re: #172 HappyWarrior

Something else that isn’t mentioned often enough is the deficit of skilled labor, like plumbers, electricians, mechanics and other skilled trades. One of the problems is parents steering their kids into 4 yr degree programs (and then grad school) because the skilled labor force is deemed beneath them or a step backwards. A skilled plumber or welder can make as much as some doctors do. Those kinds of jobs are always in demand because someone’s gotta fix shit when it breaks or build new stuff. IMO, those could be our new “manufacturing jobs”, but we have to train people for them. That’s going to require an investment on par with retooling our factories during WWII and the post war period.

My husband is an informally trained skilled laborer(his dad started teaching him stuff while he was still in high school, he’s been doing this sort of work for 30 years). One of the only reasons we didn’t lose everything in the ‘08 crash was because he had those skills and took a step down from middle managing guys who do those jobs into being one of them again. He doesn’t get paid nearly enough, again because we’re not valuing that work the way we used to when more people were in unions. We’re in GA, there are very few unions here that support skilled laborers. There’s an untapped resource in our own people here, if only we could smarten up and invest in ourselves again.