Standard of living is tanking

If entrepreneurship is actually going to thrive, the government and its bureaucrats need to start acting like a service provider rather than just being their own end goal.

Roger Castillo9 said:So, regarding actual wages—which seems to be where the real debate is heating up lately…

Look, you can always go with that "everyone I know makes this much" logic, but honestly? You should probably stick to official government statistics. Sure, they aren’t perfect—they don't catch under-the-table cash or all those executive bonuses and stock options that sit on top of a base salary—but they're still going to be way more accurate than just guessing based on your friends.

Anyway, you can dig into how pay is distributed across different industries (most of which line up pretty closely with the public versus private sector stuff we were talking about earlier) and see how things have been trending over the last seven years or so.

For instance, you can see that the tech sector pulls in some of the highest numbers—about $107,990 for the whole sector (including media and broadcasting), and if you look specifically at software engineering, it's around $116,600. But get this: commercial aviation actually sits higher at $122,020, even though the broader transportation and warehousing sector averages out closer to $72,720. It varies wildly.

And when you look at the growth over the past seven years—we're talking an average jump of 38%—healthcare actually saw a bigger spike than general tech (+54% for healthcare alone, excluding social assistance), and specialized programming shot up by 61%, while info services jumped a massive 74%.

On the flip side, the lowest paychecks are coming from security services and garment manufacturing. And the slowest growth? That's happening in mining and extraction.

There's also data on hourly rates, total compensation, and a bunch of other metrics.

You can even break it down by quartiles or deciles... For May, the average was $7,690 and the median was $2163, with the bottom 25% making less than $1653, while the top 25% cleared over $2944.

So, if anyone's interested…

https://www.bls.gov/data/tables/pay-distribution.xlsx

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/wage-trends.xlsx

https://www.bls.gov/newsrelease/archives/wage-report-may.html

We can all agree that statistics are essentially useless.
A family member of mine works for a small private security firm with about 30 employees.
$1500 Only $1000 get paid via direct deposit, while the rest get their money under the table, sometimes more and sometimes less depending on the hours worked, especially considering the day and night rates are exactly the same.

A corporation is split into

the Vlasnich ownership structure and the operational structure.

Ownership can consist of any number of individuals or legal entities.
(Think ownership, co-ownership, or various types of shareholding.)

For instance: Volkswagen is the majority owner of Skoda, while engineers from Volkswagen hold private shares alongside other small and large investors; all of them collectively comprise the ownership structure.

They all realize profits through dividends and perks—such as discounts when buying vehicles from the conglomerate, which is the most common benefit, though others exist.

Decision-making rights are dictated by the corporate bylaws, which serve as an internal document that allows for some discretion, provided they meet basic legal requirements.

The operational structure essentially encompasses administration, logistics, and day-to-day operations.

Compensation is determined as follows: the base value is the minimum wage negotiated with the United Auto Workers (which applies to all employees in the metal industry, regardless of union membership). This union represents workers' rights in the metal sector, but does so with serious conviction rather than just constantly complaining about the cost of living.

Other salary tiers are derived from the minimum wage through a process called pay grading.
Pay grading accounts for seniority, job difficulty, expertise, and level of responsibility.

It isn't uncommon for a junior employee to earn more than a senior one; there's no mystery to it.
It simply depends on which group an individual falls into.
https://www.igmetall.de/download/MuE...0bb637c493.pdf

This same principle is applied across various other industrial sectors and service industries.

But that is a different topic entirely.