Earlier this month I wrote about what the middle class looks like in Ohio, using data from the American Community Survey to break out what the most common jobs were in each income bracket. This week, I performed the same exercise but with data from across the country.
There is a lot of good information in this table, so I will share some of the things that jumped out to me.
Because this is a national survey, all of the most popular jobs across all income brackets are pretty universal. The industries represented are parts of basically every local economy. I would argue the exception to this is with the top 1% of earners, but that is because there are much fewer people with those jobs, and not many industries can support incomes that high for individuals.
There is a surprising amount of consistency between the lower and upper middle class (21-40 / 61-80). There are changes in the order of the top 10 most common jobs, but we see many of the same jobs appear multiple times across this range. For example, drivers/sales workers and truck drivers are in each of the middle class brackets..
Most jobs that appear multiple times are in neighboring income groups. This suggests that these are the likely income ranges for those particular jobs that span across deciles.
The upper income groups (80th percentile and up) are dominated by managers and specialized professionals. It appears to be extremely difficult to earn in the top 20% without going beyond a bachelor’s degree.
Unlike the middle class jobs, some categories at the low end of the income spectrum do not appear multiple times on this chart. This tells me that people working these jobs do not have a lot of potential to increase their earnings without making a big career change. Programs to help facilitate these changes could be effective in helping increase their wages.
Looking at differences between the United States as a whole and Ohio, there are a few key differences to note. One important difference is that laborers/freight workers are not as prominent in the higher income brackets in the United States as they are in Ohio.
This is a good demonstration of how local economies can influence wages. I imagine that if we looked at the top jobs in the other rust belt states, we would find more people with high incomes working in this industry.
One thing that is similar between Ohio and the nation as a whole is the types of jobs low income people are working. From a classical economic view of labor markets, it makes sense that if the supply for people to work these jobs is high everywhere, then wages would be driven down.
Similarly, the highest paying jobs are very close between Ohio and the nation as a whole. The only job in Ohio’s top 10% that does not appear nationally is sales representatives for wholesale and manufacturing. This again reflects the importance of manufacturing to Ohio’s economy.
Hopefully these charts shed some light on what the economy actually looks like for people across Ohio and the country. I know that I only scratched the surface, and I’m sure this data will be useful for all kinds of future projects.