If 90% of the country is unemployed they’ll work for us and we increase the UBI they pay us.

Or we have a very abrupt reordering of things.

I ducked into grad school thinking it’d help.

Then it was a single skill I picked up on my undergraduate that landed me a job. From there I just pick up experience where I can and take on responsibilities of higher jobs and then apply to those jobs elsewhere.

It took me 2 years to start making more than 80% of my graduate professors and 7 to make more than all of them.

The key is recognizing your worth. I’m this programmer from this example where I work. In the last 3 years I negotiated two separate times for higher pay, collectively increasing my pay 80% and it was relatively easy. You have to be willing to walk out the door though if it doesn’t work out.