no, but the simplest fix is to increase the wages of those trades - which is currently what is happening, and also why the expense of building is growing. Unfortunately, this fix takes a long time to take effect (approx. a generation).
A friend of mine wanted to be an electrician, but once he realized he'd be working minimum wage in an apprenticeship for four years, he went back to school for a white collar job instead.
So instead of doing minimum wage during training, he opted to go into negative wage (debt), and the potential outcome is not higher with a collage degree.
I think it’s worse than a single generation because you need wages to be competitive for long enough that people are encouraging their children to try it. A good decade won’t do that, and especially not without improvements in our healthcare and retirement systems since physical trades are harder and the richer boomers are pushing to deal with the savings gap by raising the retirement age for everyone younger than them rather than restoring taxes to actuarily-necessary levels. Being a plumber at 60 isn’t for everyone.
no, but the simplest fix is to increase the wages of those trades - which is currently what is happening, and also why the expense of building is growing. Unfortunately, this fix takes a long time to take effect (approx. a generation).