Interactive exploration of earnings by age and industry (2018)

That was a surprisingly interesting read. I think taking it to the next level would be interesting as well. Things I would like to know specifically toward &quot;life plans&quot; kinds of advice.<p>How many people are in a &quot;dead end&quot; job to make money while still in college?<p>What areas and colleges can you pay all of your tuition, books, and fees while working in one of these jobs?<p>What can you do in high school to minimize the time spent at the &#x27;dead end job&#x27; level?<p>What percentage of &#x27;dead end&#x27; job employees are the second breadwinner in a household? What percentage are the primary? And finally what percentage are the only breadwinner in the household?<p>What characterizes &quot;good mobility&quot; (moving from one job to a better job) versus &quot;bad mobility&quot; (being unable to change jobs) and what public policies would encourage for more mobility?

This analysis really under-plays how thin and blurry the line between &quot;dead end job&quot; and &quot;blue collar career&quot; is early on one&#x27;s career. Driving a tow truck for someone else is a dead end job. You only need like $5k to get your first tow truck though and owning a fleet of tow trucks is not a dead end job. If you have that drive to move up then you can easily start moving up.

I can&#x27;t believe that lawyers are such an outlier, I though it was very close to engineering.<p>That&#x27;s an average, I wonder the mean, maybe there are many lawyer whales pushing up the numbers.

I can finally flex on all the farmers, mechanics, and line-welders around here by proving that I&#x27;m blue collar by working in education.<p>Not sure that really is as satisfying as I think it will be.

&quot;If a high school grad doesn’t go straight to college, chances are him or her are entering the labor force.&quot;<p>This grammar is killing the legitimacy of this article...

I liked their presentation of the data. Cool interactivity and scrolling transition with notes beside the plots.

&gt;It’s a vicious cycle that appears to only be solvable by workers taking initiative and pushing for more responsibilities, taking advantage of opportunities to educate themselves, and gain new skills to make them more valuable in the field<p>Article really glosses over the fact that there aren&#x27;t really all that many skills to be learned at most low paying dead end jobs. That&#x27;s why they&#x27;re unskilled, require no education, and pay poorly, as there&#x27;s always a glut of people willing and able to do them. Supply and demand.

Hang on, was there anything in those charts about how many people actually make it to 65 in those professions? Maybe I just missed it.

Interesting to look thru, not sure I totally trust it. I live in central Illinois in farm country and every farmer i know is quite wealthy. They have a healthy lineage, grandpa, dad, son (and also grandma, mom, daughter). The work is passed on thru the family and young folks are walking into millions.

It&#x27;s sobering to see that most of my peers are already in the $140k+ bucket at a <i>minimum</i> out of undergrad, which is where the legal professionals end up after 40!