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> There isn't an oil rig near me. I don't even know where those are. Trades don't pay as much as people claim
Move. You’re describing a local disequilibrium.
(We need subsidised economic mobility vouchers for citizens in America.)
Moving really is just the objectively correct answer. People can't always live in the big city, there are a number of places where you can very comfortably live for not much at all.
Moving is also both financially and socially disruptive, which is why "just move" is more often than not the precise opposite of the objectively correct answer for people who are already financially stressed and therefore likely dependent on their social connections to minimize various living expenses (e.g. moving in with friends/family, and/or having friends/family watch your kids while you're at work).
Yes, plenty of people do end up moving, but almost always as a last resort, and almost always with a preference toward places where they already know people. I ended up moving cities after high school because nobody in my hometown was willing to hire me (this being the years immediately after the '08 recession; even McDonald's was flooded with college-graduate applicants). That was only possible because I already had a job lined up in a town close enough to where my grandparents lived that I could live with them until I had my own apartment. Not everyone is as fortunate as I am.
Related: Yoni Applebaum’s feature today in the Atlantic, recounting the decline of Americans’ geographical mobility:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/america...
"How Progressives Froze the American Dream"
Yeah, if you're gonna lead with that sort of blatant victim-blaming, then I'd expect a coherent explanation of one's reasoning in the very first paragraph.
It ain't progressives who are gouging renters. It ain't progressives who are jacking up food prices. It ain't progressives who are buying up entire neighborhoods as investments. It ain't progressives who are jacking up medical costs, and it ain't progressives who are denying insurance coverage for said costs.
There are no entry-level oil rig jobs. They're out in the ocean. They’re dangerous. They want somewhat confident/trained/non-green people
I count my lucky stars that I'm fortunate enough to not have to make such a choice. But you're suggesting this person move away from their friends and family (not to mention taking a spouse and kids) to an inhospitable place to work on an oil rig? You know, to do a (famously) astronomically taxing job (when you'd most need that love, comradery, and support)...alone?
I've got those city-slicker wanderlust glasses on, and could, for a time, probably enjoy working on an oil rig. But alone? I'd honestly rather live in my parent's/friend's basement and be a walmart greeter.
There's so much focus on trying to increase income and not so much on trying to reduce expenses. Both sides of the equation work, but not equally.
I find reducing expenses is much easier. I manage to live on about 20% of my net income, and I could make more than two of me live while earning minimum wage. Since the amount of savings needed for retirement is directly related to your expenses, by reducing them you need to save even less.
Make a budget, see where you can save the most. Move to a low cost-of-living area, get rid of your car, learn to cook, and in general learn to be content on less.
Sure, we can't dream for the standard of living our parents and grandparents had anymore. But this standard was in no way realistic. It was fueled by an era of cheap energy and a booming, young population. It was never environmentally sustainable. Nor would it be even with renewable energy. We have to adjust our standards.
The tragedy for me is not on an economic level, it's on a social level. The fragmentation of ideologies, the loss of community, the loneliness, the atrophy of real life interactions. Not that I have known much of what it was like before. Yet this is also a choice we make collectively. Rebuilding community takes time but it's definitely doable. And from my experience it starts by moving aside from technology.
Tough question and no easy answer. From your comment I would guess you are around 25, give or take a decade.
Look at history and read about the union fights around 1900, to me that is the place were young people are now. You will need to fight and more fight for your life.
Young people also face an enormous propaganda machine constantly telling them unions are bad, they just take your dues, you'll never make more money negotiating together, rugged individuality is the religion, and Real Men Do Everything On Their Own. So union membership continues to shrink. Most people under 30 are probably not old enough to have ever even seen a powerful union that delivers results for its members, let alone have the chance to join one without being hosed down with anti-union propaganda. Amazon alone "deployed a staggering amount of anti-union propaganda, bombarding workers with flyers, mailers, Instagram ads, Facebook posts, brochures, videos, phone calls, posters, mandatory meetings, a website, text messages, and notifications" on their internal workplace app[1]. While they soak up all the excess value workers produce and hand it over to themselves and shareholders.
The deck is totally stacked against the next generations. I feel pretty grim for my kid's future to be honest.
1: https://www.vice.com/en/article/amazon-is-bombarding-workers...
> Young people also face an enormous propaganda machine constantly telling them
I've had folks in my age group (30s) complain about the travails of our generation over aprés, after a day of skiing, and in advance of their next international travels. Part of the propaganda is the fetishisation of victimhood.
God damn..
I'm near the top 5% of income for my age bracket and I feel the same..
Just... gahh... what is the point of this.. I feel the same way minus roomates... funny enough, I'm actually considering moving back in with housemates because living by myself is so uneventful.. I've been on the dating app hamster wheel for years.. Something is so broken here.. I'm not so sure wealth is even the answer..
I've been researching "intentional communities"
> feel the same way minus roomates
Get roommates! I bought a house and almost continuously have friends in the guest suite. It's been great, and I'm honestly living some of the best years of my life.
You live in Jackson? Can I be your friend?
I don't mean this as a moral judgement, and you should live the way you want. What you're describing sounds like an issue of spending habits, not really an issue of income. Maybe you'd prefer to live a certain lifestyle regardless, and that's your choice IMO, but it does tend to come with little in the way of savings.
The easy availability of credit and focus on consumption has led many people, myself included, into patterns of behavior that are either unsustainable or at the very least excessive/expensive.
> What you're describing sounds like an issue of spending habits, not really an issue of income.
On what information are you basing that assumption?
OP seems intelligent and articulate to me. I'm not sure a "non-intelligent" person could even post on reddit. OPs problem is marketable skills if he wants to work for somebody else, or small business entrepreneurship if not.
The military is great. Most positions are non-combat, and you can get a nice pension and other great benefits like VA loans if you stay in long. Can give you specialized training that leads into other careers too if you hate it. Obviously it's not an easy path, but lots of "non intelligent" people can find success.
But otherwise, if you're poor you should do what other poor people do. Get married(dual income), live with family(more income and economies of scale), accept a long commute, and only shop at Costco. All of these can bring the cost of living down significantly. That's what most poor / lower class people do. Also doing all of this doesn't mean you have to be unhappy.
Avg income of a Costco member is 6 figs.
Their ideal customer is the family - but on certain goods if you buy in bulk it's saved over going to a grocery store.
The answer is as old as time: abolish usury, punish speculation & reward labor.
> abolish usury, punish speculation & reward labor
Red herring. Reality is some people in our society don’t have supersubsistence economic value. Historically, we let them starve. Now we have a chance to do differently.
OP describes unemployment. Not leverage. Not gambling. And not being ripped off on their pay. Just not having a job they can be paid for (where they are).
Historically, we (i don't know who you are) provided both solidarity & charity.
Americans have it pretty easy compared to the rest of the world. You guys have an actual economy versus countries like Canada where our economy has been gutted and our productivity is at record lows.
No. Rich Americans do, while everyone else doesn't because America has one of the high rates of economic inequality in the developed world.[0] Why do you think there are so many homeless people in America? America also lacks universal healthcare, unionization at meaningful rates, worker protections, compels slavery of incarcerated people to work for corporations, and offers poor people an inconsistent usually pittance of help. It's far easier to live in Canada, the UK, or somewhere else because there's a social safety net that America lacks.
Move somewhere like Eastern Washington state where the minimum wage is $16 an hour. You can own a piece of land and a small house on that wage here.
Apprentice as a lineman, tons of jobs doing that paying well here. All you have to do is show up to work every day and not quit.
The trades do pay well per hour (or at least all my friends who are in the trades are paid well per hour), but with two important caveats:
1. It's the union jobs that pay well.
2. You might not get a full 40 hours of work per week.
----
In any case, I think the big non-white-collar job category worth investigating is trucking. "But YellowApple!" I can already hear you retort, "self-driving trucks will put truckers out of a job!" Yeah, I'll believe that when robots are able to put chains on tires, deal with asshole cops nitpicking log books, and otherwise reliably handle the bullshit truckers put up with as part of their job descriptions. AI might be able to automate the driving part, but I don't see human operators being absent from the cabs anytime soon.
Before you try trucking, rent a 12 foot trailer or a 26 foot penske diesel box truck, then drive it around the tightest urban commercial roads you find and maybe try a poorly designed lumber yard while you're there. Maybe try some mountainous interstate driving in winter with it too.
Trucking pays well because it's constantly terrifying, horrible hours, and often a recipe for divorce.
That's all included in the aforementioned "bullshit truckers put up with as part of their job descriptions" :)
(Though for the record, I've indeed done what you describe.)
Look at the BLS salary numbers…
Median salary is above the median for all workers, for a job that ain't going anywhere (well, aside from physically, obviously) any time soon. That's the critical part.
That overall median plasters over a bunch of nuances, though, like:
- Whether you're a company driver or an owner-operator; owner-operators earn more, but they need to own/lease and maintain their own trucks.
- Whether you paid out-of-pocket for CDL training or if you did it through an operator like Swift (wherein they put you through their internal trucking school and then require you to work for them at suppressed wages until it's paid off).
- Whether you're working regional or OTR / long-haul jobs; long-haul pays better.
- Whether you've got e.g. hazmat endorsements and other special qualifications beyond a class A driver's license.
Plumber and electrician are still high on the list...
p.s. Those do take intelligence though, so maybe that doesn't count?
Why was this flagged?
Why is anything? I see no point in the feature.
One is always free to not read any comments that one does not wish to see...
Some people just enjoy the disruption of convesation.
Apropos:
Just give the man the fish (i.e. just answer the question) [4 camtarn]
https://blog.plover.com/misc/just-answer-the-question-2.html
They key is to work for yourself
Start your own business, hustle, and bust ass
This is an answer most should try. My relative is mentally disabled, but functional. With help from his family he got a used truck, and started lawn care and junk removal. Over time he built a business, and was able to afford his own home. The self esteem he earned for himself and for his family is something I greatly respect.
Probably the best advice so far. Job = limited upside.
I’ve seen a lot of normal people start business and become financially stable.
You can also see a lot of individually started businesses go broke.
Most new businesses fail.
Even if you want to start your own business, you almost certainly need to be employed in that field for an extended time first, otherwise, how will you learn the trade?
Plus, if the OP were of entrepreneurial nature, they probably wouldn't be asking.
Apropos from yesterday's server status "fortune cookie":
A young man wrote to Mozart and said:
Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started?"
A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony."
Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old."
A: "But I never asked anybody how."
The problem they're having is a common problem for people who are intelligent even. There are a few highly intelligent highly exceptional people that are the exception and in our society with the massive amount of instant communication we have makes it seem like they're the norm but they're not. These are just truly exceptional people even if we pointed them like they're blundering idiots.
For smart people, average people, and below average people we often fall into the same problem that they're describing. What do we do? How do we take advantage of opportunities? How do we get ahead? Even to the point of how do you get to a normal middle class lifestyle. I struggled with this for a long time. The first answer is to adjust your expectations and align them more with reality. Learn how to do without, learn how to live at an income level lower than what you have regardless of what that income level is. Then take the blinders off to opportunity. Because you talk about the income in labor fields not being what is advertised. The problem is you're looking at the labor fields in a given area, or with a given set of restrictions. People often look for their opportunities only where they're at and not at the opportunities they have in other places or or other fields. We're often afraid to take risks that allow us to take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes we have burdens that we have assumed such as a spouse and family that prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities. More often, in my experience, we have burdens that we have placed upon ourself artificially that allow us not to take advantage of the opportunities. Once you can get out of the mindset that you are tied to an area or a location or a field where all of these burdens that trap us the opportunities are there and you're willing to take the risk to take advantage of them.
It took me many years to understand this and realize all of the opportunities of my youth that I didn't take advantage of because I was blind to them at the time. Worse yet I can remember the specific instances where people told me of the opportunities and told me specifically what I needed to do but I made excuses and found reasons why I couldn't do it. Hindsight shows me that was all just an artificial barrier I put in my head. What held me back for a long time was myself. People were there they pointed out what could be done, career paths to opportunities that were available. Oftentimes these were the older people that young people so often dismiss. When you're young it's easy to dismiss saying, you don't understand what it's like today. I can tell you I made that same lame excuse and when I try and help out younger people now I get the same lame excuse from them. It's a total excuse and they are holding themselves back. Then they blame everyone and everything else around them saying they are not able to achieve a modest level of success.
Yes it's incredibly difficult to become the next Jeff bezos or any of these other mega billionaires. It's possible, but it's difficult, it requires something inside of you that most people don't have and it requires some luck. To achieve a middle class lifestyle doesn't require luck doesn't require high level of intelligence or highly skilled things it requires simply not being afraid to take advantage of opportunities. While those opportunities may seem risky in the moment because you've never done them before hindsight says they're not risky at all. The more things you do the more comfortable you get doing things and knowing that you can accomplish those things.
The labor field has amazing income potential, but don't just focus on the most basic form of the labor field. In any industry the most basic beginning levels will always be the lowest pay and the worst work. There are many people who are comfortable framing a house all day and drinking beer all night and complaining that they never get ahead and never change. Labor markets have a whole range of things to do and the more rare something is to do the more money you make. There are a lot of jobs in the labor market that pay incredibly well you just have to be motivated to go and get them because it's difficult to find people to do them. They are either risky jobs or they're very intensive jobs that take you away from everything you know for long periods of time. They mention oil wells Yes absolutely that's one it's not near you, the bus leaves from where you're at to where the jobs are everyday. Get on the bus and go. There is a massive electrical grid in this country you can be an electrician that services homes and small businesses or you can learn to do commercial work or you can learn to work for the power company and string wire and do high voltage systems. Workers that deal with waste treatment systems make a really good living. Become a welder become a fantastically good welder but instead of just staying in the job where you're just welding in the shop all day, become the welder who's willing to travel to different locations to do things on site to do highly specialized work. That's where you get the money. The opportunities are there who just have to not be afraid to let go of what you have to get what you want. There are so many labor jobs that take people of average skill level in their field but those people are willing to go to exotic locations or be gone for weeks at a time and it's those people who really can make bank at labor jobs. Because they're doing the job that nobody else wants to do and while your buddies are punching their clock from 9:00 to 5:00 at the shop complaining that they're not getting ahead you'll be working your ass off but we'll be making bank and properly managed you can retire early.
That is the greatest thing that holds back any of us being afraid to let go of what we have to grab what we want.
I have a good job as a software engineer but I'm in the later stages of my career. If I knew in my youth when I was 20 or 30 what I know now, or if I just actually listen to what people have told me I'd already be retired by now. The problem is we all think the prior generation had it easier than the current generation. The prior generation is trying to help you out and tell you the secrets to success the problem is they can't do it for you. I can't even get my own children to listen to me about the massive opportunities they have in front of them because there's always an excuse why they can't do it.
A very rare and sensible comment. Thank you
For the individual I don't see much hope really.
The only hope, if there is one, is when people will become collectively enraged and dismantle the govt to a large extent (similar to the current attempt in USA) and not rely solely on fiat currency (another way the govt controls the populace).
Coups and crypto. Awesome.
> when people will become collectively enraged and dismantle the govt to a large extent (similar to the current attempt in USA)
So how do you envision people flourishing in this anarchist/libertarian utopia? Most people at the bottom of the income scale are much more dependent on a functioning government to meet their basic needs. If you want to make their lives better while cutting away the services they depend on for healthcare, education, transportation, food safety, disaster relief and recovery, and on and on -- if you want them to be better off without all that, they need to earn better wages. Well, the DOGE folks -- "the current attempt in USA" --are focusing their attention on destroying the mechanisms that would make this possible.
A problem with an unregulated economy is that your ability to get a good deal depends on your ability to evaluate the deal and walk away from it if it's bad. If you're hanging from a cliff edge by your fingertips, you're not in a good bargaining position relative to the guy standing on solid ground. You'll pawn your future to live another hour. The government is the mechanism we have to prevent this abuse -- minimum wage laws, child labor laws, OSHA. Take all this away and you have more slavery, not less.
Another problem: if you want to start a business or invest or build anything, you depend on predictability. Is the city going to still be here and functioning next year? If yes, open a store front! If not, move on. The government is one of the main sources of this stability. It collects information, makes economic forecasts, manages the interest rates (with its fiat currency), handles disasters, prevents invasions. This allows businesses to flourish, providing jobs for the masses. Without that economic activity dries up. People get poorer. Some starve. Some die due to lawlessness, war, and unrest.
But you don't see it this way. Please explain how destroying the government and relying on gold or bitcoin will bring prosperity to the masses. I really want to understand your perspective.
What's the end goal here? Only local governments?
Capitalism itself has no function against wealth accumulation besides taxation, although the efficacy is questionable.
So how does non-FIAT and dismantling the government help? Even less taxation... in a currency that can't be controlled - the capitalist dream, I guess?