Justin Fox, Columnist

Farewell to the Blue-Collar Elite

Employment is rising in durable-goods manufacturing after a decades-long decline. But the pay is no longer anything special.

April 6, 2015 at 4:52 PM UTC

By Justin Fox

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Making stuff doesn't pay very well.
Photographer: Ty Wright/Bloomberg

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Something momentous happened back in November, although I’m not sure anybody noticed it at the time. Maybe because it’s such a mouthful.

Here goes: In November, the average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in durable-goods manufacturing dropped below the average hourly earnings of all private nonfarm production and nonsupervisory employees for the first time on record. They’ve stayed lower since. According to the latest jobs data released Friday, durable-goods manufacturing workers made $20.79 an hour in March; private-sector workers overall made $20.89.1428336169142