"handing out more degrees does nothing to change the job profile of the United States. The job market still needs just as many garbage men and ditch diggers and baristas today as it did thirty years ago"
...because more college grads does produce more high-paying jobs. Arguably adding more workers for high-paying jobs is e…
"handing out more degrees does nothing to change the job profile of the United States. The job market still needs just as many garbage men and ditch diggers and baristas today as it did thirty years ago"
...because more college grads does produce more high-paying jobs. Arguably adding more workers for high-paying jobs is even better at creating those jobs than adding more workers for low-paying jobs because there's more demand for the former. Saying that the amount is fixed is the lump of labor fallacy.
Not really. The counter to the Lump of Labor fallacy is that having more people doing (all jobs) means there is more demand for (all stuff) thereby creating more jobs. I'm referring to the job profiles, not the total amount of available work. If we gave everyone in the country a hairdresser license that would not increase the demand for hair dressers. The hair dresser profile would not change, we'd just have a lot of people trained in being hair dressers who can't find a job as a hair dresser.
> If we gave everyone in the country a hairdresser license that would not increase the demand for hair dressers
Demand or quantity demanded? It would definitely increase the supply, so that would also cause the quantity demanded to increase as well. A small fraction of our newly minted hairdressers would actually be able to find jobs as hairdressers because they've wanted to be hairdressers so much that they'd be willing to work as hairdressers for a wage below the current market equilibrium. In turn, people would get more haircuts because they're cheaper. (I think demand for haircuts is somewhat elastic because some people are willing to put up with hair that's somewhat shaggy for a somewhat long time period, so if it's cheaper they'll get it cut more often).
I disagree with:
"handing out more degrees does nothing to change the job profile of the United States. The job market still needs just as many garbage men and ditch diggers and baristas today as it did thirty years ago"
...because more college grads does produce more high-paying jobs. Arguably adding more workers for high-paying jobs is even better at creating those jobs than adding more workers for low-paying jobs because there's more demand for the former. Saying that the amount is fixed is the lump of labor fallacy.
Not really. The counter to the Lump of Labor fallacy is that having more people doing (all jobs) means there is more demand for (all stuff) thereby creating more jobs. I'm referring to the job profiles, not the total amount of available work. If we gave everyone in the country a hairdresser license that would not increase the demand for hair dressers. The hair dresser profile would not change, we'd just have a lot of people trained in being hair dressers who can't find a job as a hair dresser.
> If we gave everyone in the country a hairdresser license that would not increase the demand for hair dressers
Demand or quantity demanded? It would definitely increase the supply, so that would also cause the quantity demanded to increase as well. A small fraction of our newly minted hairdressers would actually be able to find jobs as hairdressers because they've wanted to be hairdressers so much that they'd be willing to work as hairdressers for a wage below the current market equilibrium. In turn, people would get more haircuts because they're cheaper. (I think demand for haircuts is somewhat elastic because some people are willing to put up with hair that's somewhat shaggy for a somewhat long time period, so if it's cheaper they'll get it cut more often).