Rubio Was Right: Welders do make more than Philosophers

“Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” — Marco Rubio, making the case for vocational training.

This one-liner obviously needed a fact checking. So a whole bunch of fact checkers wrote about how Rubio was wrong, and that philosophers do in fact make more money than welders. This piece from CNN is a good example, pointing out that “median wage for welders: $37,420. Median wage for philosophy professors: $63,630. The winner on pay is clear.”

That’s it. Settled. Rubio was wrong.

Or was he? I took a closer look. Turns out it’s not so simple.

I found an interesting 1997 New York Times article about philosophy majors. Every year there are 4000 philosophy majors, but 1000 philosophy PhDs competing for less than 500 jobs. Back of the napkin math- about 25% of philosophy majors get PhDs in philosophy, of which less than 50% get jobs in the field (obviously these numbers are out of date, but I don’t think the ratios have changed that much). So that $63k number may be true for philosophy professors, but that’s the ones who get jobs! And those jobs (per the DOL data) are heavily concentrated in high costs of living areas like Boston, NY and DC.

And what about the 75% who don’t get a PhD? 80% of those interviewed for the story went on to some form of grad school. Probably most to law school, but many went to medical school as well. Doctors and lawyers make good money, but not by being philosophers.

Now let’s take a look at the welders. If you look at the DOL numbers, you’ll find that while $37,420 is the median for welders, there are a lot of factors that go into play. For example if you work in “Motor Vehicle Body and Trailer Manufacturing” the mean salary is about $35,000. But if you work in in “Natural Gas Distribution”, it’s $68,000. That’s more that the $63,000 philosophy professors are making. Unsurprisingly the states with highest salaries for welders are Alaska, Wyoming and North Dakota. Cost of living is cheaper as well.

So i,f you’re a welder here’s some free advice. Quit that car company and move to the North Dakota oilfields. You’ll make more money than that college professor in Boston. A BA in philosophy? Go back and get a law degree. Or go become a welder.