Millions of Good Jobs Exist for Non-College Grads
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Your Money Matters. I'm Charlie Turner in New York. How hard is it to get a decent-paying job without having a four-year college degree?
How many decent-paying jobs exist for workers without four-year degrees?
The fact is millions of these jobs exist in the U.S. despite all the lamenting about the end of middle-class jobs. The problem is that there are more than twice as many Americans without a four-year degree as there are those decent-paying jobs. Let's talk about the state of good jobs in America with Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Webber. Lauren, this is based on a study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. First of all, tell us, what defines a middle class, decent paying job?
How does Georgetown define a 'middle-class' or decent-paying job?
Well, they used as the floor for that a minimum income of $35,000 a year, which is about $17 an hour for somebody working full time. They actually found that the median for these jobs was more like $55,000, but $35,000 was the floor.
Now, didn't you write that this floor is sort of raised for an older worker?
Yeah, because $35,000 means something different when you're 25 versus when you're 45. So for people over 45, they adjusted that to be a minimum income of $45,000. Okay.
According to this report, Lauren, how many of those jobs are available in the U.S. ?
Well, there are still 30 million jobs that they found. This was in 2015, which is actually a little bit more than about 25 years ago when they found 27 million of these jobs. The problem is the labor market has grown a lot faster than the number of those jobs. So even though there are more of them today than 25 years ago, there are fewer of them relative to the size of the workforce.
Why is there a gap between 30 million jobs and 75 million non-college workers?
And there are something like 75 million Americans right now without a four-year college degree. Isn't that right?
Right, which means there's basically one good job for every two and a half workers who falls into that bucket.
And these are people that are working, not just Americans per se, but workers.
These are workers, yeah. And so that means about 45 million people. The 30 million good jobs for 75 million people, 45 million are probably in low-paying jobs or in part-time jobs where they can't get enough hours to reach that 35,000 minimum.
Now, one problem is that the workforce has really expanded, has really grown. I mean, the population has grown. Isn't a huge problem that there are far fewer jobs like manufacturing that don't require a college degree, you know, the way it used to be a few decades ago, and there are far more jobs like financial services or technology or engineering that do require secondary education?
That's true. So in 1991, 60% of the good jobs in America did not require a college degree. Today it's 45%. So today if you don't have a college degree, you basically have like a 40% chance of getting a decent paying job. Whereas if you have a college degree, you now have an 82% chance of getting a decent paying job. So you can understand why parents today really want their kids to go to college and get that four-year degree. Now, the good news piece of this is that people do, I think, sometimes in the popular imagination think that there are no more of these jobs. There are.
How has the share of good jobs not requiring college changed since 1991?
They're changing, though. So you mentioned things like financial services and information technology. Well, a lot of the jobs in those industries don't actually require a college degree. So you can get a a job as an engineering technician or a video producer or a psychiatric aid for healthcare, an account manager in some kinds of financial services industries, where you don't need to have that four-year degree, but you do probably need some post-secondary education. So if you're a high school dropout or a high school graduate, this is a very bad job market for you. If you've got some college, it looks a little bit better. And if you have an associate's degree, especially one that's very career-focused, very targeted on a particular skill or occupation, your chances are actually better today than in 1991.
I'm speaking with Lauren Weber of The Wall Street Journal, and you're listening to Your Money Matters.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:20
2
How many decent-paying jobs exist for workers without four-year degrees?
0:20–0:52
3
How does Georgetown define a 'middle-class' or decent-paying job?
0:52–1:51
4
Why is there a gap between 30 million jobs and 75 million non-college workers?
1:51–3:21
5
How has the share of good jobs not requiring college changed since 1991?
3:21–4:53
6
What roles do community colleges and postsecondary credentials play in filling good jobs?
4:53–5:28
7
What can parents, schools, and employers do to reduce the job–applicant mismatch?
5:28–6:27
Speakers
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