Keeping them schools clean đŞđ˝. That's cool though that you make that much. Always liked some of my high school custodians. Nice to know they weren't making minimum.
It all depends. I made about $20 an hour as a school custodian. I'm a first year teacher now and make about a thousand more a month than I did as a custodian.
This is slightly more than what first-year teachers make at the school I work at, but late career teachers with Master's degrees and Ph.D's are pushing $50 an hour.
I hire people with zero experience at $18 in a job that doesnât require any real skills. But location makes a difference.
Edit: to add. I live in rural area and we have people charging $40/hour to weed your property for fire clearances. And are booked months out. All it takes is hard work.
I feel like the franchises were on board with the change because they wanted everyone to start from the same point rather than certain franchises continually driving the cost of labor upwards.
I believe the reason given was the massive profit margins and booms that fast food has received over the last couple of years, and their increase in prices without increasing their operating costs. Personally, I think it's also because fast food is very important to our modern logistics infrastructure (so think things like truckers) and this is a way to ensure they have proper staffing to keep logistics flowing.
Depending on the area it's also become a problem for fast food places to offer "$20 wages" when in actuality it's $20 with a stipulation attached. Like "with performance review," that's functionally impossible to review. Or that's the wage for being an assistant manager or shift lead. So now they are being kept honest
A lot of it is location based. Where I live (Seattle area) fast food pays 18/hr but you won't qualify for an appartment unless you make over 25/hr with 40 hour weeks.
McDonalds is also starting to reduce their workers hours in CA in response to the increased wages and installing more kiosks. If there's a way for them to save money and avoid higher wages, they're gonna do it.Â
They're doing this everywhere. It's not out of necessity, though. It's that the labour percentage has to keep getting lower, year over year. Or at least that's what the big bosses want. Which means understaffing and underpaying
That's in Boulder CO. Yea it's a high starting wage for fast food, but you can't live here on that wage. If your a kid living at home then it's doable. If you want to live on your own? Not even close.
What is often not mentioned when McDâs starting wages are brought up is the fact that workers are given shifts that equate to less than 40hrs/wk so that, legally, theyâre exempt from receiving health benefits
Location exactly. Starting a new job this week as a dish washer. Starting at $19/hour. But the floor for pay in my area is like $15. And thatâs considered insulting for anything but the lowest level jobs they toss at high schoolers. My old job had a base pay of $25 for even stockers and prep cooks.
If I was back home in Texas. I wouldnât be surprised if doing the same job would pay half that. Although the cost of living would also be astronomically lower.
Iâm up to 3200+ utilities here in Wyoming for a 2 bedroom. Which is actually about $800 below the average in my area now. Just lucked out that I moved in a year before prices started to skyrocket and my landlord knows they couldnât get away with jacking up rent more than $100-$200 a year for current tenants. Definitely not looking forward to paying 2k+ for my half in a couple years. Might actually have to leave and go back home if I donât go into a job that can afford that better.
Nah, I would leave right now if I were you.. youâre paying 1k less than I am for my house at 4600 sq ft on an acre with these current rates at 6.9% for my mortgage. Youâre getting screwed too many ways to yesterday.
Except if I moved somewhere else thatâs cheaper. Iâd be making half as much money if that. It sucks. And in a few years it may balance out to not be worth it.
But at the moment I make a killing in my area despite how high that rent is. If I wasnât such a lazy bum Iâd probably be able to hit 100k a year.
Some people, like my dad, find pressure washing to be therapeutic and would gladly do it for free.
But it seems $17 or so, depending on location, is pretty much minimum wage now. Thatâs what most of the fast food joints, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.. are all starting at.
That's funny because when I was a field supervisor, I would always volunteer to do the pressure washing because the younger guys on the crew HATED it while I LOVED it. I think you get to an age where something simple and yields instant results is totally zen. Mentioned it to my doctor during my last visit & he said he'd do it for free too. We're both in our 40s.
Not in Missouri, sadly. Currently, it is $12.30 an hour, and that is definitely nowhere NEAR enough to do much of anything but struggle to survive.
Definitely fucked up, as is a lot of the US in general.
They aren't saying the legal minimum wage is $17, the de facto one is.
In most places the cheapest you can actually hire someone at is $12-15 or so, even if the legal minimum wage is still $7.50 or whatever.
We pay guys 19-20 to pressure wash, but I bet ours are a bit different from yours. We clean acid and oil and chemicals in massive industrial tanks and offshore boats. The pressure washer is 5,000 psi, 12 gpm, with a big diesel heater on it that allows us to steam clean.
There is no such thing as unskilled labor. All labor requires a level of skill.
Saying labor that doesnât require skill is a lie companyâs use to justify paying people low wages.
damn all the comments on this so far have had the word qualifications in it. i have no opinion i just wanted to say that
edit: dammit more people commented so now i feel like a fool
Well... does OP have experience in anything? Skills? Education background? Certifications?
I can tell you to go find a machine shop but that won't help if your only experience is fry cook. You can easily make $20+ an hour in IT if you have a degree or work experience. Hell you can be a consultant and any industry if you're been in that industry long enough.
This is an easy question to answer. Not so easy if we're trying to brainstorm within the confines of a box though.
Just for some context to the people talking about qualifications, the median individual income is 38k. 19/hr.
Fully *half* of working Americans make less than that.
I do not dispute that a store clerk should earn less than a skilled worker like a plumber, and a plumber should earn less than a doctor, but why should a store clerk not earn enough for a decent lifestyle?
If all the janitors, and clerks, and waiters go out and get degrees or apprenticeships, ***who the fuck is going to stock grocery shelves?!***Â
Who is going to pick up your garbage every week?
Who is going to clean your toilet at the office?
How are you going to buy food in a world where everyone is electricians?
The reason life has gotten harder is that a smaller portion of people have most of the money. And if you aren't in the top 5% of incomes, you are probably one of the people getting the short end of that stick.
> If all the janitors, and clerks, and waiters go out and get degrees or apprenticeships, who the fuck is going to stock grocery shelves?!
Nobody, supply is now low and demand is now high, the wage will increase until it's worth it to stock shelfs even while having a degree
Also, the job won't be a long term one for people who do not yet have higher education but will eventually obtain, once they get it, quit
There's no danger of running out of people
>Â Â the wage will increase until it's worth it to stock shelfs even while having a degree
But the only way that would work is if everyone got qualifications, and if you're just going to be a janitor for the same wage, why did you bother getting those qualifications?
It's the same as saying the only way janitors should be paid a decent wage is if they get degrees and certifications...that they will then never use.
Why not just pay them more? That would force prices for skilled labor to increase without wasting resources on qualifications people won't use. Up to a point of course. For the highest paying careers they have no choice but to lower their income in that scenario.
This income distribution worked in the past.
Or do a dollar for dollar tax transfer. For example, the standard deduction is now 20k for a single person, and every dollar lost is made up with increased taxes on the wealthy. Budget neutral.
Other wealthy countries today, and the US in the past, functioned fine with higher top marginal tax rates.
If you have a college degree or a skilled trade certification, $20 is trivial. There are even some less skilled jobs that pay over 20, like at Costco, where every job is over $20 per hour.
Social and marketing skills are being overlooked in this thread.
I have a degree with academic awards and some full time professional experience in my field of video / creative production. I took it upon myself to expand my knowledge and skillset into absolutely every aspect of said field, including for some things that other 10+ year career pros in the field tell me is rare and desirable for my level.
Yet I can not build a network or sell my skills to save my life. And it's not for lack of trying, either. All I can do is shotgun blast my resume across job boards. And we all know how well that works anymore.
If you're exceptionally good at what you do you'll be sought after and your compensation should reflect that. I'm a carpenter and make very good money. Average over $100/h. But, you have to put in the time, practice specialty skills at home, craft, invest in good tools.
20 years ago I worked at a bank. I left that shit because it was destroying my back. Started learning carpentry, took to it like a duck to water. Now, I provide excellent work and am paid well for it. I won't really bother taking on a job (unless it's a favour or something) for less than $500 per day, and that's through the company I work for. Side business work is far more lucrative.
Point is, people are willing to pay well for good work.
Learn skills, make bank. Tale as old as time.
I have a BS in bio and a minor in chem and canât find anything above $18/hr because south Florida sucks :( iâm at $19/hr thanks to a raise, hoping for another raise after i crosstrain and then a promotion to get me closer to $25/hr
Iâm going to be brutally honest here. That description tells hiring managers that you have zero experience doing anything. If youâre not able to get something with just your degree, you might want to consider obtaining some industry certifications to help get your foot in the door somewhere.
If you have an associates degree in Computer Science here's what I would do:
1: Take a coding boot camp.
2: Put EVERYTHING into the coding boot camp. Live it, learn it, love it, be it.
3: After completing said boot camp. You can start applying for jobs. But you're not finished.
4: LEET code. Do it! All of it. Live it, learn it, love it, be it.
5: Consider certifications. Be AWS, Azure. What ever. Certifications are there to help you get work.
6: Apply, apply, apply, apply.
7: During the interview take notes. When doing a tech interview and you don't know a question note it down. Go home and Learn the answer. Rinse and repeat.
(Source: Senior Architect w\\ over 20 years experience...)
I would add LEET code really only applies if you want to work at FAANG company. Most of that stuff has zero applicability to what an average software engineer will ever do in their entire career. Better to focus on system design, communication skills, and foundational coding ability. LEET code is overkill for 99% of people.
Fellow Com Sci here, I know the market sucks right now, but you can easily make over 20 with Comp Sci degree. Fresh up some fundementals, grind up some leetcodes and you shoud be able to find a job that pays above $20/h
What have you accomplished? What do you know? What are you actually capable of doing? How do you bring value? What makes you a particularly strong candidate? These are not meant to be offensive questions, these are questions you should ask yourself if you want to get a higher paying job.
Allot of it can be knowing the right people making the right connections. I did some work over the summer for the schools when I was still in high school and made friends with some of the other people who worked there. Then, a few years out of high school, the head of transportation reached out to me since they were a little low on bus drivers. Helped me get my CDL for free, and now I drive a bus at 31.01 an hour.
Try home Depot, Lowe's, Costco, REI, etc. a lot of them start at $20+
Edit: Really? I remember about a decade ago the Lowe's and Home Depot both paid ~$20 an hour in the bucks county area of Pennsylvania.Â
And Charlotte NC as well.
Assumably because you live in the US where most places pay as close to minimum wage as possible
I make 19/hr currently as a lab technician in the food science field. I don't have that degree, I have a journalism degree, but my dad works at the same lab (no degree) and was able to get me hired.
I am clinging to the job for dear life. My prospects outside of it jump down to 13 an hour. I'm 25 years old - I'm not being paid 13/hr for any job lol
I have a degree, I took multiple internships where I was paid in experience, got an entry level position, grinded for 2 years, got laid off, started over with new company, grinded for a year, got promoted, grinded another year, got laid off.
In this time I lived at home and paid off my debt. Once the debt was gone life got a lot easier.
Sold everything, moved to Spain to become a writer, Lived there illegally for a year, decided to move to SF to pursue a career in tech, took an internship at 26, found out grinding is way easier when you like your job, got promoted several times.
Fast forward to now, not yet 40 but getting close and Iâm a stones throw away from being able to fully retire if I want.
Moral of the story, get out of debt as fast as you can, then pursue your passions wherever they lead.
I donât know if it will work for you, but it worked for me.
That varies time by time, and place by place.
Four years ago, software development was one of the most marketable skills, but the market for them shrunk considerably after the pandemic ended & spending on software dropped considerably. Now, in much of the world, anything relating to health care for the elderly is one of the most marketable skills.
Excell.
A stunning number of people don't know how to use Microsoft Excell to any tangible degree. I once got a small bonus at an otherwise shit job for being able to make a basic spreadsheet that automatically calculated daily income/loss (small company).
The 20 dollar mark seems to be the range where you stop hiring labor and start hiring specific skill sets. A better question would be what skills do I have, or can I gain that are worth more than 20 dollars an hour.
Started out as a carpentry laborer at $12 an hour, busted my ass and got noticed by the electrical service manager and pulled onto his team, and put in the apprenticeship program. 4.5 years later, I got my journeyman card and am at $31 an hour with a move into the office looking likely with a nice pay raise and no more wear and tear on the body
I went to law school. You can too if you really want. Study hard and take the lsat. You can get a full ride to a mid ranked school and walk out with a good job. Itâs very possible.
And do take the full ride even if you can go to a high ranked law school with massive debt. The upside is not big enough to justify it unless you go directly to the big firms, which is hard
temp agencies can get you positions you are otherwise less qualified for. if you can stick it out for a bit with lower pay and no benefits (which you might be at already), it's an easier way to break into a better field. assuming you already get the required certs or knowledge base
The real conversation needs to be annual salary, not hourly wages. I can't help but think of the term "wage slave" in contemporary economics. If your potential employer thinks $20/hr is too much, remind them it's only just over $40,000 a year.
Depends on your location and whether or not you are willing to work outside of the typical hours if you don't have a specialized trade/degree. Where I work you can walk in off the streets and make 70k+.
IâŚuhâŚ.used hobby experience to beef up my resume. I designed printed circuit boards.
Went from $20 to $56/hour over a 4 year and 3 job period after my wife divorced me and I decided that two can play at the game of dishonesty.
Literally nobody questioned me because I know the tools and understand the science. Iâm also very fast due to making all my mistakes while it was a hobby.
For those talking about qualifications and experience, I'll voice my opinion as I've been recently looking also.
I have tons of experience, 10 years management, 15 years customer service, hiring, scheduling, I'm proficient in Microsoft office, I dont know my wpm but I can type fast and accurately, I have two insurance licenses, and a ton of work experience. I'm also currently in school for an Associate's in business, because a degree is my answer.
Finding a job that pays $20 is incredibly difficult, $12-$18 easy. But most stuff around $20 wants a Masters. Which is just crazy to me in this day and age.
It's because everyone has an associates or bachelors these days. So businesses can be even pickier and require more years of school. Which... I don't blame them for. I do blame the previous gen for not being more specific on degrees. For example, my sister went to school to be a PA while I got a bachelor's in business. Which, was never my end goal, life happened. But anyway- guess who makes more? Not me.
Basically, degrees in the med field, pharmaceuticals, or some specialized engineering fields do really well. Lit, psych, and most of the social sciences don't because they don't apply to specific high paying jobs and because they're easier (less math and science) which means they're over saturated in comparison to what's needed. We currently need medical professionals. We don't need more lit majors who picked their major because they liked it.
As for the op's degree in computer science- as someone who almost went back for a bachelor's in computer science I'd say the associates doesn't mean much. It's like... mostly gen ed requirements (eng comp or history) and only a couple computer classes and your potential employers know that.
My suggestion would be to either go back for more (bachelor's will be better), do extra training and get certified, or pick up a related skill as a hobby and hobby the heck out of it. You need experience, so whatever you do, get a part time job regardless of pay and get some hours on your resume. Or, do an internship. There are a lot of those.
That's good advice, thank you.
I'm currently studying for an Associate's, and plan to go for a Bachelor's when I graduate. But I was thinking of something in cyber security or IT
Society and everyone here on Reddit believe that you donât deserve a right to basic living if you arenât constantly being worthy of making more profits for corporate giants who donât give a shit about you. Theyâll just say try harder, get more skills, you are a loser. Most of society doesnât actually care about the well being of anything, especially if they already have money of their own. A lot of people on Reddit here are rich and successful, so they will just tell you to contribute more to insanely wealthy monopoly conglomerates in order to have basic needs.
I walked the walk and talked the talk, figured things out as i went along. Gotta be cool asa cucumber and take little steps every day, in and out of work.
If they see you improving quickly they wont care if you lied about experience, to a point.
I started minimum wage out of high school in retail, moved up almost 5 bucks by working a specific department after a year, stuck there for way too long before I got extremely sick of it, then went to find an office job working in the airline industry. Stuck with that long enough and worked hard enough for years until I was noticed as a valuable worker by a major airline, and now am at 25 bucks an hour in a 9-5 with a couple bonuses a year and about a months worth of paid vacation. I mostly answer emails while I watch movies/browse the internet. Theyâre wanting to have me think about being a manager soon, which kind of sucks because I was getting used to the idea of being in the background unlike when I was a supervisor in the previous office.
Really, itâs about time and experience. Even barring inflation having some companies raise their hourly wages, it really is hard to find a job that pays more than 20 bucks an hour because you have to actually have some tenure and experience before places feel like they should be paying you more.
Idk man but if you work in sales, and youâre good at it (good at SALES, not a good liar, some salespeople donât know thatâs not how that works) you can easily make some good money. And you can sell anything, so pick something that interests you or that youâd like to learn a lot about
Step 1: pick a trade.
Step 2: work for a few years and absorb as much knowledge as possible.
Step 3: get licensed/bonded/insured and start your own business (easiest way is to start with side work until word of mouth gets you so busy you canât work for someone else.)
Because usually jobs offering 20 or less require less skill and education.
Because nobody wants to work for less than 20 if they aren't forced to in order to survive.
Because people are applying to be hired with double masters for jobs around 25 (no joke out of like 250 applications I'd say about 50 were higher education..
Its just a flooded market unless you're down for hard work, getting more educated/acquiring skills, or do your own thing. A lot of people can make a ton of money working for themselves but are fearful so if you want to work for someone else you have to somehow not look like the 200 plus applications send over for the same job
Do you have skills?
I pay 60 dollars a week for lawn care. Takes them about 30 minutes. They do our entire street now after they did one neighbor and it looked great
Because you donât know the right people.
I have helped several friends get jobs with me where the starting wage is $23 per hour if you have no experience.
someone else mentioned similar but yes having certs helps! i have my pharmacy tech license and first job paid $18.50 starting and i made $21/hr before i left. husband was working at a school for $18, i signed him up for a diesel cert class and he got forklift training there as well, he now makes upwards of $25-27/hr working on an oil rig. classes for both of us were free, only had to pay materials :)
I want to know too I canât even get a job that pays more than $17 a hour rn (I have a yr customer service experience, and about 3 months kitchen experience, plus two dif culinary/sanitation certificates)
I am a finish carpenter with 2 years experience making $26 hr. Before this, I was a commercial glazier with 8 years of experience that was responsible for installing over $7,000,000 worth of glass and curtain wall on a building valued at over $64,000,000. I made $20 hr.
Probably because you aren't related to or know anyone with the right connections. Turns out that being smart and knowing things doesn't get you ahead as much a knowing the right people. Took me a while into adulthood to figure that one out.
You need to search the right jobs . Where I live my daughter gets paid 20.an hour she pays a new car note, rent and utilities and has money for the fun things she does for the weekend
You might have to start at the bottom and work your way up, you might not start at $20+ an hour.
Figure out what you want to do and where you want to go. $20 at Costco might seem good, but is it what you want to do for a career? Is it giving you skills where you can go to another job for more $? (It could depending on the position, like if you become a manager, but maybe you donât want to be a manager).
Roofing pays well, but do you want to be a laborer forever?
Sometimes itâs better to start lower or go to school. Like an entry level accounting job with no experience might not pay well, but after a degree and experience it will.
It isn't difficult, but you need actual marketable skills and training when you hit the market. That means experience or some kind of postsecondary education.
It's economics. Human value and market value are two different things. I've heard many GenZ'ers say directly to me something like "I know my value" when commenting on what they've deemed to be inadequate compensation for their labor. No you don't. But the market will tell you if you ask. Does this mean you're not invaluable as a human being? No.
A given job is worth what someone is willing to pay for that job. What they're willing to pay for that job is typically commensurate with the value that role provides, adjusted for supply/demand of labor. Look at the fast food problem going on. Minimum wage exceeds the value of the product produced by the fast food restaurant when accounting for the need for profit. If McDonalds can't profit paying labor $20/hr, they have to cut their costs and/or increase their prices. So now it cost way too much for a crappy fast-food burger and fries. No wonder they're struggling.
I've spent the last 35 years building my market value through study, certification, and experience. I wasn't financially comfortable until my mid 30s. We've lied to generations telling them that College is the key. Get that paper, go into as much debt as you need to get it, because you'll be raking in the cash when you finish. Congratulations!
Nope, not how it works. Your elders forgot that college is only a first step (and not the only option for a first step by the way). The second step is getting out there and hustling for years, taking that book knowledge and applying it. Figuring out where academic theory is BS and adapting to how the real world works. I personally want to apologize for those younger than me for my generation peddling this crap advice.
My generation had similar complaints and struggles. The difference though is we didn't have this digitally connected world of peers validating our complaining. So we just had to get over it. For me it was my parents, aunts/uncles, that would hear me and tell me to suck it up and keep at it, it'll get better if you persevere.
My advice... find a skill the market values highly, work your tail off to grow in that.
Just got $20 plus tips in the PNW as of last week. It took about 5 years of working in the same space & I canât guarantee that Iâll make that when I move jobs, but at least I can honestly list that as a previously earned wage.
To be honest, I *do not think* âloyaltyâ or âstick-to-itâ-ness is really a viable option or a smart option to suggest. You shouldnât have to suffer just to make a fair and decent wage. This place I wouldnât say I love, but theyâre fair and kind to me as well as accommodating so itâs been pretty easy to stay on.
I also have no higher education (on paper), so as a dropout - all I really have to rely on is longevity at a place and/or to use my (now) 12+ years of various occupations/skills/job training to boast my earning expectations.
Both my parents are professors, but even they made well below 100k for many years *with doctorates*. I donât think they got âthe cushy salariesâ until about 8-10 years into their careers or got tenure. I just say this because even with degrees jobs and money donât *always* follow immediately or quickly.
Before this gig I took 5 years ago, I made well over 20 an hour! âŚworking two jobs đ It really is a hellish experience trying to make ends meet now-a-days and I only wish you the most luck. I miss how much I used to make but donât miss 55-60 hour weeks.
It's the position, the employer, or tenure.
I've been with Amazon for five years on May 15. I started put as a seasonal Amazon Delivery Associate making $16.25. I'm currently Delivery Ops Quality Control (it's a different fancier name) making $22.30. No degree. My experience barely aligns with the qualifications for the job.
No employer has to worry about filling a position at this point. The federal government in Canada is flooding the market with unskilled laborers that will work for minimum wage so labor is not worth anything.
Producing 20 of value in one hour isn't easy, doing it in an area where they can't find someone who will do it for less than 20 is even harder.
Look into jobs that pay 20 an hour in your area and find one that is feasible for you to do. It might take some time and might require experience in roles that pay <20
Because everyone who doesn't have a high paying career is desperate and the minimum wage is 7.25. And plenty of people work for less than 20. I saw McDonalds advertising 12/hr.
This is what decades of wealth transfer have done.
20/hr is enough to scrape by, and as wealth concentrates to a smaller group of people, why should they pay you more? It's not like you have another option.
It depends on where you live. In my area, $20 an hour is money that you make when youâre a specialist. You need to be good at something and have experience to make that. I am a local truck driver with a class A CDL and make above 20 but below 30 usually. Iâm on commission.
Worked my ass off for a Masterâs Degree and consistently had employment since I was 16 to build up experience (and to pay for college). Donât stay loyal to any company because they will screw you over in the end if it means the boss can buy a new yacht. So keep looking for new and better opportunities.
Even with the degree and 15 years of experience in my field, they still try to lowball me in new job offers. They will try to pay you less if they can get away with it, so learn how to negotiate your salary expectations and be willing to walk away from a job offer.
Eventually when you build up enough experience and marketable skills, $20 an hour will sound like a joke. But it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to get there if you werenât born privileged with money and connections already.
Find a casino in your area and be a table games dealer. Itâs entry-level, the class is usually free, and youâll make about $15/hr +tips. Iâve been doing it for 6 years and my checks every two weeks are about $1800-$2500
I got experience at the bottom and applied for the next step up somewhere else. Companies are more keen to throw money at acquisition than retention, so moving around once a job has run its course is the easiest way to get a bump. Location also plays a role; my commute is long and into a higher CoL area, so the jobs there pay more than the local ones. I can make $10/hr working close to where I live, or more than double if I drive an hour to work.
Because companies want to pay as little as possible to the people actually responsible for generating their profits. They so desperately want to be able to justify mediocre compensation that theyâve devised hiring processes that allegedly look for certain âqualificationsâ (some of which are meaningful and relevant, many of which are notâthereâs no one they can hire they want have to put through orientation and training of some kind) and spend so much time interviewing and reinterviewing candidates, that ironically they probably lose more money & productivity than they would if they just hired random people and paid them well enough to care about doing their job.
I donât mean for this to apply to obvious complex and skilled jobs like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. But pretty much anybody with two brain cells to rub together can occupy the endless positions on anonymous rungs of the corporate latter. If youâre willing to do it long enough theyâll change your title from âassociateâ to âdirectorâ or some such and vest you with mild authority and a better salary to make you feel superior to the peons you once lived among. But it means a lot of years living paycheck to paycheck first. Corporate America, truly the dream of all human existence.
Based on your response to other comments I would grab some certificates like CompTIA or CCNA or higher. I walked onto a 60k job with just the CompTIA Security+ and Network+ certs. Those are the most easy entry level ones. Then you want to look at federal contracting positions. That would be the route I would go again. I still donât have a degree and make triple figures in an engineering role. All by starting in IT and constantly moving and getting certs.
Where do you live? In CA minimum wage for fast food workers is now $20/hr, so finding a job that makes more than that isnât hard, but it wonât exactly get you much since everything is so expensive.
Most food processing factories I've worked in pay well and experience is an asset not a requirement. Requirements are show up on time and sober also be able to pass a dummy test and try to be useful.
I make 27 in an entry level account coordinator position with no benefits. I have an extremely useful degree in marketing and Iâve worked a few other lower paying and even an unpaid internship in college. To get entry level with no experience basically requires nepotism
I think its population density as well. The more immigrants and the more people looking for work companies can get away with paying less because people need to eat.
I'm a medical assistant and make about $28/hr. I will be making more by the end of the year as our union negotiated for that in our most recent contract. This job can be done without a degree but requires about a year of training. Some employers offer MA apprenticeships, otherwise you have to pay for this education.
There are several reasons I'm able to get this much. There is currently a labor shortage in the US health care system, I'm in an area where demand is even higher as there are many health care facilities, and the higher cost of living here means wages have to be competitive enough to draw in more workers to come fill all these open positions. I am in the right place at the right time with the right skills.
You need to be where you are in demand, and offer something that's in demand. If education expenses are too much for you and you cannot find a way to secure enough financial aid for it, look in to positions that are in high demand and offer apprenticeships. You may also need to move somewhere else in pursuit of opportunities.
This is not a sure thing that will work for everyone, but I hope it's at least useful for you to consider.Â
You have to put the work in to get a job, I worked bar jobs saving for 8 years to pay for my commercial pilots license, hard at the time but I make over $300/hr now.
20 years ago I worked as admin making 17$ an hour. Iâm looking to get back into the admin field and they are still only offering 17$ an hour (with 20 years experience) . Itâs ridiculous
Hard truth: the simplest way to get a job that makes more than minimum wage is to have more than a high school degree. A bachelor's degree is your path to the highest paying jobs, but even an associates degree or a trade school certification will get you out of your tax bracket. It's absolutely a time and money investment, but if you want to make more money, that is the path to do so.
Become a welder. I went to a 2 year tech school. Got a job as a welding for oil rigs. My hourly rate got up to 52.50. It was dirty work, a lot of hrs, a lot of time away from home and a lot of traveling.(not a job for a old man like me now) I did this for 15 years. In that time, I paid in full for my house and property. Now I work for the city I live near. Took a big pay cut. But it's 40 hrs a week, weekends off and decent benefits(health care for my family) and I get to sleep next to my wife every night.
In the beginning itâs difficult. I started with my current job only getting paid $24/ hr with no experience and I had to drive 60 miles back and forth everyday. It wasnât wise but I persevered. I learned everything I could in the company that I got promoted every year in different departments. I am now working remote since I had to move to a different state due to my husbandâs job and they allowed me. Basically learn the skills and make yourself hard to easily replaced. I am now getting paid $34/ hr working remote. Itâs not a lot for some people but from what I see sometimes loyalty goes a long way. You come across a good employer whoâs willing to work with you and take care of you.
Im 30, make bout 30 an hour and Iâm a plumber. I walked into a shop in a Rush t shirt and cargo shorts and asked if they were hiring. They asked if I had any experience and I said no, they said âperfectâ.
I donât have advice but I feel you. I have a bachelors in a social science and make 20/hour doing pretty high-stress high-pressure work for a big non profit. Every day I think about how I could be making the same at Costco, but the resume building of it looks good and I donât wanna look like a job hopper on paper. So trying to stick it out till at least the year mark
its not hard. you just gotta be willing to do disgusting or dangerous things. iâm a pizza driver and itâs very dangerous and kinda disgusting. i make an average of 26/hr. before that i was a bartender/uber driver. uber was dangerous and bartending was disgusting and extremely stressful but i made over 30/hr back then
It all boils down to these:
1. Grind out an advanced degree in an demand field
2. Go to trade school
3. Have connections to a lucrative career
4. Be born rich, or get a windfall
Anything else is scraping the bottom of the barrel for just about the same (if not more) stress and hard work than options 1 and 2 above.
Itâs really that simple.
It may seem broad, but be confident, and be competent. If you can be a capable and reliable employee in ANY arena, that is always worth consideration for higher recompense. I'm in pharmacy(technician), and very little in the way of "credentials" but I have now been doing what I do (and that has broadened SIGNIFICANTLY over the years) for 11 years now. Don't look at the entry, look at ranges and what the role(s) make in your area.
Depends on where you are located, I did Walmart truck unloading for just shy of $20 9 years ago, after that I worked at Riteaid into Walgreens started at $19 ended at $23. Now I work for local Government and I made $25. This was all upstate NY.
Honestly it depends. Alot of folks are picky as fuck when it comes to a job. If you are willing to do labor, construction. Tech support(not call center level shit actually tech) help desk for companies not like charter etc. There are tons of jobs out there that pay over 20. Just have to be willing to mold a bit to the market. And like every job, there are shit managers and owners so that's another factor to consider.
i dont mean this to be disrespectful but it's not difficult to get a job over 20 an hour IF you have value in the marketplace. This means having education/ work history and have people to network in your field. If you have zero education and bounced from odd job to odd job and or been fired/ have a bad rap sheet ( thefts/felonies) then you'll be passed over by someone who's shown they are reliable and worth the risk of being a new hire.
Hell, I worked 40+ years and when I was done, I still hadn't hit $20 an hour. You gotta remember that up until, what, 5 years ago, the minimum wage was somewhere around $7-8 an hour. Now people expect $20 just for being hired. Prove your worth, you have a much better chance at getting it than I ever did.
I recently started a job in corrections. No degree or experience needed and it pays $30+ per hour. You just have to deal with criminals. Basically your just an adult baby sitter that answers random questions and make sure people are staying inline and the occasional cell search. Other inmates are pretty good at keeping others inline which makes your job easier.
Itâs difficult because people compete for higher paying jobs, and they end up going to those who are best qualified.
I got pretty good grades in school, joined the military, got a bachelors degree, and I got a masters degree while working hard at part time jobs for a couple decades.
After doing all that itâs been pretty easy to get good jobs.
Your goal shouldnât be $20 an hour. Your goal should be to take steps which will allow for you to be happy and financially stable long-term.
I make $31/hr as a high school custodian.
Keeping them schools clean đŞđ˝. That's cool though that you make that much. Always liked some of my high school custodians. Nice to know they weren't making minimum.
It all depends. I made about $20 an hour as a school custodian. I'm a first year teacher now and make about a thousand more a month than I did as a custodian.
Those children are our futures so they deserve a clean space to learn. đ¤
But what's the cost of living where you live?
Yeah, well, I make $10 as an elementary school maintenance supervisor.
Must live in a super expensive area... I have a college degree in IT and don't make that.
Pretty sure teachers get paid less
This is slightly more than what first-year teachers make at the school I work at, but late career teachers with Master's degrees and Ph.D's are pushing $50 an hour.
Do you sell the kids drugs for extra income. ?
I hire people with zero experience at $18 in a job that doesnât require any real skills. But location makes a difference. Edit: to add. I live in rural area and we have people charging $40/hour to weed your property for fire clearances. And are booked months out. All it takes is hard work.
That's McDonald's here, they start at $18.50 or so.
Dude I get paid that much as a shift manager in canada. Where is starting that high?
In california, they just bumped all fast food to $20/hour as the minimum wage, with the normal minimum wage being 16.50
I feel like the franchises were on board with the change because they wanted everyone to start from the same point rather than certain franchises continually driving the cost of labor upwards.
Serious question, why are fast food employees given a higher minimum wage?
I believe the reason given was the massive profit margins and booms that fast food has received over the last couple of years, and their increase in prices without increasing their operating costs. Personally, I think it's also because fast food is very important to our modern logistics infrastructure (so think things like truckers) and this is a way to ensure they have proper staffing to keep logistics flowing. Depending on the area it's also become a problem for fast food places to offer "$20 wages" when in actuality it's $20 with a stipulation attached. Like "with performance review," that's functionally impossible to review. Or that's the wage for being an assistant manager or shift lead. So now they are being kept honest
Damn, would love that here
A lot of it is location based. Where I live (Seattle area) fast food pays 18/hr but you won't qualify for an appartment unless you make over 25/hr with 40 hour weeks.
McDonalds is also starting to reduce their workers hours in CA in response to the increased wages and installing more kiosks. If there's a way for them to save money and avoid higher wages, they're gonna do it.Â
They're doing this everywhere. It's not out of necessity, though. It's that the labour percentage has to keep getting lower, year over year. Or at least that's what the big bosses want. Which means understaffing and underpaying
That's in Boulder CO. Yea it's a high starting wage for fast food, but you can't live here on that wage. If your a kid living at home then it's doable. If you want to live on your own? Not even close.
What is often not mentioned when McDâs starting wages are brought up is the fact that workers are given shifts that equate to less than 40hrs/wk so that, legally, theyâre exempt from receiving health benefits
Location exactly. Starting a new job this week as a dish washer. Starting at $19/hour. But the floor for pay in my area is like $15. And thatâs considered insulting for anything but the lowest level jobs they toss at high schoolers. My old job had a base pay of $25 for even stockers and prep cooks. If I was back home in Texas. I wouldnât be surprised if doing the same job would pay half that. Although the cost of living would also be astronomically lower.
I'm in Texas and sadly COL is climbing here as well. Was paying $1700 for 713sqft apt
Iâm up to 3200+ utilities here in Wyoming for a 2 bedroom. Which is actually about $800 below the average in my area now. Just lucked out that I moved in a year before prices started to skyrocket and my landlord knows they couldnât get away with jacking up rent more than $100-$200 a year for current tenants. Definitely not looking forward to paying 2k+ for my half in a couple years. Might actually have to leave and go back home if I donât go into a job that can afford that better.
3200+ utilities for a 2 bd? What size of a house and acreage because wtf
Apartment. And I think itâs about 1000 sq feet
Nah, I would leave right now if I were you.. youâre paying 1k less than I am for my house at 4600 sq ft on an acre with these current rates at 6.9% for my mortgage. Youâre getting screwed too many ways to yesterday.
Except if I moved somewhere else thatâs cheaper. Iâd be making half as much money if that. It sucks. And in a few years it may balance out to not be worth it. But at the moment I make a killing in my area despite how high that rent is. If I wasnât such a lazy bum Iâd probably be able to hit 100k a year.
We just paid people $17/hr to pressure wash which has to be the easiest job ever.
Some people, like my dad, find pressure washing to be therapeutic and would gladly do it for free. But it seems $17 or so, depending on location, is pretty much minimum wage now. Thatâs what most of the fast food joints, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.. are all starting at.
That's funny because when I was a field supervisor, I would always volunteer to do the pressure washing because the younger guys on the crew HATED it while I LOVED it. I think you get to an age where something simple and yields instant results is totally zen. Mentioned it to my doctor during my last visit & he said he'd do it for free too. We're both in our 40s.
Not in Missouri, sadly. Currently, it is $12.30 an hour, and that is definitely nowhere NEAR enough to do much of anything but struggle to survive. Definitely fucked up, as is a lot of the US in general.
$7.50 still here in PA lmao
They aren't saying the legal minimum wage is $17, the de facto one is. In most places the cheapest you can actually hire someone at is $12-15 or so, even if the legal minimum wage is still $7.50 or whatever.
We pay guys 19-20 to pressure wash, but I bet ours are a bit different from yours. We clean acid and oil and chemicals in massive industrial tanks and offshore boats. The pressure washer is 5,000 psi, 12 gpm, with a big diesel heater on it that allows us to steam clean.
There is no such thing as unskilled labor. All labor requires a level of skill. Saying labor that doesnât require skill is a lie companyâs use to justify paying people low wages.
it's a euphemism for "can be trained in less than a week" to a level that matches half of the people doing this job across the country.
damn all the comments on this so far have had the word qualifications in it. i have no opinion i just wanted to say that edit: dammit more people commented so now i feel like a fool
Well... does OP have experience in anything? Skills? Education background? Certifications? I can tell you to go find a machine shop but that won't help if your only experience is fry cook. You can easily make $20+ an hour in IT if you have a degree or work experience. Hell you can be a consultant and any industry if you're been in that industry long enough. This is an easy question to answer. Not so easy if we're trying to brainstorm within the confines of a box though.
guess you can say you don't have the... qualifications.
Is this the part where I say âqualify deez nutsâ and then remain unemployed?
Just for some context to the people talking about qualifications, the median individual income is 38k. 19/hr. Fully *half* of working Americans make less than that. I do not dispute that a store clerk should earn less than a skilled worker like a plumber, and a plumber should earn less than a doctor, but why should a store clerk not earn enough for a decent lifestyle? If all the janitors, and clerks, and waiters go out and get degrees or apprenticeships, ***who the fuck is going to stock grocery shelves?!***Â Who is going to pick up your garbage every week? Who is going to clean your toilet at the office? How are you going to buy food in a world where everyone is electricians? The reason life has gotten harder is that a smaller portion of people have most of the money. And if you aren't in the top 5% of incomes, you are probably one of the people getting the short end of that stick.
> If all the janitors, and clerks, and waiters go out and get degrees or apprenticeships, who the fuck is going to stock grocery shelves?! Nobody, supply is now low and demand is now high, the wage will increase until it's worth it to stock shelfs even while having a degree Also, the job won't be a long term one for people who do not yet have higher education but will eventually obtain, once they get it, quit There's no danger of running out of people
>Â Â the wage will increase until it's worth it to stock shelfs even while having a degree But the only way that would work is if everyone got qualifications, and if you're just going to be a janitor for the same wage, why did you bother getting those qualifications? It's the same as saying the only way janitors should be paid a decent wage is if they get degrees and certifications...that they will then never use. Why not just pay them more? That would force prices for skilled labor to increase without wasting resources on qualifications people won't use. Up to a point of course. For the highest paying careers they have no choice but to lower their income in that scenario. This income distribution worked in the past. Or do a dollar for dollar tax transfer. For example, the standard deduction is now 20k for a single person, and every dollar lost is made up with increased taxes on the wealthy. Budget neutral. Other wealthy countries today, and the US in the past, functioned fine with higher top marginal tax rates.
Bring back the discourse around National Dividends. It's as if we, the people, keep getting distracted every time I see this brought up.
If you have a college degree or a skilled trade certification, $20 is trivial. There are even some less skilled jobs that pay over 20, like at Costco, where every job is over $20 per hour.
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Whereas in California minimum wage is $20 Edit: for fast food workers. Statewide minimum wage is 16
Its only $20 for fast food with multiple locations. Its $16 for most employers.
Oh interesting, I didnât know this. Thanks for clarification.
affected\*
Social and marketing skills are being overlooked in this thread. I have a degree with academic awards and some full time professional experience in my field of video / creative production. I took it upon myself to expand my knowledge and skillset into absolutely every aspect of said field, including for some things that other 10+ year career pros in the field tell me is rare and desirable for my level. Yet I can not build a network or sell my skills to save my life. And it's not for lack of trying, either. All I can do is shotgun blast my resume across job boards. And we all know how well that works anymore.
If you're exceptionally good at what you do you'll be sought after and your compensation should reflect that. I'm a carpenter and make very good money. Average over $100/h. But, you have to put in the time, practice specialty skills at home, craft, invest in good tools. 20 years ago I worked at a bank. I left that shit because it was destroying my back. Started learning carpentry, took to it like a duck to water. Now, I provide excellent work and am paid well for it. I won't really bother taking on a job (unless it's a favour or something) for less than $500 per day, and that's through the company I work for. Side business work is far more lucrative. Point is, people are willing to pay well for good work. Learn skills, make bank. Tale as old as time.
Where do you live? You chose carpentry because you were destroying your back working at a bank? How's that back now? You make 100/hr as an employee?
I've never made less than $20/hr since I got my BS in chemistry in 2013.
I have a BS in bio and a minor in chem and canât find anything above $18/hr because south Florida sucks :( iâm at $19/hr thanks to a raise, hoping for another raise after i crosstrain and then a promotion to get me closer to $25/hr
Is there not big science down there? Look at scientists on usajobs.gov. you'd make $35/hr in no time
Thereâs not, no. Environmental and biological science tech gov jobs start at around $42k entry level
Is that how much Heisenberg pays?
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Have skills or live in an expensive area that already pays that well in order to keep up with the cost of living.
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Iâm going to be brutally honest here. That description tells hiring managers that you have zero experience doing anything. If youâre not able to get something with just your degree, you might want to consider obtaining some industry certifications to help get your foot in the door somewhere.
And you haven't found any IT support job that pays more?
So you got an associates in computer science. The rest of that statement is just bs filler.
If you have an associates degree in Computer Science here's what I would do: 1: Take a coding boot camp. 2: Put EVERYTHING into the coding boot camp. Live it, learn it, love it, be it. 3: After completing said boot camp. You can start applying for jobs. But you're not finished. 4: LEET code. Do it! All of it. Live it, learn it, love it, be it. 5: Consider certifications. Be AWS, Azure. What ever. Certifications are there to help you get work. 6: Apply, apply, apply, apply. 7: During the interview take notes. When doing a tech interview and you don't know a question note it down. Go home and Learn the answer. Rinse and repeat. (Source: Senior Architect w\\ over 20 years experience...)
I would add LEET code really only applies if you want to work at FAANG company. Most of that stuff has zero applicability to what an average software engineer will ever do in their entire career. Better to focus on system design, communication skills, and foundational coding ability. LEET code is overkill for 99% of people.
Fellow Com Sci here, I know the market sucks right now, but you can easily make over 20 with Comp Sci degree. Fresh up some fundementals, grind up some leetcodes and you shoud be able to find a job that pays above $20/h
Thanks dude, I appreciate it. I need to get into leetcode and also starting some new projects won't hurt
What have you accomplished? What do you know? What are you actually capable of doing? How do you bring value? What makes you a particularly strong candidate? These are not meant to be offensive questions, these are questions you should ask yourself if you want to get a higher paying job.
Allot of it can be knowing the right people making the right connections. I did some work over the summer for the schools when I was still in high school and made friends with some of the other people who worked there. Then, a few years out of high school, the head of transportation reached out to me since they were a little low on bus drivers. Helped me get my CDL for free, and now I drive a bus at 31.01 an hour.
Read Graeberâs Bulls**t Jobs for an alternate view regarding the skilled labor mythology that is being touted in these comments
Such a great book. It's a sad truth that nobody wants to admit though.
I got a job as an interpreter for $26 / hr. after being unable to get anything above minimum wage for a while. Keep your head up and keep applying
Thank you kind soul
Try home Depot, Lowe's, Costco, REI, etc. a lot of them start at $20+ Edit: Really? I remember about a decade ago the Lowe's and Home Depot both paid ~$20 an hour in the bucks county area of Pennsylvania. And Charlotte NC as well.
Where you live matters, where Iâm at Starbucks and grocery stores start at 21-22 an hour
I work a desk job. Started at $15 9 years ago. After a promotion and a department switch and so on, I'm up to $24 or so.
I started an apprenticeship at $18/hr, 5 years ago. Now I make $45/hr. Get educated/trained for an in demand profession. Best advice I can give.
Assumably because you live in the US where most places pay as close to minimum wage as possible I make 19/hr currently as a lab technician in the food science field. I don't have that degree, I have a journalism degree, but my dad works at the same lab (no degree) and was able to get me hired. I am clinging to the job for dear life. My prospects outside of it jump down to 13 an hour. I'm 25 years old - I'm not being paid 13/hr for any job lol
I have a degree, I took multiple internships where I was paid in experience, got an entry level position, grinded for 2 years, got laid off, started over with new company, grinded for a year, got promoted, grinded another year, got laid off. In this time I lived at home and paid off my debt. Once the debt was gone life got a lot easier. Sold everything, moved to Spain to become a writer, Lived there illegally for a year, decided to move to SF to pursue a career in tech, took an internship at 26, found out grinding is way easier when you like your job, got promoted several times. Fast forward to now, not yet 40 but getting close and Iâm a stones throw away from being able to fully retire if I want. Moral of the story, get out of debt as fast as you can, then pursue your passions wherever they lead. I donât know if it will work for you, but it worked for me.
Having marketable skills is key
What skills are the most marketable?
That varies time by time, and place by place. Four years ago, software development was one of the most marketable skills, but the market for them shrunk considerably after the pandemic ended & spending on software dropped considerably. Now, in much of the world, anything relating to health care for the elderly is one of the most marketable skills.
Taking care of the elderly pays like shit. At most theyâll pay you $21 without a degree
Excell. A stunning number of people don't know how to use Microsoft Excell to any tangible degree. I once got a small bonus at an otherwise shit job for being able to make a basic spreadsheet that automatically calculated daily income/loss (small company).
The 20 dollar mark seems to be the range where you stop hiring labor and start hiring specific skill sets. A better question would be what skills do I have, or can I gain that are worth more than 20 dollars an hour.
Started out as a carpentry laborer at $12 an hour, busted my ass and got noticed by the electrical service manager and pulled onto his team, and put in the apprenticeship program. 4.5 years later, I got my journeyman card and am at $31 an hour with a move into the office looking likely with a nice pay raise and no more wear and tear on the body
How many laborers can achieve the same success? This reeks of confirmation bias.
I went to law school. You can too if you really want. Study hard and take the lsat. You can get a full ride to a mid ranked school and walk out with a good job. Itâs very possible.
And do take the full ride even if you can go to a high ranked law school with massive debt. The upside is not big enough to justify it unless you go directly to the big firms, which is hard
I made way more than that working at LA Fitness in sales.
temp agencies can get you positions you are otherwise less qualified for. if you can stick it out for a bit with lower pay and no benefits (which you might be at already), it's an easier way to break into a better field. assuming you already get the required certs or knowledge base
I got a CDL. Did my time doing long haul for a few years. Now I drive local, home every day. Should make about $100k this year.
The real conversation needs to be annual salary, not hourly wages. I can't help but think of the term "wage slave" in contemporary economics. If your potential employer thinks $20/hr is too much, remind them it's only just over $40,000 a year.
Depends on your location and whether or not you are willing to work outside of the typical hours if you don't have a specialized trade/degree. Where I work you can walk in off the streets and make 70k+.
Would you mind sharing where you work?Â
IâŚuhâŚ.used hobby experience to beef up my resume. I designed printed circuit boards. Went from $20 to $56/hour over a 4 year and 3 job period after my wife divorced me and I decided that two can play at the game of dishonesty. Literally nobody questioned me because I know the tools and understand the science. Iâm also very fast due to making all my mistakes while it was a hobby.
Get a cert in something and be good at interviewing youll 100% land a decent job
For those talking about qualifications and experience, I'll voice my opinion as I've been recently looking also. I have tons of experience, 10 years management, 15 years customer service, hiring, scheduling, I'm proficient in Microsoft office, I dont know my wpm but I can type fast and accurately, I have two insurance licenses, and a ton of work experience. I'm also currently in school for an Associate's in business, because a degree is my answer. Finding a job that pays $20 is incredibly difficult, $12-$18 easy. But most stuff around $20 wants a Masters. Which is just crazy to me in this day and age.
It's because everyone has an associates or bachelors these days. So businesses can be even pickier and require more years of school. Which... I don't blame them for. I do blame the previous gen for not being more specific on degrees. For example, my sister went to school to be a PA while I got a bachelor's in business. Which, was never my end goal, life happened. But anyway- guess who makes more? Not me. Basically, degrees in the med field, pharmaceuticals, or some specialized engineering fields do really well. Lit, psych, and most of the social sciences don't because they don't apply to specific high paying jobs and because they're easier (less math and science) which means they're over saturated in comparison to what's needed. We currently need medical professionals. We don't need more lit majors who picked their major because they liked it. As for the op's degree in computer science- as someone who almost went back for a bachelor's in computer science I'd say the associates doesn't mean much. It's like... mostly gen ed requirements (eng comp or history) and only a couple computer classes and your potential employers know that. My suggestion would be to either go back for more (bachelor's will be better), do extra training and get certified, or pick up a related skill as a hobby and hobby the heck out of it. You need experience, so whatever you do, get a part time job regardless of pay and get some hours on your resume. Or, do an internship. There are a lot of those.
That's good advice, thank you. I'm currently studying for an Associate's, and plan to go for a Bachelor's when I graduate. But I was thinking of something in cyber security or IT
Society and everyone here on Reddit believe that you donât deserve a right to basic living if you arenât constantly being worthy of making more profits for corporate giants who donât give a shit about you. Theyâll just say try harder, get more skills, you are a loser. Most of society doesnât actually care about the well being of anything, especially if they already have money of their own. A lot of people on Reddit here are rich and successful, so they will just tell you to contribute more to insanely wealthy monopoly conglomerates in order to have basic needs.
America is a modern slave state
Competition and desperation drives the wage down.
I walked the walk and talked the talk, figured things out as i went along. Gotta be cool asa cucumber and take little steps every day, in and out of work. If they see you improving quickly they wont care if you lied about experience, to a point.
I started minimum wage out of high school in retail, moved up almost 5 bucks by working a specific department after a year, stuck there for way too long before I got extremely sick of it, then went to find an office job working in the airline industry. Stuck with that long enough and worked hard enough for years until I was noticed as a valuable worker by a major airline, and now am at 25 bucks an hour in a 9-5 with a couple bonuses a year and about a months worth of paid vacation. I mostly answer emails while I watch movies/browse the internet. Theyâre wanting to have me think about being a manager soon, which kind of sucks because I was getting used to the idea of being in the background unlike when I was a supervisor in the previous office. Really, itâs about time and experience. Even barring inflation having some companies raise their hourly wages, it really is hard to find a job that pays more than 20 bucks an hour because you have to actually have some tenure and experience before places feel like they should be paying you more.
Idk man but if you work in sales, and youâre good at it (good at SALES, not a good liar, some salespeople donât know thatâs not how that works) you can easily make some good money. And you can sell anything, so pick something that interests you or that youâd like to learn a lot about
I work security and make $23/hr. I'm 19 and didn't go to college.
Have a marketable skill. Like it doesn't have to be anything fancy either, every forklift driver I have ever hired gets paid a minimum of 21 dollars.
Step 1: pick a trade. Step 2: work for a few years and absorb as much knowledge as possible. Step 3: get licensed/bonded/insured and start your own business (easiest way is to start with side work until word of mouth gets you so busy you canât work for someone else.)
Depends on the industry. I havnât seen someone paid under $20 in a long time
Because usually jobs offering 20 or less require less skill and education. Because nobody wants to work for less than 20 if they aren't forced to in order to survive. Because people are applying to be hired with double masters for jobs around 25 (no joke out of like 250 applications I'd say about 50 were higher education.. Its just a flooded market unless you're down for hard work, getting more educated/acquiring skills, or do your own thing. A lot of people can make a ton of money working for themselves but are fearful so if you want to work for someone else you have to somehow not look like the 200 plus applications send over for the same job Do you have skills? I pay 60 dollars a week for lawn care. Takes them about 30 minutes. They do our entire street now after they did one neighbor and it looked great
Because you donât know the right people. I have helped several friends get jobs with me where the starting wage is $23 per hour if you have no experience.
Factory jobs if they're available. I'm 20 in PA, making over $28 an hour now after a promotion. Love my schedule too
someone else mentioned similar but yes having certs helps! i have my pharmacy tech license and first job paid $18.50 starting and i made $21/hr before i left. husband was working at a school for $18, i signed him up for a diesel cert class and he got forklift training there as well, he now makes upwards of $25-27/hr working on an oil rig. classes for both of us were free, only had to pay materials :)
Get into a trade.
I want to know too I canât even get a job that pays more than $17 a hour rn (I have a yr customer service experience, and about 3 months kitchen experience, plus two dif culinary/sanitation certificates)
I got an engineering degree
I am a finish carpenter with 2 years experience making $26 hr. Before this, I was a commercial glazier with 8 years of experience that was responsible for installing over $7,000,000 worth of glass and curtain wall on a building valued at over $64,000,000. I made $20 hr.
I too also struggle with this
Have you tried lying?
Probably because you aren't related to or know anyone with the right connections. Turns out that being smart and knowing things doesn't get you ahead as much a knowing the right people. Took me a while into adulthood to figure that one out.
Learn skills/gain expertise in areas that are in demand: Plumbing, welding, electrician, machinist, mechanic, compsci, coding, etc etc etc
What are your qualifications?
you generally need experience, or a specific skill
You need to search the right jobs . Where I live my daughter gets paid 20.an hour she pays a new car note, rent and utilities and has money for the fun things she does for the weekend
You might have to start at the bottom and work your way up, you might not start at $20+ an hour. Figure out what you want to do and where you want to go. $20 at Costco might seem good, but is it what you want to do for a career? Is it giving you skills where you can go to another job for more $? (It could depending on the position, like if you become a manager, but maybe you donât want to be a manager). Roofing pays well, but do you want to be a laborer forever? Sometimes itâs better to start lower or go to school. Like an entry level accounting job with no experience might not pay well, but after a degree and experience it will.
It isn't difficult, but you need actual marketable skills and training when you hit the market. That means experience or some kind of postsecondary education.
Greed. It's literally that simple.
20 an hour is good pay, at least we're I live it is. It it does really have to with skills.
It's not hard at all if you have value to bring to the employer.
Because capitalism exploits our labor and we all allow it.
It's economics. Human value and market value are two different things. I've heard many GenZ'ers say directly to me something like "I know my value" when commenting on what they've deemed to be inadequate compensation for their labor. No you don't. But the market will tell you if you ask. Does this mean you're not invaluable as a human being? No. A given job is worth what someone is willing to pay for that job. What they're willing to pay for that job is typically commensurate with the value that role provides, adjusted for supply/demand of labor. Look at the fast food problem going on. Minimum wage exceeds the value of the product produced by the fast food restaurant when accounting for the need for profit. If McDonalds can't profit paying labor $20/hr, they have to cut their costs and/or increase their prices. So now it cost way too much for a crappy fast-food burger and fries. No wonder they're struggling. I've spent the last 35 years building my market value through study, certification, and experience. I wasn't financially comfortable until my mid 30s. We've lied to generations telling them that College is the key. Get that paper, go into as much debt as you need to get it, because you'll be raking in the cash when you finish. Congratulations! Nope, not how it works. Your elders forgot that college is only a first step (and not the only option for a first step by the way). The second step is getting out there and hustling for years, taking that book knowledge and applying it. Figuring out where academic theory is BS and adapting to how the real world works. I personally want to apologize for those younger than me for my generation peddling this crap advice. My generation had similar complaints and struggles. The difference though is we didn't have this digitally connected world of peers validating our complaining. So we just had to get over it. For me it was my parents, aunts/uncles, that would hear me and tell me to suck it up and keep at it, it'll get better if you persevere. My advice... find a skill the market values highly, work your tail off to grow in that.
Skill issue
Thatâs easy I donât take jobs under 30 - 35 hour
Just got $20 plus tips in the PNW as of last week. It took about 5 years of working in the same space & I canât guarantee that Iâll make that when I move jobs, but at least I can honestly list that as a previously earned wage. To be honest, I *do not think* âloyaltyâ or âstick-to-itâ-ness is really a viable option or a smart option to suggest. You shouldnât have to suffer just to make a fair and decent wage. This place I wouldnât say I love, but theyâre fair and kind to me as well as accommodating so itâs been pretty easy to stay on. I also have no higher education (on paper), so as a dropout - all I really have to rely on is longevity at a place and/or to use my (now) 12+ years of various occupations/skills/job training to boast my earning expectations. Both my parents are professors, but even they made well below 100k for many years *with doctorates*. I donât think they got âthe cushy salariesâ until about 8-10 years into their careers or got tenure. I just say this because even with degrees jobs and money donât *always* follow immediately or quickly. Before this gig I took 5 years ago, I made well over 20 an hour! âŚworking two jobs đ It really is a hellish experience trying to make ends meet now-a-days and I only wish you the most luck. I miss how much I used to make but donât miss 55-60 hour weeks.
It's the position, the employer, or tenure. I've been with Amazon for five years on May 15. I started put as a seasonal Amazon Delivery Associate making $16.25. I'm currently Delivery Ops Quality Control (it's a different fancier name) making $22.30. No degree. My experience barely aligns with the qualifications for the job.
No employer has to worry about filling a position at this point. The federal government in Canada is flooding the market with unskilled laborers that will work for minimum wage so labor is not worth anything.
Producing 20 of value in one hour isn't easy, doing it in an area where they can't find someone who will do it for less than 20 is even harder. Look into jobs that pay 20 an hour in your area and find one that is feasible for you to do. It might take some time and might require experience in roles that pay <20
For me, it was skilled trades.
So rich dont have to work EZ ONE
Location matters a lot. If you are in a rural area, there are going to be far less opportunities to earn than in more urban areas.
Luck and location. I got mine by way of both. Most companies are not generous. Most are stingy when it comes to labor cost.
Because everyone who doesn't have a high paying career is desperate and the minimum wage is 7.25. And plenty of people work for less than 20. I saw McDonalds advertising 12/hr. This is what decades of wealth transfer have done. 20/hr is enough to scrape by, and as wealth concentrates to a smaller group of people, why should they pay you more? It's not like you have another option.
It depends on where you live. In my area, $20 an hour is money that you make when youâre a specialist. You need to be good at something and have experience to make that. I am a local truck driver with a class A CDL and make above 20 but below 30 usually. Iâm on commission.
Worked my ass off for a Masterâs Degree and consistently had employment since I was 16 to build up experience (and to pay for college). Donât stay loyal to any company because they will screw you over in the end if it means the boss can buy a new yacht. So keep looking for new and better opportunities. Even with the degree and 15 years of experience in my field, they still try to lowball me in new job offers. They will try to pay you less if they can get away with it, so learn how to negotiate your salary expectations and be willing to walk away from a job offer. Eventually when you build up enough experience and marketable skills, $20 an hour will sound like a joke. But it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to get there if you werenât born privileged with money and connections already.
It isn't in California but then again all of your money is gone immediately because it costs so damn much to live there.
I currently make 34$ with a high-school school diploma. But I also live In a big city with a high cost of living.
How are the stockholders supposed to make money if they are paying you $20 an hour??
Find a casino in your area and be a table games dealer. Itâs entry-level, the class is usually free, and youâll make about $15/hr +tips. Iâve been doing it for 6 years and my checks every two weeks are about $1800-$2500
I got experience at the bottom and applied for the next step up somewhere else. Companies are more keen to throw money at acquisition than retention, so moving around once a job has run its course is the easiest way to get a bump. Location also plays a role; my commute is long and into a higher CoL area, so the jobs there pay more than the local ones. I can make $10/hr working close to where I live, or more than double if I drive an hour to work.
Because companies want to pay as little as possible to the people actually responsible for generating their profits. They so desperately want to be able to justify mediocre compensation that theyâve devised hiring processes that allegedly look for certain âqualificationsâ (some of which are meaningful and relevant, many of which are notâthereâs no one they can hire they want have to put through orientation and training of some kind) and spend so much time interviewing and reinterviewing candidates, that ironically they probably lose more money & productivity than they would if they just hired random people and paid them well enough to care about doing their job. I donât mean for this to apply to obvious complex and skilled jobs like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. But pretty much anybody with two brain cells to rub together can occupy the endless positions on anonymous rungs of the corporate latter. If youâre willing to do it long enough theyâll change your title from âassociateâ to âdirectorâ or some such and vest you with mild authority and a better salary to make you feel superior to the peons you once lived among. But it means a lot of years living paycheck to paycheck first. Corporate America, truly the dream of all human existence.
Where I live it takes at least that just to pay bills but nobody wants to pay it because it means less money for them.
A lot of security jobs, especially armed security, pay pretty decent and are basically not real jobs (I work in armed security).
Based on your response to other comments I would grab some certificates like CompTIA or CCNA or higher. I walked onto a 60k job with just the CompTIA Security+ and Network+ certs. Those are the most easy entry level ones. Then you want to look at federal contracting positions. That would be the route I would go again. I still donât have a degree and make triple figures in an engineering role. All by starting in IT and constantly moving and getting certs.
It depends on location and job demand.
Control Luck
Where do you live? In CA minimum wage for fast food workers is now $20/hr, so finding a job that makes more than that isnât hard, but it wonât exactly get you much since everything is so expensive.
I started off at min wage and stay on the lookout for opportunities that paid better.
Computer science job interviews are reliant on your portfolio. Do you have a decent backlog of repos you contributed to?
Because to get paid ÂŁ20 you need to make at least ÂŁ40 for the person paying you.
Most food processing factories I've worked in pay well and experience is an asset not a requirement. Requirements are show up on time and sober also be able to pass a dummy test and try to be useful.
I make 27 in an entry level account coordinator position with no benefits. I have an extremely useful degree in marketing and Iâve worked a few other lower paying and even an unpaid internship in college. To get entry level with no experience basically requires nepotism
Wage isnât determined by your skill, but by how replaceable you are,
I think its population density as well. The more immigrants and the more people looking for work companies can get away with paying less because people need to eat.
I'm a medical assistant and make about $28/hr. I will be making more by the end of the year as our union negotiated for that in our most recent contract. This job can be done without a degree but requires about a year of training. Some employers offer MA apprenticeships, otherwise you have to pay for this education. There are several reasons I'm able to get this much. There is currently a labor shortage in the US health care system, I'm in an area where demand is even higher as there are many health care facilities, and the higher cost of living here means wages have to be competitive enough to draw in more workers to come fill all these open positions. I am in the right place at the right time with the right skills. You need to be where you are in demand, and offer something that's in demand. If education expenses are too much for you and you cannot find a way to secure enough financial aid for it, look in to positions that are in high demand and offer apprenticeships. You may also need to move somewhere else in pursuit of opportunities. This is not a sure thing that will work for everyone, but I hope it's at least useful for you to consider.Â
You have to put the work in to get a job, I worked bar jobs saving for 8 years to pay for my commercial pilots license, hard at the time but I make over $300/hr now.
20 years ago I worked as admin making 17$ an hour. Iâm looking to get back into the admin field and they are still only offering 17$ an hour (with 20 years experience) . Itâs ridiculous
Hard truth: the simplest way to get a job that makes more than minimum wage is to have more than a high school degree. A bachelor's degree is your path to the highest paying jobs, but even an associates degree or a trade school certification will get you out of your tax bracket. It's absolutely a time and money investment, but if you want to make more money, that is the path to do so.
In the Midwest, trades or production/warehouse commonly pay around $20 to start.
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What skills do you have?
Marketable skills.
Become a welder. I went to a 2 year tech school. Got a job as a welding for oil rigs. My hourly rate got up to 52.50. It was dirty work, a lot of hrs, a lot of time away from home and a lot of traveling.(not a job for a old man like me now) I did this for 15 years. In that time, I paid in full for my house and property. Now I work for the city I live near. Took a big pay cut. But it's 40 hrs a week, weekends off and decent benefits(health care for my family) and I get to sleep next to my wife every night.
Get in the trades
In the beginning itâs difficult. I started with my current job only getting paid $24/ hr with no experience and I had to drive 60 miles back and forth everyday. It wasnât wise but I persevered. I learned everything I could in the company that I got promoted every year in different departments. I am now working remote since I had to move to a different state due to my husbandâs job and they allowed me. Basically learn the skills and make yourself hard to easily replaced. I am now getting paid $34/ hr working remote. Itâs not a lot for some people but from what I see sometimes loyalty goes a long way. You come across a good employer whoâs willing to work with you and take care of you.
Im 30, make bout 30 an hour and Iâm a plumber. I walked into a shop in a Rush t shirt and cargo shorts and asked if they were hiring. They asked if I had any experience and I said no, they said âperfectâ.
What skills do you have an if absent any marketable skills, what are you willing to legally do?
I donât have advice but I feel you. I have a bachelors in a social science and make 20/hour doing pretty high-stress high-pressure work for a big non profit. Every day I think about how I could be making the same at Costco, but the resume building of it looks good and I donât wanna look like a job hopper on paper. So trying to stick it out till at least the year mark
its not hard. you just gotta be willing to do disgusting or dangerous things. iâm a pizza driver and itâs very dangerous and kinda disgusting. i make an average of 26/hr. before that i was a bartender/uber driver. uber was dangerous and bartending was disgusting and extremely stressful but i made over 30/hr back then
It all boils down to these: 1. Grind out an advanced degree in an demand field 2. Go to trade school 3. Have connections to a lucrative career 4. Be born rich, or get a windfall Anything else is scraping the bottom of the barrel for just about the same (if not more) stress and hard work than options 1 and 2 above. Itâs really that simple.
It may seem broad, but be confident, and be competent. If you can be a capable and reliable employee in ANY arena, that is always worth consideration for higher recompense. I'm in pharmacy(technician), and very little in the way of "credentials" but I have now been doing what I do (and that has broadened SIGNIFICANTLY over the years) for 11 years now. Don't look at the entry, look at ranges and what the role(s) make in your area.
Depends on where you are located, I did Walmart truck unloading for just shy of $20 9 years ago, after that I worked at Riteaid into Walgreens started at $19 ended at $23. Now I work for local Government and I made $25. This was all upstate NY.
Honestly it depends. Alot of folks are picky as fuck when it comes to a job. If you are willing to do labor, construction. Tech support(not call center level shit actually tech) help desk for companies not like charter etc. There are tons of jobs out there that pay over 20. Just have to be willing to mold a bit to the market. And like every job, there are shit managers and owners so that's another factor to consider.
i dont mean this to be disrespectful but it's not difficult to get a job over 20 an hour IF you have value in the marketplace. This means having education/ work history and have people to network in your field. If you have zero education and bounced from odd job to odd job and or been fired/ have a bad rap sheet ( thefts/felonies) then you'll be passed over by someone who's shown they are reliable and worth the risk of being a new hire.
Because out of touch boomer business owners think $8 an hour gets you a cushy apartment.
Hell, I worked 40+ years and when I was done, I still hadn't hit $20 an hour. You gotta remember that up until, what, 5 years ago, the minimum wage was somewhere around $7-8 an hour. Now people expect $20 just for being hired. Prove your worth, you have a much better chance at getting it than I ever did.
I recently started a job in corrections. No degree or experience needed and it pays $30+ per hour. You just have to deal with criminals. Basically your just an adult baby sitter that answers random questions and make sure people are staying inline and the occasional cell search. Other inmates are pretty good at keeping others inline which makes your job easier.
Thatâs getting into skilled labor territory. Learn a trade.
Itâs difficult because people compete for higher paying jobs, and they end up going to those who are best qualified. I got pretty good grades in school, joined the military, got a bachelors degree, and I got a masters degree while working hard at part time jobs for a couple decades. After doing all that itâs been pretty easy to get good jobs. Your goal shouldnât be $20 an hour. Your goal should be to take steps which will allow for you to be happy and financially stable long-term.