Fast Food Workers Now Earn More Than PhDs

New law in California mandating $20 minimum wage for Beavis and Butthead:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-gov-gavin-newsom-signs-law-raise-minimum-103570804

Meanwhile online adjunct professors are being offered $19 and hour by ASU:

 

Hmmm. Odd what our society values more. Burgers over learning. Not a good sign.

 

California über alles

 

I can't wait to be issued my paper hat.

 

Man, I remember when $20/hr. was insanely good money.

 

There's always someone willing to be paid less than their worth. Until they realize their value, things won't change.

 

Education costs what it does, yet professors are offered sub-burger-flipping wages? Who's siphoning all the money off the top?

 

This is inaccurate. The UAGC rate only refers to the base. Instructors with master's teaching undergraduate courses would start there. Not saying the pay is significantly higher for people with doctorates, but it's over $20. I made $23.73/hour teaching doctoral students. They pay their full-time faculty well (75k is standard, 85k for IT). https://uagc.careers/jobs/

Also, ASU and UA (including UAGC) are not the same. I make $4,000/course at ASU.

 

LOL MA in Finance getting a buck less than Beavis and you are defending the administrators who are pulling huge salaries? \

 

Where was I defending them? I was merely pointing out your inaccuracies. A person with a Ph.D. at UAGC is not earning $19. Nice try with your sensationalized story. As far as I'm concerned, everyone knows adjuncts don't make a lot of money. Also, you're comparing an online adjunct gig with a gig that requires you to live in the most expensive state. Twenty dollars in California is probably worth like $2

 

A person with a PhD will earn $19 if they apply for the job offered. A lot of adjuncts do live in California. The point is that ASU thinks $19 an hour is fair wage for someone with a graduate degree in finance. The fast food worker on the other hand is guaranteed by state law $20. ASU is devaluing the product it is selling; if a degree in finance is so valuable, why is the person instructing it getting less than a Macdonald's worker?

 

ASU is not in California.

Pretty sure there are a number of states, including AZ, where $19 is more than the legal minimum wage. Cali is the odd one out here. I'm not saying it's bad, but directly comparing a McDonald's worker with a professor in AZ is silly. Even in Phoenix, the capital, I'm fairly certain that the cost of living is nowhere near California levels. So you don't need a gigantic minimum wage.

Does that make $19/hr a good wage these days? I didn't say that. But that doesn't automatically make it a terrible wage. Merely bad.

 

Value is subjective; many (most?) people would choose the mental challenge, stimulation, prestige, etc. that comes with certain jobs over flipping burgers for nearly the same money not even including the discussion of pay ceilings within each job/industry. I see it quite a bit with something like welding. “Why would someone become a welder if they start out making the same $15 as a fast food worker?” The answer is that we are comparing the near top pay of one job (fast food) with the near bottom of the other (welding). Plus, many people enjoy the challenge of progressing as a welder, the autonomy on projects, and design elements of the job. Quality of work life matters.

We had a chain burger place close here recently because they couldn’t get staff to work reliably; they chose to give up lots of daily cash flow instead of giving workers a slightly larger share of the daily profits. The equation is ever changing but employees expecting to be compensated based on their overall value seems to be a thing. Unions seem to be pretty good at getting those kinds of deals.

 

Again, it's not ASU. UAGC is the University of Arizona Global Campus (part of the University of Arizona). ASU is Arizona State University.

 

You're right. I looked right at the UofA in the first post and then put in ASU. Oops. UofA is located in Tucson. Tucson is cheaper than Phoenix, but not by much. They have almost the same cost of living. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+States&city1=Phoenix%2C+AZ&city2=Tucson%2C+AZ

Still generally cheaper than Cali. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+States&city1=Los+Angeles%2C+CA&city2=Tucson%2C+AZ&tracking=getDispatchComparison

 

So, UAGC has now become ASU?! Now, I understand why they say "one fool makes many."

 

Numbers don't tell the whole story. A lot of it is lifestyle. Locals will tell you Tucson is much cheaper, especially after the huge boom in housing prices Phoenix just experienced. I lived in Tucson from 2018-2021 and in Phoenix since then.

 

Likely shortlived as technology takes over. May even accelerate the process of AI takeover.

 

Oh no.