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Would you believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Here are the "Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2022" for "51-7011 Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters" ht

Would you believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Here are the "Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2022" for "51-7011 Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters" https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes517011.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes517011.htm Percentile wage estimates for Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters: Percentile 10% 25% 50% 75% 90% (Median) Hourly Wage $ 14.00 $ 16.61 $ 18.66 $ 22.91 $ 28.16 Annual Wage (2) $ 29,120 $ 34,550 $ 38,810 $ 47,660 $ 58,570 (2) Annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by a "year-round, full-time" hours figure of 2,080 hours; for those occupations where there is not an hourly wage published, the annual wage has been directly calculated from the reported survey data. The "Top paying industries for Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters" are: Employment Annual mean wage Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing 240 $ 60,520 Federal Executive Branch 190 $ 60,460 In the "Industries with the highest concentration of employment in Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters" the best paying is: Motor Vehicle Body 3,040 $ 49,990 and Trailer Manufacturing The most common (at 20% of the industry) is: Furniture and Related 68,860 $ 41,620 Product Manufacturing While there is the caveat, "Estimates do not include self-employed workers", the example at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 was for employees. EDIT: in 2001 the mean annual wage for cabinetmakers and bench carpenters was $25,120 with median of $10.74/hour and mean of $11.40. https://archive.org/details/welcometoamerica00demi/page/984/mode/2up?q=%2251-7011+Cabinetmakers+and+Bench+Carpenters%22 https://archive.org/details/welcometoamerica00demi/page/984/... . (It is the oldest record I could find, published in "Welcome to America : the complete guide for immigrants : the English-Russian version".) What did your father do in the cabinet field to get $20 an hour in 1991?

brutusborn 3y ago
Out of interest, how did you format those tables? They look really nice.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Thanks! Judicious use of the space bar and back-space keys. :)
talldatethrow 3y ago
No I do not believe the BoL. He had just moved to the US in 1988. He had no real wood working experience beyond building a small sailboat when he was a teenager. In 1989 my mom and I moved here with him. In 1991, he got a raise to $20 and we went to Price Club (Costco) and bought a ton of groceries, and took a photo with them on the kitchen table with all 3 of us using a self timer. It's a major memory of mine. He was one of the 'foreman' in the shop handling the custom fixture/reception desk line. So if Sun Microsystems at the time wanted new cabinets for their new building, the rest of the shop would build the boxes, but my dad's department would build the reception desk. Basically, you could give my dad some drawings from an architect and my dad could figure out how to make it, while also getting it into the building. He was still cutting and assembling then too as 'engineering' and cutlisting is a short part of that overall work.
- eesmith 3y ago
  > No I do not believe the BoL. That is because you are talking about a different sort of position. talldatethrow described the position as "screwing a cabinet together for $60k", at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 . That is a cabinet maker. From the BoL, a cabinetmaker is someone who job is to "Cut, shape, and assemble wooden articles or set up and operate a variety of woodworking machines, such as power saws, jointers, and mortisers to surface, cut, or shape lumber or to fabricate parts for wood products." Your father did more than that. He was a foreman, he did design, and he worked on custom office furniture including installation. Of course he gets paid more than a non-supervisory cabinetmaker working in a factory. As a first approximation, "First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers" at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes471011.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes471011.htm says the mean wage is $77,650 - nearly twice as much as the mean wage for a cabinetmaker at $42,120.
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    There are no factories left in America that make the kind of furniture you're talking about. So yes, every cabinet maker basically must think a little these days. You're not going to find someone screwing together ikea like boxes in America.

brutusborn 3y ago

Out of interest, how did you format those tables? They look really nice.

eesmith 3y ago
Thanks! Judicious use of the space bar and back-space keys. :)

talldatethrow 3y ago

No I do not believe the BoL. He had just moved to the US in 1988. He had no real wood working experience beyond building a small sailboat when he was a teenager. In 1989 my mom and I moved here with him. In 1991, he got a raise to $20 and we went to Price Club (Costco) and bought a ton of groceries, and took a photo with them on the kitchen table with all 3 of us using a self timer. It's a major memory of mine. He was one of the 'foreman' in the shop handling the custom fixture/reception desk line. So if Sun Microsystems at the time wanted new cabinets for their new building, the rest of the shop would build the boxes, but my dad's department would build the reception desk. Basically, you could give my dad some drawings from an architect and my dad could figure out how to make it, while also getting it into the building. He was still cutting and assembling then too as 'engineering' and cutlisting is a short part of that overall work.

eesmith 3y ago
> No I do not believe the BoL. That is because you are talking about a different sort of position. talldatethrow described the position as "screwing a cabinet together for $60k", at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37397458 . That is a cabinet maker. From the BoL, a cabinetmaker is someone who job is to "Cut, shape, and assemble wooden articles or set up and operate a variety of woodworking machines, such as power saws, jointers, and mortisers to surface, cut, or shape lumber or to fabricate parts for wood products." Your father did more than that. He was a foreman, he did design, and he worked on custom office furniture including installation. Of course he gets paid more than a non-supervisory cabinetmaker working in a factory. As a first approximation, "First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers" at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes471011.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes471011.htm says the mean wage is $77,650 - nearly twice as much as the mean wage for a cabinetmaker at $42,120.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  There are no factories left in America that make the kind of furniture you're talking about. So yes, every cabinet maker basically must think a little these days. You're not going to find someone screwing together ikea like boxes in America.