My (probably unpopular here) opinion is just the opposite. We need more of an apprenticeship model where you're not paid a bunch because you're still learning, and you probably bring negative-to-zero value initially. When a fresh-out-of-college junior engineer brings in SV style money, the expectation should be that they already know what they're doing.
In the trades you start off low pay because you're generally more in the way than helpful, but then you gain the experience and knowledge to be valuable.
Even the resident-doctor relationship is like this. Resident are overworked and poorly paid because they are more distracting than the value they add, then there's the big reward at the end.
The grad-student/professor model is kind of like this too except for all the pyramid scheme stuff that happens there.
I think most technical fields need to go to this model where the newbie commits to learning and trying to be valuable instead of rest-and-vest. And then once they're valuable they get paid more in proportion to the value they bring to the field.
In my small company we had to switch about 5 years ago to only hiring folks with lots of experience (10-15 years). We tried hiring younger fresh-out-of-college engineers, but "market rate" was too high and they required too much attention from senior staff and it made us unsustainably unproductive. We wanted to mentor and teach the next generation, but we couldn't afford it.
Well, you're both right, sort of. Most people aren't making SV-style money out of college; they really should be paid more. But the ones that are making those types of salaries, should absolutely be paid less. So should their seniors. So should their managers, and their C-suite. And everyone else - particularly in "low skill" positions - should be making more.
I listen to the details of the lifestyles of high-earning young people - international trips, 3- and 4-figure tech purchases on a whim, $60k cars, a house - and compare that to the young people I worked with in (sales-oriented) retail: working multiple jobs to make rent; paying off bare-survival-related debt; in one case, our manager having to gift a top performer a (beater) car because she simply could not have afforded one otherwise, just so that she could leave work and get home in a reasonable amount of time (she was never late for her shift). These were the people who still physically showed up to work while everyone else locked down.
There's too much money in the top tax brackets. Compressing inequality solves a lot of problems. Including yours, actually: when both senior and junior engineer time is less valuable, as a rule, the less pressure there is to squeeze productivity out of every moment. Take a pay cut and work fewer hours. Let some of that money that was left over get taxed and put into a grant to rebuild infrastructure or fund the arts.
i love an apprenticeship model, i think most people would learn better and become competent at whatever position much quicker than straight book learning, for practically every job.
however, where you say: "My [...] opinion is just the opposite [...] where you're not paid a bunch ", are you saying the opposite of a living wage? how would you expect someone to, well, live during their apprenticeship? someone starving and worried about getting evicted or similar is not in a great head space to learn effectively.
I think the trouble is living wage means different things to different people.
I look back to my time in grad school. My wife and I were lucky that we were able to get fellowships so we were able to focus directly on school and didn't have to do another job or teach. But it was _tight_! I remember keeping track of every cent in a spreadsheet and we generally were at around $100 extra to save every month (which would then be eaten up by a random car repair or something). We never went into debt, but we really paid attention to our spending. No fancy going out, no travel, no avocado toast.
I think right now people put too much "fun" in the definition of living wage. So yes, I wouldn't want someone to be worried about making rent and eating while being apprentice, but it's also not going to be a glamorous instagram lifestyle.
In 2000-2005 dollars we were making a combined $30,000 a year as grad students. I don't know what that means now, but that's probably the actual value we provided to our advisors (paper writing, conference posters, etc).
I don't think most people need or expect the glamorous instagram lifestyle, but want to have something fun they can do to make the work worth it. If there was a guaranteed payoff at the end, then it might be worth it, but for many people there is no guaranteed payoff, there's just work and sleep and then they die one day. I don't begrudge anyone for wanting more than that.
+1, I'm a huge apprenticeship fan. It's worked for thousands of years, it's definitely something we should be investing more into.
You also kinda hit the nail on the head w/ your second point. I think we're expecting a lot of people now to either pay tons of money for higher education, or survive through years of unlivable wagers, to eventually get to a higher paying (I.E, livable) position. In some cases, like doctors in Residency, it's reasonable (average of 65-70k/year?) and enough for them to survive until they're fully fledged. In other cases, like any form of artisan, a lot of blue collar work, it's minimum or near minimum wage and a looming threat of financial ruin.
I think a big part of this is our move to monopolistic/gargantuan corporations, and employment no longer (for good reason) being a primary source of housing. Apprentices used to be able to survive with less payment, because they were given spare rooms, fed by the family of the business owner, and so on. Instead, they now need to be given larger financial rewards so they can procure those things themselves, which can be harder on a business owner.
In the trades you start off low pay because you're generally more in the way than helpful, but then you gain the experience and knowledge to be valuable.
Even the resident-doctor relationship is like this. Resident are overworked and poorly paid because they are more distracting than the value they add, then there's the big reward at the end.
The grad-student/professor model is kind of like this too except for all the pyramid scheme stuff that happens there.
I think most technical fields need to go to this model where the newbie commits to learning and trying to be valuable instead of rest-and-vest. And then once they're valuable they get paid more in proportion to the value they bring to the field.
In my small company we had to switch about 5 years ago to only hiring folks with lots of experience (10-15 years). We tried hiring younger fresh-out-of-college engineers, but "market rate" was too high and they required too much attention from senior staff and it made us unsustainably unproductive. We wanted to mentor and teach the next generation, but we couldn't afford it.