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from the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-degree dept.
New Executive Order Fights Credential Inflation In The Federal Workforce:
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to fill job vacancies based on merit, rather than require a minimum level of education for candidates seeking open positions. The order rightly recognizes that a job candidate with several years of relevant experience may be just as qualified, if not more so, than one who has collected a stack of advanced degrees.
"Employers adopting skills- and competency-based hiring recognize that an overreliance on college degrees excludes capable candidates and undermines labor-market efficiencies," the order reads. "Currently, for most Federal jobs, traditional education — high school, college, or graduate-level — rather than experiential learning is either an absolute requirement or the only path to consideration for candidates without many years of experience."
The order still allows federal agencies to prescribe minimum educational requirements for job candidates if the degree is legally required by the state or local government where the federal employee will be working. Additionally, they may consider a candidate's education if the degree "directly reflects the competencies necessary" to do the job.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @11:47AM (1 child)
Oh, we traded the large and prosperous middle class, for 5% millionaires, what a great deal! Sounds like something Trump would do!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @04:07PM
You know there was a time I used to believe something not entirely different. This [urban.org] paper from the Urban Institute is one of the things that played a major role in starting to shift my worldview. Since think tanks do tend to spin things a bit, I'd quote this [wikipedia.org] snippet on their political stance. It can be summed up with the observation that they (the Urban Institute) fall somewhere between the NAACP and PETA. Their paper gives changes in society's various socioeconomic groups over time. In the below table I'm going to give the percent of society each group made up in 1979 followed by the percent in 2014:
Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
In 1979 51.8% of society was *at least* middle class. Today 63.2% is *at least* middle class.
In 1979 48.2% of society was lower class or poor. Today it's 36.9%.
We are *very* clearly on the right track ( economically ) in America, and things continue to get dramatically better. Keep in mind that those gains were realized in less than 40 years, and in recent years these trends have been accelerating. I started looking into these numbers when I found that much data seemed to not match certain 'woe is us' narratives espoused by the media. Those data being things like software salaries. Now a days in software 6 figure salaries aren't all that rare. There was a time when a 6 figure salary was something you hoped to hit after 20 years of promotions and even probably only possible if you made your way into upper management. And it wasn't just inflation. Salaries are growing much faster than inflation. And there are lots of these jobs.
Hahaha, holy shit. Ok, I just went to the BLS page on software developers [bls.gov] in preparation for my next point, and noticed something. The **MEDIAN** pay for a software developer is 6 figures. The point I was going to make there is about the scale of these jobs as well. That's 1.3 million jobs and there are millions of related jobs as well since the BLS breaks software into all sorts of different categories. And most categories in it are among the fastest growing of all jobs out there.
And it's not just software. Software is just such an easy example because it's a relatively new industry and it's just huge and growing by the day. Plumbers, welders, electricians, carpenters, etc are all now mostly pushing upwards of $50k a year. Other skilled fields like engineers are often pushing 6 figures, and so much more. I mean everybody is just doing pretty damned well now a days. The only requirement is that people get off their ass and actually do something. I mean even for people with no useful skills or education, you can *get paid* while learning trades in an apprenticeship. And you'll get a job that will be in demand everywhere in the world for the foreseeable future.