A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

I'm not going to doubt that... I'm just saying there must be some underlying economic reason why that's true. Seems that things are in an equilibrium, but maybe not the optimal one (blasphemy, I know).

He's spot on.

We Americans focus so very very often on how we disagree rather than how we agree. If you look at both parties, they broadly agree on so many things. Instead we focus on unimportant social issues, shaving a couple percent off government spending, and so on.

The educational system we have now is largely a scam, it promises that if you spend tens of thousands (or more) dollars on a 4 year degree, you'd have a good job waiting on the other side, and its largely BS. We need vocational training, we need training for non white collar career options, and no one is really working on it. I make a salary of that of a skilled professional - with no formal education beyond high school - it's been a long fight to get here though, perhaps it could have been easier otherwise. The other problem with the current college education program is a lack of correlation between cost and outcome, it's something that needs to be looked into.

He also hits on a point - the government doesnt create jobs, so it doesnt matter what congress does, or what the president does, its the job of the government to create a stable environment (regulatory and otherwise) so the economy can go and create jobs. I believe our government is largely failing at this.

On to the skills gap - I disagree with him on one point, companies are largely unwilling to train - there are jobs for which I'm broadly qualified for, but can't get because I'm missing one specialized skill or another for. If companies were willing to train, they would be able to fill most of those unfilled jobs.

> The trades do not pay well until/unless you specialize into certain areas.

A problem that makes this particularly bad is that many now don't pay at all until you manage to become qualified as a high-skill specialist. A lot of the low-end work has been automated, which has gutted the traditional pipeline where you start with low-skill jobs and move upwards. It's not just that low-skill welding jobs (say) don't pay well; they simply don't exist. Only high-skill welding work is in demand, and a beginning welder is very likely to be unemployed. He or she might try to get free work to improve, but even that is iffy. I'm not convinced the odds are actually better here than the (already not great) liberal-arts degree -> unpaid internship -> office job route. If you really want to DIY a trade without a college degree, I'd recommend learning PHP or web design before I'd recommend trying to break into welding. Or learn something about CNC machines and get a job servicing the machines that replaced those low-end trade jobs...

I looked into this at some point out of personal interest, and really the numbers don't bear it out. There are a lot of anecdotes about how we "need skilled tradesmen", but the pay and jobs just aren't there. When you take into account the lack of training opportunities, the high risk of injury, the generally short careers, and the unstable unemployment, the expected earnings from taking up a trade are much worse than just getting a college degree.

Not really seeing the problem with #2, but #3 has me mad. There are plenty of bad jobs that wear down your body and mind while offering subsistence or below-subsistence wage, and offer no or false hopes for advancement.

Unless you were collecting unemployment, in which case the shitty $10/hour job would result in a net loss.