Four Year Wonders Got Married: Ochka and ML

[ML]

Highs in upper teens and lows in single digits in middle America

Boe, Northkape and other of you 'northerners' please take these temps back where they belong!!

[ML]

Our Ukrainian group told wife and I about a recently arrived refugee, wife and two children.

They are being sponsored by Catholic Church, but not sure if they are Catholic [ I guess they probably will be at some point !!  :-) ]

Anyway, he is thrilled to be making some money himself (helping with our renovation project) rather than completely relying on the sponsors.

He has degree in Mechanical Engineering, so knows his way around doing things.

I am a little unhappy that he is here rather than in military in Ukraine.
Wife can't get a real answer as to how he got out of Ukraine, but he did tell her that no bribes were paid.

They lived in Kharkiv and their apartment building was bombed.  Lived in bathroom for several weeks.  Then apartment was bombed again  so they moved to a town west of Kharkiv.  That town was bombed, so they moved to another town which was also bombed, etc., etc.

He is quite nervous and jumpy, probably PTSD; but a good worker.

[ML]

Funny tidbit.

I do all my own plumbing, electrical, woodwork, drywall, painting, flooring,  and everything else except concrete.

The Ukrainian refugee asked what Engineering degree I had.

He was quite shocked when I told him my degrees were in Accounting, Finance and International business.

[ML]

Just remembered that one of my nieces and her husband own a plumbing business in Ohio, so I checked with her regarding salaries, etc.

Recently they started paying new workers $18 an hour, those with 3 years  experience $28 dollars an hour and master plumbers $40 an hour.

They usually send out 2 men on each job and bill at $200 per hour total.

Don't know what they earn from the business (which they were lucky to have inherited from his father) but . . .

Aside from 4 business trucks, he buys a new monster truck every 2-3 years, she buys a new SUV every 2-3 years and they bought a couple of years ago a high end Mustang.  They also have large boat and large travel trailer and very nice house.

He goes on fishing trips to Florida and hunting trips to the north every year.
She travel almost every other month to distant states to visit relatives.

They have adult children who do not work in the business; don't know exactly why.

[Trenchcoat]

Just remembered that one of my nieces and her husband own a plumbing business in Ohio, so I checked with her regarding salaries, etc.

Recently they started paying new workers $18 an hour, those with 3 years  experience $28 dollars an hour and master plumbers $40 an hour.

They usually send out 2 men on each job and bill at $200 per hour total.

Don't know what they earn from the business (which they were lucky to have inherited from his father) but . . .

Aside from 4 business trucks, he buys a new monster truck every 2-3 years, she buys a new SUV every 2-3 years and they bought a couple of years ago a high end Mustang.  They also have large boat and large travel trailer and very nice house.

He goes on fishing trips to Florida and hunting trips to the north every year.
She travel almost every other month to distant states to visit relatives.

They have adult children who do not work in the business; don't know exactly why.

Owning the business and not lying around in some awkward position doing the actual plumbing work is no doubt a better position to be in. Aside from taxes and costs I would guess that they are making more money then those they employ per hour.

It all varies, my guess is that it is probably easier to make money in plumbing in the US than it is the UK. Partly due to less competition coming forth than you would be set against and partly as 2tallbill allured to that the tax regime/society is different. At its worst here a lot of local council's are going near bankrupt and are having to have the government bail them out. The reason? Money has been provided over the past 20-30 for the Social Housing crowd to be housed for free and have many kids on benefit on what could be an unlimited number of kids. Now the government only pays child benefit on the first two children a couple have. It's really the housing that counts though, if you have children, particularly if a single mother you go to the top of the housing ladder for free social housing (unless you work then you will pay for your social housing but it's still cheaper than the going rate by up to a third but it's why many of the social crowd don't work). So it all means the social housing crowd has been expanding in the UK exponentially. The kids produced all expect the same mostly, to live if the state and so the Councils financial on the social housing it provides burden grows &
grows.

There's also another issue to it all which is that genetically those in social housing tend to be the worst. Sometimes there are good news stories of someone who has made it good but mostly they are fucked up from the get go by just having a poor accumulation of not particularly helpful genes. Add to that bad to non existent upbringing from parents and often drug problems and the country gets burdened down by a whole load of useless people that would possibly only ever be any good in a forced labour camp.

So paying for all that costs a lot both at local and national government level. That of course means that everyone else has to pay, way, way more tax so surpressing take home pay after tax.

[2tallbill]

Highs in upper teens and lows in single digits in middle America

Boe, Northkape and other of you 'northerners' please take these temps back where they belong!!

Meanwhile in Texas,
The tomatoes in our garden are not ready to eat yet, but we have green tomatoes on the vine.
When August rolls around, I won't be bragging as much.

[Bee Farmer]

Trench,
  A LOT of plumbers in the US don't put pieces of copper pipe together, and don't have to get in awkward positions.

It is extremely rare to see copper pipe being used anymore. 

A lot of plumbers start out working for plumbing companies doing new construction.  Contractors in housing developments will put up a house shell.  It has outside walls, a roof, subfloors, and stud walls inside.  These are really easy plumbing jobs, and it is a great way for new guys to learn how everything fits together.  The hardest thing they have to deal with is tripping over the electricians who are trying to do the wiring at the same time they are trying to do the plumbing. 

With new construction, it's easy and you get a standard 40 hours a week.  But it also pays at the bottom.

Once you know what you are doing, some guys will get into residential home plumbing.  These are the guys who have to get in awkward positions in someone's house to fix plumbing problems.  They have to hunt for jobs, and you won't always have 40 hours of work every week, so plumbers have to charge accordingly.

Or you will see plumbers start their own plumbing business and still do new construction.  They already know who the contractors are since they have been doing new construction for the past few years, and the contractors know if they do a good job or not.  So it's easy to start your own plumbing business, and have tons of work because you are already friends with the contractors.  The jobs won't pay quite as good as doing residential home plumbing, but you don't have to hunt for work, you don't have to get in awkward positions, and you don't have to deal with customers who can be annoying.

You can also get into industrial plumbing, and doing plumbing work when they build factories.  Some of this is much bigger pipes.  You will use cranes to install this piping.  Sometimes it is welded pipe, and sometimes the pipes are bolted together with flanges on the ends.

These are all plumbing jobs, but the pay scales can vary widely.  So it's hard to look at statistic and determine how much a plumber earns.

Peter Zeihan just posted an interesting video this morning explaining why there is a shortage of blue collar workers in the US.  The US had a large Baby Boomer population.  When they entered the workforce, there was so much competition for jobs that it brought the price of labor down.  As a result, both parents needed to get jobs to support the household, bringing the cost of labor down even more.  So they told their kids to go to college and get white collar jobs.  After doing this for the past 50 years, now we have more white collar workers than we need, and there is a shortage of blue collar workers.  He claims that if you get a 6 week welding degree, you can earn more money than someone with a 4 year college degree and 5 years of work experience.    Not only that, but the large Baby Boomer population is retiring, and the Generation Z workers entering the workplace are our smallest generation yet.

[Trenchcoat]

Trench,
  A LOT of plumbers in the US don't put pieces of copper pipe together, and don't have to get in awkward positions.

It is extremely rare to see copper pipe being used anymore. 

A lot of plumbers start out working for plumbing companies doing new construction.  Contractors in housing developments will put up a house shell.  It has outside walls, a roof, subfloors, and stud walls inside.  These are really easy plumbing jobs, and it is a great way for new guys to learn how everything fits together.  The hardest thing they have to deal with is tripping over the electricians who are trying to do the wiring at the same time they are trying to do the plumbing. 

With new construction, it's easy and you get a standard 40 hours a week.  But it also pays at the bottom.

Once you know what you are doing, some guys will get into residential home plumbing.  These are the guys who have to get in awkward positions in someone's house to fix plumbing problems.  They have to hunt for jobs, and you won't always have 40 hours of work every week, so plumbers have to charge accordingly.

Or you will see plumbers start their own plumbing business and still do new construction.  They already know who the contractors are since they have been doing new construction for the past few years, and the contractors know if they do a good job or not.  So it's easy to start your own plumbing business, and have tons of work because you are already friends with the contractors.  The jobs won't pay quite as good as doing residential home plumbing, but you don't have to hunt for work, you don't have to get in awkward positions, and you don't have to deal with customers who can be annoying.

You can also get into industrial plumbing, and doing plumbing work when they build factories.  Some of this is much bigger pipes.  You will use cranes to install this piping.  Sometimes it is welded pipe, and sometimes the pipes are bolted together with flanges on the ends.

These are all plumbing jobs, but the pay scales can vary widely.  So it's hard to look at statistic and determine how much a plumber earns.

Peter Zeihan just posted an interesting video this morning explaining why there is a shortage of blue collar workers in the US.  The US had a large Baby Boomer population.  When they entered the workforce, there was so much competition for jobs that it brought the price of labor down.  As a result, both parents needed to get jobs to support the household, bringing the cost of labor down even more.  So they told their kids to go to college and get white collar jobs.  After doing this for the past 50 years, now we have more white collar workers than we need, and there is a shortage of blue collar workers.  He claims that if you get a 6 week welding degree, you can earn more money than someone with a 4 year college degree and 5 years of work experience.    Not only that, but the large Baby Boomer population is retiring, and the Generation Z workers entering the workplace are our smallest generation yet.

Beefarmuh, I know we often don't agree on a lot on here but a lot of what you said I agree on. Zeihan, I think has it roughly right here though is I think slightly inaccurate Inna few points. I would say that it was Generation X rather than Millennials as he states where the shift towards training up and aspiring for white collar jobs occurred. At least in the UK and I would assume in the US as well. As a member of Generation X schools had a focus on academia here in the UK, parents often voiced their disdain for blue collar work which was often low paid at the time and seen as low status and grubby. They along with teachers, and the children themselves came to see an office job as desirable, clean and higher status work leading to something. I assume you like me are a member of Generation X and quite possibly had the same values around while growing up through the education system, etc.

Again Zeihan fails to consider the expected increase in automation and robotics that is likely to decrease the need for labour. I don't think though he is too far off track on this one.

Here in the UK copper piping is still frequently used. Plastic piping is around for water pipes and while it can be a little cheaper is not necessarily as cheap as some might think moreso for the connections due to the complex mouldings, etc. I can see the advantage of plastic water pipes but the housing I have worked on had copper so I stuck with that. Copper pipe is easier to work with than in that past as the cheap ETFE tape can make it a lot easier to get a tight water tight seal using compression fittings than the old compounds used to get with a lot less risk of overtightening and spreading the olive. On top of that they are better than plastic pipe for killing off bacteria which is a great benefit of copper while plastic pipe can carry more risk of bacterial problems such as legionella. I reckon it could easily be foreseen that in the future plastic pipe might end up being ripped out and needing replacement with copper pipe to avert such situations as it's one of those things that may become too much of a problem.

I think the situation you sum up for plumbing is generally true and in effect true for most industries - the easier the job the less pay, the harder the job the more pay. In some respect there is almost a natural equilibrium with most forms of work, if supply of labour falls off then pay increases, if supply falls of enough that it becomes very lucrative people get to hear and everyone wants in. At one point in the UK there was a big shortage of Heating Engineers, they were making real food money as a result, then Poland joined the EU and their Heating Engineers came over here to get a piece of the action and bye, bye went all of that. The money was still ok, but not as good as it was, all those training up to get the real good money Heating Engineers were getting were likely very bummed by the Polish turning up on the scene, lol.

Here I am not sure about new build construction, it happens but perhaps not as large or as frequent as the US. They might also go for more established guys here as well. Most will probably have to find work in the residential sector, that's where the work will be most frequent in the UK. That market is a pain, as you've already stated, problem customers, customers who are difficult, stand over you, disagreeable, awkward and sometimes after you've done the work won't pay and try to find every excuse under sun not to pay, then if you get shitty or take them to small claims court leave a bad as review for you despite them giving you thd run around. Another thing to bear in mind is that id self employed you need to start putting money aside from the money you make to buy a new van when the old one is knackered. A lot of people miss that one and don't calculate it into the equation thinking all the money they take above up front costs is profit.

So the bottom line is the headline salary as you note is not necessarily accurate to what you will get as you point out there are times when there aren't full days of work, etc, etc. A lot of the time at least here in the UK people go chasing the golden goose of what they see or hear is something that you can make a little if money with. Only after having madd the journey of lengthy & expensive training do they find out that what was offered is not what you get. The Employer often turns around and says something like, 'that's if you work a full week at maximum hours and do all the work speedily and efficiently'. When the reality may be hard jobs that are difficult and slow to resolve and take many times longer to do than was first hoped so cutting earnings significantly from those advertised.

I personally don't have any inclination to do plumbing work as I know it will be another case of once you get there you won't get nearly the money you hoped for and you'll get a load of bother you could do without, all of the above plus customers calling & emailing you all the time, disagreements, accounts & tax bother, wrenches slipping and the like causing minor cuts & grazes on your hand, etc. All of that I can do without.