The good-paying factory job is a dying breed

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Hot Topic T-shirt wall of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Factory jobs [aren’t always the highest-paying jobs]( anymore. - [Lying flat may not be the best]( career choice. - Biden could [borrow FDR’s appreciation of work](. - Not everybody is [worried about China’s tech crackdown](. Today’s Job Market Is Hot, Flat and Upside-Down It has long been an article of faith in America that the best way for the Average Jane or Joe to get a decent wage is to work in manufacturing, which is why politicians are always banging on about good-paying factory jobs. But this belief is outdated, writes Conor Sen: Service-sector wages have been growing faster than factory wages for a while now: Now some big retailers and restaurants, including Amazon, McDonald’s and Walmart, [offer starting pay to compete with, or even beat, that of manufacturing jobs](. The result is that a lot of the latter are going unfilled, forcing factory owners to decide whether to offer humans more or simply replace the humans with robots.   Some young Americans are apparently fine with handing the keys to the factory over to the machines, along with the keys to the bank, juice bar, NPR podcast and wherever else young Americans are employed. They’re joining the “lie flat” movement, which started in China as a protest against the crushing career pressures young people suffer there. Allison Schrager suggests kids in the West have less to lie down about and more [risk of permanently damaging their earning and life potential]( when they check out of the labor force. Then again, these days they may be better off going full career circle and returning to their first job at Hot Topic. Biden vs. FDR There is still some value in work, after all. At the very least, it breaks up the monotony of playing Fortnite all the time. President Joe Biden has been compared to FDR more than once, in that both are government-expanding Democrats at a time of crisis. But Frank Barry argues Biden’s policies lack one key element of FDR’s: a sense of [the importance of putting people to work in decent jobs](, whether that be building a bridge or building a T-shirt wall at Hot Topic.  It is possible Biden does understand this, even if it hasn’t been as central to his proposals as it was to FDR’s. There may have been a hint of this when Biden let extra pandemic unemployment benefits lapse recently. Progressives complained. But Matt Yglesias suggests those [benefits had outlived their utility]( and were hurting the economy by giving people extra incentive to just keep playing Fortnite. Telltale Charts [Domestic investors aren’t as freaked out by China’s tech crackdown]( as foreign ones are, writes Matthew Brooker. Are they onto something? Or just on something? SPAC-borne deep-sea mining company TMC The Metals Company — and yes, that is actually its name — [dredged up a whole lot of nothing on the stock market]( last week. Chris Bryant writes it fell victim to growing skepticism of both SPACs and supposedly “green” stuff. Further Reading Covid will eventually [become just another virus](. — David Fickling [Piracy on Africa’s west coast]( threatens to destabilize the continent, which is why the U.S. is helping fight it. — James Stavridis Leftist NIMBYs are [stopping vital clean-energy projects](. — Noah Smith Like the GOP's war on the media, its [war on free and fair elections might just work, too](. — Jonathan Bernstein  Even if Theranos’ tech had worked, it [still wouldn’t have been revolutionary for health care](. — Faye Flam [Progressive prosecutors prevent future crime]( by keeping petty and first-time criminals out of the justice system. — Jennifer Doleac [Banning payment for order flow]( would raise commission costs again and make investing less fair. — Nir Kaissar ICYMI Scientists said most people [don’t need a Covid booster](. Democrats are aiming for [big changes to the SALT deduction]( cap. Scientists are [toilet-training baby cows]( to cut emissions. Kickers Area company aims to [resurrect woolly mammoths](. (h/t Ellen Kominers) A parrot with a [broken beak invented a tool](. (h/t Alistair Lowe) There is [such a thing as too much free time](. (h/t Mike Smedley) NYC’s [delivery workers strike back](. Notes:  Please send free time and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. 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