No hate for the middle class. I can’t help but enjoy the irony of people who thought they had solidarity with capital talking like Ned Ludd all of a sudden.
Startups love to hire kids out of college who can do anything U, I, or X related with regards to tech. My first programming job I made minimum wage for the first few years and then got a $0.50 per hour raise before the company went out of business.
There’s FAANG and then there’s everyone else. Some jobs can be pretty bad in terms of pay. That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
How seasoned could they be if they weren’t able to demand a raise or work somewhere else for more as a UX Designer? How could a seasoned professional be so close to entry level, and minimum wage?
Know your worth, companies aren’t just going to hand you money to be nice. Negotiate, and if they don’t play ball, prove you’re as good as you think you are somewhere else.
Not everyone lives in the bay area / silicon valley. Sometimes folks with tech talent live in more rural areas (or smaller college towns) and there may be only a few options around. It’s great that people have more opportunity to work from home, back then that wasn’t the case. If you did work remotely, you’d probably keep in touch on irc or icq and you’d periodically have a GoToMeeting or a WebEx conference (Zoom wasn’t a thing).
Also, skill level does not equal pay level. We don’t actually live in a meritocracy.
Some of us have been working remote since way before Covid.
Skill level doesn’t equal pay level directly, but if you have decades of experience in a technical field like UX Design and are still making close to minimum wage in the USA, that does sound like a skill issue.
Again, my guy we do not live in a meritocracy. If the businesses in your local area aren’t hiring UX (well at that time, they were just called “graphic designers” though they did UX work, we hadn’t defined UX as an industry at this time), then you don’t get a job, regardless of skill level.
You ignored the fact that myself and many others were working remote many years ago. Even using the old project middleman websites would have made more than minimum wage.
Why was moving impossible? Programming is full of foreign nationals who left their family, culture, languages, etc to try and make a better life for themselves but we can’t move to a different city and try?
Decades of UX Design experience, near minimum wage…
I didn’t actually. I mentioned GotoMeeting, WebEx and IRC as methods for ways to work remotely, but not things like github (because it wasn’t around). Sure, CVS was around, but not Mercurial or git. Everyone wanted to own a blazing fast T1 connection… Around the year 2000. I’m sure there were people working remotely because that was technically possible, but it wasn’t something everyone had access to.
Why was moving impossible?
Well for me I just graduated high school so I didn’t have the money to move yet. When I could afford it, I did move - to a HCOL area which didn’t pay well. I helped multiple startups and yeah, probably wasn’t paid what I was worth but then again few people actualy are.
For the person seasoned web designer (well, to be clear they were senior web designer, having worked as a web designer for multple years. I’m not sure how many years, but considering the web was invented in 1989, it couldn’t have been more than 11, though I think they was working as a graphic or digital designer prior to that.
Programming is full of foreign nationals who left their family, culture, languages, etc to try and make a better life for themselves but we can’t move to a different city and try?
You ok there kiddo? You seem to be harboring a lot of animosity on this subject. Yeah, I mean I can’t remember exactly the circumstances and I didn’t look outside the job market for my first real job in my industry which I got out of high school so I can’t speak to what the next biggest city was doing in terms of web dev agencies or other tech companies sprouting up. I think this was during the dotcom bubble so maybe I should’ve just predicted the future and up and moved myself and all the employees at the local web dev agency to silicon valley and got some of that sweet VC money. It worked out well for everyone involved, as I understand it.
First it was “decades of experience” now it’s “maybe 11 years” those are big differences.
I never mentioned silicon valley or VC bubbles, no one can predict the future. But if someone with decades of experience as you put it was making nearly minimum wage, they should have at least tried commuting or moving to their nearest Metropolitan area. “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!”
First it was “decades of experience” now it’s “maybe 11 years” those are big differences.
Yeah, so I don’t think I need to explain to you how time works but maybe I should clarify. We’re talking about a few different people and we’re talking about multiple points in time. All while I’m trying to anonymize the story so that I don’t get doxxed.
I was hired at a local web dev company around the year 2000. At this time, I had just graduated high school. I was working as a “web developer” which in modern day parlance means I’m doing the role of a full stack web developer. Keep in mind at this time javascript was pretty new and so there wasn’t a need to split between front and backend. That’s me though, I didn’t have the experience back then.
However, during that time, (the year 2000) at that same company was a person who had been working in the graphic design industry for most of her life. She was older than me, I think a grandmother at that time.
Now, the web itself was invented by CERN in 1989, so absolutely zero web designers existed (as a job title) prior to 1989. The people who became web designers were already working with some form of graphic design on digital media / computer-based graphic design. At a certain point (I’m not this person and I’m not an actual historian so I don’t know the date) in the past, prior to 1989, there were no such thing as computer based graphic artists, since no software existed to create computer graphics. The people who became graphic designers working with computer-based graphic design were artists, illustrators and designers working with physical media. Etc…
This is why I say someone (in the year 2000) was doing the work of building user experiences with decades of experience in their industry. In a meritocracy, this person would’ve been one of the more skilled web designers around and indeed they were and the firm was lucky to have hired them. The computer doesn’t make the UX happen, the people who have been studying and practicing design for years make it happen. That relevant graphic design experience doesn’t go away just because new technology comes out.
I never mentioned silicon valley or VC bubbles, no one can predict the future. But if someone with decades of experience as you put it was making nearly minimum wage, they should have at least tried commuting or moving to their nearest Metropolitan area. “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!”
You may have been confused or I may have mistyped. I don’t know this person’s salary, but I know mine. I was paid minimum wage, and only ever got a $0.50 / hour raise. This company would also have their paychecks bounce and eventually went out of business. It’s entirely possible the senior web designer made a lot of money but from the sounds of it this was not the case.
My entire point here is you seem to be mistaken on the following:
Moving to a major metro area does not mean more take home money. It might mean better wages, but it also means a higher cost of living. When evened out, you have people making six figures and living in slum apartments. A friend of mine experienced this when moving to work for Google as a technical writer.
Moving to a major metro area does not mean getting hired. It means more competition for the same amount of jobs.
The thing about the web is, you don’t physically need to be located in one place in order to build it. “Silicon valley” shouldn’t have ever been a thing - it’s not like the natural resources in that region helped create the web. I use silicon valley as an example since that’s “THE” metro area that any web developer “should” move to maximise their take-home pay, or at least at one point around the year 2000, it was. All that to say that a rag-tag group of designers and developers in hoedunk, AL or wheverever in theory could have also made the next “killer app” and everyone gets their own aeron chair. Why would a new web developer not want to try working for their local web dev company while going to college? Why would a grandma with a family estabilished in the region want to move?
What makes you think that people didn’t move on from this situation? I was let go because I spoke truth to power, and the company folded about a year later. When I had the resources to move to a major metro area I did and experienced point 1 and then point 2 on this list.
My issue for a lot of my life was earnestly thinking that my loyalty to a company meant anything. I know better now. The larger part is that though I’m now making closer to what I probably should have been years ago (since I’ve been working as a full stack dev since 2000), but it’s still going to take me a bit to build up a buffer so I can feel confident losing my job for a few months while i find a new one. It seems to take about 3-6 months to find a new tech job, and that’s just how these things work these days. And now that tech firms are salivating at AI and we’re seeing more layoffs, I’m not entirely sure what the future holds.
One thing is for sure though, we aren’t living in a meritocracy. If we were, this conversation wouldn’t be happening because everyone at that company back in 2000 would have been paid what they were worth, and that company would have succeeded. In fact the one thing I learned from businesses is the best way to have a business succeed is to hire someone who has strong connections to people with deep pockets.
You may have been confused or I may have mistyped. I don’t know this person’s salary, but I know mine. I was paid minimum wage, and only ever got a $0.50 / hour raise.
I’m not confused, you wrote the following:
There’s FAANG and then there’s everyone else. Some jobs can be pretty bad in terms of pay. That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
You claimed to know at least an approximation of their salary with decades of experience, which was not much more than yours was, at minimum wage + $0.50. That’s ridiculous if true. Even if they only had 11 actual years of web experience + the other years in other related design pre-internet.
You keep changing your history and points to fit your narrative. I understand anonymizing things but you’re making specific claims then saying you don’t know when called out.
You claimed to know at least an approximation of their salary with decades of experience, which was not much more than yours was, at minimum wage + $0.50. That’s ridiculous if true. Even if they only had 11 actual years of web experience + the other years in other related design pre-internet.
Yes, well sometimes coworkers talk. Salary numbers may have been mentioned but I can’t remember. What I do remember is that they had another job at the time teaching web design, that they relied on medical insurance when they had an accident only to discover that the company had not been paying their insurance premium. It was around that time that I was terminated, so I didn’t keep in touch with them much after that. Suffice it to say, this company didn’t have enough money to meet payroll each month and it meant one employee would have a bounced paycheck - whomever got to the bank to cash it last.
Yes, it was ridiculous and true. Jobs in this town were slim for this talent and by and large, no companies at that time were hiring for remote work, despite it being technically possible as we were all working on the web itself.
You keep changing your history and points to fit your narrative. I understand anonymizing things but you’re making specific claims then saying you don’t know when called out.
I really don’t though. I’ve been very consistent throughout this conversation. I find it funny that you think you’ve “got me” when I’ve literally experienced this myself. I could prove all of this to you but it would cost me my and their anominimty and this convo isn’t worth it just to prove to you that YES, sometimes people (even professionals with lots of experience) end up in shitty situations.
I’m really surprised you need a conversation this detailed and need to backcheck every detail of my story just to understand that point.
But by all means, continue to do so if you really care. Just know that things aren’t going to match up 100% due to trying to recall things from memory of 23-24 or so years ago. Things which aren’t really needed as the story of people making a little bit of money in their first job and then going on to make more money in other jobs is a story that I don’t really think needs to be explained in vivid detail.
Salary numbers may have been mentioned but I can’t remember.
Then why say this at the start of your comment thread?
There’s FAANG and then there’s everyone else. Some jobs can be pretty bad in terms of pay. That first job also had a seasoned professional graphic designer with multiple decades of experience and she wasn’t making much more than I was.
Either you knew their rough salary, or can’t remember. Which was it?
What I do remember is that they had another job at the time teaching web design
I know some people making six figures with second jobs, especially if they’re teaching in their field or live in a high COL area. It doesn’t mean they make “minimum wage” but maybe they live paycheck to paycheck. Those are very, very different.
Then why say this at the start of your comment thread?
Sorry. The exact salary amount doesn’t matter in this case, because I know enough about their situation (which I won’t be disclosing to you) to do a rough estimate based on their quality of life and from the information they’ve given me.
Either you knew their rough salary, or can’t remember. Which was it?
FFS man, chill out. Save this energy for when you’re debating some right-wing lunatic trying to push bullshit narratives.
I can’t remember lots of things. Hence my name, Dipshit. I’m a dumb pile of shit with ADHD. I’ve had a lot of conversations over the years and I don’t remember everything from them. What got encoded in my dumb little memory was that they weren’t making much more than me.
But shit man, what you’re not seeming to understand here is that:
minimum wage x full time work ~= $A
this person’s salary at this job + this person’s salary at thier other job ~= $B
$A and $B are not very far off. Functionally, they are the same when compared to $C, what either of our salaries should’ve been, even with me being fresh out of high school, but still having a few projects under my belt.
If you don’t accept it, don’t accept it. It’s one example out of many that people can provide. I don’t really have a desire to continue trying to anonymize parts of my employment history to you in an effort to convince some stranger that the things I know happened happened.
The real conversation here which I’m trying to have with you once you stop nitpicking on my personal back story (in an effort to dox me I assume because this is getting a little much, don’t you think?) is why are you so flabbergasted by this concept?
Are you familar with the idea that people can be paid less money than what they are worth? Do you know how capitalism works? Do you understand that there will be winners and losers and because we don’t live in a meritocracy, who gets to be winners and who gets to be losers largely comes from chance?
Your entire point seems to be on disproving my experience, I assume because then that would mean that in your head your argument is sound, that everyone is paid what they are worth, and that it was just a “skill issue” from someone with “victim mentality” (both your phrases) why someone wouldn’t be paid what they are worth.
What’s your point?
I know some people making six figures with second jobs, especially if they’re teaching in their field or live in a high COL area. It doesn’t mean they make “minimum wage” but maybe they live paycheck to paycheck. Those are very, very different.
That’s a good thing I didn’t say they were making minimum wage. Look, throwing out some numbers here randomly (small numbers since it’s going to be easier to calculate and I am a dipshit):
hypothetical minimum wage $10/hour. 40hr / week that’s $400/week. x 4 weeks in a month that’s $1600/month. After taxes (let’s say half - what’s advised for sole proprietors anyway - for ease of math) that’s $800/month.
This person was making salary at their teaching job so that’s $X, but what I’m saying is that the web dev agency which hired them paid them $Y. I don’t know if $X == $Y and also was married with a husband with salary $Z, but I do know that $X + $Y + $Z <= COL for that area.
This tells me that both myself and them were having trouble making ends meet in the same area. That area was a relatively low cost of living area as well. I’m no economist but i would estimate that salary ranges (in the pre-remote work boom) in an area vary depending on the COL, meaning that low cost of living area salaries may be something like fulltime work at minimum wage for a year * 2 or maybe * 3, but HCOL area salaries may be something like fulltime work at minimum wage for a year * 5 or * 10. These opinions are my own and may be very wrong but they just seem to be what I have experienced at least back then. Now with remote work it’s hard to say since high earners can move to rural areas and work for companies in HCOL areas.
I didn’t think I’d be talking to someone who’s going to try to pull apart my anonymized story to look for defects to try to win an argument. My previous answers reflect the person I once was prior to this conversation going down such a deep and personal rabbit hole.
Yep, I’ve worked at tech places with bad pay but never “decades of experience and only making a little more than minimum wage”. Especially if they held a Senior title. It’s been a wild ride listening to their story evolve.
Middle class absolutely needs to work though. They just aren’t complete wage slaves because they have some personal capital to absorb urgent/unplanned expenses and can survive without working for some time. Ultimately they still need to work to survive though
The GOP defines the middle class as $400k a year. If they make in excess of that, is it coming from work? Are they truly part of the working class living paycheck to paycheck at $400k a year? I don’t think so, but hey who knows.
Working class isn’t defined by being poor and middle class isn’t defined by not having to live paycheck to paycheck. Middle class in general is pretty much a made up difference to to split the working class.
Working class is very easily defined. If you have to work for a living you’re in the working class. It doesn’t matter if you make 40k, 400k or 4 million as long as it’s coming from your labor. Capitalists don’t have to work, their capital makes them money and they can live off the labor of their workers. If you make 400k regardless of your contribution, then you’re not working class.
Well, first of all I seriously doubt he himself is making steaks and I doubt he lives solely on the supposed money people pay him to sexually assault people. Most likely his money comes from his real-estate business which means he doesn’t need to work to live and thus is not a worker.
So, according to the GOP, less than 12% of the US population is middle class (much less actually, that statistic is apparently for people making more than 200K a year)
normally bitching about verbiage is straight out of the cia manual for disrupting leftist orgs but holy shit OP I assure you the guy who does the drawings on birthday cards is not an appropriate target for your ire.
At best some of the most privileged are petite bourgeois near the end of their careers.
I hate this in fighting, we are all working class. We all starve if we stop working. Yes, some have much more than others, yes it is unfair, however our interests are still broadly aligned.
Creatives have been shit on economically for a long time. Chokepoint Capitalism goes into detail on how artists, writers, and performers have had a hard time getting paid since day one. That’s a large reason why the actors and writers guilds exist. You can always find someone who wants to do creative work. If you don’t have a union ensuring gigs are paid well it’s a race to the bottom.
The fact a lot of people were clamoring for AI so it could do the work and they could stay home and make art only for AI to come about and replaces artists is kind a of hilarious in like a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
Bunch of Donald Trumps in here arguing over the specific dictionary meanings of generalizations in a meme.
White collar and blue collar probably would have been better work choices. Those creatives are engineers, marketing/art, programmers, technical writers, doctors (esp radiologists and other data-driven analysis specialists). AI only needs to get “close enough” to the rank and file to be dangerous to those professions, because AI can do the work 100x more efficient. Will there be long term consequences? Oh, yes. But not until those VCs have long cashed out.
Bourgeois creatives are people like Hollywood directors and actors who make millions of dollars and could easily retire at any time. They are not the ones being replaced, or trying to be replaced by AI or other tech.
The creatives who do the actual work that get projects done, the ones making just as much as other middle class people are the ones being affected. You know, the ones that actually need the money to live and pay bills. Ironically, it’s also these creatives whose work is being used to train the AI models, without their consent.
So, yeah, this is wildly inaccurate and totally pointed at the wrong people.
Furthermore, being replaced by tech is nothing new for creatives. Every tech advancement in commercial art has made thousands of jobs obsolete and has been a goal of capital all along.
Before computers and modern machinery, there were hundreds, if not thousands of jobs that were done by skilled creatives and craftspeople - sign painters, typesetters, draftsmen, carpenters, sculptors, etc.
Being a creative, doesn’t equate to having an easy life. There’s a reason why the term, “starving artist”, exists.
To further expand, the term bourgeoisie started because you used to have (all things in this reply simplified for conveniences’ sake, there are nuances not discussed)
Royals / Lords
Peasants
Either you owned everything as far as the eye could see, or you lived on that land and you were the property of the owner.
Then, as industrialization and/or global trade opened up, a new class emerged in the 1200s: “town dwellers” (literally what bourgeoisie means).
Now you had the aristocracy, peasants and people in between: they had money, property, a small amount of power and it wasn’t necessarily acquired by birthright.
This is still hundreds of years ago, so still not a 1:1 for today.
Overtime, and after a bunch of revolutions, we end up at a situation where the bourgeoisie needs to split again: haute bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie (roughly 1800) The hautes are your corporate overlords, the petits are your guys who own one SME business and are successful at it. The haute don’t labor, but invest, the petit don’t labor but manage.
Today - You could also say haute are CxO, VP; petit are Director; then senior manager and down is just laborers
Between 1800 and end of WW2 the petit bourgeoisie split again: a new layer between laborer and petit: the middle class, this meant people who still worked jobs, still depended on selling the value of their labor, couldn’t stop working on a whim, but were wealthy enough to achieve other markers of the bourgeoisie: property, leisure activities, vacations, travel, cars over horses (at first), more than one hat, inside plumbing…
Between WW2 and today there are much more layers, probably more akin to job titles and workplaces. “Retail workers” “Middle managers” “Blue collar tradesmen” - which aren’t descriptions of their level in society but miniature microcosms of society and economy.
Some workers can be very rich without owning a business. Some can own their own business and be poorer than their employees. It’s not so cut and dried any more.
All that to say, the “middle class” (in developed countries) both expanded and shrunk at the same time: the majority of people have a high quality of living with disposable income, but also can’t retire now or maybe ever.
The line should always be - if you’re under retirement age and quit your job tomorrow, do you have enough assets to comfortably live out the rest of your life with minimal changes to lifestyle until you die of old age?
Yes? You are not working class.
No? You are working class.
As for the rest:
Are you worth more than 5 million dollars?
Yes? Petit bourgeoisie
No? Middle class at most
Do you and your partner combined earn more than $300,000 a year?
Yes? Upper Middle class
No? Middle class at most
$150k?
Middle class
$100k and below?
Working class.
“Wow! 100k is a lot”
No, in the grand scheme of things in 2024, it is not.
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