I swear every instance of “you can make a lot of money in the trades” seems to selectively focus on workers in states with a heavy union culture, or people who run their own business, the latter of which I wouldn’t simply reduce to “working in the trades”. It may involve that or a history of that, but there’s entirely new and additional skill sets required.
For my current state of residence, Florida, BLS lists the mean salary of the parent category “ Office and Administrative Support Occupations” as $39,300. Not great sure the averages for more specific categories under that parent run from anywhere from the low 30s to low 50s. I’ve picked this category specifically since it’s the lower tier of “white collar work”, i.e. stuff a relatively unskilled college grad my find themselves doing.
Now some blue collar categories:
“Construction and Extraction Occupations” - $42,930
“Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations”
- $46,560
“Production Occupations” - $37,700
I don’t want to add noise by listing a ton of specific careers under these categories (and obviously the mean salary within categories can vary a lot). It does seem like the first two categories pay marginally better, but not by a lot. Various other white collar categories have better pay, even ones that people traditionally considered woefully underpaid, such as teaching professions and science ones.
I understand there’s still a benefit for trade careers in that education doesn’t set you back nearly as much, but I also don’t want to equate white collar and educated. Plenty of sales people and software devs without a formal education.
Just for kicks, I’ll look at some Glassdoor salary data for some trade related jobs near me, particularly the ones that people rave on and on about. Not a particularly good source, but there’s some ok self reported data.
“Electrician” - range goes from $32k-$81k, with an average around $51k
“Plumber” - $26k-$86k with an average $47k
“Welder” (this one is interesting, because from what I hear you can make really good money, in specific niches under more dangerous circumstances) - $28k-$56k with an average close to $40k.
Not going to say these are particularly worse than the wide net of “white collar” jobs, but they’re certainly a far cry from the “I know a guy who makes six figures as a tradesmen” anecdotes that get passed around oh so often in these types of discussions.
Of course this is an extremely superficial look at some data I did at 2am. I’m sure, drilling down, you’ll find many blue collar and white collar careers that pay better than the overall category averages, and I am not a “go to college or risk your future” nor a “go into the trades, you can make a ton of money” type person. I just think both attitudes are memes and way overstated.