Manufacturing Jobs Are Still Pretty Good Jobs

In November 2014, the average hourly pay of production and nonsupervisory workers in durable goods manufacturing fell behind that of their peers in the rest of the private sector for the first time on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly establishment survey.1522344418057 I described this in a column a few months later as a "momentous" workplace development, a sign of the demise of the "blue-collar elite."

Since then, factory workers have continued to trail their private-sector peers in hourly pay most months, although they've stayed close. In February, the disparity was $22.40 to $22.28. Here are the two series since 1964 in inflation-adjusted dollars: