"In Springfield, Mo., the cutoff is $33,100."
Don't give me any bloviating nonsense about cost of living. 33 grand a year is not a 'good job' anywhere in America. That is a whopping $15.91 an hour. Barely above what minimum wage needs to be.
Sure, rent is a little cheaper in some areas. But a loaf a bread is still a loaf of bread and the cost of a decent used car is going to be close to the same.
The minimum wage must be raised. You know what the repubs say about their vaunted tax cuts---a rising tide lifts all boats. For once, let's start with raising those barely treading water.
42
@Concernicus: If you're making $28K in a more expensive locale and you have an opportunity to take the same job for $33K in Springfield, MO then you might not care so much whether it's bloviating nonsense. There's no reason why we can't help people to find better jobs while we're working to lift the economy for all Americans.
11
@Concernicus - Nearly everyone nowadays is part of a two-income household. While $33K isn't much for a single, it's a good half of a couple's income.
4
"In San Jose, Calif., it is $47,900."
That's so far from reality. Nobody can live in San Jose on that salary.
Which highlights an common problem with these studies: they're overly optimistic, and consequently hard to trust.
11
My firm, in downtown Boston, just posted a job for a receptionist—bachelors degree required. It’s absurd.
20
@L. Hoberman Now, that's what I don't understand. Why does a receptionist need a 4 year bachelors degree?
10
This article looks at workers the way Ronald Regan did, as replaceable cogs in the economic machine. What about the need to live near family? Do young people really want to spend their working lives where acquaintances drop you as soon as they find you are not interested in going to their particular church? To move to a place with nice job pay but nothing interesting to do? There is a reason why affordable places are affordable.
13
Might one's ability to speak English make a difference in the chances of securing a good job? Sure, an NYC resident without a college degree faces a lot of competition, but lots of it is from those with limited English skills. Was this considered in the formulation of this data?
3
Knowing I would struggle to find work because of my background in the infantry I went to an Ivy League because that would prove to employers I was just from a poor family, and not actually a moron.
Nope.
Ivy-educated and accepted to medical school, but apparently after over a decade of trying to claw my way out of poverty everyone who sees my resume assumes I have nothing to offer society other than drilling for oil.
I'll always be proud of escaping the trailer parks and oil rigs. I'll always be contemptuous for how much harder I had to work for it over my peers.
Telling me about where all the "good jobs" are that my brothers and sisters can have if we are willing to crawl a bit is certainly appreciated, but I'll tell you where you can stick your suggestion. We want skilled jobs we earned by putting ourselves through college, not a series of "lesser, but still okay I guess" jobs that the rich authorize the poor to work.
In fact... let's trade and see how you fare on the rigs next year. My overeducated brain could use a break from the oil and dirt I'm doomed to for the next year. Drilling is a "good job," ya know.
14
@Mike
So you were looking for a well paid position to earn your way through medical school, but because you have a blue collar resume none of the high paying white collar industries would hire you despite having a four year degree from any Ivy League school? That is completely absurd!
Anyone that has worked in the oilfield is qualified to solve complex problems.
9
If every job in America paid a good living wage, there would not be this problem. What is a so called good job? Bus driver, storeman, clerk, cleaner. Does every American need a degree to work? The American dream, work til you drop and pray you don't get sick doing it.
13
But wait: Is the percentage of already filled jobs a relevant statistic?
Even if higher fraction of filled computer support jobs in Asheville, NC do not require a college degree than in San Francisco, that does not mean there are more openings in Asheville. SF is much bigger and more tech centric.
(The ridiculousness of housing prices in the bay area is a separate concern.)
5
Another measure of a "good job" is the opportunity for advancement. Here's a though ... find a job at an institution of high ed. It could be something like an office support position. Anything, so long as it doesn't require a college degree. Then take advantage of the tuition free classes available to staff. Many universities offer this as a benefit. This way one could earn a college degree for free. And after that ...
9
No, many cities have much better jobs for those without a college degree, because cities have union construction workers, union hospital staff, union cops, union firefighters, union public transit workers. And cities like New York and LA have big contingents of union theatrical workers.
Whereas good paying rural union jobs, say at an auto parts plant, have largely been destroyed.
So as is usual Porter has no idea of what he’s writing about but feels he has a valid point to make.
Right, sometimes one need an in to get such jobs.
4
If you are poor and must pay for your own education, perhaps an apprenticeship in the trades is a good idea, in lieu of college. Become a journeyman and having learned the trade and how to work (This last is not insignificant as I have seen many kids who simply do not know how to work) Once you have completed the training, you have options and you will be making a pretty good wage. If college was your goal you can attend with your savings. As well, if desired on holidays/breaks you can go to work to replenish funds making good money. Graduate debt free. You then have options and a known track record of completion. Debt is a very effective means of control.
10
The definition of a good job being money, you should reexamine your industries. In states where you aren't held down by a tip-rate minimum wage, there are abundant jobs that provide over that low 30k target. I your requirement is that it needs to be in an office to be good, then that's your larger problem.
2
Common sense tells most people that they will move to get a decent paying job. Once upon a time most employers would hire people willing to move, now they won't even look at your resume/application. Employers seem to want people who have been living down the street for decades. So it is nice to know where the jobs are, but I certainly would not consider moving without a job or at the very least knowing where my odds of getting a job were the best.
68
@skramsv When an employer looks at a prospective hire, they have to invest time and attention. The simple fact of the matter is, they are more likely to get an employee who will actually take the job when that prospective employee is local than when they are across the country and may be trolling for job opportunities but cannot establish any real connection to the city where the job is. If you are thinking of relocating to take a job, you need to make the case to the employer that you will relocate and why.
11
I definitely see this as a supply and demand issues. you cant demand degrees if hardly anyone in the areas has one.
3
The problem with this analysis is that usually people have spouses and families. Cities like Toledo or Anchorage may have good jobs for people without college degrees, but what if one spouse has a degree and the other doesn't? Bigger cities like Minneapolis probably offer better opportunities for entire families because there are good jobs for both spouses. The educational systems in places like Minneapolis or Boston are also way better.
76
@Paul; Minneapolis and its non-identical twin St. Paul have a high quality of life (except for the winters), low unemployment, increasingly diverse populations, and a wide range of cultural amenities.
9
I can confirm one city on this list. The Des Moines metro is a boomtown right now. There are constant ads on the radio for manufacturing and skilled trade jobs with bonuses and benefits. My employer has struggled to find blue collar workers to fill $20/hour+ positions with full benefits and UAW protection. This is on top of the many high-paying jobs in the insurance and agricultural technology sectors that are the anchor industries for this region. Like the rest of the upper Midwest the public schools are excellent but the weather is terrible. Cultural amenities are lacking and you'll need to weekend trip to Minneapolis or Chicago to get a taste of true city life. The trade-off is it's a great mid-sized metro to raise kids; middle class life is still tenable in Iowa. However, much of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids/Iowa City's growth has come at the expense of the rural parts of Iowa that have slowly been decimated by consolidation in the farming sector.
75
@Mike G.I would have to say that the Des Moines metro area has grown in cultural amenities in music, art, theatre and family activities. But Chicago, Kansas City, and Minneapolis are easy car trips.
4
Almost all of the well-paid jobs shown in the charts still require quite a bit of education to begin with, and what person that is scrambling to survive in the first place can afford to move? Articles like this one assume that most people have the means to move and the fortitude to rip themselves from family and other ties that bind them to a place.
86
I’ve never had sympathy for employers whining about not finding qualified people. Qualification inflation is a problem of their own making. Associate degrees provide the necessary skills for what employers “require” a bachelors degree. I know, as someone with Associates, Bachelors, and Masters degrees in business and over 20 years in business.
President Obama made what seemed to me the most sensible proposal for paying for 2 years of college or post- secondary training. I was once a community college snob but now am a huge supporter. They teach a wide variety of needs from further education to hands on jobs like electricians that we would lost without.
157
Consider nursing - and live anywhere you want!
As a retired nurse, couldn’t be prouder to advise. The field is wide open and the opportunities vast. Check out patient to nurse ratios, hospital’s reputation, opportunity for professional movement within the system, and review what other employees say about their place.
Best wishes, nurses! Spread your wings - you have them, now use them.
163
@MIMA
Hi!
Because you are a former nurse, can you explain the chart in the article just after they define what an 'opportunity job' is? The chart lists being an registered nurse as an 'opportunity job' -which according to the article is a good paying job that doesn't require bachelor's degree.
I don't know a ton about RNs but I was under the impression that they need AT LEAST a 4 year degree and some advanced testing and licensure.
Can you help me understand why this study might list being a Registered Nurse as an opportunity job?
Thank you!!
11
@Kerry
There are associate degree nursing programs for RN education, yes. Many of the associate degree nurses do go on to get their bachelor’s, but not necessarily. They take the same state board exams and their scope of work as a new grad is the same as a bachelor’s degree. Down the road, to be considered for other positions they would be competing with bachelor degree nurses. Many healthcare facilities are requiring associates to get bachelor’s in required time frames now. Hoping that helps.
20
@Kerry
Well I was an RN for 30 yrs or so and I had an Associates. FWIW, in my time an RN license simply required passing the licensing tests which were the same for everyone and the issued RN license did not place any restrictions on practice that were dependent on level of education. In other words, Diploma, Associates, Bachelor, Masters, Doctoral licensed RNs all practiced under the same rules and legalities and one good do no medically than the other.
15
As a retired shop teacher of 38 years, I have seen the changes in our school system from dual tracking the kids (vocational and college) to mono tracking them (everyone needs 4 year college).
Vocational education was severely deemphasized, Kids would make the attempt to go to college and then drop out, as well as having to incur a sizable debt to repay. Because so many kids were encouraged to attend college and many graduated with minimal GPAs, there was a surefeit of graduates, and a dearth of kids going into the trades. Because of the surplus of graduates, employers were able to lower or maintain wages and require more education than needed for the job.
When I would work with my kids on career choices, I would often say "Not everyone needs to or is able to go to four year college, however everyone needs post-secondary education." With that we would talk about the options like community college or trade school, or even the military. The issue is that we wanted to help the kids make the right decision. Some of my students have stayed in touch. It's rewarding to know of their successes with their decisions. Of course there were failures, but mostly successes.
214
@JLR in CT Amen! As a professor for several decades, I've seen so many students who are simply not college material, but who could be successful in many trades and other non-degree professions.
Consequently, they struggle and usually drop out, now mired in debt. And academic standards have to be lowered, which negatively impacts even the more capable students. Everyone loses in this scenario.
41
@JLR in CT
The military covered my Ivy League degree after 4 years of service. It was a great deal... other than the fact nobody will interview me unless I leave my military service off my resume. I’m about the be the most educated roughneck working the rigs because I can’t find anything else that will pay a living wage until med school admissions next year. Tell the kiddos to tread carefully and avoid the infantry if they ever want to work again.
13
@Mike in NY
Can you explain a little bit more about why your infantry experience has worked against you? I’m sorry to hear that, and I have no agenda, but I am sincerely curious. TIA
7
so, take an example from Porter's list of expensive, superstar cities where there is much for opportunity for the college eduated than for those with less education. these cities may have a different work profile than a place like des Moines or Cleveland, but they still need people to do the regular jobs of maintenance, retail, and various other trades and services. the rub is, they are expensive for everyone, so will eventually wind up like those places that employ teachers, firefighters, librarians, and cops... but where nobody earning the money they're will to pay for those occupations can afford to live. gradually, we move into something like Paris, where aristocras and the wealthy live in the city center, and the serfs and the help live in cheap, outlying banlieux that become a breeding ground for anger and unrest. are there ways to head off this fast encroaching disaster? would the wealthy ever agree to any measures that might be effective? NIMBY.
7
Is there any connections between those ares that offer the best paying jobs not requiring a degree and the presence of labor unions.
6
As a Toledoan, I am pleased to see that our city ranked so well in this survey. One caveat, however- I am regularly hearing from people involved in trade schools and employers here in Ohio that many jobs are going unfilled because of the large number of applicants who cannot pass the drug testing required for their positions. This is a particular problem for jobs requiring a commercial driver's license, but it seems to arise in other contexts as well. Since this survey was based on advertised jobs, I wonder how factoring in the number of applicants rejected for drug usage would affect the results.
10
H-Vac experts, electricians, apprenticeship programs in the building trades - these are jobs that don't require an expensive college degree (they do require post-secondary education) but that afford those who excel in these trades a living wage (and more) without exorbitant debts.
I'd encourage my children to study future trends (almost all existing homes will need electrical upgrades and increased connectivity) and to follow their dreams. I have an undergraduate degree in Art History, which means that I enjoy museum trips in this country and abroad, but this expensive degree has not paid my bills. Ever.
Teaching soft skills in the workplace and basic financial concepts should also be taught in high schools and colleges.
8
@Vic Wish there was an edit option in the comment section. I meant to start my last sentence with "Soft skills..."
1
Learn a trade and join a union....plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics are still in high demand pretty much everywhere.
7
People should be more willing to move. It’s easier to do than it’s ever been. Wes Burgner
1
@Wes Burgner "People should be more willing to move. It’s easier to do than it’s ever been" - Unless you have children or family members with special needs that extended family where you currently live help with, or have elderly parents that you are assisting. Free universal child and health care would make moving easier for lots of folks; a probably cost effective economic boost to the economy.
7
This article confirmed for me something I always thought to be true, as someone who teaches college in Anchorage: my students know their degrees don’t matter in Alaska. Since obtaining a high paying job (almost always in the oil sector) is possible without a college degree, I find students don’t take classes as seriously as students in college courses I’ve taught at universities outside of Alaska. One of my biggest challenges as an educator as my students know that by working on “the Slope” they will make even more money than me with my fifteen years of graduate school.
7
Of course I can only speak for myself about the actual benefit of a BSN (four year nursing degree). After 15 years of working as an RN with an associate degree I returned to college for that 4 year degree. What did I learn that I did not already know about nursing? Absolutely nothing! And I am still paying off my student loan! So much for increased knowledge and critical thinking.
That said, I am now working a job a really love at a good salary that I would not have been hired for without the degree. So that’s where it paid off.
9
You must not have gotten any tuition reimbursement from your employer. RNs and others in health care must seriously consider working in places that will at least reimburse you for getting a more advanced degree. There is no reason why any RN should have to take out loans to further their education.
1
You leave out the more hustle-type jobs. If you don't have a college degree, you can still become a licensed realtor, an auctioneer, or a building contractor. Many people start small, doing the work themselves, and then reach a point where they are able to hire employees.
Back in the early 60s, my father hired a young fellow who had just gotten his electrician's license to do a little work in our house. About thirty years later, he had about twenty trucks with his name painted on the side, parked outside a rather large commercial building.
5
a common fallacy: you are confusing the opportunities of someone who wants a job, a paycheck, pretty much fixed worktimes, and his or her own life the rest of the time... with someone motivated to start and operate a business, which has no guaranteed paycheck you can take to the loan officer, no benefits you don't provide yourself, and goes on all the time, even in your sleep. there are those who thrive in either environment, but a small business like the electrician with 20 trucks is not the same thing as going out to find a job where someone else just pays you, you put in your hours, and then you own what's left of your time and attention.
5
The last sentence of the article is the most striking to me. Requiring/hiring only those with degrees higher than actually necessary for the work may seem reasonable to each hiring manager - but expanded countrywide can be devastating for all aspects of education and employment. More people forced to earn degrees they don't need with loans they can't repay has already put us on the path to the student loan crisis.
12
women used to need a bachelor's degree to sell gloves in Gimble's. they probably couldn't demand that in Tuscaloosa.like so many things, including the military and prisons, this is a way to keep people out of a labor market that doesn't need them.
If a job advertises as high school diploma that doesn't mean that's who is being hired. The job I had for 6 years before retirement was classed as high school, but they almost always hired bachelors or higher.
8
So, the issue isn't pay or availability this type of job. It is cost of living. Plumbers will always be needed in San Francisco and Toledo, but where can they afford to live?
5
@Dante
Where the cost of living is high plumbers are expensive.
4
@Dante
Typically (though not always), pay is commensurate with cost-of-living. To wit: I've been a truck driver in both the Bay Area and Hawaii and earned 100k vs. 60k or so in less costly regions.
1
Without a college degree it is hard to get an interview for a decent job, even if you have tons of verifiable experience in a particular area.
I could work my way up to a better position within an organization only to have to start again from day one, step one, square one, if I wanted to change jobs or had to change jobs.
Experience was never enough; my resume was usually tossed when they saw I had not finished college. When I was called in, I would be offered the chance to interview for a lesser position because they only hired graduates for x position. BTW, I'm not talking about something that would require a license or certification.
I am going to retire soon, I don't care anymore, but it was very frustrating for many years until I gave up and accepted that good, hard, work was not enough. Oddly, I've still been promoted some, but I don't seek it anymore and turned down most opportunity that came my way later in my working life.
Too much disappointment when I was younger and more eager.
6
I teach night classes for people who are preparing to sit for the electrical licenses exams in Massachuttes. The labor market here is still hot with many jobs going unfilled due to low enrollment numbers in the trades.
Plumbers and Electricians will always be needed to hook up all the smart stuff and trained in how to service the technology as well.
Years ago I would install a thermostat to control the hvac systems in under 10 minutes, now it takes me 10 minutes to read the instructions on how to run the program that connects to your smart phone, often requiring me the technician, to contact the manufacturs web site to trouble shoot the darn thing.
Only when we realize that we the US, are far behind the other industrialized nations when it comes to jobs training for the future, making life-time education available to all at no cost.
I welcome any investment in infrastructrue, public, private and by what ever political party has the future in site. We could make poverty history if we would invest in education, not just for profit as most institutions of higher education have become. Teach a person a trade, and they will never need public assistance, ever.
WE ARE TO PROUD FOR THAT
16
@Dave -- in Europe trades are taught by companies. Students (apprentices) receive a small amount of money; they also will continue going to school. Upon graduation from having learned the trade, many companies hire the students. Contrast this to expensive trade schools in this country where students indebt themselves and have virtually no guarantee that they will be hired.
15
I went to a trade school. Sure they called it Nursing School but I was trained to do only two things: manage a unit of 40 patients the day after graduation and pass the state licensing exam on the first try. I did both. 35 years later (and a four year degree) I am still at it!
4
Very interesting article, especially as I am a high school teacher at a Charter School. The program I work with is Independent teaching, and many of my students do not go onto college. We have the benefit of our students simultaneously going to a community college which offers excellent trade school type of course. I try to encourage these students to begin taking these courses, but not interested. So you have that issue as well. They are sometimes too young to make these decisions I guess, or want to be in the program that everyone else is. My niece went through beauty school training at her high school in NJ and is making a very successful career with that. She still lives with her parents though.
3
College is overrated. It doesn’t mean you don’t and can’t have useful skills. If you didn’t go to college but are a skilled tradesman you can often make more than white collar workers - like a plumber/carpenter/electrician in NYC or SF. Enough with college - there’s no magic to it.
5
@Bjh, totally agree that many trades provide higher salaries for less schooling, and certainly, not everyone is destined for college. We need more skilled tradesmen/women and should encourage people to follow that route. The problem comes in for those kids who have zero interest in trades such as electrical work, plumbing or welding, but are not sure college is the route for them (like my daughter). Many of these kids end up in a lifetime of low-paid retail work or other jobs that bring not only very little money, but very little satisfaction. For those kids, college might be a better choice (including two-year schools).
5
True. A couple months at a retail job might help her see the light.
4
@Bjh
Physical or manual work is fine as long as you have your health. In most cases white collar work is not as dependent on being physically strong and healthy. It's something to bear in mind.
3
Although the jobs listed typically do not require a four-year college degree, most Registered Nurses have a BSN. Junior colleges offer a two-year RN degree but job prospects are fairly limited in scope.
Electricians certainly require specialized training too as do the other's listed. Merely trotting out a list (which anyone can google) without referencing the training required, is that helpful.
5
As a person who has commented on this before and living about one and one-half hours south of Toledo, I can state without question that there are many good paying jobis in our area which are unfilled. Recently announced that our county (Auglaize) has 2.9% unemployment. Most factories (yes these are good paying manufacturing jobs with benefits) have signs up for immediate interviews. No college degree required. We are favored with low living costs and good educational opportunities. Some employers will help empoyees who want to further their education. New vocational school will open next fall.
11
60% of American youth (18 year olds) seek a college degree. 30% end up with a bachelors degree. Only 20% end up in a job that makes use of a bachelors degree. But our entire K-12 education system is devoted to preparing people to go to university to get a bachelors degree. In countries like Germany and Switzerland, 70% of youth are in some sort of non-university training program, combining school with some sort of apprenticeship. Most emerge age 18-20 with no debt and training for a job, i.e. marketable skills.
.
Our system is built to benefit the most privileged 20% who go to college, get a degree, and work in places like Manhattan and San Francisco. When asked what to do about inequality, the privileged usually answer "they should have gotten more education, like me". That's never going to be a solution. Sending more people to fail in college (1/2 already fail to finish) is not a solution. Frankly, we don't need more people with bachelors degrees. Most people don't want or need 4 years of college classes in critical thinking. We need more people with useful skills. Workers and employers both need alternative training paths to the bachelors degree.
.
We don't need to live in a society where anyone lacking a bachelors degree is unskilled. Most useful skills are not learned in college. Employers know this too, but they don't have any credentials they can ask for between high school degree and a bachelors degree, which is more than most jobs need.
61
@Tom Meadowcroft,
I wish I could 'recommend' this 100 times. You write these necessary truths. I made a career in the Merchant Marine, rising to captain after the same grueling multi-tiered exam process as my peers who graduated from specialized four year academies. We all earned the same money.
Now retired, I decided to go to college to challenge myself and do something structured with my life. I have one semester left to finish my bachelor's in economics. Even applying a charitable attitude, I can assure any interested reader that less than half of my classmates could cut the mustard as a navigator or marine engineer.
Employers, I think, are starting to wake up to the German/Swiss model you mentioned.
14
@Tom Meadowcroft This is the best internet comment I've read this year. I think part of the problem is educated people drive policy, and educated people value the education they received. This is compounded by the fact that many educated leaders spent their K-12 years walled off from average to below-average students either through private schools, high-income suburban school districts, or worst case an honors track within a more socioeconomically integrated K-12 environment. They see education as the ticket to success when in fact for many it is a ticket to failure. They just can't relate to those who did not want to or could not pursue higher education. In my career at a major equipment manufacturer I get to interact with people ranging from PhDs to shop floor factory workers and everyone brings something to the table. College isn't for everyone and we need to make that okay!
16
@Tom Meadowcroft what a great post. I would in the K-12 educational field in school counseling. The high school counselors I know are all taught in college and re-taught later on to push every kid to college. Not trade school, college. I questioned this once, knowing the statistics you provided, and I've received a lot of push-back. I'm all for kids going to college if they want to and if they think they can finish. The college dropout rate is incredibly high, however, and this is from the good students who actually qualify for college.
The tiered/elitist collegiate system (which is far too expensive) is damaging our country.
7
"Just move" can be good advice, but it's not feasible for everyone. There is such a thing as "too poor to leave."
Remember that it is expensive to move to a new community. You have to have a place to stay until you find a job, and even if you do, you may not have enough to pay a deposit on an apartment for a couple of month. If you move your possessions from your former home, that's expensive, but if you leave your possessions behind, you have to buy new ones.
And that's just if you're single without children or other relatives that need you to take care of them. If you have family obligations, your family has to continue living in your former home while you look for a job in the new place, or else you have to uproot them and perhaps, if you're really poorly off, have them live in a motel for while.
This is a difficult practical problem. Companies that are really desperate for employees may want to provide a relocation allowance for those who have to come from out of state.
27
I have a B.A. but I'm limited by my geographic area. Western MA: no jobs. Unless you want to be a personal care assistant or a CNA.
2
in this economy getting a good job with an advanced degree is also tough. I have a PhD and everyone wants people with no more then a bachelors.
14
@Mollyg Okay, that's just wrong!
I just wanted to thank all the commenters on this thread offering valuable insight over a wide spectrum across the country.
I'm close to retiring however my two children are entering the job market. I will text them a link to this article, now if they will only read it.
7
The article addresses geography and jobs very well. It would be great to see a follow-up article addressing job skills that can be acquired without a Bachelor's degree, and how difficult it is to get them.
7
The Land Surveying Profession is in need of many recruits to replace the generation that is in the process of retiring. A degree is not required to get started and the need is nation wide.
12
Looking through the comments, it’s revealing how many don’t know what kind of training is actually required to enter common jobs that roll off their tongues, and how many don’t understand that the study and article is not about getting jobs, but a geographic snapshot of employment numbers by education level and job type relative to cost of living. In addition, what the article critically doesn’t speak to, and commenters miss, is the relationship of ethnicity/race to these numbers and geographic and job options.
10
@Roger
The subtitle at the top of this article suggests that, if you don't have a college degree and you're out of work, then you should consider relocating to another part of the country. It says: "For people without a college degree, finding work that offers decent pay can be a challenge. The solution may require a change in scenery."
I understand the point of the article. What I don't understand is what you mean when you said: "...it’s revealing how many don’t know what kind of training is actually required to enter common jobs that roll off their tongues..."
2
1. Sometimes employers cite wanting higher educational requirements -- so they can bring in foreign workers who ironically, aren't necessarily better qualified, just cheaper. Plus some countries have corruption in their educational systems and you can buy your degree. I was a Peace Corps volunteer and this was a huge problem for my students.
2. Nursing school - go to the for-profit ones. In the end it is cheaper than the 'traditional school' and the success rate is probably higher. The 'traditional schools' hire nurses and dont train them to teach and the educational lobbies sell tests to these schools that don't match their curriculum. One of the reasons so many nursing students fail out -- the tests test material not taught by faculty who are not trained to give tests or teach. No other discipline has this problem - though medical students, feel free to chime in. This is a disgrace and needs reform. You are failing kids for poor reason cause the school cant get organized and these nursing students wind up with a HUGE debt and cant continue their dream. Nice.
6
It's very possible to break into tech without a college degree. The beautiful thing about tech is that there are many free resources available online for both training and showing off your skills. You can walk into an interview with examples of your programming skills that you've developed online, ready to tackle any challenge they throw at you, and you'll get hired. No matter what you learned in college, you'll have to continually stay current, learning all the latest technologies - so just a few years out of college, whatever you learned in college may already be obsolete anyway.
4
@rachel
Thank you for bringing up tech. By and large this is one of the very few areas that require real knowledge and not just certification from a college that you attended as a pimply faced 19 y/o.
But---and life is full of buts of all kinds---this is not always true. I have seen real life examples of someone being tendered a concrete job offer. Even the pay was agreed upon. The hiring manager then says, "Oh, we forgot to ask where you went to college and it was not on your resume." The answer was the school of hard knocks. The job offer was rescinded.
There are some companies that do not value hard work and real knowledge. They simply want conformists with credentials.
7
@rachel. Not necessarily a good thing for society. Lousy user manuals/help functions, poorly designed computer-generated forms, work processes negatively disrupted-- this is what happens when a narrowly focused, unenlightened, and perhaps mostly young and single-gender-dominated workforce drives so much of today's tech.
1
It's too bad there is such a stigma attached to trade schools and those institutions that offer 2-year Associate's Degrees while a four year "college experience" today is still perceived as a gateway to a better life.
I know plenty of electricians, plumbers, mechanics and carpenters that went to these "trade schools" and are all in business for themselves, hire local people as apprentices and have done quite well for themselves.
11
Most everyone/anywhere needs a plumber, electrician and car mechanic.
14
The California Prison System has training programs for non-violent offenders which teach manuals skills like welding, Tool and Die and other very high paying fields. Inmates who complete the courses have jobs paying in excess of $30/hr waiting for them upon their parole. The recidivism rate is extremely low, much lower than in the general Prison population. There should be more such programs in ever state.
24
@Jeff thank you so much for that information. It is so heartening to hear that inmates Who receive technical training are so successful! I hope that the government in other states follows California’s example.
8
@Jeff - Why not give these courses to the violent offenders too? They could also use a job when they get out.
1
Both of my kids are Registered Nurses. They did not get bachelors degrees, that is not required. They spent two to three years in a community college in the RN program and were both hired as Nurse Techs during the last 6 months of college, while they finished their studies. They graduated debt free because both had full ride scholarships. The college had a grant program for students coming from families where neither parent had a bachelors degree. It's true that nurses can earn more money with a Bachelors, but they make plenty of money without one.
10
Hospitals that are Magnet for Nursing require RNs to have BSN. That may explain some of it. Nursing school is not easy either way.
5
@MBH
It's a LOT easier than pharmacy school. Nurses, even in the bachelor's program, had their own easier chemistry classes.
5
Where I live, in rural Vermont, plumbers charge $90 and more per hour, which sounds pretty good. But most of them are in their mid40’s or older. Where are the young ones? We are shortchanging young people by insisting on college and ignoring fields one enters through an apprenticeship. This article offers an incomplete view of what a good job entails.
19
@Dan Meerson: Young people are short changing themselves because they demand well paying jobs sitting in front of a computer. Manual labor jobs pay very well with good benefits (particularly in union states) but if it doesn't involved sitting in front of a computer they don't want them.
5
@Dan Meerson
I totally agree, my plumbers and electricians can buy and sell me, I, myself as a woman growing up in the late sixties never had the opportunity to learn basic or advanced carpentry skills, which served my brothers well as they worked with GCs in high school and summer breaks.i so admire individuals who work with their hands, Whether it is landscaping, carpenters,plumbing, etc. Let us start to appreciate and support the trades that keep us all comfortable and able to be in happy in our homes.
9
@Dan Meerson - Well, it is in the interest of these middle-aged plumbers to be the only game in town, isn't it? They're quite happy with the way things are: "That'll be $1138.86, sir".
1
We have lost our sense of wonder and endeavor.
If you were to ask university applicants "Are you interested in becoming a scholar?" how many would answer 'yes'? The roots of universities can be traced to the humanities, now scoffed at by some because people can't see an immediate return on investment in studying humanity's awe-inspiring heritage. The natural sciences, in comparison, have been promoted through STEM rhetoric, which is, in my opinion, badly serving people who don't have the aptitude or interest in that field of study and who would be better served in the humanities. What kind of scholars are we producing in this system? A person who contemplates the monetary value of their knowledge is not a scholar.
As to endeavor, many of our ancestors crossed an ocean or traveled great distances within America to find a more prosperous life -- mine came from Scandinavia but maybe yours came from the Great Migration? I doubt very much they enjoyed leaving it all behind. At great cost they delivered a legacy. What would you say to them?
15
@Aaron: As a former college professor, I agree that college is not for everyone. I observed over the years that it was the unmotivated students, the ones for whom college was just the four-year holding tank required of middle-class youth, the ones who had no academic interests, were the ones who were behind most of the binge drinking, vandalism, and sexual assault on campus.
If I were in charge of American higher education, college applicants would have to prove not that they were star athletes, not that they were community volunteers, not that they were president of the ski club, but that they had some genuine intellectual interests.
For the rest, I would have all high school juniors and seniors spend an hour or two per week hearing from adults currently engaged in high-demand occupations and having opportunities to sign up for training programs.
Unlike the systems in many other countries, ours does not cut non-university students off from higher education forever. Perhaps after growing up a bit and earning some money, a person who had followed the vocational track might want to take some college courses for personal enrichment.
10
Employers in service jobs will hire the highest level of educational attainment they can get at a given price.
In DC, administrative assistants have BAs because so much of the population in DC has college education that having a BA doesn't stand out. It does make NOT having a BA a big problem.
College education serves two purposes: one is to provide a higher level of competence in certain fields; the other is simply as a "gating" function where education serves as a proxy for drive, ambition, reliability, etc. Teasing out each of these functions requires a much more granular treatment of "education" (where it has different value in different fields) and the role education plays in employment.
22
Our educational system is biased almost entirely toward the academic track, with a 4-year degree track dominating in high school. Look at the article's listing of good jobs that don't require a college degree; they nearly all require some form of credentialing and as such, further training. Training does not equate to college. We don't, as does Europe, have any clear program for partnering high schools and industry to create a nonacademic track for those who want to do something other than go to college. We do not, as a nation, seem to value work other than that of the intellectual variety, and have stood by while such jobs went elsewhere and are the poorer and less strategically sound for it. We admire the slick financial, tech and entertainment types, few of whom do actual work.
I'm told that companies such as Siemens, an industrial giant that serves many industries, will take high school level students and train them to certificate level and then offer them a job or allow them to move elsewhere, with no debt burden. I'm also told they nearly all stay at Siemens. By the way, colleges turn out a huge number of people who STILL don't have useful skills. Many high-end colleges with strong STEM programs are dominated by non-native students. They get it. We apparently do not.
21
@Chuck Tulloh As parents of older teens, it is very difficult to track down information on these types of training programs. We have been searching for resources for our children who would do very well on a nonacademic track. The local "vocational" school is fed from multiple high schools. They have limited slots for students who already earn As/Bs and plan to go into STEM/engineering and want to start out with engineering technician certifications, then go straight on to 4-year degrees. Much competition. Or the vocational school offers cosmetology and pet grooming - unlimited slots practically but look at the lack of living wages!
We need the construction trades/apprenticeships much better represented and info available to parents/high schoolers to access.
4
I have a decent paying job in a big city. We aren't starving but we definitely have to watch our spending (no vacations other than to see family, one bedroom apartment etc...). If I could acquire a trade skill that led to a lucrative job working with my hands outside in a place where people aren't packed in like rats, I would jump at it!
14
@Sci guy come to Massachusetts. Live in a semi-rural area that has commuter rail access to downtown Boston. You *can* have the best of both worlds up here.
3
@Sci guy
....if you really mean what you say, why not pick a city/state where you would like to live....then attend community college (at night, if necessary) to learn a trade....and fulfill your ambition. Dead end jobs at low salaries are just that! Take control of your life...or someone else will.
2
We have job openings here and no one to fill them. There are several small manufacturing plants that can offer a decent pay with benefits and you can live in a safe community with an excellent school system. We are just off I80, 30 minutes east of Des Moines--Newton IA. Check us out!
14
@PSmith
Please describe "decent pay." I have seen companies promoting $12 bucks an hour as "decent pay." It's not.
3
Growing up in the 60s we actually had shop classes in middle [junior high] school. I took woodworking, metals, power mechanics, graphic arts, and electricity. Most high schools,let alone middle schools, don't even touch on these subjects anymore unless they are designated as specialty institutions. After having gone to college and obtaining several degrees [in engineering], these early shop courses made an indelible impression on my life. It imprinted on my a deep and lasting respect for the skilled trades and I'm still handy [according to my wife] around the house.
26
@Ajax
I was the only girl in some of my shop classes:print, metal, plastics. Still wish I had taken automotive science
7
Sadly, I remember states cut funding for industrial arts classes, just like they did for everything else in our schools.
8
The big three, plumbers, electricians and welders. All make lots of money with minimum training.
Of course, the oil fields in TX and ND are STILL hiring for manual labor.
The premise of the story is just wrong. Employers can not find workers.
7
@Sparky Jones The three trades you mention typically require long apprenticeships, the entrance to which is tightly controlled. Oil field jobs are hardly appealing to any except the most mobile and independent males and without a family. That employers can’t find workers at the moment is in a sense the point of the article and study, letting people know where jobs and affordable living are for their educational level.
7
Retired now, I spent 55 yrs in the pipe trades/HVAC field. I traveled nationally calling on Distributors and Contractors. I always put the "manpower" question to both. The answer universally was that, "if I had more trained people I could do more." For every five people retiring out of HVAC only one is entering. This is good work and great people. In conjunction with this column google "The Future of Work." Chilling!
16
When I look up registered nurses it says one needs a bachelor's degree to become an RN. When I search Google it says:
Some nursing roles are available without a college degree, such as Licensed Vocational Nurses, or LVN (also known as Licensed Practical Nurses, or LPNs). However, the higher paying nursing roles such as most Registered Nursing (RN) positions and any advanced practice nurses now require a bachelor's degree.
12
It is actually harder to get an RN or qualify in accounting (though perhaps the word "clerks" in that one is different) than to get a B.A.
7
@Susan Anderson - There are a few little-known routes into areas with good pay. For example, anyone can sit for the Enrolled Agent exam given by the IRS. If you pass the test, you're an EA, and H&R Block or someone like that will hire you at a decent wage.
3
I dont know many nursing jobs that dont require a degree, as do many accounting jobs. Face it the big scam is if you dont have a degree you are work for those who do and man are they cheap
6
@D - being a CPA requires a degree. The clerk noted here is very important. Even to qualify for the CPA exam you have to work as a clerk for a CPA for two years or have a Master's degree in Accounting. However, bookkeeping is a certification and most accounting positions do not require a degree or certification.
1
Mr. Porter seems to think that a college degree means that you will get a job. I'm almost embarrassed for his incompetence on the subject. I have a college degree in electrical engineering with lots of experience, and I can't find a job...any job. My state claims to have a low employment rate, but that statistic does not reflect what we see on the streets of Minneapolis. He suggests that the huddled masses should move to Des Moines, Grapes of Wrath style. I can say with certainty, those jobs do not exist anymore in the state of Iowa. Their economy is a sham just like ours is here in Minnesota. Please stop trying to flood the Midwest with more unemployed Okies.
9
Maybe contact your Congressional representatives about reducing the number of H1b visas and making qualifying for those more restrictive.
21
@W. The article has nothing to do with having a college degree and getting a job, but rather with where jobs are distributed by education level, type of job and cost of living, with focus on non BA jobs. Perhaps the failure to understand the what the article is about is related to your difficulties.
7
I think there's a problem in America with over-identifying with your job. I see it across social strata and regions: people tend to pin a great deal of their self image to their source of employment, and the fact they are employed. If you ask the average American "What do you do?" they tell you about their job, it does not even occur to them to answer the question with anything else even though it does not mention employment or jobs specifically.
This creates problems with certain lines of work are stigmatized, like trades and other blue collar work. Even if it pays very well, even if the work is in high demand and considered vital to a functioning society, Americans don't see it as a desirable line of work if by taking it as their identity they see themselves as "lower class".
And it's not like I'm above this line of thought, I grew up inundated in it and it was only in the last few years I really started to question it. I make a conscious effort now to answer "What do you do?" with anything other than my job. It helps keep in mind that a job is just something I do for money, not my identity. I can enjoy it or not enjoy it, I can choose to make it an important part of my life, but there's no reason it should define me by default, there's no reason I should let my job dictate my self image to me.
I think if more Americans did this they'd be more willing to work these jobs. It's liberating, realizing you're a person and not a job.
51
@Joel
You are 100% correct. I'm a millennial and the job-equals-identity message was constant growing up.
14
Part of the message here is good - you don't HAVE TO have a college degree to get a well-paid job. I think we've pushed the importance of a 4-year degree too hard.
The other part of the message, which the article doesn't emphasize enough, is that most of these "opportunity jobs" require substantial post-high school training/education. You can make a very good living in nursing or a variety of skilled trades - but you're not going to walk into one of those jobs straight out of high school. And the training/education that is required is usually going to require a level of facility with math and/or science that many of our non-college bound high school graduates haven't developed.
16
My career was helping people choose career goals and then achieving them. My largest frustration was the constant focus on college training which is lengthy and expensive rather than vocational school training which is much shorter, much less expensive, focused solely on the skill, and in areas much as noted in this article that notes jobs are then readily available. For example, in less than two months one can acheive a Commercial Drivers License which will essentially ensure jobs thereafter beginning in the 40,000 - 50,000 range and increase thereafter. While college might cost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars after which in many fields actually securing employment may be questionable based upon a number of factors including career goal, the cost of obtaining a CDL is under 10,000. We desperately need vocational training focused on the 'trades' and to take a hard meaningful look at the costs and limitations colleges offer. We dont need to expand opportunities we need to focus training and counsel into fields that are literally starving for applicants. We need to make vocational education every bit a priority and to place it on par in the minds and hearts of students as college training.
14
With self-driving cars, a CDL might not be a long-term option. My plumber, though, takes very nice cruises on his vacations. The electrician is relaxed and not stressed and the appliance repairmen are also.
Some of these jobs will never go away and are well paid.
9
While I agree with your point in general, a CDL isn’t the best example. It’s pretty clear that those jobs will soon be outpaced by technology. However there are plenty other industries where an associate degrees can provide good jobs.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the issue flexibility? A college degree gives one a degree of flexibility in their career path that vocational schooling by does not.
I’m working in a field totally unrelated to my English degree. But it still has value. Those that can earn high enough grades in at the high school level should not have to choose between debt and vocational school.
If we make college free for those who earn it through hard work in high school and remove the stigma of blue collar jobs, we should be able to open doors for those who want to work in both avenues. There would be nothing stopping an electrician from going to night school and no cost to do it. Instead of shelling out 900 dollars for each three credit course.
We have to remove this idea that people do one job for their entire lives. And that they must choose one or the other. Toledo can be a wonderful place, but when people here want a change in their lives there shouldn’t be a barrier to enter a white collar jobs if they are competent and willing to study.
6
@Margo
I think the biggest application for self driving trucks will be long hauls between warehouses and shipping facilities, where the entire contents of the truck are loaded and unloaded each time.
But for street deliveries or single zip code routes with multiple drop offs and/or pick ups, you'd still need a human being doing the driving and to handle the loading/unloading.
Programming an AI to handle driving down a highway and park in a big loading area is one thing, having it handle a labyrinth of one way streets and construction detours and constant pedestrian jaywalking in a big city is something else entirely.
9
To become an electrician in the San Francisco Bay Area, a person goes through a five year apprenticeship program. The training is a combination of on the job work experience and classroom studies. Starting pay is in the $30 per hour range with increases every six months. A fifth year apprentice is making close to $60 per hour. There are health and welfare benefits all along the way as well as solid pension benefits. Total earnings with benefits over the five years can be close to $500k. Student debt is zero.
Even with all of that, there is a shortage of workers and an industry need of thousands of new workers by 2024.
32
Sounds great until you factor in the costs of buying or renting in the Bay Area, and then the time/money associated with making a lengthy commute from somewhere you CAN afford to live.
12
The pay mentioned is similar in flyover country. Those rates are only a little higher than is paid in the Chicago area. But if you like green grass, good schools, and reasonably priced housing within a 45 minute commute to work and the training facilities, you may want to move to where the deplorables live. A nice 1,200 to 1,500 sq ft home in a safe suburban neighborhood can be purchased for about $150,000. A 1400 sq ft condo in Indianapolis will set you back $115,000. But don’t take my word for it. Check Zillow prices in Lockport, Romeoville, Bolingbrook, and Oswego Illinois, and Indianapolis. The big downside for those living in California is that because of the shorter commutes, they won’t get in as much texting while they are driving.
10
I've moved for jobs twice in the past decade. It's expensive, results in leaving built-up networks of friends, not mention ZERO family near for support.
What will change this situation are Elizabeth Warren's policies on income inequality and education. People can't afford college, but can't afford not to go, because of this article. So start out in the hole, with no extra funds to save for retirement or make that mortgage payment....?
Get the money out of the banks and out of the hands of 91-100%. They've had their time, made their riches and have far more than they'll ever spend. It's time they give it back to the people upon whose backs they acquired it.
Desperate people will do desperate things. America is almost to cliff edge, and when the poor, hungry, tired and meek look toward the bottom, their rage will channel to the haves.
It's not too late to make a change America, for the better. This survival of fittest methodology will only get ugly, and there is more poor than rich.
33
@WI Transplant
I live in MA and Sen Warren is a hypocritical charlatan, whose policies will only result in a worse America. As the polls show, she is on life support as a candidate, let’s hope she is gone sooner rather than later.
7
@WI Transplant
"Get the money out of the banks and out of the hands of 91-100%. ".
So, are you proposing a legislatively-enabled THEFT of other people's money?
3
Hey @stan,
Why the ad hominen attack ?
Is it too difficult for you to critique her plans ?
10
When people in the trades make substantially more than school teachers something’s wrong
11
@Greg What's wrong? Seems to be the effect of an efficient market.
5
@Greg
It's not bad when other people are doing well. What's wrong is when teachers are underpaid given their value to their communities, and as a result, market forces drive more qualified people away from the profession. We should not compare electrician pay to teacher pay. We should not say there is a market that determines teacher pay in a simple way. You can pay less and still get someone to stand in front of a classroom. The question is what do you get for what you pay?
7
@Greg
The construction trades are hard back breaking work under the harshest conditions. The buildings HVAC even if completed are not utilized during construction and that's if your lucky the job is indoors. Also NYC has some of the strictest building codes in the country. No lightweight PVC and Romex here, all cast iron, copper, BX, and conduit.
As far as teachers, working conditions and time off are not comparable, in the trades you don't work, you don't get paid. I'll leave it at that.
7
America! land of opportunity. Sure thing. And did you factor in the cost of student loans and the servitude employers can count on because of it?
7
I know of no Registered Nurses without a bachelors degree.
Maybe LPN's or CNA's but no RN's.
9
@mr. trout
RN s can have BSN (Masters degree) or just AA degree and be an RN, but without any higher degree, the job can be a dead end position.
3
Is it really a dead-end or simply a career choice?
I expect a lot of nurses to prefer their jobs working with patients over management or administrative positions. Not everyone wants to climb ladders.
3
I am 68 years old have a Masters in accounting and engineering, also have CPA and CISA certs, have worked in the accounting and electrical engineering fields. I did not and do not need any of the degrees and certs I earned to do any of the positions I held. My high school education is enough to any of the jobs I had and currently have.
10
@herbie212
1. I am 53 and have a PhD in English literature. I teach English and American lit to high school kids. I use what I learned in school all the time.
2. There is a value to education that goes beyond getting jobs or doing them.
3. If the U.S. were not so rightist, we would have stronger unions and better labor conditions and more labor power. Then non-college work would pay more and be more fulfilling. Ask Grover Norquist why he hates laborers so much. As your Republican representative.
11
The need to move for work is an argument against home ownership for everyone. Being tied by a mortgage to an area that has lost a job base that you need could be a serious problem.
17
People should be more willing to move. It’s easier to do than it’s ever been.
5
@Peter - I would like to have you go into more detail on why it is easier to move. l disagree but would like to review what your reasoning is.
8
I guess it depends what you’re looking for... but there are definitely well paying service industry jobs in nyc that don’t require a college degree. Granted moving is expensive and you would have to commute and I hope you’re not too old and don’t have people depending on you for money... but you could definitely interview at 3 open calls a day off craigslist and eventually find a good situation in a city with other opportunities down the line.
1
My daughter and family have resided in Ankeny, IA (a Des Moines suburb) for 25 years so my wife and I visit 3 or 4 times annually. The entire Des Moines area has been booming since they moved there and that includes the years when the “Great Recession” affected so many people elsewhere. Home prices and taxes are reasonable compared to the absurd levels on the east and west coasts. DEMAC (Des Moines Area Community College) has a huge campus in town through which about 2/3 of the students of the two high schools (both new facilities) take courses. Our grandson now a freshman (Industrial Engineering) at Iowa State was able to start with 30 college credits and has been offered a summer internship with a major US business. If we did not have other family nearby in this area (NJ). we would be out there in a hurry.
With that kind of growth, opportunities abound for both white collar and blue collar workers especially for skilled trades people. The problem for unemployed people in other areas is a natural reluctance to pull up stakes and the cost of relocation.
15
@Richard B No offense, but Iowa has very little appeal to most Americans willing to locate. And most of those Americans know very little about Iowa, other than it's not North Carolina, Texas or Florida.
1
You might be able to get your RN after an associates degree, but if college (a bachelors degree) isn't for you, then I doubt an associates in nursing is either. That coursework is very demanding.
13
@Luke I'm just starting on the road of sending my kids off to college. Financially, an associates from a community college would save us over 15k and then, hopefully, most of the credits would transfer to the Pre Med programs my child is looking at. It isn't academics or demanding coursework that forces so many kids to go to community college or just not go to college altogether. And no, smart kids don't get enough scholarship money to cover the average cost of tuition and textbooks - especially textbooks in the hard sciences.
8
@Luke How is an Associate's degree not "college?"
3
One thing that I would tell my high school history students is that while college might not prepare them directly for a job, successfully completing college shows that they have the drive and ability to complete four arduous years to get that degree. And that is a job skill that many employers are looking for. And, I showed them how various careers benefit from degrees in areas that do not seem to fit. For instance, one survey of Fortune 1000 companies found that a business undergraduate degree was the most common for the top three people in each company (about 23%). But the second highest undergraduate degree for them was philosophy (about 13%). The third highest was a one of the engineering degrees (about 4%).
I also pointed out that four years was not necessary and that the local 2 year colleges had a lot of associate degrees that could benefit them greatly. But that, in either case, not completing high school could demonstrate to many companies that they did not have the drive to actually help a company succeed. I am just as proud of those of my students who took a job right out of high school and have done well in it (for instance two of them became loan officers at my branch bank) as I am with my students who went on to Stanford and became lawyers or doctors.
I also believe that vocational education belongs in our schools and should not be looked down upon as a “lesser” path. For many, it is the right option.
33
When the lawyers got involved in limiting the industrial arts in junior high and high school due to liability insurance concerns is when the trades lost a huge pathway to the middle class. Now some employers seem to want a thirty year old with a masters degree and twenty years of experience but only want to pay an entry level wage. There’s a bunch of us that are interested in how this is going to shake out
31
Just one thought: Among the occupations listed as offering the most good jobs for those without a bachelors degree, there are none, zero, that are central to producing goods or services that are not traded internationally. They are in companies that do not have to compete with Italy, China, Brazil, et. al. If they are competing at all, the competitors are in the US and their customers are in the US. In short they are in industries that have not been globalized -- indeed that cannot be globalized. They are protected from international competition by their natures.
12
@joel bergsman Bingo! The best paying jobs out there are jobs that can't be outsourced to China or India.
5
Plus, Spokane Washington is gorgeous and has lots of outdoor fun.
7
This is quite awful.
Lowering the educational requirements for important jobs such as nurses and computer user support is not the way to solve an unemployment problem.
For instance, a computer user support person without the requisite bachelor degree will invariably lower the efficiency and productivity of the company's workers or heaven forbid, allow hacking and malware in the company's systems.
i.e. I wouldn't set up my company in Asheville, NC.
For instance, nurses without degrees might be the cause of an increase in errors and poor patient care in hospitals, doctor's offices, and clinics.
i.e. I wouldn't go to a hospital or trust health care in Huntsville, AL if I lived there.
Even carpenters, electricians, and repair/maintenance workers without proper training and certification can be unable to fulfill safety requirements for buildings, homes, schools, and offices. That's dangerous as well.
3
A college degree in itself is not required training for some of these professions. A degree in itself does not address the concerns you have, like errors in medicine. We need to stop thinking a degree is any sort of qualification for a specific job and start valuing trade schools more.
24
@Mimi
Lack of a degree does not cause a computer support person to allow hacking and malware, nor does a lack of a degree cause a nurse to make errors in care.
For both of these jobs, relevant education may well improve a person's competency level, but possession of a degree in of itself will not ensure competency.
In both examples, there are multiple ways one could obtain the knowledge and skills required to competently perform the job, from completion of degree programs to on the job apprenticeships to self learning to specific skills training.
What is needed is a way to qualitatively evaluate whether or not a person (or organization) has the relevant (as in previously determined to predict success) knowledge and skills required to competently perform the job.
I'm much more inclined to trust an organization which can demonstrate effective use of quantitative evaluation processes (both in hiring and ongoing improvement) over an organization that uses a degree as proxy for competence.
4
@Mimi - I dropped out of Yale grad school (English PhD program) and became a computer programmer - without any formal training at all! In a 35 year career, I did COBOL/VSAM/CICS, Adabas/Natural and DB, C++, Oracle, WebLogic and Java. I finished out my career in Oracle/Business Objects/Unix.
Curiously, nobody ever questioned my qualifications. They just wanted to know when the stuff would be ready to move to production, and then thanked me for a great job.
2
Since the analysis appropriately includes cost of living all this really shows is that wages for nurses and electricians do not vary all that much while cost of living does. This was rather evident when I saw Boulder on the list. It's far from a tech center but it is a very desirable place to live. So likely a lot of ski bums go there and work as electricians, retail and recreation. The large supply of these workers keeps wages from moving too high.
One major problem with this analysis is that it relies on job ads. Many people working in the trades work for themselves or recruiting is done via word of mouth. I suspect plumbers working for themselves doing extremely well in Boulder and San Francisco.
5
The way nursing is categorized in the piece requires a deeper discussion. The reason hospitals hire bachelor of science nurses (BSNs) is because the research indicates they provide better health outcomes and patient care. This is the future. Medicine is increasingly complex, requiring both an understanding and operational application of new technology and knowledge of evidence-based practice, research methodology, and population health. While there are clearly still institutions hiring ADNs, they are unable to hold leadership positions without furthering their education and their future earning potential is largely predicated on having a BSN. The Veterans Administration will not promote ADNs beyond entry level without a a BSN and the US military only hires BSNs. Having an all college educated nursing staff improves hospital's chances of being accepted into competitive programs that show enhanced patient outcomes like, Magnet status. National nursing organizations have advocated for a bachelor's prepared workforce for over 50 years. The Institute of Medicine's report on the Future of Nursing has set a goal of an 80% BSN workforce by 2020. The future is one in which nurses are bachelor's prepared at a minimum and have a PhD or Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) at the highest research, clinical, and management levels.
46
@Vanessa Shields Great response to a complex issue!
6
@Vanessa Shields
Thanks for sharing this with general audience. Unequivocally we need 1) more BSNs 2) more techs to free them up to do high level work 3) more DNPs in management-
However, left unsaid in your comments, is what we do NOT need , and where there is really rapid growth -more NPs /DNPs passing themselves off as physicians. That poses the identical quality issue you are arguing against.
8
@Vanessa Shields Thank you. When do you expect that school nurses will be BSN rather than LPN?
1
America needs a national jobs program akin to the WPA or a universal income. We could also end our participation in the disastrous WTO and NAFTA or whatever trump wants to call it now, and end our deals with Japan, S.Korea, Taiwan...I'm not saying don't trade with them, but make it so their unfair advances are taxed, with you know a real tariff (on manufactured goods) so our companies can compete and don't offshore. Protect american industries like Hamilton (who so many people seem to like due to the play) suggested. If a company can't make their product in China for next to nothing and then sell it here for cheaper than an american product, we could compete again. Our market is big enough to do this. Make it so it costs them money and time and energy to produce overseas again and they will come home if they want the sales from the hundreds of millions of americans. if they're too chicken to do so, someone in america will make a company and do it.
7
Imagine all the tech jobs we can have fixing & installing solar panels, wind mills and energy storage (batteries) system. If only some politician would run on creating more of those jobs.
25
@Pat - Why do politicians need to do anything? If you can get cheaper electricity by installing solar panels, then customers will order them and have them installed.
2
The best paying jobs for registered nurses do require bachelor degrees.
16
In listing workers "without a bachelor's degree" the article (among several other skilled trades) names electricians and carpenters.
Quite obviously the world needs skilled workers who perform tasks that require a considerable level of training which is undertaken as an alternative to he bachelor's degree which commonly results in very little knowledge of any practical use.
I believe we should (as in Germany) be encouraging young persons to enter the skilled trades to pursue these necessary tasks, not leave them with a concept that they are undervalued because they didn't waste 3-4 years of their lives pursuing a useless degree.
28
Careful how you classify a degree as useless. A person who majors in English may end up in public relations for a big company, etc. One thing a degree provides successful students is communication and critical thinking skills. Both are valuable and invaluable. Please don't frame this as another tribal war, it's about helping young people grow into satisfying lives who have something to offer society.
13
@karen
Since I have a whole string of degrees, I obviously don't think of them all as useless. But I do believe there are many young persons who believe a degree of some sort will mean a well paying job, which clearly is not the case. Many of them, in my view, would have been better suited to learn a skilled trade, which unfortunately in our society does not bear the same snob value -- just "blue collar, my dear!"
8
@karen
Not when that “education” consumes four years while USA adolescents grow up and costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you are serious about i bedding communciation skills, we need to teach them in k-12, and we need kids to be multilingual (nothing contributes more to communication skills than being bilingual) as for critical thinking skills, if you have seen a highly skilled plumber work and compared i to someone with a BA in French literature from podunk U, you might change your mind on who you really want in the foxhole with you solving problems.
6
I’m happy to see other commenters noting the presence of unions in the top cities. Keep in mind, though, that the average pay is a legacy of a strong union in the 70s and 80s. Every time voters support so-called Right to Work laws and union-busting Supreme Court appointees, they are voting for their own grandchildren to grow up without economic security.
120
@Hillary Warren just imagine how many more jobs there could have been without unions.
1
@Honeybee google farmers and immigration, especially as it relates to e-verify, and you'll see what essential American industry depends on this labor - jobs that apparently Americans are too good for.
4
Neither Sean Hannity nor Glen Beck nor Rush Limbaugh let being high school graduate entertainers stand in their weigh to obtaining " good jobs".
Donald Trump did not allow a lack of any prior governing political experience prevent him from him from obtaining a really good job.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner got two really ":good jobs" by blood and family connections.
10
Current "Journal of Political Economy" (127#3) surveyed all companies with 100+ employees operating in two or more states from 1977 to 2010 -- startling that a 1 point increase in corporate income tax rate result in a 4% increase in the number of firms which close or move up shop. The opposite is true as well in terms of reduction in corporate tax rates.
A rookie long-haul truck driver receives ~$0.30/mile or $600 per week, an experienced corporate long haul driver (6+ years) at least twice that.
5
a trucking company can't send its jobs to china. the recent corporate tax cuts have not saved or created any jobs. all that money just went in to the pockets of share holders, CEO bonuses and stock buy backs. this is industry trade magazine hype
5
Passing and funding a sorely needed infrastucrure plan would spread working class jobs across the country, to the people that need it the most.
On the flip side passing meaningful healthcare reform would reduce a families monthly expenses by cutting off the ball and chain dragging on every American, soaring healthcare costs.
Basic budget principles that congress can do for us now more money in, less money out.
9
@mlb4ever The infrastructure spending currently being discusses would send as much of the money as possible to the investors and managers of the contractors. The working class jobs would be designed to pay as little as possible.
10
What about trade opportunities? Wealthy communities offer a premium customer base. I live in the Seacoast of NH and plumbers in the area charge $85-$105/hr.
7
@Swampy My guess is that NH trade opportunity is anecdotal vs systemic. Perhaps you have to be part of a Union in order to be a licensed plumber in the Seacoast region; perhaps you get $100+/hr for commercial jobs only, maybe the plumbers work PT vs FT due to lack of demand, maybe that opportunity is real and NH is about to get swamped, pushing down the price, idk...
2
that's what plumbers charge, not what they are actually paid. as a plumber I made about 18 dollars of that and the rest went to the plumbing franchise.
5
@jerry brown
Actually no, thats what they charge in residential situations. Recall the old saw more relevant today than ever- when the plumber presented his bill to an endocrinologist for fixing a faucet, the physicians exclaimed “$250 ?! Why that only took you 15 minutes. Thats more than I make as a physician.” the plumber calmly replied, “Exactly- Thats more than I was also making as a physician.”
7
Imagine the problems that the monthly flow of 100,000 illegals has on the job markets.
A disturbing number are entirely illiterate (in their native language) and have no business or manufacturing skills.
A significant percentage have less than a sixth grade education.
Consequently, the job pool for them is severely limited . It is likely that it will saturate, i.e. it will be immaterial that they wish to work, there simply won’t be jobs that match their skills.
Any residual jobs will not exceed poverty wages. They will be entirely dependent upon social services for housing, food, healthcare.
Economic forces will depress the wages of existing low skill citizens and push more of them below and the poverty level
19
@Bongo In my area it also means that the public school doesn't offer much in the way of college prep or vo-tech; all the money goes to remedial and special needs. Nonremedial students are sent to study hall or told to grad early or to buck up for Dual Enrollment courses - and that includes all math after Algebra 2.
Resettlement areas need the states to invest enough money that ALL students can become college and career ready, not just remedial/sn.
11
@Bongo
Most low paid workers in this country not competing for the same jobs that immigrants take. As I am sure you already know, the economic forces that have decreased wages are effected by forces not considered in this study like the eradication of labor unions, globalization, corporate tax loop holes and the disparity between the 1% and the middle class.
9
@Honeybee: That would be news to most of the people of color that I know.
1
The whole premise is just wrong. Education should not be connected to a living wage. Education should be key to the marginal increases above a living wage, but businesses should be required to pay a living wage. In civilized countries, even the lowest paid jobs get wages that are enough to live on, PLUS medical care and company paid vacations, by law. All work is necessary, or the jobs would not exist. Societies, especially
US society, needs to realize the importance of all jobs, the dignity of work, and a living wage for all workers.
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@gratis
My plumber getting paid a $200 drop Charge for first 15 minutes “diagnostics” , answerable only to himself as his own boss, , has plenty of dignity I should think.
5
@gratis Exactly. And if we're going to continue with our system of capitalism it's crucial. People who don't make money can't buy things.
7
The cities with low numbers of opportunity jobs for people without a bachelors degree are also all magnets for young people with college degrees, boasting a fun culture, modern social climate and lots of fellow young people. These college grads will take well paying non-college like jobs just to live where they want, and are willing to work as IT support workers or even baristas if it will pay for a shared apartment ..
Even for highly skilled professions with advanced degrees, salaries vary wildly around the country, but even more wildly compared to the cost of living .. in smaller southern cities or midwestern cities without brand name recognition. Quality of life, especially with a family or only one breadwinner, is much higher in these cities too.
It is also disingenuous to call plumbing a job that does not require education, it takes a lot of years of apprenticeship ... but yes not academic work. It is obviously a good fit for people who don't want to pursue academics beyond high school, but not for those who don't want to learn beyond high school.
The click for "map" has a lot more info, some better organized than this summary.
I think if you are unhappy with opportunities near you, and are willing to move, mixing up "brand name" cities and then cheaper cities and then taking cost of living into account may get you the best net salary and life style .. but people have preferences too. Young people should value getting experience too ..
9
For people in the US with a PhD it can be a challenge to find a job that pays a decent salary.
50
@rbtn
As it should be -why should taxpayer society subsidize someone to hang out at school until they are 27-30 years old, arising at 10 am, and on a school calendar, excellent health benefits, a free gym etc etc. Its a GREAT gig-
1
@rbtn, my sister has a PhD, and I agree that competition for academic jobs [which might not be your field] is fierce. Fortunately, she's never had to do adjunct work, and has a few weeks during the Summer when she isn't preparing for the next semester's classes.
I've often thought she could make a lot more, as a consultant, during the break weeks. She isn't interested in that, which is her call.
2
Go where the jobs are, not where the cost of living is. We need air conditioners in Texas to survive the hot and humid summer. Yesterday I waited till 8:10 PM for the air conditioner technician to show up. He unapologetically said, I was fortunate to get his service due to heavy demand. On the other hand, if I were poor, I would rather to be a poor soul in California rather than in Texas simply due to better social benefits in California.
14
And better weather in ca!
3
This article indicates that non college required jobs are mostly available in the smaller cities of “flyover country “ and people will go there if they get the skills training they need in or after high school. The result will accentuate the split between “elite “ population on the coasts and “non-elites “ “ middle class” workers in the middle of the country. This will increase the current divide in the USA. It needs to be recognized and addressed
6
I don’t think it needs to be addressed. Someone has to do the dirty work and those on the coasts can have the Executive positions and employ illegals at below minimum wages to do housecleaning and yard work.
4
Do they honestly think that the cost of living in NYC is only 37% higher than the cost of living in Birmingham Alabama?
69
@Billy
Agreed. Ridiculous
10
Agreed. It’s as if it’s a different dollar.
That’s why national minimum/ living wages don’t work.
$40k in NYC isn’t the same as $40k in Des Moines.
17
@Billy
Yeah that’s risible when you add in comp housing. You cna live like JR Ewing in Birmingham for $1.5 million mansion. What will that get you in Manhattan ? LOL
7
This is an interesting article, however, I am distracted by term "superstar" cities.
11
If you can’t find a good paying job in this economy, you’re either not trying or woefully incompetent .
1
@There, or you are an older adult, with a good amount of experience and skills, and are passed over for a younger, cheaper applicant. Truth.
22
@There, an over-generalization. Here in the Berkshires, a great tourist economy nonetheless insures that most jobs are service jobs, i.e., lower-paying, part-time, temporary and seasonal. Public transport is almost non-existent, so if you don’t have a car, you can’t get to a job. There are woefully few tech or financial sector jobs. Most college grads leave the area, so we have a burgeoning older population, and our K-12 population is in decline. Skilled trades, e.g., carpenters, plumbers, electricians, machinists, need workers but there are relatively few apprenticeships available.
5
hogwash, I have two twenty somethings without college but who are star job candidates in every other way. it's been a huge struggle for them and me.
3
Just a data note: Construction and trade unions provide over 70% of apprenticeships across the US. Tell me again how union busting by Republicans helps with this.
73
those union apprenticeships have become very difficult to get into as well, many more are needed but the unions can only find room for a small number of union jobs in the workplace due to the cost cutting and anti union bias of big business
1
@tom can you give us the data for how many factories have closed because of unions too?
1
@tom What about the workers who are not in the unions, how do they pay for their apprenticship? Many open shops have programs that charge the employee for the training they recieve, requiring them to be a type of indentured worker. No union program ever argued for less than a living wage, unlike all the non-union CEO robber- barions making obseen money.
Unions built this country, and will continue to do so.
1
Nursing employers are now requiring a Bachelor's degree in nursing (BSN) in almost all hospital settings for RNs. Those who have bachelor's in other fields (say Biology or Psychology) PLUS an Associates Degree in Nursing (so 6 years of college already) must still go to BSN completion programs to get hired or even transfer to a new job within the same hospital in many cases. Therefore I find the author's reliance on RN jobs for the highest opportunity without a bachelor's to be circumspect and misleading.
38
@Healthy Nurse
There is reach hat shows that hospitals with higher percentage of
1
Most of these jobs require special training and/or apprenticeships. Why are we not promoting these kinds of skills early in high school? So many kids are wasting their money with college.
25
Thanks to Mr. Porter for a fine article, but there are two important considerations that the article does not address.
The first consideration is job flexibility in a given city. Specifically, what happens if you lose your current job? Are there other attainable jobs in the area? In some smaller cities, if a primary employer cuts back or shuts down, there may be relatively few other employers in the area offering similar positions that a laid-off employee can turn to.
The second consideration is health care. Because most employees by far in the U.S. get their health insurance through their employer, and because the risks and costs of going without or transitioning to a new insurance plan can be so great, employees are unnecessarily bound to their employers. This is especially true for employees with families or pre-existing health conditions. One consequence of this dependency on employer-provided health insurance is that employees cannot simply “pull up the stakes and go to where the jobs are.”
31
There’s a reason Toledo is at the top. It’s the unions. Toledo is a union city and the unions have made the city great. Oh we’re also a bright blue spot on the red map. The republicans have tried to bust us but so far we have held on. So follow us in the lead vote out the republicans and go union!
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@J Clark
This is right. Unions keep wages up and are able to negotiate fair labor conditions. But if you look at the list all the areas where non-college jobs are available are in what once was the industrial belt.
While we have lost many heavy industry jobs, those regions have historically been strong centers for secondary manufacturing. Those are the business that should get the tax cuts, not the big multinationals.
23
@J Clark The unions are what killed the city. How many factories have closed or cut jobs in Toledo because the unions demanded unrealistic wages? The list is almost endless. How many of the businesses, that were once staples of Toledo, had union employees? The local government consistently bends the knee for the businesses in town that have union employees and does virtually nothing to bring white collar jobs to the area. The city of Toledo continues to run a short term jobs/economic plan instead of a long term plan.
2
@Kohl: Unrealistic wages or wages that would sap the pot of money that the top executives wanted for their automatic bonuses?
16
Another issue not mentioned in the article is many college graduates are taking jobs that really don't require a degree, which is called underemployment making it harder to find work for non-degree holders. This fact also indicates that for those obtaining degrees in disciplines where job openings are low the advantages of having a degree are not that significant.
19
@William Beaver - A 2008 study by the Department of Education found that 5% of recent college graduates are illiterate, and another 20% read at the fifth grade level. So they're not really underemployed.
I have an issue with how the associates degree in Nursing is presented. It may offer an opportunity to start working at a hospital. However, research has supported the findings that when more baccalaureate degree nurses are on staff, mortality rates go down. High performing hospitals often only hire BSN prepared nurses. Often, when ADN’s are hired, they must show acceptance into an ADN to BSN program. BSN often earn more and advance more quickly because of their bachelor’s degree. An ADN is a good start however that nurse may be frustrated with the limited ability to work at a Magnet awarded hospital or move to a charge nurse position.
11
@Laura Connelly I don't know ANY hospitals that are hiring ADN nurses who are not then stuck in lower-level positions. My sister is one of them. She is now 60 years old and will never move up the ladder. BSN nurses get hiring preferences, and now, as you say, Magnet or Hospitals of Excellence ONLY hire them, and now, to become supervisors, a nurse has to have a MSN.
Right now, my son, who has a law degree and has passed the bar in two states, cannot find a job as an attorney in either Massachusetts or New Hampshire. I'm not sure if he could find one in Birmingham or Anchorage, but the cost of moving himself and his family might preclude what he could make in salary and costs of taking the bar exam there. He works now for a workers' compensation firm owned by hedge fund managers whose only goal is to make money. Not sure how long this job will last...
9
@Zander1948 Agree and you cannot even get hired by hospitals around here or change positions to something like Care Coordination/Case Management etc without a BSN at minimum. After 6 years of college and two degrees, I still had to pay for a completion program which did not teach me anything new. I already knew how to do research and evaluate others' research. I had over 15 years of clinical experience and did not learn any new pathophysiology or nursing concepts in the BSN at a Big 10 university. A big racket if you ask me. Someone is making money off of a lot of nurses.
11
"There may be good reasons for hospitals in Raleigh to require registered nurses to have a bachelor’s degree. " Most likely, because they can get it!
15
The supply chain for goods in the country was deliberately dismantled and reassembled over the last 35 years in other countries, especially China. The statistical misrepresentation as reported in this story will not enabled intelligent people to find employment that affords a home, start a family, pays the bills nor much less settle student loans.
Those deliberate false profit policies account for the wide disparity in opportunity for wealth between the 10% and the rest-of-us.
7
Or you could do like most Trump voters from the rust belt and just wait for the jobs to come back.
Relocation,to a degree, requires motivation and forethought about how to create a better future.
Those aren’t traits that your average 18 year old that has no desire for college.
Maybe regional employers need road shows much like military recruiters do when they visit high school seniors.
25
@Husky
I couldn't agree more. I'll never forget the image during the past election cycle of the coal miner pleading with Trump to bring his job back when there were good if not outstanding paying jobs in the oil fields of OK and TX that only required his same skills, and a little motivation to pick himself up and move there. However, our current administration elected to incentivize laziness and apathy by continuing and promoting a policy of coal usage. Over my 35 year career I’ve relocated to four different cities seeking better job opportunities as I sought better paying jobs and benefits for my family.
12
@Husky There are also good reasons to want to stay close to family. If a child needs picked up early from school, it's nice to have Granny or Grandpa nearby to help. We save our son lots of money of fees for boarding his dogs because when he goes out of town because we keep them. If a car breaks, it's nice to have someone to call to pick you up. How does one measure the economic benefits of having the bus drop off the children at their grandparents' house and not having to pay for after school care? Not everyone wants to go to Williston for the fracking boom, and it may not be a lack of motivation but solid reasons.
12
“...many employers are demanding more education than needed just because they can be more selective when they have a larger pool of workers to choose from.”
This is quite true not only for jobs in the middle class sector but across the entire spectrum. I see it in my own non-profit field all the time. I’m experienced and successful enough that I can blow off the “masters degree preferred” line in job postings, but I still find it ridiculous.
8
@Cousy We have a wonderful culinary arts program at our community college. We have only one restaurant that is not a chain. But I figure that at some point soon, all the managers at Burger King and Taco Bell will have to have an associates degree. I'm all for education, and it's certainly a cheaper degree than the Culinary Institute of America, and who knows what pleasure one gets from being able to prepare food well, but most of our students would like to stay where they are and all this is doing in my humble opinion is putting another barrier between them and a job that the bright ones could have gotten anyway without a degree (even though the pay for some of them is pretty dismal and will still be when the Associates of Applied Science is required, too).
6
In Pennsylvania, and I imagine elsewhere as well, there is a real shortage of skilled people in the trades. School district leaders I have spoken with believe this is in part a consequence of the educational ideology of "college for all" coupled with the demographic aging out of trade professionals. In the meantime, as higher education has come to increasingly be framed as a private commodity rather than a public good, college degrees increasingly come with huge debt burdens young people are saddled with as they enter the job market. Career and Technical Education may for many young people represent a cost effective means of gaining skills and qualifications to take advantage of well-paid jobs in the trades that are waiting to be filled.
30
@Kai. Are high school students aware of these choices at the time they’re evaluating their career options? Do the schools advise students of the opportunities or downplay them?
8
@Frank Cooperstein In PA CTE got a huge boost from the natural gas boom. Despite the many ambivalences about that industry, CTE became seen much less as a warehousing for special education students who were not on the college track (i.e. low status) and much more as a means of quickly getting the skills and credentials to take on high paid work in the industry (despite the ultimate sustainability of the industry or the associated jobs). Now CTE is not so much oriented so explicitly around gas industry jobs, but I have been surprised at how school district superintendents and principals have been pushing CTE and moving away from the "college for all" stance. But -- your question is an open empirical question. It would be good to know. These are mainly my impressions from my interactions with rural school district leaders.
3
Becoming a registered nurse, plumber or electrician requires secondary education, just not a four year liberal arts degree. Choosing a trade and a vocational school is not exactly the same as forgoing further education after high school!
82
Electricians and Plumbers do not have to obtain secondary education. They are trained in the job through an Apprenticeship program. Full time employment and 1 night per week of educational instruction for 4 years. Apprentices earn $20-$40 per hour as they advance.
22
Depending on where you are, apprenticeships may be hard to get -
11
@muddyw
It’s hard to get into a good college as well. Most things worth doing are “difficult”. That said, we can and should do a lot more to support forms of secondary education other than a four year college degree.
6
This should trigger a conversation about how to make college more affordable.
Otherwise we will end up with TWO Americas.
8
Are these really opportunity jobs? Many of the cities listed are in economically depressed states. They are also the states with some of the most repressive laws on the book.
20
@AV How can they be economically depressed Cities ? , they are offering opportunity jobs which means they typically supporting a population with well paying jobs
How is not having a most amount of regressive taxes and fees on working people in the coastal cities repressive?
2
@Longtime Chi
I was thinking about voting rights, abortion rights, gender rights, well financed schools, public transportation, etc.
3
But plenty of highly skilled people are coming into the US across our southern border to fill high paying jobs that Americans don’t want.
8
The was a time when many nurses had a 3 year diploma, but now almost all positions require a BSN. Nursing is not a without bachelor's degree job
24
@Bob
The researchers were looking at job advertisements, not filled jobs. Perhaps there is more turnover in the non-BSN positions.
1
NYC is home to the best paid construction, teacher, services unions in the country. That electrician you see - 125k per year with full benefits - now add OT. Same for the plumber and HVAC guy/gal. Door man - 75K, Nurse -120K. Moral of the story - find a Union job.
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@Chris
A good union job comes from the completion of a five year appreticeship. My son’s included very high level math and plenty of physics. He worked hard in and out of class. Two thousand people applied for 200 slots. The real beauty is that during the apprenticeship he made a living wage and had full benefits--he was able to start a family before he was middle-aged and he has no educational debt.
43
@Chris
And yet here in NYC 3 major hospitals defeated the Nurses Union major contract demand to lower patient ratios AGAIN (same thing 2 yrs. ago.) Patients housed in the halls and an unrealistic nurse to patient ratio. This is unsafe for patients and a burn out on nursing staff. Hospitals are corporations designed to make a profit for executives, apparently patient safety is not a concern. While a union job is certainly preferable to non-union. Unions need to hang tough on such issues.
7
You forgot hotels. Union dishwashers and housekeepers make $26 an hour, I believe. And I would tell you how much banquet waiters can make, but you wouldn't believe me.
2
Come to Houston! There aren’t enough people here in the construction industry to build what’s being undertaken here. I’ve been looking for months for a skilled but non-degreed expert in machinery- pumps, compressors and the like - and haven’t seen a single applicant who has any relevant experience. There is tremendous opportunity for non degreed people here!
8
@Steven Flatter and what are you doing to help those without relevant experience acquire that experience like OTJ training?
5
@Steven Flatter You might want to improve women's healthcare if you want people to move there. It is not just about money and jobs.
6
@nedpgh in the case of the specific job I’m staffing, I can’t provide training to get from no experience to qualified. That would be comparable to me providing training to take someone just graduating from high school up to the level of a mechanical engineer with 5+ years which I can’t do.
1
One standout statement says a lot — some jobs require more education than necessary to do the work. I fought for several years for a chemistry degree, but my career almost never used my degree skills. Training is key, regardless if the job. My job skills began after my degree.
56
@Bobnoir the degree demonstrates that you are able to be educated, that you are ready to learn job skills.
8
@Bobnoir We have a large portion of students who are in college for no particular reason. Jobs that never needed degrees now want them...because they can. I've seen this shift at my work place over the years. I also agree with all the posters that tout the benefits of vocational education.
7
General Managers, Sales Reps typically assume a 4 year degree. Those who are already nurses are grandfathered in, but to become a Registered Nurse now requires a 4 year degree. Many of these other jobs may not require a degree, but they tend to favor those who have one.
18
@Bjz - If you have a talent for sales, I guarantee they won't care if you ever went to school at all. If there ever was an 'eat what you kill' job, it is sales. You sell $10 million a year, you write your own ticket.
3
Did you notice that a great deal of the nursing positions were near casinos!
3
A few professions that require a 2 year degree - physical therapy assistant, licensed practical nurse, occupational therapy
7
Occupational Therapist is Masters and Clinical Doctorate. Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant is Associate.
3
I think there should be help for people that can't afford to move for job opportunities. The irony is that well paid corporate workers often get moving assistance, even to the point of a company buying their house temporarily. Why can't we figure out how to help those who want to relocate from areas with a job shortage? The idea that all the rural areas are going to come back isn't realistic.
18
Truck driving is tough. i care for truckers. they have and get LOTS of health problems.
21
I am confused about this statement, “About 22 million jobs — over one in five across the metro areas in the study — pay more than the median wage.“. Are we to understand that four out five jobs in the cities covered pay less than the median wage? How does this work? Is median wage calculated nationally but reported locally?
Even the 22 million figure is unclear. We have about 150 million jobs in America. I was taught that the median point had an equal number of points above it as below.
6
@Therisa Rogers
They looked at current openings being advertised.
As you say, that means that the work available today is overwhelmingly likely to pay less than the median national wage - so even now, after almost a decade of expansion and historically low interest rates, four fifths of job openings pay less than the median job.
Without historic data to compare to it's hard to say if that is better or worse than it has been historically - maybe entry-level jobs constitute a very high percent of advertised openings, although that is not true in my experience - but it definitely sounds bad.
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I agree. I found both the explanations and the graphs confusing. If you’re averaging AND median-ing salaries and “cost of living” indices, AND charting populations, without including that none of these numbers are static—- you get weird math and a CNN Money list that tells you Columbus, Ohio and Athens, Georgia are in the top ten places to raise a family. Fun to look into the numbers, but politically, this looks like the NYTimes is telling people who weren’t academic superstars to stay off their playground.
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It doesn’t seem surprising to me that job openings would pay less than median wage. Openings are going to tend to be in lower tier positions for more junior positions. The folks who are earning toward the top are going to tend to be older, more experienced, and a lot harder to budge out of their high paying gigs.
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Might be true by stats but as a creative person with no college I’ve flourished in NYC after languishing in dead end jobs for years down south. The first few years I lived here I found work easily at the post office, harder to get into in smaller towns. That career was definitely not great for NYC (a postman in Manhattan, Kansas makes the same as one in New York) but it was a lot better than anything I found in the south and I used it to springboard into a job where plenty of people are pushing against six figures without a degree. I’m very lucky to have found a niche that lets me work at such a unique place that could only exist in New York.
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Pleas tell us more!
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How can we say this diplomatically, many of the "good paying" jobs are out in the sticks or in smaller old or rust belt type cities that relatively few people live.
Also, if you move out there, there is no guarantee it will last. Unlike major cities like NY, LA, these smaller towns/cities have can have boom and bust economies whereas NY or LA even in the rare times they go bust are still employing millions.
NYC and LA are near the bottom of the "well paying jobs". These can still be in the millions whereas the good paying areas can only be a fraction of this total.
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@Paul Just guessing that you have never been west of the Hudson River, or at least have never set foot in St. Louis or Kansas City -- both desirable places to live even if they lack that Brooklyn zeitgeist.
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@Paul I read story after story of workers having to fight mind numbing traffic or wait for delayed public transit just to get to work in those locations. So even if you do find work you're spending a huge chunk of your life just getting there.
Plus, some of us like it in our small cities.
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@Paul
Continuing climate change makes the Great Lakes area more and more desirable.
I can personally vouch that Kansas City and Cleveland are great places to live. I moved from Atlanta to Cleveland in 1997 to escape Atlanta's traffic and ever increasing heat and humidity. I have never regretted it. My extended family lives in Kansas City and it is a fun and vibrant city.
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I am glad to see young people being advised to cut those home-town ties and follow the job opportunity. It worked for past generations, and it is the only thing that will work for you. How do you think your own ancestors ended up where you live now?
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@Penseur
In my family, they got there by relatively short distance moves. My parents moved 150 miles from a rural community to a small industrial city. I, and both of my sisters, moved 75 miles from that small city to major industrial and commercial cities.
In all these cases, it was easy to keep connected with family back home - a drive of a few hours on a weekend was no problem. This is not the case if asking somebody to move 500 miles. Which is why we ought to avoid concentrating economic activity in a few select supercities.
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@Jim S.: Jim, are you certain that your ancestors, like mine, did not come here on a ship from Europe?
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@Penseur
My ancestors did come on ships from Europe. Although a few of them were here before there was such a thing as the United States of America.
I thought you were speaking of a time frame relevant to how jobs are now distributed in the USA.
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I find it hilarious that it is supposed to be news that “the truth is that there are better-paid jobs available to workers without the requisite college credential....They are not always in the most obvious places.” Tip one: “San Francisco is not for you.”
Sorry, but it is completely obvious to me that Toledo would have more such jobs, and be more affordable generally, than San Francisco.
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@Raindrop yep. And how did a little state like Ohio have so many cities? Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati? Most states only have one big city.
I can bet that lots of those under paid high school grads are doing the same work as the college grads and get paid less. This is twisted. Where’s the equal protection?
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This is a well put together and concise piece (great visuals too). Bravo!
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We need more people in the trades. We have a building boom in Boston, but there aren’t enough electricians, plumbers or HVAC workers. These jobs pay well.
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@Emily R
Same here in Portland. Also add truck driver to the list. And if it's a union job, as many are at least in the northwest, the pay AND the benefits can be very good.
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@Emily R I'll bet that shortage exists in every major US city and suburb.
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@Emily R
I know Master Plumbers who earn more than doctors and engineers. A few of them become successful landlords or real estate investors as they find good deals in their cities. With planning and hard work they can get out of the basement and sewage businesses in the 50's to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
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Toledo - the land of opportunity, but the urban coastal elites are going to choose our next president.
Very interesting perspective. I have been saying for a while now that living in LA or NYC isn't a birth-right. If you can't afford exorbitant housing prices, then move to Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, or Toledo, apparently.
Maybe in the next election the big city slickers won't forget the blue-collar workers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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@Tom Stoltz. Why is Toledo shrinking then?
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I yearn to go back to my hometown in the heartland, where mama used to cook up squirrel tail and raccoon liver. The coastal elites are out of touch with our life and more so our cuisine.
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@Jake How about some smoked salmon tail with chicken livers? Or is that too elite and out of touch?
We all identify with something, my self I choose inclusion, not judging others and enjoying your right to free speech.
Shouldn't the number being compared across cities be the number of applicable workers competing for each of these jobs, not the percentage these jobs comprise of total employment? This number was alluded to for St Louis vs New York, but it should have been what drove the study. It's your chance of getting a good job, not the amount of jobs you couldn't get, that matters.
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