Good Jobs that Pay without a BA

Abstract

The blue-collar economy conjures images of shuttered factories and the disappearance of good jobs. Those images reflect the suffering among blue-collar workers left behind by the shift away from an economy based in manufacturing, but they do not tell the whole story. In fact, we find that there are still 30 million good jobs that do not require a Bachelor’s degree. These good jobs pay an average of $55,000 per year, and a minimum of $35,000 annually. In the past, these good jobs were found almost entirely in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries like transportation and construction. Employment in blue-collar industries, however, has declined primarily because of robots and offshoring of jobs. These industries still hold the majority (55%) of jobs that pay without a BA, but that is changing quickly. Today we find good jobs in skilled-services industries, such as healthcare, finance, and information technology. These new good jobs have steadily been replacing good jobs lost in traditional blue-collar industries.