Morning Must-Read: Joseph Kane and Robert Puentes: The Enormous Wage Potential of Infrastructure Jobs

Joseph Kane and Robert Puentes: The Enormous Wage Potential of Infrastructure Jobs: “Cutting across multiple industries and geographies…

…infrastructure jobs offer needed stability. Since these jobs also typically require less formal education and pay competitive wages across a variety of occupations, they give workers from all backgrounds a chance to make a decent living in today’s unforgiving economy… pay 30 percent more to lower income workers—wage earners at the 10th and 25th percentile—relative to all jobs nationally…. Infrastructure occupations not only employ thousands of workers with a high school diploma or less, but they also frequently offer higher wages compared to many other jobs, particularly those involved in sales, maintenance, production, and other support activities. For example, paving equipment operators, recyclable material collectors, and industrial truck operators are among the largest infrastructure occupations that fall into this category, paying significantly more to workers without an advanced degree who might otherwise be employed as assemblers, counter attendants or cashiers. Plumbers, bus drivers and electrical power-line installers illustrate these patterns as well…. On-the-job training, in particular, is essential for these workers, many of who undertake apprenticeships and certifications to operate our infrastructure systems for decades…