Say Anything Blog

$12/hr to tail adulterers and insurance cheats?  Not too shabby… what do you pay for mileage?

Well, we don’t pay the investigators anything for mileage.  They drive our vehicles.  We charge our clients $0.45/mile, though a couple of our government contracts dictate that we have to charge lesser amounts.

But this just goes to show how hard it is to hire people right now.  The job isn’t that tough, and we’ll give them all the training and equipment they need.  We just can’t find anyone qualified.  Its a tough market right now.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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Rob, the 10 percent of the population working two jobs is accurate.  “Underemployment” is the term used to describe the phenomenon.

You’re also wrong about the $9/hour thing.  I don’t know where that came from, but the average wage for a fast food worker in North Dakota is $7.33/hour.

North Dakota’s economy is booming, but what we need is more workers not hand-wringing about the “quality of jobs.” Driving away businesses for providing jobs that aren’t good enough is no way to build a sound economy. We should be focusing on how to bring more people into our communities to fill these positions.

Yeah, I really want to work in fast food after graduating college.  [/sarcasm] Not just any job will do.  We need good jobs that provide benefits and a decent wage.  People should be able to afford a house after a couple of years.  People should be able to afford health insurance for themselves and their kids.  People should be able to work 40 hours a week and not have to choose between medicine and food.

That’s the kind of North Dakota I want to see - not an “any job will do” because not every job is equal.  And paying subsidies to Wal-Mart so that the company can encourage employees to go on public assistance isn’t going to be a good thing for this state.

Rob, the 10 percent of the population working two jobs is accurate. “Underemployment” is the term used to describe the phenomenon.

No, “underemployment” describes a situation where a family has to work two jobs to get by.  My contention is that families are working two jobs because they want more and the market is ripe for that sort of thing.

You’re also wrong about the $9/hour thing. I don’t know where that came from, but the average wage for a fast food worker in North Dakota is $7.33/hour.

I guess it comes from all those advertisements for $9.00 fast-food jobs I see up here in Minot.  But, really, even $7.33 is a large wage for that sort of job.

Yeah, I really want to work in fast food after graduating college. [/sarcasm] Not just any job will do. We need good jobs that provide benefits and a decent wage.

Somebody has to do the little jobs too, Ryan.  But you’re missing the point: Little jobs beget bigger jobs, and everybody has to start somewhere.  I’m always amazed at all these college students getting out of school and thinking they’re going to move right into management.  Even with a degree you still have to start at the bottom.  Sometimes that means flipping burgers.  Its life, get used to it.  You certainly can’t go around thinking you’re going to use laws or regulations to create what you define as “good jobs.” All the government can do is create an environment that is conducive to people moving here and working in the jobs we have available.  And we have a lot of them available.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

$7.33 is $1,172.80 a month before taxes.  Try starting a family, paying for college, and raising some kids on that - it won’t work.  People work two jobs because they’re forced to, not because they enjoy it.  I know I didn’t.

And a college degree might mean you start in the mailroom, but it shouldn’t mean you start flipping burgers.  Are you nuts?  Sure, I delivered pizza for two months after I graduated, but it wasn’t a career and I was still doing two jobs until I got my current position.

Fast food jobs are fine (long as they pay well and the employers aren’t screwing their employees), but they aren’t careers, they aren’t career starters, and I have to really disagree with you that fast food jobs are the best we can expect and that’s what ND’s economy should be based on.

Ryan, you’re really having to stretch to make your points.

First off, I know of a couple families that live off of $7.00/hour jobs.  It ain’t easy, but it can be done.  I supported a wife and a child at $8.00/hour for over a year.

And nobody is saying that fast food jobs are good careers.  They’re aren’t, in most cases, but you disprove your own point.  You said that you delivered pizzas for a while until you found better employment.  What would you have done were that job not available?  Small jobs beget larger jobs.  Everything serves its purpose in the free market.  For every fast food job there are the customers who eat the food (most of whom, presumably, work outside the fast-food industry), the truck drivers who bring the food to the reataurants, the snow removal people who keep the parking lots clear.  It all works.  Jobs are jobs.  What we need right now are workers to fill them, not complaints about the jobs not being good enough.  You start filling those jobs and the economy is going to grow.

Also, I know more than a few people who work two jobs, not because they have to, but because they want to make payments on a new boat.  Or they want to upgrade to a new house.  Or they want a new entertainment system.  Some people do it because they have to, sure, but don’t toss around that 10% number like its all people being forced to work two jobs, because its not.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Ryan G. said, $7.33 is $1,172.80 a month before taxes. Try starting a family, paying for college, and raising some kids on that - it won’t work.

It actually does work but that is beside my point - why does it have to work? Who says that flipping burgers is supposed to be a job that can support a family?

...and I have to really disagree with you that fast food jobs are the best we can expect and that’s what ND’s economy should be based on.

I don’t see where anyone said that to begin with.

Paulie B: your comment only makes sense to someone who doesn’t believe that he is entitled to things in life (here’s looking right at you Ryan G).

When I was in my fifth year of college, I lost my scholarship.  My parents paid my tuition, but I had to pay all of my other expenses.  I worked 32 to 40 hours a week while being a full time student.  My hourly wage maxed out at $8.25 an hour (My coworkers who started the job with me maxed at $7.10 an hour).  I paid my car payment, my insurance, my portion of the rent, utilities, all of my food, clothing, and everything else.  Could I live a lavish life filled with plasma screen TV’s, computers and internet, dining out (even fast food)?  No!  Do I live like that now?  No!  But I didn’t starve, I had clothes, and I had shelter.  (And I was really happy then.)

Why did I make $1.15 more than the two other guys working the same job (It was as a security officer at my university, by the way)?  I made more because I worked hard.  My boss recovnized my hard work with a higher hourly wage.

Why am I not living in a manner where I have to so closely watch what I spend my money on?  I can be less thrifty now because I worked hard and earned a better job.  Rob said:

Small jobs beget larger jobs.

That is so true.  But only if you do good work.  You can’t start as the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, and you can’t expect to make more money/get promoted if you don’t work hard.

32-40 hours a week and a full time student.  If I weren’t a student, I could have taken another job.  I wouldn’t have had to, but I could have.

It is not a person’s God given right to own a mansion with a garage containing a Mercedes and an inground pool with one’s own gardener taking care of the grounds.  People need to budget the money that they do have, because a funny thing about money is that it never seems like you have enough.

No one wants a low paying job, but is everyone, college students included, equally skilled?  (No I don’t have a link, but from what I have heard on television and radio...) More people than ever are graduating from college with two and four year degrees.  The increase in people with degrees means that they aren’t as special as they once were.  If you saturate a market with more college degrees, employers can pick and choose who they hire.  Not only that, but not all degrees are marketable.  If someone gets a degree in say… History (whay I got my BA in).  Are there a lot of jobs available for someone with that degree?  HECK NO!  Does that History major have an edge over someone with a Chemistry degree?  HECK NO!  Does that History major have an edge over a person who just graduated high school?  Maybe, but did that highschooler take advantage of some trade school training that his school may have offered?  If so, that automechanic position or line-chef position may go to the non-college-degree-holding high school grad over the History major.

Whatever you do, take pride in your job and work hard at it.  If you do that, you’re bound to make more money.  (Note, I didn’t not say that you would be filthy rich.)

You’ve got that right Likwid.  Maybe it was because I was born poor and saw my father, who didn’t graduate from high school, work hard to get a good job, and then get promoted within that job. 
My father made just over minimum wage when I was born, but he supported my stay at home mother, her two sons, and me.  Because of his work ethic at that low wage job, he succeeded in getting a new job that paid more. That man put in a lot of overtime (no forty hour work weeks for him) to give our family (not himself) the nicest things possible.

A big problem is that this country has focused on quantity of college graduates, not quality.  You would be amazed at the number of people I know who graduate from the local university with either a Business degree or a Criminal Justice degree.  Then they get out and have no idea what to do with it.  No idea what to do for a career.  So they end up just starting at the bottom somewhere and working their way up, usually in a field totally outside the scope of their degree.  Then, in about five years, they realize that they could have saved all that college money and just gone to work.  And maybe sprung for a few courses they’d need along the way.

This country would be so much better off if we didn’t just shove all the high school students into college where they wander aimlessly.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

[...] Trackback URL for this entry:http://haloscan.com/tb/rmgustaf/113389984431113734North Dakota Unemployment At 2.5%Excerpt: KFYR - North Dakotans are known for their work ethic, and many of us are pounding the pavement everyday. North Dakota leads the nation in employment, according to the latest statistics. Job Service North Dakota places the state`s unemployment rate ...Weblog: Say AnythingTracked: 12.06.05 - 3:51 pm [...]

[...] I think a lot of this has to do with the state’s need for workers. North Dakota’s economy is thriving, and the demand for workers is sky high. The state’s unemployment rate is at 2.5%. Employers are screaming for workers, and it would seem as though more North Dakotans are staying at home to fill those open jobs. [...]