There are 55 jobs for a residential plumber listed on that site. 31 of them are for less than 40k a year or topping out at $19 an hour. 44 of the 55 are for less than 45k a year or topping out at $21.63 an hour. 51 of the 55 are for less than 50k a year or topping out at $24 an hour. Of the 4 jobs listing for more than 50k, 3 of them list for exactly 50k. As you say, NJ has a high cost of living. 50k is lower Middle class unless you're single or DINK. In that case you're Middle class, either renting or having your house own you.
All the basic human needs you cite are supplied or guaranteed by government. Advanced or optional choices are consumer driven.
Health care won't be guaranteed if anyone from the GOP gets elected. Repeal and replace. Ha more like repeal and then just return to when people were quoted at $3000 a month for pre-existing conditions
What nonsense. First of all FreedomWorks began as a Koch Brothers funded organization. An original member, Dick Armey, has since left saying that the author of your article, Matt Kibbe, asked him to lie in order to maintain the group's tax exempt status: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks Next, on the merits, it makes no sense to blame the supposed too low interest rates that Kibbe claims existed in the mid 2000's for the way that specific financial instruments blew up in the financial crisis. No arm of government forced the banks to create them, or to lend subprime mortgages at teaser rates and bundle them in instruments that were shopped around for beneficial ratings by the ratings agencies. In addition the core inflation rate leading into the recession, meaning mid-2008, was between 2.3% and 2.5%, hardly a significant difference from the conventional view that it should be around 2.2%: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/03/did-the-fed-cause-the-great-recession.html If Kibbe in fact was correct there would have been much higher inflation (it is standard right wing economics that too much money injected into the economy will lead to inflation - of course not to digress this is demonstrably inaccurate as evidenced by the decline in inflation during the period the Fed engaged in quantitative easing in the last few years.(Right wing economists fail to understand that inflation is demand driven)). But there wasn;t. It also defies common sense to believe that Fed interest rate policy was more significant than what was occurring in the economy as a whole, which included a huge housing bust that began in some markets by late 2005, and how that undermined the value of all those mortgage backed securities the banks had been distributing, at great profits, all by their own initiative. No, there is much more reason to conclude that it was unregulated markets that on their own brought the financial crisis. I should also add that the so-called Austrian school that Kibbe so admires has been the guiding theory behind EU economic policy, led by Germany, over the last few years. Compared to the more Keynesian driven policy pursued by the US, the EU has done MUCH worse, with essentially twice the unemployment rate, a Euro vastly down in value compared to the dollar, their sovereign debt crisis which has still not totally abated, and an overall worse economic outlook. In fact things are so bad that the whole EU project is at risk largely because of the failures of their Austrian school driven policies. Finally if one chooses to blame the US Fed for the great recession, then how does one assess the actions of the central banks of other western countries? How could the US be doing better than them if the US Fed was the real bad guy here? That makes no sense - the effects if so bad by definition would be worse the closer one gets to those actions. Instead the opposite is the case. Perhaps the Fed, rather than being the culprit, has been helpful, not harmful. Even if such factual consideration is at variance with your preferred belief system of free market fundamentalism.
Still lower Middle class. You need to have a college degree to get ahead. You can break even with a lot of hard work without one.
I can't wait until everything at McDonalds is done by a machine after the lazy fast food workers get their 15 an hour.
That's just not true. I know plenty of people without college degrees doing quite well for themselves. there are also a lot of people who just aren't fit for higher education and will never get ahead in life because they simply aren't capable or motivated or whatever the case may be. that's life. not everyone gets ahead.
Successful private business owners do quite well for themselves regardless of a college degree. Friends of ours, neither went to college and built an electrical contracting business (literally electricians) and they make 3X what I make. _
This is a great post. My family business has been around for 70 years. I'm 25 years old and am the first in my family to graduate college. Neither of my parents graduated and have done pretty well for themselves.
So are you saying that as our country advances, so should our standards? Long time ago elementary schools were available to the masses- then they bacame mandatory - then it was expanded to k-12 being mandatory. Are you suggesting that the next logical step is to have advanced education available at no charge to the masses? Are you also going to suggest that government sponsored health care became available to the poor and elderly a long time ago and as our society advances we should make government sponsored healthcare available to the masses? You good sir are a madman. A good conservative mind like me would prefer it if things went back to how they were in the good ol' days when women didn't talk back and there were slaves for everyone. Back when "white privilege" meant something. You're crazy notions will be the downfall of this country!
I was merely pointing to the fact that most jobs that do not require college education would be in retail and hospitality sectors. I mean how many plumbers and electricians do we really need? Not to mention that those are male only jobs, as I have yet to see a female plumber/electrician. It's more prestigious to have a college degree and it's also easier to get ahead in life with one, as another poster has already mentioned. Sure, it's possible to make as much or more without a college degree but in most cases one would have to run their own business to accomplish that. I know electricians and plumbers who drive brand new German cars but they are all business savvy people who have been doing that for many years. I also had an electrician complain to me once that he would never be able to buy a house despite making enough to afford one. They charge cash and obviously report just a small percentage of what they really earn. No bank will ever give him a mortgage. So, like I said, it's easier with a college degree and there are way more avenues open to you if you have one.
Getting a college degree for business is a complete waste of money. I can see it being the primary need for specific occupations, but as a marketing major I think it was more of a struggle in my life to obtain that degree...People can make money now in many ways (legal) with ambition, hard work, and confidence. My boss never went to college Pre requisite classes are a major waste of money too. I took 3 semesters of philosophy and 3 semesters of theology...wtf
Can't believe how weak Republican field is this year. Trump, Ted Cruz, Rubio, Jeb Bush. One inherited money from daddy, one is an ambitious slimy bastard born to a Cuban father in Canada, one is a robot, the other is just slightly smart(76 IQ) compared to his older brother(70 IQ) In the end, this weak field will force people to vote Democrat. Too bad Republicans couldn't come up with better candidates.
