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HSFPP Weekly Update # 164—The Ten Best-Paying Blue Collar Jobs

Message from Bob: I hope all of you have had a relaxing summer and are ready for a new year with the High School Financial Planning Program. We want to remind you to order teacher’s guides and student workbooks for the new school year if you haven’t already. Order forms to send to NEFE can be found on the Kentucky HSFPP home page.

I also want to inform you about an exciting new opportunity to develop an in-school and after-school investment club, beginning in the winter of 2007. We received a grant to develop a new program, Future 4-H Millionaire Clubs, for teenagers who have already participated in either the HSFPP, 4-H Consumer Savvy, or Financial Champion education program. We will discuss this new educational program as part of our in-service trainings scheduled for September. To learn more about dates and locations for HSFPP in-service trainings, go to our home page, under “Training”:

http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp/training.htm

If you are interested in joining the pilot group for the Future 4-H Millionaire Clubs beginning in January, please contact your county Extension agent for more information. Or you can contact me at (859) 257–7758 or rflashma@uky.edu.

Also, if you know of any students who participated in the HSFPP and are attending the University of Kentucky, and who would qualify for Federal work-study, please have them give me a call. We are already missing Chris, our previous work-study student, who worked on the weekly updates the last four years. He really added a lot to our program.

 

Note to Educators:

We have made several changes to the Web site (http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp/). You can find all of the recent changes by clicking on the “What’s New” button on our homepage. Those of you who are new to the weekly updates will be glad to know you can find all of the following information by studying our Web site:

• How HSFPP relates to Kentucky “Core Concepts” and how each unit of the HSFPP applies to core concepts.
• Our home page includes a direct link to the Order Form to make it easier for you to order HSFPP teacher’s manuals and student workbooks.
• In the links section of our Web site, we have updated and deleted some old links. 

To New Subscribers:

We design our weekly updates so you can copy and paste each week’s article In the New$..., student activity, and questions into a word-processing file to use with teenagers. If you have trouble doing this from the e-mail, you can always go to our Web site. All updates are available at http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp/UPDATE.HTM. As long as proper credit is given, feel free to copy and paste material from any of these. This week in the news article follows.

 

In the New$... The Ten Best-Paying Blue Collar Jobs

by Alex Lesueur, Jr., M.S.L.S., University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension

Most young people would like to find a career that pays well, and the best-known path to such a career is a college education. But what about students who are not sure they want to go to college or who would prefer to work with their hands? Should they take on expensive student loans that could take years to repay? College loans are a wonderful resource for many students, but they can become a trap for young working people who need to begin saving for short-term financial goals such as buying a home, or for the long-term goal of their own retirement. Without the assurance of a career that you personally would enjoy, you might want to think twice about taking on the cost of college, at least until you’ve worked a year or two and have a better idea what profession you would like to pursue.

Other options exist, but are often not considered. Top-paying blue collar jobs, which require some training but not a college education, are an option that should be better known.

Despite hard times for many blue collar workers as the information and service industries continue to grow, Forbes.com reports that “there are still some great, high-paying jobs for those who are more apt to wear hard hats and work boots than don pinstripes or tote a briefcase ... [T]here are,” they say, “always going to be buildings that need constructing, air conditioners and refrigerators that need fixing, and goods that need to be delivered to department stores and supermarkets.”

Electricians, carpenters, diesel mechanics, and truck drivers will remain in demand. Skilled trades take some time to learn, but will continue to bring above-average wages for the foreseeable future, outperforming many careers that require a college education. The most important thing is to know what you want, regardless of what others are telling you, and to be willing to learn and to make the sacrifices that are necessary to succeed; if you do, you might even be able to go into business for yourself. Forbes.com says the reward for running your own shop could be more than $200,000 a year, an amount that most would find very attractive.

Following are the Top 10 Best-Paying Blue Collar Jobs, according to MSN Money and Forbes.com:

1. – Public transit attendant, $62,088
2. – Longshore equipment operators, $58,198
3. – Brickmasters and stonemasons, $57,200
4. – Power plant operators, $56,472
5. – Locomotive operations, $56,347
6. – Aircraft engine mechanics, $55,494
7. – Electrical power installers and repairers, $55,390
8. – Mining operations, $54,704
9. – Oil well driller, $53,227
10. – Telephone line installer/repairer, $52,478

Each of these jobs pays well over the U.S. median income of $43,318. So, while many blue collar jobs pay little more than minimum wage, others can bring financial security, with a variety of fringe benefits.

Just remember two important facts, however: (1) A job that pays less, but has better benefits, can be a better choice than a job that pays more because benefits provide greater security; and, (2) if you choose to begin work right out of high school or soon after, be sure to put the money you will save on higher education into savings instead of an expensive car or truck. The earlier you begin, and the longer you save and invest, the more money you will make from compound interest. If your goal is to become a millionaire, this is the way to do it.

Source: “The10 Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs,” Forbes.com:  http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Forbes/The10BestPayingBlueCollarJobs.aspx

 

Discussion questions:

1.) Do you plan to attend a college, university, or community/technical college after high school?

 

2.) What are some careers or jobs that interest you?

 

3.) What are your career or job expectations? (How much annual salary/wages, what benefits, what job conditions, etc.)

 

4a.) Do you feel any expectation from others for your education or career that you aren’t comfortable with? Yes ___  No ___. From whom?

 

4b.) If so, how could you deal with that in a way that allows you to follow the path you want for yourself?

 

Follow-Up Activity:

You can research careers on http://www.bls.gov/oco/, the Web site for the Occupational Outlook Handbook. This nationally recognized source of career information forecasts how well each occupation is likely to do in the future in terms of numbers of jobs likely to be added or lost in a field; it tells how much people in a profession are paid, the level of education and training needed, etc. This is exactly the kind of information students need when planning for their education, training, and career.

 

Follow-up Questions:

Choose an occupation that might interest you, but that you know little about, and answer the following questions:

1.) Training needed: List high school courses, if required, and other types of education and training beyond high school.

2.) Job outlook:

3.) How much earnings you can expect: beginning wage or salary; median salary; and apprentice salary, if appropriate.

For extra credit, research more careers that interest you and answer the questions above about each one.

 

Kentucky High School Financial Planning Program
http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp
The purpose of this Web site is to assist county Extension agents, credit union educators, and high school teachers in improving the economic well-being of our constituency, beginning with today’s students; and also, to assist teachers in Kentucky in meeting KERA’s goal that all students become technologically literate. Weekly Updates are provided by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, and are free to all educators.