[clusterhacks]

BLS figures show tradeworkers make about the median salary in the US - it isn't above average. In the Occupational Outlook handbook, The mean annual wage for all occupations is $65,470. The trades:

  Plumber - median $61,550 per year
  HVAC tech - median $57,300 per year
  Electrician - median $61,590 per year
  Framer(Carpenter) - median $56,350 per year
  Bricklayer(Mason) - median $53,010 per year
  

Job demand also seems to be about average compared to overall jobs.

I agree that investing heavily in many degrees is probably ill-advised.

[lastofus]

It's a bit apples to oranges to compare mean to median? Or at least Honeycrisp to Gala...

[dmoy]

True, but median full time wage is like $59k or something

[quickthrowman]

Union plumbers, electricians, pipefitters, and sheet metal workers all make more than $50/hr on the check and $100/hr with fringes in my metro area with a population of 3 million.

You can see what union trades make in a specific area by searching for “prevailing wage [city name]” and looking at the wage tables.

[red-iron-pine]

is that 50-100 as a 1099 contractor, where they have to pay their own payroll tax, plus unemployment insurance, and their own healthcare and retirement?

or are these full-timers.

I'm sure they're almost certainly the former, and that 77/hr doesn't look so amazing after taxes and other overheads. I'd bet that gets down closer to 40/hr actual spending money, and that's not as amazing around big cities like DC, NYC, or SF.

[quickthrowman]

The former, these are W2 full time union tradespeople. The only thing taken out of the $53/hr wage is income tax and payroll tax, everything else is rolled into the fringe package.

Journeyman electricians get $53/hr wage in Mpls/St Paul, total package is around $100/hr (includes health insurance, defined benefit pension, employer FICA, unemployment insurance, union dues, apprentice program funding, vacation pay, etc) Foreman get an extra $5 an hour and a general foreman gets another $5 on top of that.

NYC and SF electricians get around $70-75/hr wage, DC is around $65/hr.

Trade unions are so hard up for new members that they’ll educate you while you’re an apprentice, so after 5 years you’re a journeyman with no education debt making $100k+ a year. It takes a while for a college educated person making $100k/year to catch up to the electrician in lifetime earnings.

If you’re a non-union residential electrician in say, Alabama or Kentucky, you’ll probably make $60k a year. If you’re a commercial union mechanical or electrical tradesperson in a decent sized metro area, you’ll make significantly more.

[gruez]

>You can see what union trades make in a specific area by searching for “prevailing wage [city name]” and looking at the wage tables.

From the linked BLS report:

>These estimates are calculated with data collected from employers in all industry sectors in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in every state and the District of Columbia.

I'd take country wide figures from government agencies over haphazardly doing your own research for a few cities on google.

[quickthrowman]

I wasn’t questioning the median, I was simply stating that you can make much more than the median in certain areas, or in any area by simply joining the trade union for your trade. The south is what drags down the median construction wage numbers.

[PedroBatista]

Employee tradeworkers make good average money, self-employed trades people make a ton more money.

I think the silver-lining here is: be competent at your job and all aspects related to it, but do that while being your own boss.

Not much different from other areas but in this case, trades are in high demand and the initial investment in terms of capital is very little compared to "start a company and hope to break even in an year or two".

[johnnyanmac]

>but do that while being your own boss.

So you're prone to falling into survival bias, while also needing skills beyond just being good at your job in order to sell yourself so you can get customers to begin with.

>the initial investment in terms of capital is very little compared to "start a company and hope to break even in an year or two".

2-3 years of apprenticeship is "very little"? In addition to however much experience you need to be trusted as a business? And who's to say you will break even in a year or two?

[dmoy]

It's very little capital investment, yes. In both absolute terms (like a few thousand dollars of school, sometimes paid for by the employer), and relative to starting a non-trade business (rent, equipment, etc).

[gruez]

>Employee tradeworkers make good average money, self-employed trades people make a ton more money.

Seems plausible. If you click around you find the report explicitly excludes self-employed workers.

>Self-employed persons are not included in the survey or estimates.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_abo.htm

[ryandrake]

> Seems plausible. If you click around you find the report explicitly excludes self-employed workers.

Probably because they are entirely different jobs. The “tradesmen” making the big bucks are actually business owners, who are hiring others to clean the toilets and wire circuit breakers. This makes them more like CEOs than individual plumbers. It would not make sense to lump their salaries with employed trade workers.

[dmoy]

Doesn't necessarily have to be business owner with employees. Could be like one person self employed, maybe with a brother or something.

The last plumber I hired was two brothers, who do good work, charge like $100+/hr on labor, but are considered self employed and thus don't show up in that dataset.

[supertimor]

If it’s both brothers for that hourly rate, then that is only $50 an hour; and probably also has to cover expenses like business insurance, car insurance, gas, tools/equipment, car and equipment maintenance, certifications and contractors licenses, etc, etc.

And I’d bet their rate even has to take into account the time in their “off” hours when they are writing estimates, invoicing, communicating with clients, marketing, and so forth.

They don’t just clock out when they finish fixing your plumbing. Even at $100 each, it’s not pure profit. Running the business probably eats into a big chunk of their hourly rate.

[jay_kyburz]

I don't know what its like it the states, but many household Plumbers and Electricians are actually running their own small company and work very hard to minimize their take home salary.

But regardless of career path, the real trick is to raise your children to aim higher than median. :)

You don't want to be a plumber, you want to run a plumbing empire!

[johnnyanmac]

I just want to make art. Darn rent gets in the way, but if that was taken care of my goals are much simpler.

[Der_Einzige]

In the Bay Area and other places where tech workers congregate, trades people make far above these numbers. These numbers are kept low by the south, which might as well not count for the purposes of the average demographics of this website.

[zamadatix]

Most every job's wage is on average higher in the Bay Area than the South. The South also has some of the lowest cost of living vs the bay area some of the highest. Nobody specifically mentioned tech but it's perhaps not the regional relative-income trend you're expecting https://www.business.org/hr/benefits/highest-tech-salaries/