[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.