see what the equivalent graph would look like in the UK, what with a hiring freeze in central government, quangoes being scrapped, and local government budgets being pared to the bone.

Oh, wait, did I say "interested"? Sorry, fucking horrified.
posted by dudekiller at 4:05 AM on October 6, 2010

except that you would have no idea if you were making a profit or not.

Also your shareholders will sue and your board will go to jail.
posted by atrazine at 4:08 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

This need not be distressing. We should expect more of this, as more and more Americans get access to higher education. By my math, around 35% of Americans now have a degree beyond high school, and 9% of Americans have advanced degrees.
posted by honest knave at 4:24 AM on October 6, 2010

That second link should be here.
posted by honest knave at 4:25 AM on October 6, 2010

The cake was, indeed, a lie.
posted by moonbiter at 4:36 AM on October 6, 2010 [10 favorites]

I really need to stop reading these threads at 7:00am after worrying all night about what the hell I can do for a living in the long term. I mean my bills are paid now, but things could turn at any moment. I feel like this most of the time. And frankly, just because I can pay my bills right now doesn't mean I shouldn't worry about those thousands of other people struggling. The fact that you are not the one personally struggling and are currently making, say oh I don't know 200k (*eye roll*), shouldn't comfort you if so many people are being crushed by 40-100k student loan debt.

Things have gotten me so down that I have deleted a ton of bookmarks and don't watch TV because everything is so depressing. Metafilter might be next. The US is in shambles and the level of discourse is so low that I honestly expect there to be a straightfaced "debate" next week on whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or not. Like really, would it surprise you if that was the next "controversy?" It feels hopeless at this point.
posted by milarepa at 4:44 AM on October 6, 2010 [8 favorites]

You're too young to realize it now, but something will eventually come together in your lives. One of the amazing things you come to see as you get older is that somehow, everybody eventually finds a place (barring mental illness, disease, or physical injury). You rise or fall to your appropriate level. I gaze around at all my contemporaries, and see that everyone has found a role, even some that you might have least expected to have anything together. The universe doesn't appear to have been spectacularly unjust to many people over the long run. You're rewarded for the conventional virtues (honesty, persistence, punctuality, reliability), and punished for the expected vices (addictions, adultery, trying-to-get-away with something). Here's the most important thing: Sometimes in life you have to work crappy jobs. But the people who work their crappy job cheerfully, loyally and hard rarely have to work crappy jobs for long.
posted by Faze at 4:51 AM on October 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

But the people who work their crappy job cheerfully, loyally and hard rarely have to work crappy jobs for long.

Now tell us the one about the finicky blond breaking into the bears' home, daddy.
posted by griphus at 5:41 AM on October 6, 2010 [12 favorites]

The government, unlike private industry, is hiring.

And private industry is paying for it in the form of taxes.
posted by valkyryn at 5:42 AM on October 6, 2010

I graduated in the early Nineties recession, and spent a couple of years alternately doing bar, restaurant and factory work, and travelling in the developing world, while writing a (terrible) novel.

New grads, you may not realise it, but right now you have an innate level of physical strength, endurance, energy and mental flexibility that you will never have again. You can sit in an office under fluorescent lights at any point in your life. You will not always be able to dance till dawn, sleep on a hard floor, code all night, spend three days on a bus, body-surf a huge wave, type twenty thousand words in a single draft, climb a mountain or do a thousand other things with anything like the ease you can now. Make the most of it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:52 AM on October 6, 2010 [24 favorites]

The government, unlike private industry, is hiring.

And private industry is paying for it in the form of taxes.

Only for about an eighth of it.
posted by jedicus at 5:55 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

So the WWOOF/backpacker/English teacher route is actually quite practicable if you stick to it.

No. No it isn't. You moved to China.

This is awesome, but puts a huge kink in the activities that many if not most American young people consider to be part of "getting on with their lives." Things like buying a house, finding a mate, having kids, raising said kids, etc. These may all seem smotheringly bourgeois, but they're also pretty much essential parts of civilization, especially the last three, and they're rendered very impracticable if not downright impossible by a lifestyle which is inherently peripatetic.

So yes, you can leverage something like that route into a stable career eventually, but you're 38. How long did it take you to get where you are? Ten years? Fifteen? That's way, way longer than many people are or should be willing to wait to start a family if they're ever going to do so.
posted by valkyryn at 5:57 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Only for about an eighth of it.

Bullshit. True, corporate taxes as such aren't a very significant part of federal revenues, but the rest of it comes from people that work in private industry, i.e. the private sector. I stand by my point.
posted by valkyryn at 5:58 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

So yes, you can leverage something like that route into a stable career eventually, but you're 38.

He said he was 26.
posted by enn at 6:03 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I wonder how the government figure would look minus census hiring. Those jobs are gone now.
posted by jopreacher at 6:09 AM on October 6, 2010

The universe doesn't appear to have been spectacularly unjust to many people over the long run. You're rewarded for the conventional virtues (honesty, persistence, punctuality, reliability), and punished for the expected vices (addictions, adultery, trying-to-get-away with something).

Why does Dr. Pangloss have a sockpuppet account?
posted by Bromius at 6:13 AM on October 6, 2010 [10 favorites]

Used the mighty Google and discovered the census hired over half a million people over the last year. More than enough to cover that 100+ thousand spike in govt jobs listed in the article.
posted by jopreacher at 6:15 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

You're too young to realize it now, but something will eventually come together in your lives. One of the amazing things you come to see as you get older is that somehow, everybody eventually finds a place (barring mental illness, disease, or physical injury). You rise or fall to your appropriate level. I gaze around at all my contemporaries, and see that everyone has found a role, even some that you might have least expected to have anything together. The universe doesn't appear to have been spectacularly unjust to many people over the long run. You're rewarded for the conventional virtues (honesty, persistence, punctuality, reliability), and punished for the expected vices (addictions, adultery, trying-to-get-away with something). Here's the most important thing: Sometimes in life you have to work crappy jobs. But the people who work their crappy job cheerfully, loyally and hard rarely have to work crappy jobs for long.

And people think satire is dead.
posted by 2bucksplus at 6:20 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

Used the mighty Google and discovered the census hired over half a million people over the last year. More than enough to cover that 100+ thousand spike in govt jobs listed in the article.

Most of those jobs had already ended by August of this year, which is the end date of the period discussed in the main link, so if it's an accurate reflection of the net employment change during that time I don't think the Census jobs would have a huge effect.
posted by enn at 6:28 AM on October 6, 2010

He said he was 26.

Then I say he's lucky.
posted by valkyryn at 6:29 AM on October 6, 2010

Just want to add another data point here, after graduating in May 2009 I moved back in with my dad, found a job at a restaurant which I worked at for about a year, quit, and now I'm a professional dog-walker. I've applied to many, many "office" jobs of the lowest possible caliber (admin assistant-ish stuff) to no avail. Most of my friends moved back home, either right away, or eventually, and are still living there- the ones that didn't have mostly had to defer their loans.

although maybe I should be applying to government jobs...
posted by Aubergine at 6:33 AM on October 6, 2010

This need not be distressing. We should expect more of this, as more and more Americans get access to higher education. By my math, around 35% of Americans now have a degree beyond high school, and 9% of Americans have advanced degrees.

Which is why anyone currently in school needs to get internships like their career depends on it. I graduated in Spring 2008 and had multiple job offers (all private industry) because I interned at environmental agencies over three summer breaks and did research during the school year. Employers viewed it as if I had a year of professional experience right off the bat. I know this because my employer specifically told me it was the reason I was getting the job, not my GPA or reputation of my university.
posted by nowoutside at 6:36 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Seconding what saysthis says about translation work. If you're willing to learn, this is an excellent path to take - just being a native English speaker is a massive advantage in a world where English has become the international language de jour.

Anyone with a BA should look into a Fulbright teaching job or similar programs to get started - I did a year in Austria just out of undergrad and it was one of the best years of my life. Even if it doesn't lead to a translation career (as it didn't for me - my eyes were set on graduate school), it's still great experience and excellent resume fodder.

As for food service - I get the feeling the people giving it a negative in this thread are thinking more along the lines of the fast-food trenches, while the more positive folk are instead talking about waitering or working at cafes and bakeries and such. Which is still tough, particularly if you're paying off student loans, but miles better than minimum wage at the local Burger Hell.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:39 AM on October 6, 2010

I should add, I'm just saying that since there seems to be a huge emphasis on the virtues of schooling among my age group that isn't matched by the real world.
posted by nowoutside at 6:40 AM on October 6, 2010

I'm another one that graduated during the nineties recession - which was far more severe in Canada than it was in most places. And yeah, it really, really sucked. Realistically, just the timing of my graduation set my career back by ten or fifteen years (I eventually went into civil service, my planned career, which always gets a double whammy of being hit by the recession itself and then as there is any sign of a recovery gets hit again with severe cutbacks so the politician's spreadsheets look good in time for the next election.)

I have no plithy words of wisdom, I spent years resenting the fact that people that graduated a year ahead of me had low tuition, well-paid summer jobs and got to travel the world while I spent undergrad working full-time and commuting from home a couple of hours away - each way, all for the privilege of ending up working part-time in retail for minimum wage for years.

It did give me a depression mentality around finances though, I have never lived outside my means, I have low expectations for comfort and I do not expect stability in any job (even though I have been in this job nine years and the previous job eight years). Friends that had leveraged their projected future earnings into a big house/nice car today are skating on very thin ice.

Ultimately, it is what it is, and you have to make the best life you can out of what you have been given to work with.
posted by saucysault at 6:44 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Bullshit. True, corporate taxes as such aren't a very significant part of federal revenues, but the rest of it comes from people that work in private industry, i.e. the private sector. I stand by my point.

Your clarification is well taken, but the invective was unnecessary.
posted by jedicus at 6:52 AM on October 6, 2010

Which is why anyone currently in school needs to get internships like their career depends on it. I graduated in Spring 2008 and had multiple job offers (all private industry) because I interned at environmental agencies over three summer breaks and did research during the school year. Employers viewed it as if I had a year of professional experience right off the bat. I know this because my employer specifically told me it was the reason I was getting the job, not my GPA or reputation of my university.

Spring of 08 was before the crash, or before its full magnitude was evident. I graduated June of this year, and during undergrad I had three years of (quite frankly) a really impressive internship in my desired field. It turns out that when you're competing for entry-level jobs with people with 5+ years of actual experience who have been laid off, an internship isn't really that helpful. I'm temping right now, and don't really see an end in sight. Right now my best bet seems to be going back to school (and all the debt that incurs) and getting an advanced degree. But I'm choosing my programs wisely with a focus on job placement. Some accounting programs (not my undergrad field, but reasonably close) promise 99.9% job placement, and seem to back it up, so I'm hoping my investment will be worthwhile. But I know for a lot of people that's not the case. And of course I may not even get into the best programs.
posted by notswedish at 6:59 AM on October 6, 2010

Bullshit. True, corporate taxes as such aren't a very significant part of federal revenues, but the rest of it comes from people that work in private industry, i.e. the private sector. I stand by my point.

But the proportion of tax revenues coming from people actually collecting the profit from private industry, rather than a pittance of a salary is pretty dismal.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:03 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Things like buying a house, finding a mate, having kids, raising said kids, etc. These may all seem smotheringly bourgeois, but they're also pretty much essential parts of civilization, especially the last three, and they're rendered very impracticable if not downright impossible by a lifestyle which is inherently peripatetic.

Bull. Buying a house is impractical if you are moving around a lot (and impossible if you are earning only low amounts or erratically), but there is no easier way to find, meet, and hook up with smart and cute people than by traveling and doing unusual or exciting work. (I mean, how do you think you meet people, other than going out in the world where they are?) Babies do fine when brought up in situations that aren't house-in-the-suburbs -- I know many people my age who, like myself, were brought up by footloose hippies back in the day. Living in the back of a VW, a tent, or on a series of organic commune farms gives you great stories (and sometimes ringworm) but doesn't do anything bad for your development.

There's a really weird fixation by the middle- and upper-middle-class in the US about kids requiring full-on helicopter parenting, a big-ass house with a yard, and all the other stuff of bourgeois life -- but that's a choice, not a requirement.

Again, I'm not downplaying that there are easier and harder paths involved, just that people build up some of the choices we make into self-created requirements.
posted by Forktine at 7:12 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I would have thought the "distressing" category was Finance... holy crap... the thought of the industry dumping 70,000 grads back onto the market, added to the fresh influx of all the fresh graduates, it's not a pretty picture at all.

I think this is a glorious picture. We need 90% less of the financial product voodoo fraud that got us here in the first place. If "high finance" is destroyed as a career opition for the next decade or three, maybe those Ivy league graduates that would've been set on a course of raping the average consumer on a daily basis will instead have to try to make something productive instead.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:21 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

There's a really weird fixation by the middle- and upper-middle-class in the US about kids requiring full-on helicopter parenting, a big-ass house with a yard, and all the other stuff of bourgeois life -- but that's a choice, not a requirement.

Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that living that lifestyle involves being way, way more comfortable with far higher degree of uncertainty than most people with kids are willing to countenance. I'd agree that this is probably something that needs to be re-examined, and I'd even argue that kids are far more resilient in the face of uncertainty than most parents.

But the fact is that raising kids in an environment where the material organization of your life is open to sudden and drastic reorganization every couple of months... starts to look and feel not that different from just being plain-old poor. Even if you've got enough money to pay your bills this month, knowing that you're going to have to figure out something else next month or next season is pretty much exactly what poor people have to do. And as the point of the thread seems to be that college grads are finding it hard to stay middle class, that seems to be a pretty significant concern.

The money issue aside though, the lifestyle of the peripatetic globetrotting English teacher is in stark contrast to traditional concepts of human flourishing, which involve a rooted connection with a physically-proximate community. Saying that you can cobble together a career if you're willing to sacrifice that is kind of a Faustian bargain.
posted by valkyryn at 7:30 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

>I would have thought the "distressing" category was Finance... holy crap... the thought of the industry dumping 70,000 grads back onto the market, added to the fresh influx of all the fresh graduates, it's not a pretty picture at all.

I think this is a glorious picture. We need 90% less of the financial product voodoo fraud that got us here in the first place. If "high finance" is destroyed as a career opition for the next decade or three, maybe those Ivy league graduates that would've been set on a course of raping the average consumer on a daily basis will instead have to try to make something productive instead.

I'd tend to agree, but I note that finance, insurance, and real estate are all in the same category. I'm betting Goldman Sachs isn't laying many people off, but the same is probably not true of local real estate brokerages, many of which weren't necessarily any more involved in the mess than you or I. I'd really like it if that figure was teased out a little more, because there seem to be a number of categories that shouldn't be conflated in a chart like this one.
posted by valkyryn at 7:32 AM on October 6, 2010

Why does Dr. Pangloss have a sockpuppet account?

Oh yeah, and as one long-dead literary figure once said, "Don't panic." Focus on the job in front of you. That's the thing you control right now. Also, I agree with the posters who've pushed internships. They're crucial. So are temp jobs.
posted by Faze at 7:53 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm betting Goldman Sachs isn't laying many people off, but the same is probably not true of local real estate brokerages, many of which weren't necessarily any more involved in the mess than you or I. I'd really like it if that figure was teased out a little more, because there seem to be a number of categories that shouldn't be conflated in a chart like this one.


May be true, but I can't say that having less real estate/insurance people around is in general a bad thing. It's not like the country need more half developed subdivisions or empty stripmalls any time soon. Local Century 21 reps and people manning the Wells Fargo store fronts may not have the same direct moral responsibility for the housing crash as a Bear Stearns trader or AIG exec, but those jobs only exsited within a framework of a unsustainable FIRE economy bubble. That those sectors that were the biggest byproducts of our long mirage of economic growth are the ones taking the hardest hit is probably a good step towards moving past an economy driven purely by a series of finance bubbles.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:53 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

When I graduated, I was going out with a guy a few years older. Since leaving with a degree in English and Drama, he worked in minimum-wage admin by day and performed stand-up occasionally. I had no money on graduation, and I was doing the rounds of temp agencies dumbfounded that someone with a degree, A-levels and ten GCSEs could not get consideration for the same jobs my schoolfriends did after their secretarial course. I could type! I could spell! I knew how to make tea and not smell!

My finances and my environment shrunk my ambition. I knew I should be doing something great, but what? The milkround didn't appeal. I applied for one graduate job - MI5 - passed the exam, and was rejected after being too honest about my flaws on my application form. I couldn't afford to move to London, and then-bf despised it. 'It's so fucking expensive. It's full of posh yuppie wankers.' I applied for administration jobs because I knew I was able to do them, and at the three interviews I got I was asked why I bothered applying for jobs like that. Because I wanted money. Because I wanted to get up every morning and go somewhere and eventually get a place of my own.

I moved out of the ex's flat, but we continued seeing each other. I asked him one day if I should do a PhD. He told me I'd just spend the money on shoes. I temped for a while, lasting as long as five months somewhere until they found out I was on anti-depressants and heard the dreaded phrase 'The temp agency called. Can you pop in on your way home?'

I was on the dole, spending an hour each fortnight being told that the internet was a really good place to look for work. It was a town where you were lucky to make £150 a week, where I no longer knew anyone, and where I never really fitted in. I held off as long as I could on looking for work - I was 'overqualified' for everything - thinking that the moment I took a job, I would start thinking of moving out, but I'd never leave and be stuck in the town until I died. I began to wonder what the point was - what the point of working hard, being clever, wanting to do things was. What ambition was other than something that kept you unhappy and frustrated. The anniversary of my graduation passed and I had not earned enough money to meet the minimum tax threshold.


One day, I applied for a traineeship with the BBC, and a competition to travel the world. At this time, I was living with my parents. My parents had not spoken to each other for six months. I thought for a while what I might do on this trip, but never for one second did I believe I'd ever get the traineeship. The interview was scheduled on the week I left home in my friend's car. I'd saved up temp wages from a job stacking shelves in the public library, where I was told explicitly that stacking shelves was all I was permitted to do and if anyone asked me a question I should direct them to the desk before even thinking of answering myself. My dad looked on confused as I loaded things into the car with my mum's help. I took the interview. I got the job.

The most satisfying moment of my life was not getting a job at a prestigious corporation, nor getting a job where they were fully aware of my health problems and willing to support them. The most satisfying moment was actually signing a contract of employment. After eighteen months of being told I wasn't good enough, of sitting in my temp job looking through application forms where people had written under marital status 'very single', of being sent on day-long courses on how to answer the telephone and made to sign forms for being 30seconds late and being told that I needed to do this like that and I wasn't allowed to do it any other way...someone wanted to give me my own desk and my own log-in and invite me to their annual parties. When my traineeship ended and I took a temp job to pay the rent, it was so dispiriting to go back to being treated as thick and expendable that I came home in tears. I applied for a job in London the next day, got it, and moved here with £120 in the bank, my possessions in my mum's shopping trolley, and the promise of a sofa to sleep on. I would never have had the confidence to do that if I hadn't passed that interview - no - if I had never applied for that job in the first place.

The second-most satisfying moment was phoning that ex six months after we broke up. 'So, then. Have you actually done anything in journalism then?' I twisted the cord on my old phone and leaned against the wall. 'Well, I'm working at the BBC now.' The silence was sweet. I leaned across the double-bed that was mine, all mine, and I smiled.
posted by mippy at 7:54 AM on October 6, 2010 [25 favorites]

Blimey, that was long. If you got to the end, give yourself a biscuit.
posted by mippy at 7:54 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Even if you've got enough money to pay your bills this month, knowing that you're going to have to figure out something else next month or next season is pretty much exactly what poor people have to do.

Fuck. You just reminded me winter's almost here. GRAR
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 8:08 AM on October 6, 2010

Meanwhile, the situation for law school graduates is bleak and getting bleaker. From NALP's 2009 survey:

[O]verall employment rate of 88.3% of graduates for whom employment status was known, a rate that has decreased for two years in a row, decreasing 3.6 percentage points from the recent historical high of 91.9% for the Class of 2007. The employment figure for the Class of 2009 also marks the lowest employment rate since the mid-1990s.

Overall, nearly 25% of all jobs were reported as temporary

Members of the Class of 2009 were also working more often in part-time jobs than their predecessors...more than 10% of all jobs reported by the Class of 2009 being part-time — up from 6% for the previous class.

[A] much higher percentage of this class reported that even though they were employed, they were still looking for work (almost 22% of the Class of 2009 compared to 16% of the previous class), suggesting that graduates took jobs they may not have been satisfied with simply to be able to earn money to offset living expenses and student debt.

[A] measurably smaller percentage of graduates from the Class of 2009 were working as practicing lawyers than their predecessors, with 70.8% reporting that they held a job for which a JD was required, compared with 74.7% of the Class of 2008. Of those who did report jobs in private practice, a far greater number reported that they were working as solo practitioners than in the previous year.

And, of course, ye olde depressing bimodal salary distribution is more depressing than ever.
posted by jedicus at 8:32 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I graduated in 2000, and have been bouncing around from job to job pretty much since. I've worked temp jobs, contract jobs, held full-time jobs that got downsized, the lot. Not one of them was in the area I'd studied in school.

I'd been raised with the ethic that Faze articulated, but have watched manipulative, dishonest bastards get promoted without so much as a hand-slap for their transgressions, while honest hardworking employees burn out, and wind up in hospital with exhaustion from working too hard. I've also seen people languish in jobs lower than their actual working level, because someone in management can't or won't make a decision to regularize them. I've seen the kind of controlling behaviour mippy describes applied to young grads - to the extent that I horrify hairdressers by resolutely refusing to dye my hair. I want every single strand of grey hair I have visible, as I get treated better at work as a result!

In order to do what I was educated to do, I've continued to work on that area of my life "after hours" - writing academic papers, establishing and conducting choirs, and most recently, teaching a course at university. But these things I have had to drum up entirely on my own. I've basically been working two jobs since I graduated, only one of which actually pays me a paycheque.

It's a strange world we live in today.
posted by LN at 8:36 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I strongly suggest WOOFing, travelling, teaching English in a foreign country, or some other activity outside the "real" economy after you graduate. There are just plain aren't jobs.

I would absolutely have done this if I had had the money - mainly because now I have a career and a partner and it's more difficult to do these things as you get older. I thought about TEFL for a bit but no way did I have £500, the flight cost and the funds for a TEFL course. Of course, now I would have done it differently. Everything is easier in retrospect.

Same with internships - great, if you can afford to work unpaid for extended periods. If you are unemployed, 'working' full time does not entitle you to any benefits, even if it is something that may help you get a job in future. Many internships are based in expensive cities where rent will set one back £400 per month. Many internships cover the cost of a sandwich and a train ticket, but only if you live in the more expensive parts of town. It's no accident that the media seems to cover a very middle-class viewpoint and sensibility.

A lot of my personal ambitions are not necessarily tied in with a formal career - there are things I want to do, but they aren't salaried with a holiday package. At the moment, I'm happy with doing something interesting each day that uses my brain and pays enough for me to live well enough. I'm so glad acquisition of wealth was never on my agenda.

(I would like to buy my own place some day, mind, but maybe when I live somewhere where an average deposit isn't twice my annual salary.)
posted by mippy at 8:38 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I graduated in 2002 and make $200k/year. It's all about timing, friends.
posted by planet at 1:00 AM on October 6

cool story bro
posted by dammitjim at 8:50 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Bullshit. True, corporate taxes as such aren't a very significant part of federal revenues, but the rest of it comes from people that work in private industry, i.e. the private sector. I stand by my point.


People who work in the public sector pay taxes as well, so maybe you should sit down.
posted by rfs at 9:22 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

How long did it take you to get where you are? Ten years? Fifteen? That's way, way longer than many people are or should be willing to wait to start a family if they're ever going to do so.

Why? It seems like that's the right way to do it. Thanks for telling me how I should live though.

Take your time, folks. Life is fucking long enough as it is. Lots of us at 38 or (gasp) even older do not want or need a career.

The corporate employment system abuses us by earning more revenue than it pays out; we abuse the corporate system by making as much money as possible while working as little as possible. It sucks but it works until the planet explodes. And then we all die. Eponysterical.

I graduated in 2002 and make $200k/year. It's all about timing, friends.

My sister-in-law graduated in 2006 and makes upwards of $300,000 as a corporate lawyer. It has nothing to do with timing.

May be true, but I can't say that having less real estate/insurance people around is in general a bad thing.

That's the major challenge of our time. How do we shrink our economy and maintain (or normalize) living standards for everyone?

Unfortunately, I don't think many politicians think that's our challenge, at least not in the U.S.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:24 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Same with internships - great, if you can afford to work unpaid for extended periods.

mippy hits the nail on the head here, in terms of inequality.

Upper-class graduates who can't find work can go backpacking or take an unpaid internship. The rest of the graduates don't have the $500 for the plane ticket and can't live on a stipend when we have no car, no housing, and no savings. And a lot of grads have serious debt that will start kicking in very shortly.

Admittedly, mek is right on. I wish it were less costly (in terms of extended family relationships) to "give up civilization" because civilization itself is going to cost us the planet soon.

I'd been raised with the ethic that Faze articulated, but have watched manipulative, dishonest bastards get promoted without so much as a hand-slap for their transgressions, while honest hardworking employees burn out, and wind up in hospital with exhaustion from working too hard.

I'll second that. People often dive into their work to escape facing their personal stuff.

"One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important and to take a holiday would bring all sorts of disaster." - Bertrand Russell
posted by mrgrimm at 9:40 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

People who work in the public sector pay taxes as well, so maybe you should sit down.

Yes, but 100% of their salary comes from taxes. They're a net drain on the budget. The difference is made up by people that work in the private sector, i.e. the productive side of the economy.
posted by valkyryn at 10:48 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Why? It seems like that's the right way to do it. Thanks for telling me how I should live though.

Take your time, folks.

There is a finite amount of time in which most people can start a family. The time is far shorter for women than for men, obviously, but it's true for both genders. If you want to have more than one or two kids, don't want to have a high risk pregnancy, don't want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on fertility treatments and IVF, then you generally can't afford to wait until your mid-thirties when your career really settles down.

Telling those people who want children that they shouldn't is no less of an imposition than that of which you've accused me.
posted by valkyryn at 10:52 AM on October 6, 2010

"i.e. the productive side of the economy."

I'm not a public employee, but I'd still like to point out that some public employees produce things or provide useful services.
posted by moonbiter at 10:56 AM on October 6, 2010 [9 favorites]

True, corporate taxes as such aren't a very significant part of federal revenues, but the rest of it comes from people that work in private industry, i.e. the private sector. I stand by my point.

It is true enough that everything the public sector does is in one way or another supported by its private citizens, individual and corporate. This is as defensible as a point gets, but whether it's worth standing by is something else, given how narrow it is in the larger context.

Even though tax rates are historically low and have been for nearly a decade, for some reason we have a private sector that (a) does a worse job of providing careers, of building a middle class, of in general employing people and (b) is complaining louder about its (again, historically light) tax burden than anytime I can think of while I've been paying attention in the last 16 years, that apparently feels terribly put upon that we might have to return to the (still historically low) rates of the 1990s. In this context, the observation that public activities are funded with taxes doesn't really effectively mitigate the observation that the private sector seems increasingly less effective at yielding benefits for the population as a whole than it seems it should be -- than it in fact has been in past times, even when its ostensibly heavy burdens were larger.
posted by weston at 11:05 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

They're a net drain on the budget. The difference is made up by people that work in the private sector, i.e. the productive side of the economy.

This talk of "net drains" on the economy neglects the fact that the public sector can perform necessary functions, that its institutions can do things that are as easily net contributions as anything the private sector does. I'm certain there exist inefficiencies and sinecures worth shaking out, just as certain as I am that Scott Adams has made a nice personal fortune out of telling us some truths about the private sector that some people don't seem ready to confront in any other way yet.
posted by weston at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2010

We may not be on the same page semantically here...the internships I was exposed to were very much part time or temporary employment.

If you are in a field that does not offer paid internships then that is a huge economic signal that said field is not going to need you upon graduation. Either there is a huge pool of people who are qualified and want to do the work which drives wages down, or there isn't much demand in that field for labor anyways. I can only speak of engineering and science, but these fields pay their interns, usually even if its academic research.

Internships at fashion magazines or non-profits? Yeah sure, for the rich. Internships in industries where labor is in demand are a fantastic way to actually make money in addition to getting the training and networking that will land you your next job. I feel like they're under-emphasized by students.
posted by nowoutside at 11:43 AM on October 6, 2010

>They're a net drain on the budget. The difference is made up by people that work in the private sector, i.e. the productive side of the economy.

This talk of "net drains" on the economy neglects the fact that the public sector can perform necessary functions

Absolutely it can, but those functions are necessary precisely because they're things that it is impossible to do economically. The one thing the public sector cannot do is create economic growth. You can't have an economy to speak of without the public sector, but the public sector categorically cannot serve as the engine of economic creation, because it necessarily depends on taxing other economic activity rather than being economic activity in its own right.
posted by valkyryn at 12:08 PM on October 6, 2010

Internships in industries where labor is in demand are a fantastic way to actually make money in addition to getting the training and networking that will land you your next job. I feel like they're under-emphasized by students.

Paid internships outside engineering are vanishingly rare.
posted by valkyryn at 12:09 PM on October 6, 2010

Paid internships outside engineering are vanishingly rare.

I work for CBS and we pay all of our interns. In fact, most big companies pay interns, I believe.

"If you're a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law," said Nancy Leppink, deputy administrator of the department's wage and hour division, according to a story in the New York Times."

- Ivy Leaguers’ Career Path Slammed Shut by Obama

(I find it odd that the article then goes on to claim that minorities and poor people will be affected the worst. HA.)
posted by mrgrimm at 12:34 PM on October 6, 2010

"The number for each industry represents the increase in collegee-educated employment"

If you add up all the new non-goverment jobs they total 230.9 thousand jobs, compared to 107 thousand goverment jobs which means 46% of new jobs are with the govt.

I'm surprised the percentage is that low given the current economy, also I wonder if those figures account for people who change job more than once per year?
posted by Lanark at 1:39 PM on October 6, 2010

Absolutely it can, but those functions are necessary precisely because they're things that it is impossible to do economically. The one thing the public sector cannot do is create economic growth.

Let's assume there's a set of things the government can do, that are beneficial, but not excludable, meaning that everyone benefits from the service whether they paid or not. Nuclear deterrence, for one extreme example. It seems reasonable to say they're economically possible, but they do leave money on the table. It would be unfair for the world to demand Bill Gates and Warren Buffet bankroll such an endeavor, as even though the wealthy might benefit enough to make it a beneficial transaction, millions would free-ride. We just need some form of technology through which we can get everyone to pay a fair share, and another one to decide what constitutes a fair share.

Essentially, you're begging the question. You've defined economic activity as the things non governments do, to illustrate why they can't contribute to the economy. It's just not true. Economics doesn't care so much about whether the firm is government or private. They both get funding from capital markets, they both lobby congress for favors. As long as the buyer of labor isn't a monopsony, which isn't necessary in your example, market forces will still set wages in a government only economy.

Right now, the US federal government has incredibly low capital costs. If low capital interest rates are a market signal for more of it, the market spread is currently asking for a bigger US government than it was five years ago.
posted by pwnguin at 3:47 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Growing up, we had no money. I remember times when bread and ketchup were the only things in the fridge. It got better in high school, but not by much. And yet, there I was getting straight A's in AP classes and volunteering and participating in activities because maybe, just maybe getting into a good college would mean getting out of poverty. I ended up getting good enough scholarships and grants to be able to go to a private liberal arts college for less money than it would have cost for me to go to the state schools I applied to.

I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in May 2009. Job market was shit. I doubled my student loan debt by going to a fast-track graduate teaching program and graduated with my Master's this past May and am a certified teacher.

I am unemployed. I have applied to countless jobs (yes, even in retail and food service) and I am beginning to think that my life is over at 23. My passion, creativity, and diligence do not matter. The hundreds of hours I have spent in classes, in internships, volunteering, doing work study, and student teaching mean nothing. I am crushed under my student loans.

Having people who are in a good life position right now talk about how it was only a matter of time before this (the economy) happened, and oh man now is the time to experience other things, and you know this will build character...it makes me want to scream.

I am broke and desperately hopeless. I don't know how much more of this I can take.
posted by delicate_dahlias at 4:32 PM on October 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

I hear you.

I'm in my final year of an MLIS, working 3 jobs, gritting my teeth to type through the pain of the carpal tunnel and tennis elbow I've given myself trying to stay afloat and competitive against 20-year-olds. At this point my fallback plan if my full-time job lays me off is a hibachi in the bathroom.
posted by subbes at 5:17 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

The government is hiring, sure, but mostly in areas like homeland security, which to many of us sounds about as exciting or personally fulfilling as poking hot needs through your eyeballs.
posted by raysmj at 8:19 PM on October 6, 2010

My sister-in-law graduated in 2006 and makes upwards of $300,000 as a corporate lawyer. It has nothing to do with timing.

The recession began in 2008, not 2006. What's your point?
posted by raysmj at 8:22 PM on October 6, 2010

needles, not needs.
posted by raysmj at 8:24 PM on October 6, 2010

My sister-in-law graduated in 2006 and makes upwards of $300,000 as a corporate lawyer. It has nothing to do with timing.

Law school is three years, so she graduates law school in 2009 and is making $300k after one year of practice? Not buying it.
posted by planet at 8:25 PM on October 6, 2010

I'm class of 2007 and class of 2009 and I just got hired by the (state) government.

Finding a job in 2007 (ok, 2006 but that's part of a long story) took me a month. If I'd stuck with that job, instead of quitting and going to grad school, I'd be working in the dreaded hotel industry but earning significantly more than I am now.

Finding a job in 2009 (ok, 2010 because that's when I got the full time job) took me a month but this time with a twist: the job was part time and there were no benefits. I finagled that into a full time temp contract, but eventually even that fizzled out. It took me 18 months to find a full time position in my field.

I went to a great school, had multiple paid internships and worked in the field while in school, and I had glowing recommendations (so, your little platitudes about doing everything right? are starting to ring false to those of us who did everything right and still find doing the job search while paying student loans to be an excruciating ordeal). I was hired by the government.
posted by librarylis at 9:50 PM on October 6, 2010

planet: "Law school is three years, so she graduates law school in 2009 and is making $300k after one year of practice? Not buying it."

What in the world? Reread the comment.
posted by boo_radley at 10:13 PM on October 6, 2010

What in the world? Reread the comment.

It is 2010, isn't it? I hate when I fuck that up.
posted by planet at 12:53 AM on October 7, 2010

I work for CBS and we pay all of our interns. In fact, most big companies pay interns, I believe.

This is certainly not the case in the UK.

I work for an NGO and we are very small, so we take on students or pupils for a very short period of work experience - 2 weeks or so. The BBC has a similar scheme where you can apply for work experience, and it is competitive, but you will be doing 'real work' and crucially not be working for free for longer than a month. The problem is when companies are advertising roles that should be salaried positions and pay nothing because they know they can fill them with six-month interns.
posted by mippy at 2:08 AM on October 7, 2010

My sister-in-law graduated in 2006 and makes upwards of $300,000 as a corporate lawyer. It has nothing to do with timing.


2006 is decidedly NOT 2008 or 2009. Law graduates from a Top 25 university in 2006 were literally falling into jobs that paid 160k...that is why people who ENTERED law school in 2006 rationally thought it was a good descision.

Fast forward to 2009, no one got those jobs, the people hired in 2006 were all getting fired, and the luckiest new graduates who DID secure a job were "deferred" for up to a year of more, or had those offers revoked. Game, set, match, sorry that you all rolled snake eyes.

I would bet any amount of money that your sister-in-law is no smarter or no more qualified than thousands of 2009 graduates...she just happened to be born 3 years earlier and graduate on the right side of a credit bubble and accompanying hiring mania in the biglaw market. Some people hit the birth lottery, and other miss the window by a few months or years. Timing DOES matter, don't patronize people who weren't born in the right year by telling them it doesn't. The "stop whining, pick yourself up by the bootstraps" line from people who have never so much as had to look down to see thier gilded bootstraps standing on a sea of the less fortunately born is really tiresome.
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:22 AM on October 7, 2010 [3 favorites]

Law school is three years, so she graduates law school in 2009 and is making $300k after one year of practice? Not buying it.

Sorry for the confusion (even with your unusual math). She graduated from law school in 2006. She got her BA back in 2000, I believe, and worked in finance for 3 years. She has been at her firm for 4 years now.

I would bet any amount of money that your sister-in-law is no smarter or no more qualified than thousands of 2009 graduates

Sorta unrelated to the convo here, but I would take that bet in a heartbeat. She and I have different personalities, so these comments aren't coming from any sort of fan, but I would certainly bet she's smarter than tens of thousands of 2009 law-school graduates (assuming there are 50,000 or so law-school graduates every year?) I don't know how you would propose to judge someone's intelligence, but I do know her LSAT score and it's well in the top 10%.

But that's not why she's making $300K (and I'll admit I don't know the exact figure. If it were a contest I'd probably guess closer to $260-270K with bonuses.)

Timing has a lot to do with it (I graduated school in California in '94; the comparison with '98 is ridiculous), but it's far from everything. Connections, hard work, luck, physical attractiveness, willingness to toadie favor with higher ups, etc. It's not as simple as there are tons of high-paying jobs in year X but not in year Y. That's all I'm saying.

The "stop whining, pick yourself up by the bootstraps" line from people who have never so much as had to look down to see thier gilded bootstraps standing on a sea of the less fortunately born is really tiresome.

Whoa, projection and misinterpretation at the same time! And completely misrepresentative. I would never say "quit whining, pick yourself up by the bootstraps." My advice would be closer to "get a shitty job and steal from your employer as best you can without getting caught."

I grew up with plenty of advantages--a dad who was a teacher and a stay-at-home mom who both taught me lots--and privileges--white, hetero male--but I'd hardly call them gilded bootstraps. My sister-in-law probably grew up with more privileges, financially speaking but again, I'd have a hard time calling them gilded. Lots of people with more advantages certainly achieved "less success" (defined conventionally). She went well over $100,000 in debt for school. Definitely a gamble that could have backfired.

She's also willing to work 80 hours a week and bill 60, answer email around the clock, and work almost every single weekend. Does that make her job worth $300K? No, but it certainly limits the number of people who can do it. I wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong. It happens once in a blue moon, but there aren't too many ways to "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" in modern America. There are lots of reasons the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.

There are also lots of reasons that people find "good jobs" (I might argue that my sister in law does not have a "good job") and financial success in modern American corporate culture. Timing is a big one, but I think it's less important than some of you are making it out to be. Determination, persistence, intelligence, and, most importantly, class and connection are all more important.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:43 AM on October 7, 2010

no more qualified than thousands of 2009 graduates

I'd also say that her 3 years of employment experience does make her more experienced then the large majority of law-school graduates. I don't know the numbers, but I'm guessing that's more "real world" employment experience than most graduates have.

Anyway, total derail. Sorry. I'll pay for my transgression with a good link on the "law school tuition bubble."

What if They Built a Law School, and No One Came?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:55 AM on October 7, 2010

Things have gotten me so down that I have deleted a ton of bookmarks and don't watch TV because everything is so depressing.

You stopped watching TELEVISION? You need to go on antidepressants IMMEDIATELY!
posted by tehloki at 1:42 PM on October 7, 2010

You stopped watching TELEVISION? You need to go on antidepressants IMMEDIATELY!

Fuck you. You know what I mean.
posted by milarepa at 2:07 PM on October 7, 2010

I work for an NGO and we are very small, so we take on students or pupils for a very short period of work experience - 2 weeks or so. The BBC has a similar scheme where you can apply for work experience, and it is competitive, but you will be doing 'real work' and crucially not be working for free for longer than a month. The problem is when companies are advertising roles that should be salaried positions and pay nothing because they know they can fill them with six-month interns.

This is a problem here, too. There are pretty strict stipulations about what unpaid interns can, and cannot do--but they're rarely stuck to. I worked at one job where the boss figured out that they could "hire" up to four unpaid interns for our department. They just stopped hiring low-paid work study students and had the interns doing drudge work like data entry for free. Poor kids are so eager to get office experience that they never even blink at requests like that.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:21 PM on October 7, 2010

milarepa I was parodying the standard reaction on here towards people who do not watch TV (I DON'T EVEN OWN A TELEVISION etc), I think not watching TV is probably a good thing and I support your decision fully and I'm sorry if I came off as offensive without appropriate context
posted by tehloki at 3:24 PM on October 9, 2010

Also I don't really know what you mean if what you mean is not "I stopped watching television" and that might be part of the reason my comment sounded hatey
posted by tehloki at 3:25 PM on October 9, 2010