For real, no mention of skilled trades or other high paying blue-collar jobs. I work in a chemical plant and made $176K last year, quite a bit more than my wife who is an Electrical Engineer.
You’re comparing unskilled blue collar workers to skilled white collar workers. What? A better comparison would be a cashier vs office admin or data entry. Or the computer programer vs a master electrician.
Immediately saw that. Like it's a night and day difference between someone who works in fast food vs a software engineer. Skill level is so off base. It's like asking who runs faster? A 5 year old child or a 17 year old highschool track athlete? Skill issue here.
For what it's worth, $49/hr is the average for lower skilled (i.e. entry level) computer programmers. Skilled Computer Programmers earn a lot more. Comparing high skilled blue collar to high skilled white collar workers may not reduce the gap as much as you'd think.
Not really the best comparison. Would have been more interesting to see how high skilled blue collar jobs pay compares over time to high skilled white collar jobs. Many have already stated below the large disparity between skill sets of someone working a counter vs a senior software engineer....
@@lukethompson5558it is very quickly . It certainly has been outpacing my wife’s pay who is white collar . We make about the same amount currently . I’m a heavy equipment tech and she is a lawyer . Both skilled in our work and both paid very well . I’ve watched my wage grow hourly from 39$/h to almost 67.50$/h in three years . I’ve been in the trades for some 18 years now and wages just haven’t moved like that ever
Wait, they're talking about the hospitality industry? Thought they meant skilled manufacturing That's a humongous difference. You're grouping a $40/hr unionized industrial mechanic with a teenage store clerk.
Since when did the definition of blue collar become “low wage”? Blue-collar typically meant relatively average (aka ~70k a year or more) workers who worked in semi-skilled industries
The only reason blue collar workers wage popped is that they were held down so long. It almost gets to the point where skilled worker make as little 1 to 2 dollars above a simple labor job. The trade takes 5-10 years to learn well.
The reason it doesn't work is is because a huge percentage of a tiny income is still a tiny raise lol in an economy where we're all more productive every year, there ought to be room to absorb wage increases across the board of double inflation at least, were it not for the exorbitant returns and generous tax breaks we give to shareholders or bonuses to management for just "being there" while work was being done.
But it's better that it doesn't grow. The differences in salaries should be large otherwise everyone was cleaning the proverbial streets because why try and be ambitious? In Poland during communism there was a proverb, whether you stand or lie, you deserve PLN 2,000. In fact, the better educated received a little more, but not much. It wasn't a good world, yes there was equality but everyone was equally unhappy. After this regime, the country was destroyed and the best people left for more capitalist countries. It's not worth repeating the same mistakes.
Betty the Barista is not blue collar... she's a wagey. Blue collar is HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction, welding etc. Peter the plumber has and always will make more money than Wilma the programmer because Wilma can and will be replaced by the machine.
Wage gains for blue-collar workers have started to outpace those for white-collar workers, a reversal from decades-long trends. Low-income workers have experienced faster wage growth, helping stave off a recession. The pandemic created new demand for white-collar jobs that could be done from home, while blue-collar workers struggled to return to work due to retirements, decreased immigration, and competition from employers offering signing bonuses and other incentives. As a result, blue-collar workers have seen higher wage gains than white-collar workers, allowing for increased spending power and preventing a recession. However, the wage gap between blue-collar and white-collar workers remains significant, and Federal Reserve officials are aiming to cool the job market to address inflation concerns.
Well nothing will as long as the American financial system’s is backed by debt instead of backing the dollar with a tangible and finite item like gold. Raise laborer rates all you want, everything else will inflate proportionately. And the facts are that the people at the bottom receive the bread crumbs.
In my opinion they earn too much. Often their salary may exceed that of a young architect, which is unacceptable. They should pay much more for education than for physical work. Of course, a physical person should have enough money to provide themselves with basic needs, but let's not exaggerate. However, education is important and everyone is the architect of their own fate, if someone wants to live a better life, let them deserve it.
Actually on a 10 year outlook, if we assume blue collar will go straight into the workforce and white collar will lose 4 years of pay, Blue collar: $13x40hrx52weekx10years=$270,000 White Collar: $40x40hrx52week x 6 years = $499,200 but subtract $100,000 for the education = $399,000. You still wind up ahead but not enough to make you go “Wow”
@@Legoman69469Lol I am a blue collar worker (Electrician), we make about 50$/H + Full medical benefits and retirement (total package is about 75$ an hour), no college debt! But it takes a 5 years apprenticeship (paid by the IBEW union membership)
@@Legoman69469yes but you're assuming a cap. Let's assume in both your scenarios they are now both 30 years old. How much more can low income earn? By 30 a professional continues to grow. I'm 28 now and went from 75k to 115k in 2.5 years aka $55/hr. Still expected to continue growing. I'm pretty average.
@@JCarpenter-dm1xg "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody" Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-14
You should ve compared the white collar jobs to a skilled blue collar job. For exemple I am a blue collar worker (Electrician apprentice), Our Journeymen make about 50$/H + Full medical benefits and retirement (total package is about 75$ an hour), no college debt! But it takes a 5 years apprenticeship (paid by the IBEW union membership).
Yes and no. Don't like the colors they used but it'd be the same as a low wage white collar. I agree the trades pay really well! This whole vid wasn't a good comparison and instead showed a min wage worker and a higher wage worker. Fk the collar color. I went to uni but I know uni isn't for everyone. Pushed my cousins into the trades. I'm 28, earn $115k plus all those good benefits and work from home and barely work 30hrs/week. I could never do labor, way too hard for me lol. My uni left me with a debt of only 26k, with low cost payments. The path forward just depends on the person. I hate when people look down on the trades.
So lower immigration to the country and government welfare depressed the amount of low end workers available which made employers have to pay more for labor ?
Honestly, I’ve seen many skilled blue collar workers get underpaid and even end up homeless and poor and contrary to popular myth, it is not always due to failing to do their jobs carefully and thoroughly.
Super misleading. There is no mention that burger flippers in California make $16 - $20 /hr which they are lumping in with the skilled craft people which arent making anywhere near as much as they should. This is why we are seeing the UAW membership rise and the strikes that happened a few months back.
Government is the largest employer its the bank nudge the government to stop pumping stimulus into the economy as it makes their Job harder. their no pain free way to get rid of high inflation.
If a $10 an hour worker gets a 10% pay increase while the $35 an hour gets a 5% increase, their pay differential has increased by $0.75 an hour. The Wall Street Journal is trying to cover this increased inequality by talking percentages rather than money.
I disagree. I am seeing more automation and AI and actually just recently saw Shake Shack ditch their cashiers for self- service touch screens. I see their bump in pay as temporary and companies will opt for AI and automation over paying these workers more. Paying them more will actually be their downfall.
There's little value in wage increases beating inflation for one year when the previous three years inflation destroyed wage increases. Low income workers are still getting screwed compared to 2019.
That’s because increase wages will proportionally increase wage. It’s impossible for it not to when you operate on a debt-based system like America runs on now. When the dollar was backed by gold, inflation was not a problem.
You're missing one fundamental part of the difference between the average White collar salary in the average blue collar salary and that is the marginal productivity of an hour work for both jobs. Based on supply and demand and employer will be willing to pay up to the marginal productivity of a worker in a software engineer is much more productive on average than a barista for example. I have had experience in blue collar jobs as well as a white collar tech founder and manager and I can say in the last few years the deal to be a blue collar high skilled worker is much better than being white collar I have gone back to Blue collar work after 8 years in tech. I really think you need a separate out white collar low skill and white collar high skill from blue collar low skill and blue collar high skill. For example an America right now your average truck driver makes more than your average CPA accountant I don't think that has ever been the case except maybe a short period of time in the early '70s.
I want to go work blue collar now. My white collar job is 62k/year and getting frustrating. I can almost double my pay if I go work for an interior designer doing light handyman stuff.
The issue is that white collar work is not skilled. It’s very teachable in 6 months to 1 year while trade jobs take well over 5-10 years to “master” and they are constantly evolving… White collar is often accompanied by hand holding software and/or teams, and many use computers that essentially do the work for them, there’s often an entire separate position for each step of the process as well so you can offload most work after, and most of the jobs can be done from home VS say a plumber or a mechanic who has to craft the skills, knowledge and experience over time and repetition, supply his own tools, and diagnose issues from step 1. All the way up to step 30, and so on and so forth, THEN has to perform the work in the elements, and gets dirty and is physically strained as well as mentally. One is inherently valuable and pushes society forward, the other relies on the abilities of the others to even have a building to work in…. It’s not even comparable. One exists and has always existed without the other, the other cannot exist without tradesmen or skilled laborers. Now that is absolutely not to say white collar work is “useless”. But life would go on without it, life wouldn’t go on if people stopped building stuff or repairing the stuff we have.
What the researchers haven't included in the study is why it is happening. It is due to the fact that lower income earners spend most of their increases in wages on consumption compared to high income earners, which results in GDP growth.
@@djm2189 Well they spend more cause they have to cover their essentials. Food, gas, medicine, etc. Saving what little they have left wouldn't amount to much. Maybe enjoy a vacation or Christmas. That's it.
Housing is the biggest expense and the largest part of inflation. Build more housing supply to meet demand bringing inflation down while creating jobs. Local zoning regulations restrict housing supply. Loosen zoning to allow more development and we’d also have to look into getting enough building materials.
You can't choose your parents which lends itself to a career network. Anyone who works a full-time job should not have to worry about sleeping in their car or feeding their kids. Some things have simply been uneven. It would be good to make things Fair because life is not. Dallas, Texas
There are so many skilled labor jobs going unfilled. Just try booking a handyman sometime in the next month. When they said in school, get an education or learn to say, "Would you like fries with that?", did everyone think they were kidding? Become a journeyman plumber, electrician, etc. After about 5 years you'll be in a position to make good coin. Fair wages is paying what the market will bear.
@@major__kong true. If you want to make coin and you don't have a built-in network you better go to hard labor. I have general contracting and electrical experience, but unless you own the company the pay will not compete with intermediate to experienced white collar jobs.
@@nealcassady1189 Yes. Those guys start at like 65k+ for entry level white collar too. Cost of school is a whole other animal. Community college tops out at Associates and looking at current tuition for further education is completely unattainable for many; even with FASFA.
The biggest lie is the white collar worker making $48 an hour today, use an average business degree salary of about 60k a year or 28$ an hour, not a top computer science major working at microsoft
The video looks at the relative difference in growth of pay between largely unskilled labor vs. skilled professionals. It is a complete apples *Betty* to oranges (Wilma) comparison. Waste of time.
Not true. In Poland, education is free and the differences in earnings between blue and white people are large. But this is better because the differences should be large. otherwise everyone would be cluttering up the proverbial streets. Because why make the effort when, for example, as a lawyer I won't get much more than a cleaner? End this populism. Everyone should be paid what their work is worth and not a dollar more. Because it was he/she who caused this and not another situation. Any attempt to equalize inequalities means punishing ambitious people, which is unacceptable.
@@highshelf Still isn’t what determines income. The market decides what you’re worth. A colllege degree is just price of admission to get to that salaries, position, and status
the person maknig 49 is a high skilled engineer that went to university vs a job skill you can pick up in two weeks. the comparison should be between a skilled trade vs engineer. the comparison they have is pointless.
Both are underpaid. Salaries should be adjusted to get to the point they should have been if they would have grown at the same pace as companies revenues since the 1970’s
The reason is you're using percentages of vastly different scales of income. They shouldn't scale as a linear percentage in a healthy pay gap, income disparity is caused by focusing on linear relationships (%) between compounding pay increases. Ie large pay increases may be 1% on a million dollar salary and thus harder for a company to absorb than a $1 increase for 100 employees at $10 per hour, for eg. It doesn't make sense to compare percentages with a 3x differential between both workers.
If I work 5 days a week I make a 80k net a year at my factory but I mostly choose to work 3 days though. Working half the year puts me at 61k net which is what I earned last year. This weeks paycheck was 2363.07 gross and 1536.94 net. Took me 3 years to get this pay. First year. I started at 54k a year. My pay will continue to go up though because my factory gives yearly raises every year to operators. Management gets bonuses. My factory is smart though because they know that the raise will keep us loyal and surprisingly company profits is going up. The company is projected to break last year’s record. Who would’ve thought that by giving employees raises would result in morale being boosted which results in more profits for owners because employees then care about there profession and treat it as a career, not just a job.
This reminds me of that south park short movie about how the handy men are making more $$ for themselves compared to the white collar, college educated workers. Of course we are in no way close to that but it's a distrubing future when people can't fix their own door
You get a weird feel of what Americans want in America so I think we going to go the direction of sweeten and Denmark .that we want our capitalist views but also our basic humanity.
Citizens are citizens. Minimal income should be eliminated and replaced with standard income that gives a decent life to citizens. Comparing work is futile because you can not understand the sacrifice that school teachers, police officers, restaurant workers, etc. are going through. Healthy citizens are a healthy society.
@@william7286 That's a completely different point. Current wages for blue collar workers are definitely below the living wage minimum in some cases. I'm taking about wages based on job demand, which is exactly what the current free market system does.
@@william7286it's called job demand. It's very simple. It's also supply and demand. You can easily train many people to make a burger thus lower wage and easy to swap out vs professionals that need many years to be qualified thus paid more as they are also harder to replace. The only time low wage earners can really earn a bit more is with lower supplies of workers to replace which is what's currently happening but it's really still a wash. Instead of hiring 2 people with half the hours they hire one full time that earns the $15. There are enough people that will take that job when they can't get anything else.
Don’t understand why the avg tech worker earns so much …. There’s like a billion of y’all graduating from a billion of different colleges around the country and most of your job can be learned 0n the job … but ai is coming
Everyone is the architect of their own fate, if you want to live better, educate yourself or work harder. The pay difference should be even greater because such a small one is demotivating for ambitious people
And I'm not satisfied. differences in salaries should be large in terms of education and skills, if we reduce them everyone will start folding the proverbial pens
I hope more and more Americans continue to gain fair wages for fair labor. It's a shame that the richest country in the history of our species has an underclass...
@@CausticLemons7 I have, how much more help do people want when they don't put effort?! I and many are freaking tired of so many people who make poor choices and expect there to not be consequences. I grew up from the bottom of the barrel and worked and sacrificed and delayed so much gratification to get to where I'm at. This country allows people who try, a great life. If you choose to have kids out of wedlock, too many kids, no education, no drive, don't save a 6 month emergency fund, etc then it's on you when circumstances change. Common fking sense. Take control of your own life. No duh some people have it better...
@@benjamindover4337Nah bro. Engineers are desk jockeys. Sometimes they get to throw on a work vest and a hard hat and come down to plan stuff, and they might look like a worker to the unknowing eye, but we see them a mile away, because their hi-viz is the work vest whereas ours is bright neon-colored clothing we wear, their hard hat is as peachy clean as that of a dude on his first day on the job, and THEY GOT SOFT HANDS! 🤣 Down in the dirt, where the real work is done, I don’t see any engineers.
Building wealth involves developing good habits like regularly putting money away in intervals for solid investments. Instead of trying to predict and prognosticate the stability of the market and precisely when the change is going to happen, a better strategy is simply having a portfolio that’s well prepared for any eventually, that’s how some folks' been averaging 150K every 7week these past 4months according to Bloomberg.
The US-Stock Mrkt had been on it’s longest bull-run in history, so the mass hysteria and panic is relatable considering we’re not accustomed to such troubled mrkts, but there are avenues lurking around if you know where to look. My wife and I are retiring this year with over $7,000,000 in tax deferred investments. up until 3 years ago we were 100% in the S&P. During bear markets we had a perfect plan. We got an investment manager in our corner and didn’t look at our portfolio for nearly a year.
Hello, I am new when it comes to investing and i would really appreciate if I could get some tips about where it is worth to invest in (ETFs, Stocks, Growth stocks, Dividend stock etc.)
Glad to be blue collar and necessary to the continued functioning of our entire society and civilization. Cant imagine how depressing it would be to know your work is meaningless day after day...even if the pay is better (it isn't, Im a plumber lol)
Its simple supply and demand. If in the future, no one be a cashier and computers can't do it, then cashiers will be offered 100K+, didn't need to make a 5 min video lol.
I think that the cashier is a bad example because self-service cash registers operate in the market, which is quite sad because it was nice to talk to another person
The free market works well, don't worry, the temporary trend of blue-collar workers on the market will soon drop with the influx of immigrants, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Umm, the gap wont be closed. Are you kidding? A cashier st Walmart will never mske as much as a computer programmer. A highly skilled electrician??...probably.
The wage gap should be larger. You can't rob people of their ambition, and making the earnings of an outstanding person flatter is a crime. Everyone is responsible for themselves and is responsible for their own situation. Let's end populism, because communism is not a good system.
I'm so happy I made productive decisions about my finances that changed forever. I'm a single mother living in Vancouver Canada, bought my first house in October and hoping to retire soon if things keep going smoothly for me.
so now the great economy suggests to become a laborer instead of a skilled worker. White collar hog takes years of studies and knowledge building. Doctors/ somputrt programmers/ accountants/ data analysts it takes a lot of hard work.
Yeah when I hear UPS drivers now getting $170K that caught my eye. Software dev makes $200K but has to invest huge amount in CompSci degree. Truck driver has to invest nothing. Something is out of balance.
It is possible to work as a software developer without going to college; it is hard but totally possible via boot camps or being self taught. Additionally with a software engineering background it is a lot easier to leverage those skills into starting a business with relatively little overhead. Workers can work from home, physical resources may be just employee laptops and on prem servers and you yourself can start a lot of the initial code base. The skill set from UPS is going to be a lot harder to create your own startup to compete with UPS/FedEx although not impossible.
@@gabrielgarcia7554oh yeah its no prob to compete with google and facebook. Just grab yourself an html for dummies book and you're all set. Seriously though, companies hire H1b. They dont want to figure out if you know your stuff. They already know theres a billion Indians standing by to work at slave wages.
170k, lol, Don't just read the Title, Dig a little deeper, and you will find out 170k is not what you get pay but total package not for fresh starter but for the people stay in that job long time. UPS Driver they have to work in harsh conditions, facing with lots of dangerous in the road, etc,....
@@binhan721 Man, his work shouldn't be worth even half the value of an educated person. The world is suddenly transformed by populism. To achieve good work and respect, you have to give something more
The bias in this clip is real. Do a proper comparison of a high skilled blue collar job - electrician, welder, oil and gas worker HVAC, automotive/aviation mechanic vs. a software coder instead.
There is nothing as high skill blue collar job. If someone can do a job without degree then it doesn't requires much skills. Cavemen could do it too if taught. Now try teaching randoms about Veterinary medicine and what nerves passes through what bone and what not. Let's see how long they last.
Why’d they choose a fast food worker instead of a skilled blue collar worker 😭😂
Because the difference is probably eh and makes people who do not have either job feel insecure.
The skilled workers are the ones actually making the big bump up in pay, not betty at Mcdonalds lol
For real, no mention of skilled trades or other high paying blue-collar jobs. I work in a chemical plant and made $176K last year, quite a bit more than my wife who is an Electrical Engineer.
@@Denny_Dust It's not just about the money. White collars are usually well mannered and belong to a good and respected family.
You’re comparing unskilled blue collar workers to skilled white collar workers. What? A better comparison would be a cashier vs office admin or data entry. Or the computer programer vs a master electrician.
Immediately saw that. Like it's a night and day difference between someone who works in fast food vs a software engineer. Skill level is so off base. It's like asking who runs faster? A 5 year old child or a 17 year old highschool track athlete? Skill issue here.
Poor reporting from WSJ. Makes it seem like they’re purposefully obfuscating the truth. Video is more corporatist propaganda than economics.
This is not a comparison of blue vs white collar workers, but the evolution of the recent trend in the revenue growth of each category.
For what it's worth, $49/hr is the average for lower skilled (i.e. entry level) computer programmers. Skilled Computer Programmers earn a lot more.
Comparing high skilled blue collar to high skilled white collar workers may not reduce the gap as much as you'd think.
@@eddiemalvin journeyman electrician makes $70-80k a year. It's takes 4 years. That's comparable to entry level software salaries barring fang
Not really the best comparison. Would have been more interesting to see how high skilled blue collar jobs pay compares over time to high skilled white collar jobs. Many have already stated below the large disparity between skill sets of someone working a counter vs a senior software engineer....
Exactly. You will likely find that skilled blue collar pay is surging
Maybe blue collar worker doing programming for electrical control systems or something like that, this comparison is equal to laborer vs doctor
Im not surprised that a white-collar media does like this. Make bluecollar looklike skilles job
@@lukethompson5558it is very quickly . It certainly has been outpacing my wife’s pay who is white collar . We make about the same amount currently . I’m a heavy equipment tech and she is a lawyer . Both skilled in our work and both paid very well . I’ve watched my wage grow hourly from 39$/h to almost 67.50$/h in three years . I’ve been in the trades for some 18 years now and wages just haven’t moved like that ever
Wait, they're talking about the hospitality industry? Thought they meant skilled manufacturing
That's a humongous difference. You're grouping a $40/hr unionized industrial mechanic with a teenage store clerk.
Same thought it was referring to manufacturing, title is bit misleading
@@testaccount1055 WSJ? Misleading?? No…
Teen store clerks? Don't know where you live and shop. They exist where I shopped, but they are minority.
Since when did the definition of blue collar become “low wage”? Blue-collar typically meant relatively average (aka ~70k a year or more) workers who worked in semi-skilled industries
No they don’t
The only reason blue collar workers wage popped is that they were held down so long. It almost gets to the point where skilled worker make as little 1 to 2 dollars above a simple labor job. The trade takes 5-10 years to learn well.
Is it really growing when inflation eats up the difference? Doesn't seem like much growth to me.
Exactly!
The reason it doesn't work is is because a huge percentage of a tiny income is still a tiny raise lol in an economy where we're all more productive every year, there ought to be room to absorb wage increases across the board of double inflation at least, were it not for the exorbitant returns and generous tax breaks we give to shareholders or bonuses to management for just "being there" while work was being done.
@@paxdriver Probably when I feel bad, it's best to blame everyone, but not my actions, which caused me to earn little
But it's better that it doesn't grow. The differences in salaries should be large otherwise everyone was cleaning the proverbial streets because why try and be ambitious? In Poland during communism there was a proverb, whether you stand or lie, you deserve PLN 2,000. In fact, the better educated received a little more, but not much. It wasn't a good world, yes there was equality but everyone was equally unhappy. After this regime, the country was destroyed and the best people left for more capitalist countries. It's not worth repeating the same mistakes.
Betty the Barista is not blue collar... she's a wagey. Blue collar is HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction, welding etc. Peter the plumber has and always will make more money than Wilma the programmer because Wilma can and will be replaced by the machine.
Ha, this right here! 👆😆👷♂️
Don’t blame ‘em bro, people who have never worked a blue collar job don’t usually know what ‘blue collar’ REALLY means.
lol @ anyone buying AI hype. You must be a plumber 😂
@@trancendental5373 fr bro! and electrical actually lol
As a coder, I'm really glad that there are gains for more blue collar workers.
🤣😂
Wage gains for blue-collar workers have started to outpace those for white-collar workers, a reversal from decades-long trends. Low-income workers have experienced faster wage growth, helping stave off a recession. The pandemic created new demand for white-collar jobs that could be done from home, while blue-collar workers struggled to return to work due to retirements, decreased immigration, and competition from employers offering signing bonuses and other incentives. As a result, blue-collar workers have seen higher wage gains than white-collar workers, allowing for increased spending power and preventing a recession. However, the wage gap between blue-collar and white-collar workers remains significant, and Federal Reserve officials are aiming to cool the job market to address inflation concerns.
What is this this ChatGPT nonsense..?
Need a white collar editor to edit out that sneeze at 3:32 😂
Honestly, construction workers don’t get paid nearly enough for the damage done to their bodies. Something needs to change.
Well nothing will as long as the American financial system’s is backed by debt instead of backing the dollar with a tangible and finite item like gold. Raise laborer rates all you want, everything else will inflate proportionately. And the facts are that the people at the bottom receive the bread crumbs.
In my opinion they earn too much. Often their salary may exceed that of a young architect, which is unacceptable. They should pay much more for education than for physical work. Of course, a physical person should have enough money to provide themselves with basic needs, but let's not exaggerate. However, education is important and everyone is the architect of their own fate, if someone wants to live a better life, let them deserve it.
Who else here was expecting from the WSJ thinking like us they would pick a blue collar worker; carpenter, plumber, CDL driver? Nice research guys
They literally compared $40 pay to $13 an hour. 😂 How can you ever choose $13? 🤣🤣
@@pacificwestsoulwow really? Wow
Actually on a 10 year outlook, if we assume blue collar will go straight into the workforce and white collar will lose 4 years of pay,
Blue collar: $13x40hrx52weekx10years=$270,000
White Collar: $40x40hrx52week x 6 years = $499,200 but subtract $100,000 for the education = $399,000.
You still wind up ahead but not enough to make you go “Wow”
You choose the $13/hr job when you don't have the skills to land the $40/hr one.
@@Legoman69469Lol I am a blue collar worker (Electrician), we make about 50$/H + Full medical benefits and retirement (total package is about 75$ an hour), no college debt! But it takes a 5 years apprenticeship (paid by the IBEW union membership)
@@Legoman69469yes but you're assuming a cap. Let's assume in both your scenarios they are now both 30 years old. How much more can low income earn? By 30 a professional continues to grow. I'm 28 now and went from 75k to 115k in 2.5 years aka $55/hr. Still expected to continue growing. I'm pretty average.
too many college graduates who dont wanna pick up a hammer.
Hahaha there’s truth behind the statement
Not everyone is meant to work with their hands, just like not everyone is meant to do office jobs
@@JCarpenter-dm1xg "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody" Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-14
You should ve compared the white collar jobs to a skilled blue collar job.
For exemple I am a blue collar worker (Electrician apprentice), Our Journeymen make about 50$/H + Full medical benefits and retirement (total package is about 75$ an hour), no college debt! But it takes a 5 years apprenticeship (paid by the IBEW union membership).
Yes and no. Don't like the colors they used but it'd be the same as a low wage white collar. I agree the trades pay really well! This whole vid wasn't a good comparison and instead showed a min wage worker and a higher wage worker. Fk the collar color. I went to uni but I know uni isn't for everyone. Pushed my cousins into the trades. I'm 28, earn $115k plus all those good benefits and work from home and barely work 30hrs/week. I could never do labor, way too hard for me lol. My uni left me with a debt of only 26k, with low cost payments. The path forward just depends on the person. I hate when people look down on the trades.
So lower immigration to the country and government welfare depressed the amount of low end workers available which made employers have to pay more for labor ?
Although TECHNICALLY accurate, no one is thinking of a service industry worker when you say “blue-collar”. Very interesting choice for the video 🤨
Should be pinned
Honestly, I’ve seen many skilled blue collar workers get underpaid and even end up homeless and poor and contrary to popular myth, it is not always due to failing to do their jobs carefully and thoroughly.
Misleading title...there are blue collar welders making 150k a year...not best sample choice of blue collar workers..feels more like service workers.
Super misleading. There is no mention that burger flippers in California make $16 - $20 /hr which they are lumping in with the skilled craft people which arent making anywhere near as much as they should. This is why we are seeing the UAW membership rise and the strikes that happened a few months back.
I know Federal Reserve aren't exactly generous, but compared with our BoE which saw wage growth as bad, they are angels.
Well, Fed and BoE have very little to do with real wages. Wage growth is much complicated than just central bank adjusting rates.
Government is the largest employer its the bank nudge the government to stop pumping stimulus into the economy as it makes their Job harder. their no pain free way to get rid of high inflation.
If a $10 an hour worker gets a 10% pay increase while the $35 an hour gets a 5% increase, their pay differential has increased by $0.75 an hour.
The Wall Street Journal is trying to cover this increased inequality by talking percentages rather than money.
Duh
Nobody wants to work for crumbs anymore.
worse if his/her work isn't worth much more
I disagree. I am seeing more automation and AI and actually just recently saw Shake Shack ditch their cashiers for self- service touch screens. I see their bump in pay as temporary and companies will opt for AI and automation over paying these workers more. Paying them more will actually be their downfall.
He brought up lack of immigration, retirees, etc. But let's not forget the 1 million people no longer in the workforce who died from covid!
I actually agree even here in Saudi Arabia and Dubai wages for workers had doubled since maybe 4 yrs ago.
There's little value in wage increases beating inflation for one year when the previous three years inflation destroyed wage increases. Low income workers are still getting screwed compared to 2019.
That’s because increase wages will proportionally increase wage. It’s impossible for it not to when you operate on a debt-based system like America runs on now. When the dollar was backed by gold, inflation was not a problem.
You're missing one fundamental part of the difference between the average White collar salary in the average blue collar salary and that is the marginal productivity of an hour work for both jobs. Based on supply and demand and employer will be willing to pay up to the marginal productivity of a worker in a software engineer is much more productive on average than a barista for example. I have had experience in blue collar jobs as well as a white collar tech founder and manager and I can say in the last few years the deal to be a blue collar high skilled worker is much better than being white collar I have gone back to Blue collar work after 8 years in tech. I really think you need a separate out white collar low skill and white collar high skill from blue collar low skill and blue collar high skill. For example an America right now your average truck driver makes more than your average CPA accountant I don't think that has ever been the case except maybe a short period of time in the early '70s.
I want to go work blue collar now. My white collar job is 62k/year and getting frustrating. I can almost double my pay if I go work for an interior designer doing light handyman stuff.
Most of my fellow warehouse workers are still grossly underpaid.
What? calling a fast food cashier a Blue collar worker lol
The issue is that white collar work is not skilled. It’s very teachable in 6 months to 1 year while trade jobs take well over 5-10 years to “master” and they are constantly evolving… White collar is often accompanied by hand holding software and/or teams, and many use computers that essentially do the work for them, there’s often an entire separate position for each step of the process as well so you can offload most work after, and most of the jobs can be done from home VS say a plumber or a mechanic who has to craft the skills, knowledge and experience over time and repetition, supply his own tools, and diagnose issues from step 1. All the way up to step 30, and so on and so forth, THEN has to perform the work in the elements, and gets dirty and is physically strained as well as mentally.
One is inherently valuable and pushes society forward, the other relies on the abilities of the others to even have a building to work in…. It’s not even comparable.
One exists and has always existed without the other, the other cannot exist without tradesmen or skilled laborers.
Now that is absolutely not to say white collar work is “useless”. But life would go on without it, life wouldn’t go on if people stopped building stuff or repairing the stuff we have.
Stop the BS.
Neither can buy a home.
What the researchers haven't included in the study is why it is happening. It is due to the fact that lower income earners spend most of their increases in wages on consumption compared to high income earners, which results in GDP growth.
Yup I see lower income workers spending vastly more than me and I'm 28 earning $115k. They shop like they make my salary. Screw it, stealth wealth.
@@djm2189 Well they spend more cause they have to cover their essentials. Food, gas, medicine, etc. Saving what little they have left wouldn't amount to much. Maybe enjoy a vacation or Christmas. That's it.
Quite a nonsensical comparison. These WSJ youtube videos are really not worthy of the WSJ name.
Housing is the biggest expense and the largest part of inflation. Build more housing supply to meet demand bringing inflation down while creating jobs. Local zoning regulations restrict housing supply. Loosen zoning to allow more development and we’d also have to look into getting enough building materials.
You can't choose your parents which lends itself to a career network.
Anyone who works a full-time job should not have to worry about sleeping in their car or feeding their kids.
Some things have simply been uneven.
It would be good to make things Fair because life is not.
Dallas, Texas
Unlikely. The wealth gap is growing every year.
There are so many skilled labor jobs going unfilled. Just try booking a handyman sometime in the next month. When they said in school, get an education or learn to say, "Would you like fries with that?", did everyone think they were kidding? Become a journeyman plumber, electrician, etc. After about 5 years you'll be in a position to make good coin. Fair wages is paying what the market will bear.
@@alexandrugheorghe5610 can confirm
@@major__kong true. If you want to make coin and you don't have a built-in network you better go to hard labor.
I have general contracting and electrical experience, but unless you own the company the pay will not compete with intermediate to experienced white collar jobs.
@@nealcassady1189 Yes. Those guys start at like 65k+ for entry level white collar too.
Cost of school is a whole other animal. Community college tops out at Associates and looking at current tuition for further education is completely unattainable for many; even with FASFA.
Y’all really missed the point of the video, no one said blue collar workers are better off or anything
Misleading title. I will choose to be a white-collar worker any day of the week from what I saw in this video. 😂
A good choice. Studying and hard work, people need both to get rich
The biggest lie is the white collar worker making $48 an hour today, use an average business degree salary of about 60k a year or 28$ an hour, not a top computer science major working at microsoft
Low immigration I hear?
6%of 10 Vs 3% of 25, which one is better? That's a tough one bud.
The video looks at the relative difference in growth of pay between largely unskilled labor vs. skilled professionals. It is a complete apples *Betty* to oranges (Wilma) comparison. Waste of time.
If we made education cheaper and more accessible we'd be able to justify closing the gap between those wages even more
How does this make any sense. You don’t need an education for blue collar work.
Not true. In Poland, education is free and the differences in earnings between blue and white people are large. But this is better because the differences should be large. otherwise everyone would be cluttering up the proverbial streets. Because why make the effort when, for example, as a lawyer I won't get much more than a cleaner? End this populism. Everyone should be paid what their work is worth and not a dollar more. Because it was he/she who caused this and not another situation. Any attempt to equalize inequalities means punishing ambitious people, which is unacceptable.
@KevinSamuelsKid it would make white collar work more accessible and equlaize opportunity between people
@nataliakowalczyk3560 why is being a doctor worth more than being a plumber or a cashier
@@highshelf Still isn’t what determines income. The market decides what you’re worth. A colllege degree is just price of admission to get to that salaries, position, and status
Is a positive change - but they comparing % increase in wage between blue & white collar jobs and equating that to closing the gap 5:52
Comparing $13 to $49 and saying the % rate gain for someone making $13 is a joke 😂😂😂.
That's what I said lol 🤣🤣🤣
the person maknig 49 is a high skilled engineer that went to university vs a job skill you can pick up in two weeks. the comparison should be between a skilled trade vs engineer. the comparison they have is pointless.
Fast food is not blue collar, that’s considered retail which is white collar…
It would be great if this trend continues. Blue is underpaid and White is overpaid.
Both are underpaid. Salaries should be adjusted to get to the point they should have been if they would have grown at the same pace as companies revenues since the 1970’s
Bigger income = bigger credit limit on credit cards.
Everything has gone up including the amount of credit card debt.
The reason is you're using percentages of vastly different scales of income. They shouldn't scale as a linear percentage in a healthy pay gap, income disparity is caused by focusing on linear relationships (%) between compounding pay increases.
Ie large pay increases may be 1% on a million dollar salary and thus harder for a company to absorb than a $1 increase for 100 employees at $10 per hour, for eg.
It doesn't make sense to compare percentages with a 3x differential between both workers.
3:32 bless you lol
If I work 5 days a week I make a 80k net a year at my factory but I mostly choose to work 3 days though. Working half the year puts me at 61k net which is what I earned last year. This weeks paycheck was 2363.07 gross and 1536.94 net. Took me 3 years to get this pay. First year. I started at 54k a year. My pay will continue to go up though because my factory gives yearly raises every year to operators. Management gets bonuses. My factory is smart though because they know that the raise will keep us loyal and surprisingly company profits is going up. The company is projected to break last year’s record. Who would’ve thought that by giving employees raises would result in morale being boosted which results in more profits for owners because employees then care about there profession and treat it as a career, not just a job.
And the 80k they pay me is peanuts 🥜 compared to what I make the company per shift.
consider that a person with a white collar job normally has a debt due to student loans whereas blue collars don't
Yes, because white collar has a degree. The blue collar could barely pass high school. i consider them uneducated.
This reminds me of that south park short movie about how the handy men are making more $$ for themselves compared to the white collar, college educated workers. Of course we are in no way close to that but it's a distrubing future when people can't fix their own door
Many tech workers are paid with stock. So when stock prices tank so does total compensation.
Yes and no. It's many newer tech employees that fall into that trap or it's executives who don't rely on it and are already paid a high af salary.
Not sure where u got the $13.53 hourly pay for blue-collar worker. My high-school nephew is working his 1st summer job & his hourly pay is $17.
This an actually been great data from end of 2019 to mid 2023 .
You get a weird feel of what Americans want in America so I think we going to go the direction of sweeten and Denmark .that we want our capitalist views but also our basic humanity.
percentage isn't really as important though when someone is still not making a living wage lol
I’m never impressed by economic commentary like this
Very baseless in 6months time she will have another story to tell.
It'll be interesting to see what increases in immigration will do to those blue collar wage gains.
Citizens are citizens.
Minimal income should be eliminated and replaced with standard income that gives a decent life to citizens.
Comparing work is futile because you can not understand the sacrifice that school teachers, police officers, restaurant workers, etc. are going through.
Healthy citizens are a healthy society.
All workers could and should be paid a fair living salary or wage based on job demand.
You people never define or put a number on “fair” …. Why ? It doesn’t help anybody to keep avoiding details
"based on job demand"? that's... the current system...
@@duncanhw not really, no. Last time I checked, we’re not paying fast food workers a living wage with benefits in every American city.
@@william7286 That's a completely different point. Current wages for blue collar workers are definitely below the living wage minimum in some cases. I'm taking about wages based on job demand, which is exactly what the current free market system does.
@@william7286it's called job demand. It's very simple. It's also supply and demand. You can easily train many people to make a burger thus lower wage and easy to swap out vs professionals that need many years to be qualified thus paid more as they are also harder to replace. The only time low wage earners can really earn a bit more is with lower supplies of workers to replace which is what's currently happening but it's really still a wash. Instead of hiring 2 people with half the hours they hire one full time that earns the $15. There are enough people that will take that job when they can't get anything else.
As Lee Brice once said “ I belong to the drinking class”
Don’t understand why the avg tech worker earns so much …. There’s like a billion of y’all graduating from a billion of different colleges around the country and most of your job can be learned 0n the job … but ai is coming
Low end workers don’t need to be buying more or upgrading anything … hbu save for once in your life or pay off a debt
Everyone is the architect of their own fate, if you want to live better, educate yourself or work harder. The pay difference should be even greater because such a small one is demotivating for ambitious people
This video clearly don’t know what blue collar work is😂
Really Good for the Economy. It appears Trickle-down-economics are working in North America 🌎.
reddit told me wages werent rising. how come?
Glad I never had to work, How depressing.
let’s see where blue collar pension go in short future compared to white collar day/swing/options accounts.
I am happy for the blue collar workers to earn more
And I'm not satisfied. differences in salaries should be large in terms of education and skills, if we reduce them everyone will start folding the proverbial pens
Biden and trump gave a lot of money out. Biden didn’t need to give the last stimulus check.
Is blue collar jobs easy in Lithuania?
My god. Imagine Trump in this exact same situation. I cringe to think of how it would have went.
I hope more and more Americans continue to gain fair wages for fair labor. It's a shame that the richest country in the history of our species has an underclass...
That's everything Hun ... Have you never heard of the food chain or Darwinism?...
@@djm2189 Have you ever heard of psychopathy?
@@CausticLemons7 I have, how much more help do people want when they don't put effort?! I and many are freaking tired of so many people who make poor choices and expect there to not be consequences. I grew up from the bottom of the barrel and worked and sacrificed and delayed so much gratification to get to where I'm at. This country allows people who try, a great life. If you choose to have kids out of wedlock, too many kids, no education, no drive, don't save a 6 month emergency fund, etc then it's on you when circumstances change. Common fking sense. Take control of your own life. No duh some people have it better...
What about light blue? Like nurses or engineers
bro engineers are not blue at all wdym
@angadsingh9314 you see that guy in a yellow vest holding a shovel behind the traffic cones? He's an engineer.
@@benjamindover4337 I’m sure there are exceptions. But most engineers still sit behind a desk and work on a computer
@angadsingh9314 not really. Engineering involves a lot more shoveling than you might imagine.
@@benjamindover4337Nah bro. Engineers are desk jockeys. Sometimes they get to throw on a work vest and a hard hat and come down to plan stuff, and they might look like a worker to the unknowing eye, but we see them a mile away, because their hi-viz is the work vest whereas ours is bright neon-colored clothing we wear, their hard hat is as peachy clean as that of a dude on his first day on the job, and THEY GOT SOFT HANDS! 🤣
Down in the dirt, where the real work is done, I don’t see any engineers.
I’m not seeing the stats in reality
Building wealth involves developing good habits like regularly putting money away in intervals for solid investments. Instead of trying to predict and prognosticate the stability of the market and precisely when the change is going to happen, a better strategy is simply having a portfolio that’s well prepared for any eventually, that’s how some folks' been averaging 150K every 7week these past 4months according to Bloomberg.
That’s crazy, I’m just doing everything wrong with my portfolio.
The US-Stock Mrkt had been on it’s longest bull-run in history, so the mass hysteria and panic is relatable considering we’re not accustomed to such troubled mrkts, but there are avenues lurking around if you know where to look. My wife and I are retiring this year with over $7,000,000 in tax deferred investments. up until 3 years ago we were 100% in the S&P. During bear markets we had a perfect plan. We got an investment manager in our corner and didn’t look at our portfolio for nearly a year.
Same here, 75% of my portfolio is in the red and I really don’t know how long I can stomach the losses. I’m beginning to reach a breaking point.
Patience patience patience. It's a cycle.... a sucky point in the cycle, but a cycle nonetheless....
Hello, I am new when it comes to investing and i would really appreciate if I could get some tips about where it is worth to invest in (ETFs, Stocks, Growth stocks, Dividend stock etc.)
Glad to be blue collar and necessary to the continued functioning of our entire society and civilization. Cant imagine how depressing it would be to know your work is meaningless day after day...even if the pay is better (it isn't, Im a plumber lol)
Its simple supply and demand. If in the future, no one be a cashier and computers can't do it, then cashiers will be offered 100K+, didn't need to make a 5 min video lol.
I think that the cashier is a bad example because self-service cash registers operate in the market, which is quite sad because it was nice to talk to another person
This why they need more immigrants.
r u guys gonna cover the nuclear contaminated water story？
AI will accelerate this trend
That's how the free market works
The free market works well, don't worry, the temporary trend of blue-collar workers on the market will soon drop with the influx of immigrants, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Now a burger is $25 hahahaa
Wait. Let's look at the husbands, Fred and Barney. Their children, Pebbles and Bam bam cost too much to feed these days.
just eat Dino
You can work two shifts or get an education, then you will have enough money
This is not true
Umm, the gap wont be closed. Are you kidding? A cashier st Walmart will never mske as much as a computer programmer.
A highly skilled electrician??...probably.
so labor becomes the assets
i am a black color worker
Closing the gap = politically motivated fallacy
The wage gap should be larger. You can't rob people of their ambition, and making the earnings of an outstanding person flatter is a crime. Everyone is responsible for themselves and is responsible for their own situation. Let's end populism, because communism is not a good system.
not growth when it’s just catching up to inflation…
Kathome stis 3:32 kai vlepo afto to video gia na kano to essay 💀
I'm so happy I made productive decisions about my finances that changed forever. I'm a single mother living in Vancouver Canada, bought my first house in October and hoping to retire soon if things keep going smoothly for me.
so now the great economy suggests to become a laborer instead of a skilled worker. White collar hog takes years of studies and knowledge building. Doctors/ somputrt programmers/ accountants/ data analysts it takes a lot of hard work.
Yeah when I hear UPS drivers now getting $170K that caught my eye. Software dev makes $200K but has to invest huge amount in CompSci degree. Truck driver has to invest nothing. Something is out of balance.
It is possible to work as a software developer without going to college; it is hard but totally possible via boot camps or being self taught.
Additionally with a software engineering background it is a lot easier to leverage those skills into starting a business with relatively little overhead. Workers can work from home, physical resources may be just employee laptops and on prem servers and you yourself can start a lot of the initial code base.
The skill set from UPS is going to be a lot harder to create your own startup to compete with UPS/FedEx although not impossible.
@@gabrielgarcia7554oh yeah its no prob to compete with google and facebook. Just grab yourself an html for dummies book and you're all set. Seriously though, companies hire H1b. They dont want to figure out if you know your stuff. They already know theres a billion Indians standing by to work at slave wages.
170k, lol, Don't just read the Title, Dig a little deeper, and you will find out 170k is not what you get pay but total package not for fresh starter but for the people stay in that job long time. UPS Driver they have to work in harsh conditions, facing with lots of dangerous in the road, etc,....
@@binhan721 Man, his work shouldn't be worth even half the value of an educated person. The world is suddenly transformed by populism. To achieve good work and respect, you have to give something more
The bias in this clip is real. Do a proper comparison of a high skilled blue collar job - electrician, welder, oil and gas worker HVAC, automotive/aviation mechanic vs. a software coder instead.
There is nothing as high skill blue collar job. If someone can do a job without degree then it doesn't requires much skills. Cavemen could do it too if taught. Now try teaching randoms about Veterinary medicine and what nerves passes through what bone and what not. Let's see how long they last.
Ok, what about pink color and brown color worker😅😅😅😅
why? replacing black with blue does not stop racism and discrimination