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It's just a starter job, people shouldn't rely on them as a career, it's their fault, bootstraps, etc. etc.

> people shouldn't rely on them as a career

Nobody thinks of that as a career, but 4.5 million people seem to rely on it for income nonetheless.

For the large percentage of Americans who don't have a degree or maybe not even a high school diploma, there is no such thing as a 'starter job'- there's just 'a job'. Heck, for a growing proportion of the population the degree doesn't even help.

We in the tech industry would be wise to remember that we live in an incredibly privileged bubble where careers are real things, where it's easy to find new opportunities.

Actually, there are starter jobs for folks without degrees or even a high school diploma. People gain experience and there are plenty of companies that don't hire via a HR checklist. Plenty of people work their way up from cashier to management.

The big danger is external factors that remove those first rungs of work that allow people to climb up.

During college, I worked for about 6 or 7 months in a local supermarket. Seventeen years later, some of my former coworkers are still there.

How do people think it matters who's fault it is?

You can call them lazy or stupid but they still exist and a lot of them won't get a new job (again, doesn't matter if they can't or just don't want to find one).

This isn't a solution. It doesn't matter who's "fault" it is. If 4.5M people lose their jobs very quickly, we're going to have a big freaking problem on our hands.

Retail, fast food, stock pickers, truck drivers, etc.. etc.. Sure you could say "don't make menial jobs your career" all you want, but this is still going to be a huge freaking issue sooner than later.

This is from just last week: https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9...

"This won't eliminate retail clerks, it will just make their lives easier so they can focus on other tasks"

don't attempt sarcasm on this site. people take things literally.

We should go bravely into the future, and solve problems as they arise. Maybe this is the catalyst for basic income?

Exactly. All-in-the-game economics can get flipped around really quick I think. 1. Let's automate everything right now, we have the technology. 2. Millions of workers displaced. 3. Social upheaval?

I think the mistaken comparison people make, is that when farmers and such lost jobs in the industrial revolution, new opportunities that didn't require total re-education were popping up as fast as old ones disappeared...this is not the case today. The shrinking range of opportunities are to be found in increasingly exclusive, high-skill white collar positions. People are being left behind, and the fuck-you-I-got-my-STEM degree crowd, their attitude isn't making anything better.