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Comment by thiago_fm | Hacker News Reader

Some will, others will become alcoholics, or already were and will no longer seek employment.

Not to mention most construction people ideally don't stay in construction.

It's really hard and sorta inhumane to do this when you are 50+ with problems all over your body. For many, unemployment and alcohol abuse looks like a better alternative.

America doesn't want to talk or hear about this, as everybody want to buy their beautiful huge homes on a suburb, no matter how this is costly in the health and life of others

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> hard and sorta inhumane to do this when you are 50+

My painter in West Wyoming is in this age bracket. He is currently on a ski trip in Hokkaido. He makes good money and is in great health, certainly compared to most office workers I know.

My cousin's baby-daddy was a painter, but he couldn't make enough money to pay child support doing that so he does some sort of overhead-door service thing now. He was pretty thrilled to get health insurance as well since he'd never had a job that provided that before.

> he couldn't make enough money to pay child support doing that

That’s my point. These aren’t traditionally high-paying jobs. The fact that they are right now says something.

What data do you have that shows that painters are currently highly paid? It's entry-level construction work; AKA a shit job (maybe just a bit better than roofing), so I'm skeptical.

> It's entry-level construction work; AKA a shit job

This was historically true for construction [1]. Yet their wages are on a smooth curve upwards [2]. The entire cohort of construction workers is currently seeing high real wages, and their data almost completely hide Covid.

I’d also argue that commodity and skilled painting are different. The 50-year old commodity painter who honed his craft can charge a premium because he can smooth my drywall and put on a finish someone with zero training cannot.

[1] https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-public-cost-of-low-wage...

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES2000000003

That paper that you're citing is from 2022; hardly what I'd call historic. And is 2 in real dollars? Because it doesn't look like it and I wonder if it would be just a flat line if it was.

I'll say that I've worked along side my cousin's baby-daddy (I think in future I'll just call him "T" as that's less unwieldy), and he's a fine painter, but ultimately there just isn't that much to the job. I remember the first time I used a paint sprayer on a new construction job myself; basically you just need to learn where the trigger is and in a minute you can paint a wall that would take an hour with a roller.

> paper that you're citing is from 2022

It’s looking at 2015 to 2019 data. I’m comparing that period to the post-2021 one.

> is 2 in real dollars?

No, nominal. They’re up in real terms, but I don’t have non-proprietary data for that.

I'll just say that my on-the-ground experience (limited such as it is to the markets/trades that my friends and family work in) doesn't express that construction is all of a sudden a good job. I could perhaps be convinced that it has upgraded from a shit job to merely a crap one, perhaps because so many people have escaped it that they have to at least pay slightly better these days. If I had any kids, I'd still be inclined give them the same advice that my blue-collar parents gave me - go to school to do just about anything else.

To be clear, I’m not saying it’s a good job. (Or a bad one.) I’m saying it’s better than it was before.

A great example of Survivorship bias, plus... it's painting.

You don't build roads, bridges and houses only with painters.

Also, you are/were a investment banker. You aren't hiring the average American painter.

It's like hiring Picasso to paint your family and saying that he can do his job in his 60s and travel the world with the money.

> great example of Survivorship bias

This is literally true for any 50+ in construction. My point is someone with that seniority can pick their jobs, pick their clients and not necessarily be doing the back-breaking work.

You can’t use facts to convince people that their feelings are wrong. It’s frustrating, but here we are.

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