Who is to blame for low paying jobs?
I was thinking the other day about the picketing going on of fast food restaurants and how they want workers there to make $15.00 an hour. They are complaining that the minimum wage is not a fair wage. In fact they are beginning to replace the word "fair" with "living." They want every single person who gets a job to get a "living" wage, which means they can live off of what they make regardless of whether or not the work they do is worth it.
Before you start getting all up in arms as if I am looking down on the fast food industry by saying their work is not "worth" a certain amount you must know that I have not only worked fast food, I was raised in it. My daddy worked fast food almost all of my life. He managed many fast food restaurants and was sometimes the supervisor of several stores. I know first hand how physically hard the work can be. However, while it is hard work, there are basically no skills required for non-management positions and that is generally the reason people work fast food in the first place. They lack the skills for a better job. My dad didn't finish school, but he managed to find work in various places and by working hard and learning on the job he worked his way up to a wage our family could and did live on.
This is where society gets it all wrong. They seem to want to blame the business owners. Surely it must be the fault of those who are "rich" if the poor can't get a "fair" wage. They feel that every business is out to cheat their employees. While there will always be business men who do so, a good business man knows that happy employees who are paid and treated well will actually help his business so there is incentive to do what is right. However they have to make a profit or there is really no reason for them to take the risk of running a business in the first place. There are simply some jobs that are never going to pay well. They just can't. However those jobs are not meant to be employment for the heads of a household. Those are entry level jobs, for students working their way through school, or for second income jobs where the spouse works to earn a little extra income to make their lives more comfortable. Yep, my mom worked fast food too.
People who are upset about these jobs not paying enough seem to be under the impression that these jobs were made for families to be supported by. They think that if a single mom raising her kids works there she should make enough to do so. If a father is working while his wife stays at home to raise the new baby he should make enough money to do so. These people have it all wrong. Instead of blaming the companies for not paying low skill jobs high skill wages they should be asking the question, why don't these people have the skills to get a better paying job?
The short answer is that the public school system has failed them. In many of these instances they quit the school before they finished but ultimately that too is a failure of the system. Public schools have failed in many regards, here are just a few:
1. Schools graduate students who can't spell, barely read and are awful at math. Its as if they think the diploma will magically make the student employable. It doesn't work that way. They actually need the skills to back it up.
2. Schools focus more on social issues than life skills and therefore we graduate a bunch of kids who are "politically correct" but lack any real common sense. Young parents don't know how to treat the simplest cold without running to the doctor and end up burdened with a debt of medical bills. Instead of trying to learn they want a better wage or better yet, free health care as if that is the solution. Schools teach students that no one should judge them for being sexually active and then when they end up pregnant the solution to them is free abortions and birth control. What a disservice our schools are doing.
3. Students are taught a sense of entitlement. They think that they deserve something just for existing. After all they get the same diploma if they get straight A's or if they get the lowest grades possible. Students think the wage should match what they think they are worth, not what they can actually do. However, being able to know math isn't the same as putting it into practice. They end up renting houses they can't afford, get a car on payments and then buy all the latest gadgets, video games and toys. Then they can't understand why they run out of money before the end of the month. They can't understand that you can't spend more in a month than you take in. The thought of doing without something is foreign to them! The thought of renting a place that isn't "idea" never occurs to them.
Of course schools are not the only ones to blame. The break down of the family is the ultimate problem. But think about it. The family break down was inevitable once we gave the government control of our children's education. Once I really started to homeschool I began to wonder, why do freedom loving Americans seem to over look the fact that a compulsory, public school system is the antithesis of being free? All we know is that school is where our kids go. It is just what they do. Its done with out question because in school we were taught it was the only way. Its the best way.
Why do you think that President Obama is working hard to let illegal aliens stay in this country but is doing all he can to throw out one family seeking asylum on the basis of educational freedom? He will let thousands of families stay who came here illegally but this one family must go. A family who went through the right channels, and tried to do it the right way. Why are they fighting this so hard? Because they know homeschooling is a threat to the government control that our public school students are so willing to give in to. Its not only a battle for education, its a battle for the hearts and minds of the future generation. Unfortunately that generation is here. It is what got Obama elected twice in the first place and we may be stuck with it, unless we catch on and push the blame to the right places. Most of our societies ills can be traced back to here in one form or another: Public School.
Before you start getting all up in arms as if I am looking down on the fast food industry by saying their work is not "worth" a certain amount you must know that I have not only worked fast food, I was raised in it. My daddy worked fast food almost all of my life. He managed many fast food restaurants and was sometimes the supervisor of several stores. I know first hand how physically hard the work can be. However, while it is hard work, there are basically no skills required for non-management positions and that is generally the reason people work fast food in the first place. They lack the skills for a better job. My dad didn't finish school, but he managed to find work in various places and by working hard and learning on the job he worked his way up to a wage our family could and did live on.
This is where society gets it all wrong. They seem to want to blame the business owners. Surely it must be the fault of those who are "rich" if the poor can't get a "fair" wage. They feel that every business is out to cheat their employees. While there will always be business men who do so, a good business man knows that happy employees who are paid and treated well will actually help his business so there is incentive to do what is right. However they have to make a profit or there is really no reason for them to take the risk of running a business in the first place. There are simply some jobs that are never going to pay well. They just can't. However those jobs are not meant to be employment for the heads of a household. Those are entry level jobs, for students working their way through school, or for second income jobs where the spouse works to earn a little extra income to make their lives more comfortable. Yep, my mom worked fast food too.
People who are upset about these jobs not paying enough seem to be under the impression that these jobs were made for families to be supported by. They think that if a single mom raising her kids works there she should make enough to do so. If a father is working while his wife stays at home to raise the new baby he should make enough money to do so. These people have it all wrong. Instead of blaming the companies for not paying low skill jobs high skill wages they should be asking the question, why don't these people have the skills to get a better paying job?
The short answer is that the public school system has failed them. In many of these instances they quit the school before they finished but ultimately that too is a failure of the system. Public schools have failed in many regards, here are just a few:
1. Schools graduate students who can't spell, barely read and are awful at math. Its as if they think the diploma will magically make the student employable. It doesn't work that way. They actually need the skills to back it up.
2. Schools focus more on social issues than life skills and therefore we graduate a bunch of kids who are "politically correct" but lack any real common sense. Young parents don't know how to treat the simplest cold without running to the doctor and end up burdened with a debt of medical bills. Instead of trying to learn they want a better wage or better yet, free health care as if that is the solution. Schools teach students that no one should judge them for being sexually active and then when they end up pregnant the solution to them is free abortions and birth control. What a disservice our schools are doing.
3. Students are taught a sense of entitlement. They think that they deserve something just for existing. After all they get the same diploma if they get straight A's or if they get the lowest grades possible. Students think the wage should match what they think they are worth, not what they can actually do. However, being able to know math isn't the same as putting it into practice. They end up renting houses they can't afford, get a car on payments and then buy all the latest gadgets, video games and toys. Then they can't understand why they run out of money before the end of the month. They can't understand that you can't spend more in a month than you take in. The thought of doing without something is foreign to them! The thought of renting a place that isn't "idea" never occurs to them.
Of course schools are not the only ones to blame. The break down of the family is the ultimate problem. But think about it. The family break down was inevitable once we gave the government control of our children's education. Once I really started to homeschool I began to wonder, why do freedom loving Americans seem to over look the fact that a compulsory, public school system is the antithesis of being free? All we know is that school is where our kids go. It is just what they do. Its done with out question because in school we were taught it was the only way. Its the best way.
Why do you think that President Obama is working hard to let illegal aliens stay in this country but is doing all he can to throw out one family seeking asylum on the basis of educational freedom? He will let thousands of families stay who came here illegally but this one family must go. A family who went through the right channels, and tried to do it the right way. Why are they fighting this so hard? Because they know homeschooling is a threat to the government control that our public school students are so willing to give in to. Its not only a battle for education, its a battle for the hearts and minds of the future generation. Unfortunately that generation is here. It is what got Obama elected twice in the first place and we may be stuck with it, unless we catch on and push the blame to the right places. Most of our societies ills can be traced back to here in one form or another: Public School.
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