Student Loan Debt Worsens
February 2017 College is increasingly a bad buy Last month the news media was filled with a story that ought to send a chill up the spine of anyone thinking of taking out a student loan to attend college. The U.S. Education Department admitted that it had miscalculated the repayment rates of student loans. The […]
Myth #5 about trade work: it’s for males only
Service firms in particular clamor for female technicians. Okay, this myth is admittedly hard to refute. Most estimates peg females as only about 2% to 2.5% of all skilled trade workers. That’s probably doubled since the rise of feminism in the 1960s, but progress has been at a snail’s pace. It would be ridiculous […]
Myth #4 about trade workers: they’re always getting laid off
Job security is higher for skilled trade workers than most other occupations. This myth originates in the fact that construction work is highly cyclical. While it’s true that when work slows down many construction workers get let go, this deserves a closer look. In my last entry I said that nobody who enters the […]
Myth #3 about trade work: college grads make more money
Performance pay often leads to six-figure incomes. How much do trade workers earn? That’s a difficult question to answer definitively because so much depends on the type of work (construction versus service, residential vs. commercial, etc.), geographic region and other factors, not least of which is the quality of the company they work for. […]
Myth #2 about trade work: it’s dirty and dangerous
Service work is a lot different than new construction. It’s a half-truth that the work of the trades is dirty and dangerous. A construction project is fascinating to watch, which is why big job sites usually have a fenced-off area with peep holes for onlookers. If you’ve ever poked your head into one of […]
Myth #1 about the trades
They say the trades are only for those who aren’t “cut out” for college. Let’s not mince words. A large segment of our society is biased against blue-collar workers. It wasn’t always that way in America. Our founding fathers included numerous artisans and craft workers. Paul Revere was a silversmith, Ben Franklin a man […]