Minimum Wage Careers

As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of

A college degree is a valuable asset that could ultimately lead to a productive life in society due to the received education, but people without a college degree do turn out more than adequate in regards to societal success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the forecasted 30 fastest growing jobs between 2010 and 2020, five do not require a high school diploma, nine require a high school diploma, four require an associate 's degree, six require a bachelor 's degree, and six require graduate degrees to get the jobs (College). In an article called “College Education” by ProCon.org,

“What’s the key to success in the United States?”(Steinberg,2010), author Jacques Steinberg starts off his article “Plan B: Skip College” with a powerful question that has been asked by many Americans. Majority of Americans first thoughts would be higher education. The ideology that obtaining a degree is the best and sometimes only way to be successful in the American economy. This has been instilled in numerous children growing up. Steinberg states “perhaps no more than half of who began a four-year bachelor's degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years according to the department of education”(Steinberg,2010). Students who tend to not excel in high school often take longer, or at times finish a higher education at all. These

Recently there has been a lot of debate about the importance of college education. Students are asking if it’s worth the debt to attend a four year university or community college. Some are thinking what are the benefits of a degree is in the workforce. With college tuition increasing and state fundings lowering, low income students are struggling to attain a higher education. College institutions should have a role to provide students higher education and equal opportunity to students to increase social mobility yet intergenerational reproduction of privilege has produced inequality in education.

The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that “America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden … That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it 's shattering people 's dreams” (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, “The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

When it comes to achieving success in the work force and finding a fulfilling and lucrative career there are few things more important that higher education. Going to college and getting a degree is essential in finding success in the work force. The problem is when the cost of gaining that degree outweighs the financial compensation the career that follows is able to supply. Very few people are able to pay for college out of pocket. The result of this is that students seeking higher education are forced to take out massive student loans. This means that they are entering the work force

However, when a student wants to attend college after high school, the chances of going to any school of his or her choice can seem unfair and have unequal opportunity to other peers. Unfortunately the idea of being limited to attending certain schools has a big influence in chances of becoming successful. Even though higher educations seems to have a direct path for high wages, the access to college can have reverse effects on intergenerational mobility. By limiting access from someone in a bottom percentile to have the possibility to attend a good college harms their upward mobility. In efforts to help breakdown an understanding of how education affects intergenerational mobility, a study called Mobility reports cards show significant findings. Mobility reports cards were conducted by collecting administrative data from more then thirty million college students in the years of 1999-2013. “We obtain rosters of attendance at all Title-IV accredited institutions of higher education in the U.S using de-identified data from federal income tax returns combined with data from the National Student Loan Data System. We obtain information on students’ earnings in early adulthood and their parents’ incomes from tax records.”

With the growing importance of higher education, more people than ever are attending college. According to a middle-class parent, “[Higher education] seen as a means of developing a career and getting secure employment.” (30, Higher Education, social class and social mobility) Moreover, “parents believe that their children need a university education to get on in life… over the past decades (parents) fearful that without a degree their children will be in danger of downward social mobility. (32, Higher

In the 1980-90’s, a college graduates earnings were drastically higher than those with just a high school degree (Bernstein 1). While having a college degree of some sort makes getting a job in the real world easier, the quality of the job is what is coming into question. The amount of jobs available for both high school and college graduates will always be enough, but if the quality of the jobs decreases then the poverty class will increase (Bernstein 3). This struggle to find quality jobs with just a high school or even a college diploma could result in a spike in homelessness and even more money needed from the government. The unemployment rate in the U.S. will never be zero percent, and that means there will never be someone that is not homeless.

The problem for this still exists, and as young adults are growing up, many drop out of college or do not attend college at all because they enter the workforce at an early age. With this, the American Dream for

I would wake up at 4 a.m.-six days out the week: being on time for a minimum wage field job; 10 hours a day. As I got off my dad’s truck and my feet touched the ground; I closed the door and told him goodbye at the same time I felt scared, independent, and proud. A woman who had a red bandana around her mouth and nose instructed me to put my lunch inside of one of the yellow school buses. They instructed us to make a circle as the sun began to rise. My eyes wandered to the 50 workers, teens and women, but mostly grown men: all Latinos, some dark skin and others light skin like my-self. Their tired red eyes rose as the sun does in the morning. Ten minutes later we entered the bus. Still a bit tired I began to close my eyes as my body moved with

Education is today more critical than ever. College has become virtually a precondition for upward mobility. Men with only a high school diploma earn about a fifth less than they did 35 years ago. The gap between the earnings of students with a college degree and those without one is bigger than ever.

This can be seen in the significant rise in the number of people attending college. Fall-term enrollment rose from 7.4 million in 1970 to 12.7 million in 1999 and has been steadily increasing since (Wonacott 3). Today, many students, that might have otherwise never enrolled, are pressured into attending college by parents and other role models. Even the American government is pursuing the idea of everyone having a degree. “...federal policy, backed by billions of taxpayer dollars in loans and grants, has aggressively encouraged more and more students to try to obtain a college education.”(Murray 2). Secondary schools are pushing harder for their graduates to move on to higher education as well. According to Charles Murray, “ A survey of high school students found that more than 90% of them were encouraged by their high-school counselors to go to college” (Murray 1). This shows that more people are subscribing to the idea that everyone should go to college, and for good reason. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19 of the 20 highest paying jobs require a bachelor’s degree or higher (Occupational). If someone wants to have a high-paying, professional career they must attend

     It seems in the society we live in today, having a college degree is a necessity. Years ago it was the norm for people to just go right into a full time job after high school, if they even finished high school; they did this to support their families. In today’s society a person has a difficult time getting a decent job without a college degree. During an adults working life, bachelor degree graduates will earn about $2.1 million and a high school graduate can expect to earn an average of $1.2 million (Day and Newburger, 2002). This is quite a difference and it puts a college education in

Throughout the history of civilization, education has been an important tool in shaping an individual as well as the society that the individual is a part of. In the older civilizations, only the elite upper class had access to education. This kept these people at the top of the social ladder, and suppressed the common people who did not have access to the same education as the nobles. We have come a long way since then, with every child having access to a free high school degree. However, there is still some inequality in this modern education system that has similarities to the old injustices. In this day and age, a college degree is a great start for a young adult starting to enter the work force. According to a study conducted by Pew