Success Happy

Even Scientists and Engineers are paid less today than they were 20 years ago, is there anything Obama can do?

Taking into account cost of living increases, scientists and engineers are paid less today than they were 20 years ago. This is, to my understanding of aggrigate demand economics, probalby one of the biggest reasons for the failed economy. If you can't guarantee a good paying job after going to college and graduate school in the sciences, how can you be successful in America?

Public Comments

1. He will reverse the Bush tax policies that sent the middle class into reverse.
2. very unfortunate that they cant have million dollar house, vacation home, large boat, three cars, country club and ski lodge. things are tough all over.
3. Sure. He'll pay 'em even less. After all, homeless people SHOULD be payed for being homeless...
4. If you can't be guaranteed a good paying job after going into debt for college enough to buy a home, you mean. our graduates are saddled with 50K to 100K in loans after graduation. other countries pay for the education of their citizens and we hire them. Right-wingers say that kind of system doesn't work, for the government ot pay for things for people. but seems their grads are getting jobs while ours are losing their homes. heck even skilled labor positions that require higher degrees are being taken over by temp labor companies.
5. well he can go through with the bail out plan that would give the banks more money to pay them.... or the government could pay their workers more by getting the troops out of iraq.... even if you do not believe this it still would be that way.
6. essentially, nothing. the labor market for scientists and engineers is world-wide. supply is composed of hundreds of thousands or millions of new graduates a year from countries such as Korea, Japan, China, India, and the US. as more people with learning flood into the field, real wages go down -- this is the normal economic outcome and shouldn't be much of a surprise. *** at the individual level, what you can do is pile it on higher and deeper. advanced degrees coupled with advanced thinking and concepts will assure that you continue to have a job. *** sure, America could subsidize such degrees. and, as sure as we did that, the political pressure to subsidize more degrees in English and History would swamp the program, bloat the costs, and end up killing the whole ball of wax. *** since the individual who gets the education receives most of the benefit, she or he should, imho, pay most of the added cost. [It's only fair, isn't it?]. what that means is that education aid should be in the form of loans to be repaid out of your income over your lifetime, not handouts and freebies. the good news is that education loans aren't, afaik, dischargable in bankruptcy. the bad news is that the repayment schedules are too harsh. A better repayment schedule would be a percentage of your income for the rest of your life. [sure, the wealthy would pay cash and avoid the loan and thus the repayment -- so what. They'd also get the higher taxes that America levies on success.]
7. Not a thing that he can, or will even try, to do. The empire is falling. And even though he will allow us peasants a few more morsels of food, and beat us less often than the previous slave-driver, Obama DOES, after all, serve the Forty Families who own and operate USA, Inc. And THEY, the capos-di-tutti-capos, want all of the servants in their capitalist state, yes, even the scientists and engineers, put on starvation rations so that they can pay for the attempt at reviving the doomed empire.
8. Other than make science a value again. Bush and the right wing stomped all over science in denying global warming, evolution and scientific findings. With Obama wanting research in to cleaner green industries there will once again be practical applications to scientific research and of course engineers have to put it all togehter and the jobs in those fields will follow.
9. Yes play basketball
10. Great question! This addresses the problem quite precisely. We've all been told the "American Dream" for most of our lives: get a good education and work hard and there will be no limit to the success you can achieve. But it's just not true anymore. I was an honor student. I'm a college graduate. I have 10+ years of experience in my field. Yet before I got laid off this week, I was making *below* entry level for my field. And I'd bet my last paycheck that the CEO of my company was making about 500 times that. Like it or not, the US economy depends to a large degree on consumerism. And if the bulk of your consumers can't afford even their basic necessities, the economy is going to suffer. Yet we ignore this and decide to "bail out" the companies and the ones at the top who got us into this mess in the first place! Unbelievable! The economy is not going to be stable until people who work for a living can count on earning a living wage. To me that means if you're working 40+ hours a week, you should be able to afford the necessities of life. As long as we let the CEOs and the upper echelons set their own ridiculously-high salaries and get away with giving their workers mere breadcrumbs in comparison, we're always just to be just another step closer to economic collapse. All the "free market" policies practiced for the last 8 years have shown us one thing: left to their own devices, big business will indulge its own greed and let the workers who create their wealth suffer and fall further into poverty. Other things could help too: universal healthcare, like every other major country gets; student loan reductions or forgiveness (really, why should I pay $200+ a month for a degree that didn't do anything for me?); researching renewable (cheaper) forms of energy; improving public transportation; etc. But giving working people a living wage is an absolute necessity. Unfortunately the people making all the decisions don't seem to get that.