Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) incorrectly stated that “welders make more money than philosophers” during Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate.
Rubio was asked what he would “take back” that Democratic presidential candidates offered voters in government-paid benefits during their own debate. In response, he called raising the minimum wage a “disaster” and instead proposed making “higher education faster and easier to access, especially vocational training.”
“For the life of me I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education,” Rubio said. “Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.”
But data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics disprove that statement.
Postsecondary philosophy and religion teachers earn an average annual wage of $71,350 while welders pocket $40,040 annually, according to the agency’s May 2014 survey.
I guess to really get to the bottom of this we’d need to somehow compare employed philosophers – if by that we mean people with college-level degrees in philosophy–and welders. I’m going to guess that PhD’s in philosophy who are unemployed make less than welders, but how long they stay unemployed–and what happens to welders who go unemployed–is also a question. Lots to think about, if we’re going to be serious about the issue. Still, given that Rubio’s intention is to suggest that “they” are denigrating welders–while he himself is really all about denigrating philosophy–somehow I think he didn’t work the data too hard.
I suspect the percentage of welders employed in their field is far greater than the percentage of Philosophy degree holders employed in their field.
I suspect most Philosophy degree holders have made $0 in their field in their life.
He’s actually right that there is a shortage of welders. Which suggests companies are underpaying these blue-collar workers. It’s a tough job, it requires skill, strength, dexterity, and attention to detail, and doing it day in and day out year after year requires stamina. And if the average welder is making $40,000, that means a lot of new welders are probably getting quite a bit less.
Marco, the laws of supply and demand suggest a simple remedy for a shortage of skilled workers, which is to raise the wage for that job. If you actually believed in market economics, as opposed to crony capitalism, you would already understand that.
As a philosopher myself, I find that $71,000 a year figure very suspect. That’s tenured faculty presumably. A good portion of philosophy PhDs who are employed (I don’t know the exact percentage) are working as adjuncts for peanuts. In any case, I never realized that a major problem in this country is that there are too many philosophers! There are about 9000 members of the American Philosophical Association (as opposed to 360,000 professional welders ). Yes, this is definitely a huge drain on the American economy.
I knew I should have gone into philosophy…