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Two Jobs and Retire Early?
70_hours_week wonders: "A Survey of teachers in a Nevada school district indicate that 40% have a second job. Do you have a second job? Assume you are 30 and since you like to save your money you could semi-retire by age 50. Now, what if you could nearly double your salary working a second job and that meant you could semi-retire at age 40. Would you do it?"
Less money, but more family time is a value choice that my wife and I decided on before we got engaged.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Retiring early is a terribly strong incentive, but then again so is a mortgage note.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Retirement is that milestone in your life where you (probably) have enough money earned and saved that you can live off said savings for the remainder of your life. Considering that (1) life expectancy is increasing and there's the possibility of life extension treatments on the horizon, and (2) the national budget is in the toilet (at least in the USA) with grim prospects for the long-range viability of Social Security... I think it's ludicrous to think about early retirement at all. Unless you're a serious workaholic, the old adage "slow and steady wins the race" still applies!
Also, I'm not impressed by that survey... I'd bet that the vast majority of those jobs are small fast-food-joint type affairs where they spend 10 or 20 hours a week at most, as a way to get some extra spending money. We've got several people who do that where I work. Working two full-time jobs would be ridiculous.
Besides, if anyone actually had two full-time jobs, they wouldn't likely have time to read Slashdot now, would they?
I suspect any two jobs so cleanly compartmentalized that you can do both adequately are likely to skew toward mundane work, unlikely to pay enough (individually or together) to support retirement by age 40 with any kind of lifestyle you'd want yourself or your family to have. I would guess most people working two (or more) jobs aren't ambitious so much as limited by their options and life circumstances, and doing that work to support families, service debt, etc.
The article says nothing about retiring - it is about teachers who work several jobs just to make enough to live off of. These people cannot afford to retire at all. That's why I tagged the summary flamebate.
Simon's Rock College
Even assuming you can get two jobs paying the same, consider:
1) Most good jobs require SOME non-standard time. It happens to me about three times a year where I pull an all nighter. I get comped for it, but if I had a second job, I'd be unable to meet the first's requirements.
2) Two jobs paying equivilant will not double your take home income. Taxes go up as you earn more, on federal and state, and often local level.
3) Part of being able to retirn in 20 years depends on the growth of money, and the miracle of compound interest. Two jobs might bring it down 20-40 percent, depending on growth rates, and original time frame, but will NOT cut it in half. Also remember that you will need some kind of medical coverage. Your $ required to retire will actually go up the early you retire.
4) If you work eighty plus hours per week for ten years, you will be losing the prime part of your life. I would not give up a decade of my life, and miss raising my kids for a million a year. Not worth it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Heart attack ? Stroke ? Appoplexy from your higher tax bracket ?
Work yourself to death so when you are broken down you can enjoy life. Sounds like a plan. You could just try one of those late night infomercials, don't know if it would work better but at least it might be more fun.
A 2nd Job is Easy ... you just have to sell stuff for other people on eBay. I'm not kidding, it's the easiest thing in the world to do ... you can make good money doing ... and you can do it from the comfort of your own home using your linux box to do it.
Bad summary. The article doesn't discuss people working multiple jobs to retire early, it's discussing a school district that pays its starting teachers so low that the teachers can't make ends meet. Unsurprisingly, the district has more than one thousand openings unfilled.
Worst "summary" ever.
Ann Marie Perone's SUV is like her second home.
So let me get this straight, you drive an expensive gas guzzler then give me some boo-hoo story about how you have to work 2 jobs? Maybe if you would drive something PRACTICAL then you could save money and not have to work another job.....
Living in Germany and Japan opened my eyes, Americans just consume too god damn much. I have become a minimalist and love every minute of it. My only guilty pleasure is travel, but I spend less on travel each year than most people spend on gas for their SUVs.
Monstar L
That said, why isn't it possible for her to just work one job with a single child? She makes between $33k and $44k per year from teaching. It may not be a life of luxury, but it should be possible without having to work two jobs.
Ann Marie Perone's SUV ...
Maybe a greater awareness of the amount of resources she is consuming and a reevaluation of what is necessary in her life is required.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As one who is approaching retirement and could probably retire today, I will say that AFAICT the joys of retirement are over-rated.
If you work in a job doing what you love, you can mostly forget even thinking about retirement, and leave it as a contingency for when your powers start failing. Granted, one must work in joyless jobs sometimes before getting into a career that matches the promptings of your heart. In that case, work as many jobs as needed to get past that point. Just remember that your goal is not to not have to work, but to reach a plateau where your work suits you.
IMHO life is not about getting to a finish line earliest, but rather about the fruit your presence here produces. It has been noted elsewhere that a tree that produces no fruit is only suitable for the fire.
In particular, not all jobs are equal in time/effort/stress/pay. Job A could be the equivalent of 2 Job Bs.
You only working tree jobs? My great grandmother is working eight jobs. And I'm working seventeen jobs. Oh look here comes my lovely daughter who's working 5 jobs. "Hey dad, here's a brain surgeon I'm dating." "What else does he do?" "Nothing, he works a highly paid position where he helps people." "Ah he's working only one job, you lazy bastard, get away from my daughter."
God spoke to me.
In the US the tax system is 'progressive'. Thus your marginal tax rate will go up much faster than your income increases from your second job. Also savings for early retirement would have to take into account a longer period of retirement, inflation, and the incrasing cost of (individual) health insurance as you grow older (increasing faster than inflation). Bottom line - with two jobs you could retire early - but not as early as you might think. Personally, I'd rather take a more balanced approach than become a victim of karoshi.
[Insert pithy quote here]
IMO working two jobs simply dissipates one's ability to concentrate on one's work. The main reason so many people are working multiple jobs is because of the burdens imposed on employers when they try to work people full-time or on overtime. While I can understand sympathy for workers who are forced to work MORE hours than they'd prefer, the current regulations also hold back those who would prefer to keep at it for more than 36 hours a week.
Personally, I see the US undergoing some serious inflation over the next 40 years. If I had to work a second job to just barely be able to 'retire' early there's simply too much risk involved to make the potential pay-off worth pursuing. If inflation does take off, savings will be decimated.
If you want to retire early, get into something that pays really really well. Then hedge your risk by moving a chunk of your wealth out of dollar denominated assets. If you're smart enough to be an engineer (or even an IT generalist) then you're smart enough to be a successful stock broker or banker (think leveraged buy outs).
My point is that the risks we all face are great enough that I wouldn't be willing to sell the prime of my life to a second employer unless I was damn sure that my retirement was going to be comfortable and satisfying (Viagra gets expensive over 20-30 years, yo).
You have to realize that most people who are able to retire in their 60s have either a pension or good investments. Those that are able to retire sooner have been really smart about their money, paid off their mortage early and made a conscious effort to live on cash alone. The problem with most people is that they look at financing vehicles and credit cards as a way of life, just like the electric and phone bill. The people who do retire comfortably are the ones that save and invest what would have otherwise been spent on interest and more expensive, unneeded material things. The more time you have money earning interest, the better it is, but investing takes time. Bringing in more money alone won't get you to retirement. Time, steady income and smart spending/saving is what gets you to retirement.
As has already been pointed out, many of your assumptions are invalid. You can scale your idea back a little bit and find some more modest success. Typical retirement advice is to set aside 10% of your income throughout your entire career, but anyone with a clue knows that compound interest makes your early savings exponentially more valuable than the savings from the end of your career. If you were willing to bust your hump for 5 years and set aside 5 times as much as you normally would, you might be able to coast through the remainder of your career knowing that your retirement is already handled. It's unorthodox, but it might work. Do your homework.
I wouldn't exactly call it easy work. They also don't get paid very well and I doubt their retirement package is something that one can live on alone. If their retirement is anything like the military's, they probably get about 50% of their pay. If they are making $30/yr at time of retirement, that means $15k before taxes a year. If you have your mortage paid off, no debt and no children to take care of, you may be able to live on that. Take into account the progressed age and the medical expenses that tend to go along, you are looking pretty thin.
With my life, i'm at my peak right now. I make a decent amount of money, good looking guy (let me believe it), lots of friends, energy to burn, my brain still works, my body still works. As I get older, I'm guessing that everyone of those things (except for the money) will decrease the older I get. These are -my- _years_ right now. I certainly would never entertain the idea of working two jobs at this point in my life just so that I could retire early.
I'd be essentially passing up my young excellent sexy life so that I can go full steam into a mid-life crisis as soon as I retire... at 40.
I'd imagine there are a lot more 50 years olds that wish they were 20, then 20 year olds who wish they were 50.
Would I sacrifice ten whole years of my life in order to 'save' ten others a decade from now? In this situation, no. What kind of a family life would you have working two jobs? What's the point of retiring early if there's no one to retire with?
Right now I'm only at University, and as a result have a reasonably flexible schedule, but I still have a very difficult time balancing my time between my partner, a part-time job, my desire to learn on my own, my need for quiet time and studies. I don't see my partner enough as it is, nor do I get to tinker as much as I would like. I can't imagine how much my quality of life would drop were I to work two jobs.
Shit, I can't imagine how much I'd shorten my own life. My grandpa did pretty much this in the 50's (World War II fucked him pretty badly in the head, so he ignored his emotional trauma by burying himself in work) and was dead at 45 from heart attack. He had a rotten relationship with the majority of his children, Grandma went a little bonkers and my own father had a difficult time connecting with me until I was old enough to actively join in his hobbies, having never learned how fathers play with small children.
Sometimes a thing looks pretty great until you think about it a little. Ten years extra of semi-retirement sounds pretty sweet until you realize that you're going to have to work twenty years in only a decade. Frankly, that just sounds dumb.
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
You poor, sad, horribly-mistaken individual. I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic. I know many, MANY teachers, and not a single one of them does it for the money or because it's an "easy" job. They do it because they love to teach, but they aren't getting rich doing it.
The teacher's day doesn't begin at 8:00am and end at 3:00pm. There are long hours every day of grading in-class assignments, checking homework, and preparing for the next day. Teachers also most certainly do NOT get the summer off. A lot of time is spent during the summer preparing new lesson plans for the comming school-year, and a lot of districts are adopting a "year-round" schedule, which means an even greater percentage of down-time is spent getting things together for the upcoming term. In addition to their own classroom tasks, there are also faculty meetings, PTA meetings, and various conferences with parents that come up.
On top of all of that, you have the students. No classroom anywhere is 100% full of well-behaved, polite children. In any group you work with, you will have the ones who cop an attitude, throw a tantrum, or just flat out refuse to do what they're told. Then you have the ones with actual behavioral or developmental problems that inevitably get put in the class because their parents refuse to send them to a school better suited to their needs. Oh yeah, that's another thing. You may be able to handle the kids, but the REAL headache comes from dealing with the PARENTS. These are the ones who cannot possibly conceive of little Johnny EVERY doing anything wrong, and it must be YOUR fault that he is acting that way. And it just gets worse because schools aren't allowed to use any sort of discipline other than some form of "time-out", be it detention, a trip to the office, or whatever.
It gets even worse at the high school level. I went to a small, private school and even there, we had students who simply refused to put any effort into a given class, and who seemed to have nothing better to do than make everyone else's life as difficult as possible. The problem students get worse as they get older, because they lose their fear of authority. A student who is physically bigger and/or stronger than the teacher has no incentive to follow instruction if they don't want to. Even if they aren't there is no way to FORCE a student to do their work without getting the afformentioned parents threatening to sue your underpaid ass. And chances are, if they don't want to work, the threat of failing will mean precisely nothing to them.
That's not to say that ALL students are bad. The majority are easy enough to handle, but it's always the problem ones that give you the most grief at any grade level. And then there are also students who try hard enough, but always need a little bit of extra assistance in order to keep them from falling behind. Dealing with students who fall outside of the "norm" is very taxing for a teacher. The bottom line is teaching is NOT an easy profession, and even the most well meaning class will eat you alive if you don't know how to handle them.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
Retirement generally requires 35 years for most teacher's pension plans. I know my father in Chicago is like that, althopugh they do occasionally offer early retirement plans to do it at 30 (in order to get rid of higher paid experienced teachers for cheaper right out of college ones). And while they work different hours than normal people, they don't work fewer- their days start hours before the students get there and end after they leave.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about this (although admittedly most of it was spent in the company of other drunken academics.)
It seems to me that for a well educated, technically skilled, first world people, there are basically three optimal strategies one can choose in finding work:
1 - Find a job that you love, so that working itself makes you happy, where happiness may include the feeling that you've accomplished something worthwhile, even if the day to day work isn't pleasant. (eg. the physicist or aid worker options)
2 - Find a job that requires minimum effort and time and allows you to spend most of your time doing things that make you happy. (the writer who's also a security guard option)
3 - Find a job that sucks but allows you to make a lot of money, then retire early and spend the rest of your life doing things that make you happy. (the investment banker turned surfer option.)
I'd argue that one is best served by pursuing any of these three strategies with intensity. Compromises are sure to sink you: taking a job that you only mostly hate in order to make enough money to retire a few years earlier buys you nothing; finding a job that requires just enough effort to leave you feeling tired at the end of the day but doesn't either give you enough money to retire early or a feeling of satisfaction puts you in the same miserable boat as most other American white collar workers.
To that end, if you choose to run with option #3, you're better off stacking on as many jobs as you can handle without physical breakdown. The off hours you sacrifice will be low quality anyway.
The downside, of course, is that option #3 involves banking your healthiest, most active years on the promise of free time in the future. If your idea of a good time involves seeing a lot of theater and learning how to paint, and if you aren't obviously a candidate for early health problems, and if you believe the economy will continue to value the medium in which you've banked your savings, then it may well be a safe bet. On the other hand, if your idea of a good time involved climbing mountains, going to protests, and fucking, you might be better off choosing an alternative strategy.
My own policy has been to go after #1. So far, I've no complaints. But, it sure helps that what I happen to enjoy also pays enough to live on.
I have a day job of IT manager. However, this day job allows me to work other jobs, which earn me half of my day time jobs salary. All this money I save (+401k). It is just a matter of finding the right job...my family does not suffer, I use my 'extra job' as a way to fullfill my extraneous interests, and have found out I can be profitable at the same time!
The fact so many teachers have second job might have something to do with the fact they only work roughly 10 months out of the year. Picking up a job, particularily one over the summer months (or at least one that picks up during the summer months) can be a good way to keep busy.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Actually, yea, it is low. It would be what, all of 44K if it was a 12 month salary? That's still below median.
Keep trying to convince people that they should lower their standard of living to conform to your beliefs though. A few stupid souls might buy into your newsletter.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Agreed. Another troubling item is that when there is potential for multiple wages within a household one spouse often stays with the kids. On one hand that is commendable, but the reality is that when hit with college education versus retirement, things start to look a bit more grim. The reality is that in order to retire at all and still help your progeny with their education it will be a challenge for most of us. Imagine what it will take for those that only have one income and many mouths to feed. It's not like the old days where dad worked for 40 years at the same job, earned a good pension and retired in a paid-in full home. So the "working two jobs" or having two incomes may be the only feasible option in order to have a retirement.
--Cally
You obviously don't live in Nevada or know what you are talking about. Please take the comments you posted in your profile to heart and not talk about things you don't know about. Then maybe people won't constantly moderate you as being a Troll even though you are.
The housing costs in both Clark county and Washoe county are quite high compared to the median household and family incomes. Both of which are quite a bit higher than the $33k quoted in the article, washoe county teachers start out at just under $29k this year and will be recieving a raise to about $31k next year. Teachers typically have their pay spread out over 12 months as many teachers at traditional schools tend to continue thier education during summer months (if possible) or work retail or similar jobs. Teachers at year round schools have less options as they have breaks of roughly 3.5 weeks spread throughout the year. No one wants to hire you if you are only going to be working for a few weeks.
Now, let's also consider the fact they are required to continue thier education to get thier licenses renewed and to be classified as "Highly Qualified" to meet requirements of no child left behind and other legislation. This also comes out of their own pay as the state and federal government don't pay for it. A great many teachers work significantly more than 40 hours per week for their pay due to required after school programs, grading papers, creating lesson plans, attending school events (required or otherwise) etc. Then lets factor in the fact that no one wants to fund schools so many teachers also dip into their salaries to provide supplies for their classrooms they have even further reduced incomes.
Then you get the ignorant comments from people like you. It is no wonder that our education system stinks and is getting worse.
I have a job primarily to support myself, and secondarily to have something interesting and meaningful to fill my time. Even if I no longer needed to support myself, I'd stay in the workforce.
Hear, hear! Yes, there are bad teachers, but good teachers work their asses off.
I'm already planning on 'retiring' early. Got it all worked out, financially.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
It's not hard, it is just a decision you make. I work as a mechanical engineer for a large company. I am 45. I own my house and drive a 20 year old car.
I eat in (good) restaurants twice a week, and holiday overseas for a month every two years.
I don't intend on retiring since I enjoy my job, but I could retire tomorrow just on the income from my shares. It took 10 years to do this, once I decided on a financial plan, and that decade includes losing a lot of money in the tech-wreck.
..always. All one has to do is pay attention to just the *headlines* in the financials, not the articles, just the headlines, to see that relying on one job/income is pretty risky. Face reality, the globalist "god is money" boss class does not care one whit about you, and never will, no matter what they say, and if they think they can make one extra dollar tomorrow by firing you and offshoring your job or telling your coworkers to just do more work-they will. At the legislative government level, look around! Do you *really* see anything other than transnational corporate politician toadies with their hands out for bags of cash? Like 2% aren't, the rest are, so figure from here on out that is the kind of laws and social reality you will be seeing. If you are in the US today (and to an extenet europe as well) read the handwriting on the wall, you are being sold out for short term profits, and eventually this will cause "problems". You are seeing the inklings now.
Anything weird happens then, and it most likely will,and you only have one job, poof, you got the exact same bills with NO income, whereas with two jobs, you at least got the "other" income to tide you over, along with savings, etc..And I don't mean your spouse working as the second job, I mean every individual. It doesn't need to be two full timers, but anything completely different for a secondary job, do NOT get it in the same industry as your primary job. I could go into this why I say this but you should be smart enough to figure that one out.
Take it from an older dude who's gotten bitten a few times now by those gross pig's "globalization" congame (I kid thee not, three times now!), always have at least two *widely different types of jobs*, and preferably at least one other source of income besides that, even if it's just an active eBay sales page or something, anything at all. And I don't care how much you make from your primary income, always have a second job, even just a small part timer, and get the home and car paid off! Those are typically the two biggest bills, there is NO reason to pay on those things every single month of your life forever and ever outside of laziness or greed. Calculate what a truthful "living within your means" level is, not "the very utmost possible you can afford right today", I mean a real hard nosed pay attention to money matters level, then subtract 20% from that figure, and live at *that* new level, that 20% is your cushion, and you WILL need it some time. Do NOT put yourself into perpetual debt for these globalist goons, even though that is exactly what they want you to do, by such things as pushing the real estate bubble and the earlier dot bomb stock shilling. Recognize when you are being offered magic beans for the cow. Easy credit is even easier complete disaster.
And given such weird things now as "terrorist" attacks (and government emergency orders and various fascist edict nonsense) and enrons and exxon scams and bird flu and who knows what could happen, it is prudent to always keep several months food supplies on hand and little caches of this or that day to day mundane supplies. I am not kidding. Ever been through a hurricane or ice storm and be down for a long time and run out of TP? Weird stuff like that. Do you have a generator? If you are reading this I assume you are a geek who REALLY needs electricity supply-so-deal with having a guaranteed supply. It will do you no harm whatsoever, none, and it is easy enough to do at any budget level.
Just take that concept and run with it, work out some threat scenarios and mitigation plans in ADVANCE of it happening, based on your locale and typical weird crap that might happen in your area, then add in a-typical weird crap, like bird flu outbreak, currency collapse, big expandedwar in middle east knocking oil by the barrel to over a hundred bucks, stuff like that. Two jobs plus an additional little income plus your tangible "cushion" of cash/food/household supplies, etc is a good idea..If you can see the reasons for backing up your data, don't neglect to backup the other important stuff in your life as well.
There's piece of paper insurance, then *real* insurance, it's nice to have both.
There are some serious flaws in your reasoning.
Let's take a differant county in Nevada then. Washoe County where I happen to live pays its new teachers $29k this year. Our median household income in 2000 was $40k and family income $45k. This has actually gone up quite a bit in the last five years due in part to the housing boom and an increase in companies moving here bringing an influx of high paying white collar jobs. However, the housing boom has also driven the pricing for all types of housing up. While you may be able to search and find many apartments in the area for under $700, 99.9% of them will be section 8 housing and a teacher making $29k will not qualify to live there. The majority of apartmetns in Reno run around $850-1250. Public transportation here is very poor so it is almost a necessity to have a car. We also have high insurance rates so your estimates are off there as well. There is no income tax which is a benefit, only sales and property taxes. A recent survey done by the University of Nevada Reno found that it was necessary for individuals to earn at least $35k to live comfortably in the area. I can't find the link to it any more, I was present at the University when the results were discussed so am going from memory.
Having kids doesn't imply a second income, maybe 20 or 40 years ago, but not in this day and age.
Due to budget cuts many/most teachers have to dip into thier salaries to pay for supplies for their classrooms. I'm fairly certain this is happening all over the county and not just in Nevada.
Teachers are required to continue thier educations. This means for most of them taking graduate credits at the university though for some certifications or endorsments they may be undergraduate credits. This also has to come from their salaries.
While you didn't say this, most people keep pointing it out. Teachers only work 9-10 months of the year
Teachers do typically only work for the school district for 9 to 10 months of the year. They also typically have their salaries paid out over 12 months (it's an option in most districts). They however often work much more than 40 hours per week. Here in Washoe teachers are required to be on the campus for 8 hours per day. The children of course aren't there for the whole time. That gives a prep period in the morning and afternoon typically. A significant amount of teachers still have to take work home with them due to other factors. After school programs, tutoring, detentions, duties, other activities required and not eat into prep time. This means that lesson plan creation, and paper grading gets done at home. My wife for example works on average 75 hours per week. Many teachers work second jobs during the summer to supplement their incomes. With an increase in the number of schools on year round schedules to help fight over crowding this is no longer an option. School is in session for two to three months, there is a three week break, and then they are back to school. Very few places will hire someone that is only available for three weeks.
Besides, who said teachers *should* make more than 1/2 of all wage earners?
I don't think anyone is trying to say that teachers should make more than half of all wage earners (even though that's not what a median is). However, why is that so many people think that teachers are over paid? We are talking about the education of our children and the future of the country. Teachers should be held to a very high standard due to the job that they have. They should be given the resources to do that job. Unfortunately in this country being educated isn't nearly as highly valued as being able to dunk a basketball or hit a home run. Teachers get a bad rap, and certainly a number of them deserve it, but as a whole in the US we have decided to ask them to accomplish their tasks with little to no resources. We allow administrators to waste funds, we have allowed teachers unions to gain power and so the lazy and incapable still have their jobs. We allow those who have no backgrounds in education to design the legislation and rules that teachers must work by. The system is broken and salaries are just a small part of that.
My wife makes less than that, has 5 more years of higher education than is required for a teaching job, and has to work in either the Boston area or Southern California (where the cost of living is signifigantly higher than in Nevada) to have a job in her field at all. I have a very hard time feeling sorry for somebody that makes a perfectly respectable (adjusted) $44k a year in an area of the country with a fairly low cost of living. The thing about the median income is that one less than half of everybody has to make less than or equal to it by definition.
I'll keep trying to get people to conform to my beliefs... They're called arithmetic and statistics, and my news letter is a high-school math book.
Considering that (1) life expectancy is increasing and there's the possibility of life extension treatments on the horizon, and (2) the national budget is in the toilet (at least in the USA) with grim prospects for the long-range viability of Social Security... I think it's ludicrous to think about early retirement at all.
Why would you even consider living off the government to be a form of retirement? That's not returement, that's called welfare. Retirement is when you save enough money to be able to take care of yourself with no intervention from anyone, and it's perfectly reasonable and possible to do so much earlier in life than people traditionally do. I think a lot of people fourty and under have no illusions that we will see a dime from that money pit called Social Security.
Add to that the fact that retirement for a lot of people means "do whatever work I like for as little as I like" and you don't even nessecarily have to save up enough to last forever, just to allow you enough finanacial freedom to do what you love. Of course it's even better if you are saving for more advanced retrirement while you do what you love...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Work less when you're young so you have time to have fun while you you still can? Then when you're older you can be responsible and save money. Some other posters have pointed out that due to the progressive income tax system in the US, the greater the amount of money you make at one time, the less it ends up being worth to you. This, however, also turns out to be true about the years of your life: the five years from 22 to 27 are worth way more than 52 to 57, since people have fewer obligations they can move around, change jobs, do volunteer work, and generally do all of the exciting things that only young people have the energy to do.
Besides, if you actually enjoy your job, working after age 60 isn't really so bad, especially if you have 15-20 years of doing pretty much nothing afterwards. The only reason I'd want to retire early is if I'd actually have enough money set aside to live it up for a few decades and travel, make new friends, learn languages, write angry letters to the editor, etc.
Utter fucking bullshit. In some rich suburbs they do. In any other system, especially rural ones, they don't. My father doesn't make that with 35 years of experience and the second highest educational rating in CHicago (the only way he could make more is if he got a doctorate). If he worked overtime programs AND summer school full summer he MIGHT make the lower end of that range. For pension he'll take home 3/4 of that, but with no benefits, including no health insurance. Get some real facts and stop pulling numbers from your ass.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
This post puzzles me, in the context of your signature. Besides, 50% of people make below median income by definition. "That's under median!" No shit? So's my income, and you don't see me whining about it.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
;-)
A house that's only one year's gross income? Heck, in the Minneapolis area even our little 1450 square foot 2-bedroom townhouse was worth $149k back in 2000 when we bought it, and probably $225k now.
:-)
I don't think you could even buy a house within 50 miles of the Twin Cities for a typical programmer's wage in the area (roughly 60-70k).
It's nice that you were able to do it, though. Cool, actually. Once the housing costs are taken care of, most of the big expenses are gone.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
But in the end, whether they work hard or not (I personally have known teachers that do not fit the workaholic description you give above), the market determines their pay. Demand for teachers in the area, supplier bargaining power (in their case, unions), etc. I'm sorry, but if you need money that badly (say, to finance your gas-guzzling SUV as mentioned above) then you should enter a field that society values more.
/shudder - unions, or through decreasing the number of people enrolled in elementary ed at college), pay will continue to be low.
Teaching is not considered difficult by a lot of people (I'm not saying it's not hard, I'm saying that it's not perceived that way - think back to your college days and the liberal arts majors you knew). Teachers are available at the wages that are being paid. What motivation does the district have to raise pay? Until the perception of teachers can be changed (which is, IMHO, what she's trying to accomplish by complaining in this article, whether she realizes it or not), or until the supply of teachers is decreased (either through effective use of -
The parent mentioned that the teachers he/she knows are in it because they love what they do. Unfortunately, that's not reason enough to raise the pay - I love playing video games and drinking Starbucks, but I don't get paid a dime for either one.
While I can understand the difficulty they're in, I don't necessarily sympathize.
You should become a teacher only when you can afford to do so. It's a volunteer position that has a modest salary along with substantial time requirements and a not so modest budget for out of pocket expenses.
Attempting to survive on those miserable salaries leads to a miserable educational experience for the students. That's why we wind up with energetic young teachers become disillusioned and on the picket lines in a fairly short order. The best teachers whom I had the pleasure to learn from could afford to teach for free. Poor teachers really made my time in school miserable. The correlation was simply too direct not to notice it.
Make your money in a successful career, then become a teacher. That will allow you to inspire students to break free of the boundaries of paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Your job is to teach them to be successful. That does not mean preparing them to follow corporate orders.
Instead of that second job, figure out how to set aside 10-20K by living very frugally initially and start investing in things that generate real returns, such as REITs for example. Let your friends laugh at you that you have an older car (and no payments) and a tiny apartment for a couple of years. Once you have 10-20K, you can start to make real money by increasing your wealth through investments. Yes this approach does work. It took us a couple of years before we started seeing real returns on that initial sacrifice. And yes it does take a lot of time that is consistent with having a second job.
I love to teach, but I am not yet at the point where I would be comfortable to essentially retire to volunteer as a teacher for a lousy 30K.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Just quit my job yesterday, walked out the door, great feeling! :-) /. .......
Don't think I'll be getting another
Life's too short.
Now if i could quit reading
__
Sigs are like arse-holes, everybody has one
Hate to rain on someones parade, but that way lies madness.
The questions that need be asked before this are:
What injustice is immediately at hand that I can correct?
Can I remove or reduce those situations in someone else's life too?
Can I spread it around?
Are the real needs of people around us being sacrifised to mere wants?
Are we so thoughtless as to make other peoples idiocy your own?
I played that game for many years. Fortunately the skills are transferable and bought on someone elses coin. However I do not share so meagre a viewpoint as most. I don't have to do something dramatic to make a difference. Sometimes I found just being is "The Right Thing To Do".
My current personal choice is to live and work in a way that is fullfilling. If I have to learn business processes and form companies and organizations that suck less to do it, so be it. Frankly, I haven't had quite so much fun as now.
Oh - it does feel like two jobs; but I like both.
This is progress?
That teachers go home and keep idling during the vacations? If so, you *are* a moron.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Really, why should a person retire at the age of 65? It might have been a valid assumption two generations ago when people worked with more their hands and less with their brains; these days it's the other way around. A mentally sharp 65-year old can do just as much work as a younger person, and that senior citizen would have the benefit of experience and insight. Indeed, we might even argue that senior citizens need to work in order to keep their minds sharp.
So why not turn it around? Retire at some point in mid-life, say two to five years, and subtract that balance from the twenty years of retirement that would have come at the tail end of life.
Now, what if you could nearly double your salary working a second job and that meant you could semi-retire at age 40.
Double your salary? This isn't possible for any sort of professional career that I know of. Most careers that provide any sort of decent income take more than 40 hours a week.
The only "get another job, double your income" kind of positions I can think of would be menial jobs. If you're making $6/hour putting in 20-30 hours/week at Burger King then yeah, I'm sure you could do another 20-30 hours a week at another burger joint. But that's not the kind of money you can retire on. I mean, you can barely live on that.
The teacher in the article isn't retiring early either, by the sound of it. And she's sure not doubling her money. Sounds like she's supplementing her teaching income by working other jobs just to make ends meet and provide for her kid.
Even if this was possible, that's no way to live. Wasting the prime years of your life working sunup to sundown is not a ticket to happiness.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Having two jobs + saving != being able to retire early. You need a steady income during your retirement (bonds, stocks, mutual funds) to cover any expected and unexpected expenditures you encounter. There are scenarios where you can early at 55, and run out of money when you're 75, but work 3 years more till you're 58 and have enough money to you die.
./ crowd.
Again, you're better off asking your financial advisor and consulting with you're family than asking the
Yeah, yeah. I realized I put my foot in my mouth right after I hit submit.
But I still stand by my point that $44,000 isn't underpaid.
Incidentally, you've got it wrong too.
I was only wrong because multiple people can make the same amount. You're wrong because, well, I'm not sure, but maybe *you* don't know what the mean is.
You certainly have a high opinion of teachers... The thing is, that stuff you describe, paying for supplies, continuing their education beyond the bare minimum required to pass whatever test they may or may not have to take depending on the state, working for more than 40 hours per week (Doesn't everybody do this? Isn't full time 56 hours now unless you have a union contract signed before 1996?), prep... Your wife sounds like a good teacher. It's too bad for her that our socuety has decided that senority is more important than hard work and tallent.
Let's talk about the dark side of teaching. In most places you don't need your degree to be in education or the field you plan to teach in order to be a teacher. You can get the job without the education, and you don't get rewarded for having it because everybody is paid the same (thanks, teacher's union!), so it's an uneducated position. In most places you, as a teacher, are not held accountable for the success of your students. You're not required to do your job well, and since nobody knows you suck, there's no consequence for failure. That makes teaching an *unskilled* position (I am not saying all teachers are unskilled, so hold off those flames... I'm saying you can become a teacher with no skill whatsoever). Why should it pay like a skilled position without the reqs?
Hats off to good teachers. We need more of them. We don't need to pay bad teachers better though, and until we start weeding out the bad ones, and as long as they all insist on being paid the same amount, this is what happens.
Imagine how much less our education system would cost us if we only had *good* teachers, and we paid them *very well*. Yes, I said *less*.
I don't think anyone is trying to say that teachers should make more than half of all wage earners (even though that's not what a median is).
I said something dumb about the median before and got schooled rudely, so now I get to have my revenge. You absolutely *do* make more than half of all wage earners if you make more than the median.
What about the late-breaking news that happiness(or not) is in your genes? What then?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If a school district anywhere pays a teacher enough to live comfortably for an entire year, yet gives them a quarter of the year off work, the tax payers should raise hell.
I find it interesting that people will bemoan the failures of the public educational system to attract good teachers on the one hand and then claim that we pay teachers too much on the other hand. Curse those foul teachers for demanding that they have enough to live off!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Are you under any of the following dellusions?
a) Teachers don't do work during the summer?
b) Governments would pay teachers more if we had year-round schools?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You obviously have either taught or are the relative / spouse of a teacher. No one who isn't seems to have any understanding of what teachers do or go through. As the child of two teachers, I have to say, "Kudos," to you for an understanding post.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
My fiancee and I have been living together with her two kids for 2.5 years now. She is a teacher, and I choose to pick up odd jobs here and there, and occasionally take a long term position (meaning 3-6 months these days) for 20-25 an hour. She makes 40K as a teacher. She is expected to work 10-12 hours a day with grading the biggest issue. We argue about money all the time, mostly cause we don't have it. Kids are expensive as most know, and I have learned. We spend loads of time with the kids, yet as they are both entering their teen years, they want to spend more time out of the house than in. Vacations are not really a reality for us, at least the kind that you take overseas or even out of this country into Canada or Mexico. Sadly, the US economy is pushing a majority of the well educated into the poorhouse, sucking us constantly dry either thru petrol based companies (electricty [airconditioning and lights], gasoline for our cars), and the taxes that kills us even though we have two dependants. Its tough, 3 jobs here are not enough, the kids are actually applying for work now, further dilluting the workforce and thus earning power of all parties. In many ways, it is sadly enslavement. A long time ago I swore I would not partake any more, then found my love and was coaxed back to the workforce. I'm very tempted to just shut down the ratrace again and move back to the hills and live off the land once more. Its so much simpler to just buy some property, a gun and ammo, learn how to survive off the land, and pretty much live a peaceful wonderful existance. Just my two cents, hope others are doing better.
But in the end, whether they work hard or not (I personally have known teachers that do not fit the workaholic description you give above), the market determines their pay.
You are under some sort of delusion about what "the market" is if you think that government paid jobs whose raises are up the whim of the state legislature or governor are subject to the whims of "the market." You must have some very strange definition of "market" that includes politics as a deciding factor. Unlike a normal free-market driven job, the quality / quantity of labor does not affect profits, since there is no profit in teaching -- a necessity to keep education universal. The same forces are not at work as in a regular free market job.
Teaching is not considered difficult by a lot of people...
Yeah, by people that haven't done it and who don't know anyone who does it. I'm sure there are a lot idiots who think construction work is easy because they see people taking breaks. A lot of people believe a lot of stupid things that have no connection to reality.
Teaching is difficult. Both my parents are/were teachers. (My dad's retired now.) I see what they go through, and I see how much they work, and I see all the grief they get from poorly disciplined children and from parents who believe that "their little angel" can do no wrong and should never have to undergo any sort of pressure to succeed. They don't really have summers off because there's a lot of training and preparation for next year to do. What free time they do get is generally spent on chores that they didn't have time to do during the school year. While they do get I'd say about a month of genuine vacation time, that's not nearly enough to make the job easy, just like all those little breaks doesn't make construction a slacker's job either.
Teachers are available at the wages that are being paid. What motivation does the district have to raise pay?
You mean, besides the fact that they have a shortage of nearly 1000 teachers? Exactly what attraction is there to a job that offers too poor pay to live off of in an area with very expensive average home costs that involves dealing with poorly behaved kids and irresponsible parents? Teaching is a job that requires a lot of personal sacrifice and the fact that people go into it at all shows that there are a lot of people with dedication that are willing to sacrifice money to help out children. That doesn't mean that they should be rewarded with the opportunity to sacrifice as much as they can.
The parent mentioned that the teachers he/she knows are in it because they love what they do. Unfortunately, that's not reason enough to raise the pay - I love playing video games and drinking Starbucks, but I don't get paid a dime for either one.
While I can understand the difficulty they're in, I don't necessarily sympathize.
Of course not, you apparently think that the reward of acting for the benefit for others and the reward of indulging in selfish pleasures are equivalent and should be equally unpaid. It's just a shame that people like teachers are dependent on uninformed or uncaring voters like you for their salaries.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
That was a well written and thoughtful post. Every one I've ever met who entertained this sort of idea is unmarried and doesn't seem to understand just how bad the stress of doing this will destroy their lives. This is a recipe to burn out and to find yourself in a career path that you can no longer enjoy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'm getting damn tired of this libertarian crap that would demand you throw a heavy stone at a drowning swimmer lest one penny be wasted on an "idle" lifeguard.
Look at the history of social security. It wasn't a few more bucks for affluent middle-class retirees, it was keep poor older Americans (the vast majority) from starving to death or freezing to death in the winter. This isn't hyperbole, and a generation earlier the idea that many working people could actually live that long (vs. dying from illness or injury on the job) would have been ludicrious.
They should have saved? Please... this was an era where the simplest things we take for granted (e.g., getting some meat daily) would have been unimaginable. And even if they did managed to save a little... let's just say that banks today have those "Insured by the FDIC" signs on their front door for a reason!
Look at the modern reality of social security. I pay social security... and I know that it goes straight into my parent's pocket. A few years ago four immediate members of my family were retired. I know that they all worked hard their entire lives (my father, in his 80s, still has a part-time job!) and the extra money went into providing the kids with an education. Think I begrudge them today? Think that society at large would have been better off with another working class drone instead of college-educated information workers?
Finally, if you really insist on calling social security "welfare", then I'll insist that public schools are also "welfare" for the irresponsible people who couldn't keep it in their pants until they could afford to pay the entire cost of their kid's education. I'm not just talking about K-12 schools either -- I'm including government-backed student loans, taxpayer funded state universities, etc.
Why do I mention this? Tell me about yourself. How much "welfare" have you received in your education? In current numbers I doubt it was less than $100k. When will you repay it?
(P.S., I don't begrudge helping to pay for the education of other people's kids. That 6th grader may be the one who saves me from a fire in 20 years, and the college freshman may be the one who saves my spouse's life in 25 years.)
(P.P.S., the reason for the subject line is that a "drown the baby" republican's proposed budget cuts for a city recently came to light. (Or maybe it's just an urban legend, who knows?) Prominent on the list of cuts was cutting lifeguards at public pools... if not closing them outright. (Let them pay for country clubs.) Reducing hours at public libraries. Things that make a big difference for working people look at you like you're crazy when you suggest they should put money into savings instead of their kids' bellies.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I am a new teacher. Like any job, experience helps, and keeping our talented veteran teachers is getting harder and harder with students with parents like you.
... That makes teaching an *unskilled* position (I am not saying all teachers are unskilled, so hold off those flames... I'm saying you can become a teacher with no skill whatsoever). Why should it pay like a skilled position without the reqs?
In most places you don't need your degree to be in education or the field you plan to teach in order to be a teacher. You can get the job without the education, and you don't get rewarded for having it because everybody is paid the same (thanks, teacher's union!), so it's an uneducated position.
This is utter bull. Have you heard of No Child Left Behind? There are so many requirements and qualifications you have to meet that even with my diploma from fucking MIT I can't teach science without paying hundreds of dollars to take qualifying exams. Also, additional college credits and degrees raise you on the pay scale - it's not simply determined by how many years you have put in.
In most places you, as a teacher, are not held accountable for the success of your students. You're not required to do your job well, and since nobody knows you suck, there's no consequence for failure.
Teaching is a hard enough job when you do it well. If you are a failure, you know it every day and you spend your nights sleepless, trying to think of some way to do better.
Imagine how much less our education system would cost us if we only had *good* teachers, and we paid them *very well*. Yes, I said *less*.
Sounds like you're applying "The Mythical Man-Month" outside of coding. Let's say we follow your idea. Let's get rid of four adequate upper elementary teachers. Here in California, we've got class sizes around 30 at that age. Replace those four teachers with one of your highly paid "good" teachers, at twice the salary (starting salaries are $39K... so $78K which is more livable in Silicon Valley but not wealthy by any means) but four times the number of kids. Sure, you've cut salaries in half, but one teacher can't teach 120 students all day long as well as four. Individual time with the teacher is crucial, particularly for students who are behind.
The qualifications for substitute teachers in many areas are pretty easy, around here all you need is a college degree and a three hour high school difficulty exam. Why don't you get your sub permit and see just how hard teaching is before you talk like you know something about it?
It's more complicated than that.
For one thing, pay rate varies. In my county, it's very good, median is significantly higher than average, and starting salaries are adequate. Of course, the teacher's union lied for years that "they couldn't earn a living teaching" - until the local paper ran an expose on what the salary ranges actually were. That article should have won the Pulitzer.
The flip side of that is that it is much harder to get a job in districts with good pay. I know several great people who just couldn't get their foot in the door.
Also, while you get your summers off, that doesn't happen for at least five years, because you have to take classes in the summer to get your Master's in Education. Every teacher who isn't an idiot does this, because it gets them an automatic pay raise. After that, your summers are yours, though. Many teachers work extra jobs simply because they have the time to do so. My math teachers ran the local swimming pool in the summer.
As for free time, there is a fair amount of work load outside of class, particularly when you are getting started and have to develop your lesson plans. Once the plans are in place, updating them doesn't take nearly as much time. You will also have periodic grading crunches, too. If you want to become involved in extracurricular activities, that also takes up time, but I object to lumping this in with actual teaching as "work" time. People volunteer for extracurriculars because they want to do it.
The above mainly apply to public school teachers. The private school teachers I know generally get paid less, but the compensation is that they like their jobs a lot more. Not every private school is great, though, there are some which have serious problems.
Lastly, I know a lot of people who thought they wanted to be teachers, then discovered after they did their student teaching that they didn't actually enjoy teaching. So, it's best to have a backup plan, like a minor in business, in case you wind up not using your Education degree.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I think one fundamental point to this debate that is consistently overlooked is the staging of your development. You simply can't bust your ass for 20 years, retire early, and then suddenly be a rounded, interesting, meaningful human. Becoming a worthwhile homo sapien is like growing a tree.. it's a life-long process that requires ongoing effort if the final result, the adult tree, is going to be an appreciable specimen.
If you sacrifice interest in music or learning a new language or falling in love to be able to retire by 50 then you're going to end up with a boring brain that's been neglected for 30 years and has no developed appreciation for the finer things in life. Quite simply, you'll suck. Yeah your money might let you buy bigger toys but you'll always have a quiet nagging knowledge that all all your flashy possessions are really just trinkets.
It's a sweeping generality, but our society is fixated on stop-gap measures that our aimed at making us feel okay with leading unbalanced and/or pointless lives. From prozac to the latest pulp spirituality (The Power of Now, for example) we're constantly seeking to glaze over a problem we refuse to define. It ain't easy being alive but if you blend in as much beauty as you can and indulge yourself in pursuits beyond what makes you some scratch you'll find the ride goes a lot easier.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Gee, if you sum up the entire issue in two sentences like that, it makes it sound so simple... It's not like there's anything else involved in the success or failure of education... It's just the money.
(Yes, this is sarcastic for those of you who can't tell)
A massive eugenics program. Once we're rid of all the unhappy, the world will be a wonderful place, and we can all work shitty jobs without having to worry about it.
I'm kidding, of course.
Surely even if there is a genetic component to how happy we are, our daily activities must be important. I'd be amazed if it were shown that the knowledge that one is actively pursuing the career and lifestyle of their own choosing has little bearing on their happiness.
Teaching is a hard enough job when you do it well. If you are a failure, you know it every day and you spend your nights sleepless, trying to think of some way to do better.
That's only true if you care. It's hard for people who truly believe in what they do for a living to see that there are people out there that really don't care at all beyond the paycheck, but there are people out there who know they do a crappy job at teaching, and go home and sleep just fine. It gets worse than that too. There are teachers out there who take pleasure in making sure certain students do poorly. Those teachers are protected by the unions just as much as the good teachers, and they make the same amount of money too.
There are so many requirements and qualifications you have to meet that even with my diploma from fucking MIT I can't teach science without paying hundreds of dollars to take qualifying exams.
Do you think that teaching is special in that way? Do you think you're the only profession that needs to do that? There are plenty of low paying jobs out there with recuring licensing and testing requirements. It's about time we started requiring that of our teachers. It's probably been required of the bus drivers and cafeteria staff at your school for decades, and I assure you that those people make much less money than you.
The thing that is unfortunate is that somebody without your educational background can pay the test fee, and, with a reasonable deductive ability, pass the tests. Then, they would be treated the same as you, who clearly put in more effort and will probably do a better job.
Sounds like you're applying "The Mythical Man-Month" outside of coding. Let's say we follow your idea. Let's get rid of four adequate upper elementary teachers. Here in California, we've got class sizes around 30 at that age. Replace those four teachers with one of your highly paid "good" teachers, at twice the salary (starting salaries are $39K... so $78K which is more livable in Silicon Valley but not wealthy by any means) but four times the number of kids.
You're applying a *lot* of incorrect assumptions to what I said. When I say it will cost less, I don't mean that the savings will come from less teachers, or that the savings will be salary savings. The savings will be in long term economic growth, reduced prison populations, lower special education costs, lower legal fees for school districts, etc... Salaries will be *more* expensive. Also, there is no need to replace adequate teachers. There are plenty of poor teachers we could get rid of first.
The qualifications for substitute teachers in many areas are pretty easy, around here all you need is a college degree and a three hour high school difficulty exam. Why don't you get your sub permit and see just how hard teaching is before you talk like you know something about it?
I'm not sure where "around here" is for you. When I graduated from high-school, what was required to become a sub at the very same school was signing up on the list in the office after you picked up your diploma. That's part of the difficulty in having debates about education. The facts are just plain different from locality to locality, so an argument you make may be perfectly valid in one state or town and off the wall elsewhere.
As an example of how different things are from one place to another, my sister just got a degree in education, and she is trying to get a job in one of the towns near where she grew up. There is a waiting list to become an elementary school teacher in those towns... Probably because salaries start at $77k, and nobody has ever heard of anybody losing their job for anything short of sexual abuse. Tha salaries are high, but there are plenty of bad teachers there... Admitedly, they are the minority, but they are there to stay.
Among other somewhat snide remarks, this point probably has more underlying truth than you could possibly imagine.
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line society (especially in the US, but elsewhere as well) turned its collective back on teaching as a great and noble profession, and relegated it to an abysmal status. Society itself cannot continue to thrive or grow without an efficient and effective means to educate each generation at least to the level of the previous generation.
I'd guess that slashdotters in general are inherently more likely to have believed that most of their teachers were worthless at best, and a hindrance at worst. Thus respect (and sympathy) was lost for this profession, somewhat ironically among the best and brightest students.
Again consider a field that society values more. When a society believes a field is not valuable, it inevitably reduces salaries. This necessarily yields poorer results, as the better would-be teachers will quickly realize this and simply abandon the craft in favor of a more rewarding career. Society is thus eventually left with an even poorer crop of teachers, re-emphasizing the already low valuation of the career. And so the decline continues.
The parent mentioned that the teachers he/she knows are in it because they love what they do. Unfortunately, that's not reason enough to raise the pay
You're absolutely correct. The reason to raise pay is that society critically needs to place more value on this profession, before it spirals downward in a vicious cycle, and we are left in not too many generations with educators who are nothing more than large-scale babysitters, and with an essentially uneducated mass of unskilled workers barely capable of maintaining our own infrastructure.
While I can understand the difficulty they're in, I don't necessarily sympathize.
Whether you sympathize with individuals in this career or not is largely irrelevant, as long as you can understand (and hopefully agree) that their profession as a whole is in dire need of help in terms of its value to society. Many of them perceive this as a crisis upon us, in much the same way we here perceive threats to, for example, our rights to electronic privacy.
We think ourselves noble for fighting the good fight, and lobbying for what is right. Meanwhile there are a few teachers out there putting their careers where their ideals are, despite the hideously low pay and utter lack of respect (and occasional comtempt) all in order to better society despite itself.
But this relatively small minority of well-intentioned teachers is far from sufficient to keep this cycle from its dismal progression. And that--to respond directly to your previous point--is indeed reason enough to attempt to increase their value in society, and make their pay commensurate with that respect.
I guess is depends on what you mean bby retire. I know lots of people who have to work when they "retire". Wages haven't kept pace with the cost of living for most working people. Many already live paycheck to paycheck. Most will be lucky if they can retire, as in no longer work. You best make certain you really do have enough to live off when you eventually do retire. Retire at 50? As rampant as age discrimination is, you'll be lucky to have a decent job that long.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
2 - Find a job that requires minimum effort and time and allows you to spend most of your time doing things that make you happy. (the writer who's also a security guard option)
3 - Find a job that sucks but allows you to make a lot of money, then retire early and spend the rest of your life doing things that make you happy. (the investment banker turned surfer option.)
Or, do both and get your real estate license. Words you will never hear together are "real estate agent" and "busting your ass for a paycheck." The only potential downside is getting fired for not selling enough, but you have to be really terrible for that to happen.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
1. Work 2 jobs from 20 to 45.
2. Save enough from those jobs to live off of for the rest of your life. Generally, that means saving most of your net. Meaning you have no life from 20 to 45.
3. Die at 50 because you worked so damn much the last 30 years.
I am not syaing there should be NO social security. You are far to quick to read something I am not saying.
I am saying that you have to be an idiot to rely on it if you don't have to otherwise. Are you suggesting I should not save anything and goo out and booze it up secure in the knowledge that SS will save my when (or if) I''m old? Of course you aren't but that is the degree to which you are misunderstanding MY words of advice.
I am also saying that the REALITY is that by the time I could draw benefits there will be no SS to draw. I'm not saying that's a good thing but I believe it to be the reality. And if you are not planning for that reality now I hope you have children to take care of you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the most part I agree that teachers are not employed in a free market -- because of taxation. Unless the states have begun drafting teachers against their will, you can't say that the wages and benefits the state is offering are somehow "too low"; the teachers chose their professions (for whatever reasons) knowing what they were likely to receive in compensation. If anything, the ability of the state to tax its citizens to fund otherwise unprofitable enterprises could only server to increase the wages paid to teachers and other government employees, since the state is under no economic pressure to control costs. (There is political pressure to do so, but this is generally less effective, as the penalty for failing to control costs is unpopularity and possibly a change in leadership, not bankruptcy.)
Furthermore, why must there be no profit in teaching? There must certainly be some profit in the work of teaching itself, or few would choose teaching as a profession to begin with. Why should the school itself not be rewarded for the useful service of selecting competent teachers, or providing quality teaching environments?
Universal access to education (for those who could not otherwise afford it) is a matter of charity, whether provided forcibly by the state (through taxes) or voluntarily by its citizens. True, not all students will receive equal qualities of education; some parents have access to more extensive resources, some may be willing to sacrifice more, some may choose to live in areas with better schools, etc. Short of implementing either absolute communism or absolute fascism, you cannot eliminate the variances in quality of education resulting from these differences. I would personally say that it would be wrong to attempt to do so, as I do not see anything wrong in principle with passing one's own investments on to one's children (or grandchildren, as the case may be).
Choosing to do something knowing that it will result in little or no compensation beyond the feeling that you're "benefiting others" in no way compels others to reciprocate. If any teacher feels that it's being taken advantage of by the current system, it's free to choose another line of work.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Hear Hear!
My salary is a little lower at $1,200/week but I'm also able to save $750/week leaving me with $250/week (after taxes) to live on.
And I'm with you. My life is great. I live downtown and walk most places, take bus/trains in the winter and scoot around on my six year old 250cc motorcycle in the summer (90 mpg btw). I finagled free rent on a nice two bedroom apartment by being on-call security 3 nights a week. So it's sort of like a second job but not really. Basically I just have to be home and not drunk. Anyway I only get woken up about once every two months and it's only for maybe a 40 minute period when I do.
I eat well. I always seem to have spending cash. I catch a lot of second-run movies, hit the museums a lot, play video games. No kids, no mortgage, no debt = lots of savings.
I think first-run movies are the pinacle of insane consumerism. I'm lucky in that my boyfriend's like me and doesn't have the 14 year old teenage girl, "OMG! I have to see that **insert latest trumpted-up film** NOW!" attitude. Why spend $10 when if you just hold out for four to six weeks you can see it for $1.50??? In the meantime you're watching the other 'must-sees' that came out two months before that. And it permeates through every consumable, those new housewives who must have a new house with a bonus room in the new neighborhood with the other new soccer moms, big new cars every two years, latest immature technology, $350 pants.
I'm looking to retire by the time I'm 30 after 8 years at a job I like and live off the interest of my investments. Then I'll have a second/third/fourth 'career' in the decades after that. I'd like to write some fiction, get an advanced degree, work on some open-source projects, robotics, dabble in politics/non-profits and generally take it easy. I'm just fortunate in that my hobbies don't cost much, the job I like pays well and one of my favorite ways to spend a Sunday morning is reading finance periodicals.
If any teacher feels that it's being taken advantage of by the current system, it's free to choose another line of work.
Yes. And many do. There is a shortage of teachers. The GP said so, and it's been mentioned a dozen times in other comments. Here, I'll say it again: There is a shortage of teachers. There is an even greater shortage of good teachers, I assume. There is also a dire shortage of good parents. That is not a good combination.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I know a teacher that also teaches tennis lessons at night/weekends/summer and would get the occasional invite to teach tennis at an all inclusive resort on [insert island name here] for a week, paid (and free resort stay for only 2 hours a day of tennis lessons).
He makes double his teaching salary teaching tennis. It the school teaching that has the benefits (medical/dental/retirement).
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
UTFA - Understand the FA.
The submitter even said that the survey was of school teachers. 40% of school teachers holding a second job is FAR different than almost anyone else holding a second job. School teachers inherently have more free time to work a second job than the average 9-5er, ESPECIALLY during the summer.
I'm shocked the figure is only 40%, unless they're not counting summer-only jobs in that survery.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Does anyone in any position higher then 'peon' actually work a 'full day' and just go home anymore? No. we all stay late often, and take work home with us.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You contradicted yourself.
But in the end, whether they work hard or not (I personally have known teachers that do not fit the workaholic description you give above), the market determines their pay. You are under some sort of delusion about what "the market" is if you think that government paid jobs whose raises are up the whim of the state legislature or governor are subject to the whims of "the market." You must have some very strange definition of "market" that includes politics as a deciding factor. Unlike a normal free-market driven job, the quality / quantity of labor does not affect profits, since there is no profit in teaching -- a necessity to keep education universal. The same forces are not at work as in a regular free market job.
vs.
You mean, besides the fact that they have a shortage of nearly 1000 teachers? Exactly what attraction is there to a job that offers too poor pay to live off of in an area with very expensive average home costs that involves dealing with poorly behaved kids and irresponsible parents? Teaching is a job that requires a lot of personal sacrifice and the fact that people go into it at all shows that there are a lot of people with dedication that are willing to sacrifice money to help out children. That doesn't mean that they should be rewarded with the opportunity to sacrifice as much as they can.
This is the end result of the free market economy. Eventually that district will be forced to raise the salary for its teachers, because too many positions will be unfilled for it to do an effective job teaching students. At this point, more teachers will be willing to work there. Free market.
You think that supply and demand do not exist in a command economy and that the mere existence of a reaction to them implies a free market? What a strange understanding of "free" markets you must have.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I suppose you have a better term for the reaction of the going rate for a good or service to the changing supply and demand of the marketplace?
An important thing to remember here: you can't borrow money or apply for grants or scholarships to retire on. You can do all those things for college expenses. So if you can only save for one thing (kids' college or your retirement), you're almost always better off saving for your own retirement.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
They're talking -Starting Salary- I know of few jobs, even in high tech, where your -Starting Salary- is over 44K.
You have very unrealistic expectations on wages.
What's worse is even dumber replies from idiots like you. We're talking STARTING SALARY. I know of very few jobs where the STARTING SALARY is as high as you seem to think it should be. STARTING SALARY implies NO EXPERIENCE, FIRST JOB in the field.
If you want to see the ignorant person in this thread, go look in the mirror.
I wasn't trying to imply that either extreme could be implemented in practice, only that one must either eliminate differences in status altogether (communism) or exercise absolute control over individual activity (fascism) to completely eliminate the advantages that a student derives from the social status and wealth of its parents.
And just for the record, not all libertarians have that utopian view of human nature you (and I) so despise. You don't have to believe that human beings are inherently good to think that concentrating "authoritative" coercive power in the hands of a few individuals is a bad idea -- whether self-appointed or elected, it makes little difference in the end. I particularly liked this quote: "Libertarians are especially bad because they get a lot of things right, but can't put it all together into a workable philosophy of governance." Perhaps the reason for this is that one of the basic principles of libertarianism (and voluntaryism/anarcho-capitalism) is that society should not be governed in the first place? Or more precisely, that no form of coercion can be considered legitimate, including coercion applied by an entity calling itself a government?
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Words you will never hear together are "real estate agent" and "busting your ass for a paycheck"
Unless you meet a really successful agent. When the bust comes (soon), RE will be a whole lot less fun for several years.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"