Leica A Quality of Life Index for US Counties (put together by my class) in the local news

I looked over the statistics, and thought about my own quality of life. I've profited pretty well from working in software development and consulting for 26 years, but if I had it to do over, I'd want to back off of the 60-70 hour weeks and balance a normal work week (including all personal time spent on the computer/iPad/cellphone) with a lot of outdoor activity. But a big, huge problem is that many people who have good educations and experience find themselves out of work or in lower-paying jobs from what they're qualified for, and then the 2 spouses are both working full-time trying to pay for the house and 2 cars, and saving for their children's educations, etc. etc.

So a lot of people who have experienced prejudice and other success-inhibitors are having their work-time stolen from them by a cruel and uncaring system, and while it's not directly comparable, the career- and success-minded folks who put in the 60-70 hour weeks are mostly like the people who sit at card tables in major casinos - the House sets the terms and their own percentage, and the little people live with ever-increasing stress in the "competitive" non-union workplaces.

I grew up in the capital of rubber mfg., and everyone who wasn't going to be a doctor or lawyer etc. could get into the rubber plants - union or office workers, and figure on a steady income and full retirement at age 65. But that's all gone now along with most of the former income in that area, so the remaining residents have an even greater burden in paying to keep their neighborhoods clean and orderly.

So all I'm saying is that while we want to provide equal education and opportunity to everyone everywhere, maybe we should include calculations of the real quality of life people can expect, by figuring in hours needed to work and what's needed to deal with the resulting stress. It's not the 1950's anymore - the capitalists are fully international now, regulations are being rolled back, unions are a bad word, and the push for profits is going to keep increasing.
 
Congratulations on the study, and a very favorable story about you and your students. It certainly shows a relationship between getting a degree and income.

All-in-all, I do pretty well as a professional DOS/FORTRAN programmer. I just like an OS that gets out of my way.
 
Nice to see you "in motion," Raid! Great project. I supported statisticians and data modelers at my old workplace. I have some idea of the huge amount off work involved.
-Peter
 
Hi Peter,
I am all into working with students as groups for applied research on data analysis of large data sets.
Yes, there are hundreds of work hours involved, but when ten students share components of the work, it can be manageable for each student.
I tell my students that no government office will invest hundreds of work hours just to see if anything is out there.

Thanks
 
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