> The contractors tend to perform the exact same duties as employees, but are usually paid less, have worse future prospects ...
There was a very interesting NY Times article last fall about that issue. They contrasted janitors at Apple, who work for a contractor and have no prospects for advancement in Apple, and Xerox's janitors in the 1980s who were employees, and one of whom is now Xerox's CTO:
To veer off on a tangent, I suspect it's connected with a new elitism in the U.S. What used to be the celebrated 'Land of Opportunity' where anyone could live the "American Dream' through hard work, regardless of where they started (even if very poor immigrants), is now a place where the children of the wealthy go to college, those of the working class are encouraged to go to trade school, and immigrants are more commonly discouraged.
You are so wrong I don't know where to start. The percentage of Americans with college degrees has never been higher. For decades, the message from authorities has consistently been to encourage youths to go to college as much as possible, and the number of students has kept increasing beyond all reason. We are well past the point of diminishing returns, and into pure and simple harm, where millions of Americans go into debt to get pointless degree just so they'll be considered for jobs that shouldn't need a degree in the first place. It's a disaster.
Those claims are trendy, but the parent provides no basis for them and I've never seen one. There's plenty of reason to believe otherwise:
The 'youths' want to go to college, and in a free country and a free market, it's believed that they know and decide their own best interests.
Businesses in fact highly value college education; they pay people with college degrees much more than people without them. The incomes of people without degrees has been stagnant for decades, and there's concern among economists that their job prospects will become more difficult due to automation. If it had reached a point of diminishing returns (really, small marginal benefit), then the wage differential would be small.
As I pointed out above, it's really economic discrimination: Education depends, more than anything, on family wealth. So the outcome of what the parent advocates is that the wealthy classes go to college and the lower classes don't get that opportunity. Usually it's wealthy people with college degrees that say college isn't needed; but tell them that their kids shouldn't go to college and you'll get a much different response.
> The percentage of Americans with college degrees has never been higher.
That's great. We want people to be better educated, more productive, and live better lives. That's the 'American Dream'. We don't want the economy stuck in the 1980s, but to move forward.
It also makes the economy more productive. For example, Silicon Valley can't get enough talented developers, yet the United States (and world) is filled with kids with no access to education, many of whom probably could fill that talent gap. We need more education. High skill, high-paying jobs will go where there are more highly educated workers; if the U.S. cuts college education, it will go elsewhere. New businesses and industries that we haven't yet imagined will arise when they have that resource of educated people.
Education also makes people healthier, better citizens, better parents, etc. HN celebrates knowledge; it's hard to suddenly discount it in this case.
> It's a disaster.
By what measure? The only disaster is that education is too expensive and not available to people without money.
There was a very interesting NY Times article last fall about that issue. They contrasted janitors at Apple, who work for a contractor and have no prospects for advancement in Apple, and Xerox's janitors in the 1980s who were employees, and one of whom is now Xerox's CTO:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/upshot/to-understand-risi...
To veer off on a tangent, I suspect it's connected with a new elitism in the U.S. What used to be the celebrated 'Land of Opportunity' where anyone could live the "American Dream' through hard work, regardless of where they started (even if very poor immigrants), is now a place where the children of the wealthy go to college, those of the working class are encouraged to go to trade school, and immigrants are more commonly discouraged.