Comment by jerkstate
15 days ago
I really appreciate you following up with a cordial tone, it's so nice to have a respectful conversation with a stranger on the internet in this day and age.
So, this chart has job numbers and count for the following resource extraction/manufacturing related fields with the following average hourly pay and the number of people employed in that field today:
Manufacturing: $35.16 - 12,746k
Mining and logging: $40.33 - 623k
Construction: $39.24 - 8,313k
Transportation and warehousing: $31.19 - 6,738k
The weighted average of this category is $35.53 per hour.
In general, these jobs can mostly be performed without a college degree.
Contrast that with service jobs that can broadly be performed with a college degree:
Retail trade: $25.18 - 15,595k
Leisure and hospitality: $22.75 - 16,991k
Other services: $32.39 - 6,036k
The average hourly rate for this class of jobs is $25.24.
So, on average, manufacturing and extraction jobs not requiring a college education pay 40% more than service jobs of the same requirements.
I'm not one of those people like the top poster who thinks that everyone can just go get a college degree and become an accountant or a nurse. I think there are a lot of people out there who can follow instructions to work machinery reasonably well, but aren't going to be a great fit for jobs that require a substantial education. These people are the majority - about 62% of US adults are not college educated. We either owe them dignified employment, or in a democracy, we will suffer their wrath.
>I really appreciate you following up with a cordial tone, it's so nice to have a respectful conversation with a stranger on the internet in this day and age.
This feels sarcastic?, but I'll assume it isn't for the sake of the conversation and since that's easy to misinterpret over text
> In general, these jobs can mostly be performed without a college degree.
> Contrast that with service jobs that can broadly be performed with a college degree:
Are these not apple to oranges comparisons? "can mostly be performed without a college degree" and "service jobs that can broadly be performed with a college degree" seem like different buckets.
On top of that "can broadly be performed with a college degree" means nothing. You could describe people in comas as being able to "broadly perform a coma with a college degree". Especially when retail is being pulled up as one of the major buckets.
>So, on average, manufacturing and extraction jobs not requiring a college education pay 40% more than service jobs of the same requirements.
Yea again, this is disingenuous. You're now comparing "manufacturing and extraction jobs not requiring a college education" with "service jobs of the same requirements" but mere sentences ago you were bringing up data on manufacturing jobs that _did not_ need a college degree, and numbers on service jobs that _did_ need a college degree.
I know believe the numbers in this link aren't matching up with this conversation because they are logically inconsistent
> This feels sarcastic?
Wasn’t my intention but maybe I was laying it on thick.
I misspoke, the service job categories I referenced can be done withOUT a college degree, that probably should have been obvious because it included the categories “retail” (which, as you noted, can be done in a coma) and “hospitality” - but wouldn’t it underscore my point even more if you could make more money in manufacturing without a college degree than the largest sectors of service, with a college degree?
I didn’t include the service categories that require substantial amounts of post-secondary education such as “healthcare” and “financial.”
Anyways now you’re calling me disingenuous so I’m going to disengage. I hope despite a small mistake on my part, you can still see my point. Have a nice life!
Then maybe I am confused but in all the conversations I've been in previously "service job" was almost shorthand for "requires college education". I don't hear people saying we need to get rid of jobs at walmart to bring back manufacturing jobs.
They are talking about getting rid of jobs like journalist, software engineers, accountants, and various other jobs that require college level education as long as its something they associate with some nebulous intelligentsia that they have identified as their enemy