Joint Apprenticeship Programs Building Excellent Lifetime Careers By Deb Draper Photos courtesy of Local 219
Kurt Mattson (left) and Luke Baxter (right)
A recent study by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has concluded that joint apprenticeship programs offer viable post-secondary options for good middle-class careers, rivaling bachelor’s degrees in expected lifetime earnings. Using 2018 data, the study found that despite a higher likelihood of unemployment spells, union journeypersons earn about as much on average ($2.4 million) as workers with bachelor’s degrees ($2.5 million after student debt) and more than double the pre-tax earnings of workers from employeronly programs. As well, apprentices hold the advantage of coming out of years of schooling debt-free with tuition costs carried by employers, labor-management organizations, and unions at no cost to the individual. Paul Eichhorn, marketing representative/organizer with Local 1 in Peoria, Illinois, sees this as a rare opportunity these days. “It’s a blessing and a financial relief to have a $100,000+ career with no college debt,” he says. “I grew up in the lower 14 » Partners in Progress » www.pinp.org
middle class on the south side of Peoria, and it was hard to escape poverty. The union trades allowed someone like me to do that, and now I’ve been involved in some capacity in the sheet metal industry for 13 years.” Like so many young people thinking the answer to a good career is a university degree, Rockford, Illinois Local 219’s fifth-year apprentice Luke Baxter went directly into college out of high school, tried different directions, but after a few years felt he was getting nowhere. “I didn’t hear anything about the trades in high school, but some family members are union sheet metal workers,” he says. “They told me about the money, how the benefits were really good, and about how apprentices receive five years of schooling paid for. It almost seemed to be too good to be true.” Baxter says apprentices work hard for their keep, but as he finishes his apprenticeship in sheet metal later in 2020, his wife is also finishing her master’s degree and the difference in the outcome is notable. “I will be making almost double what she’s making coming out of college, while she owes about $50,000 in student loans and I owe nothing,” Baxter says.
