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re: What's the deal with welders?
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:35 pm to CootKilla
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:35 pm to CootKilla
quote:
I am employed by a large fabrication company and most of our welders make between 22-25 dollars an hour, but a lot of them are contractors who make a good bit in per diem.
I have vendor qual contract with a manufacturing firm that produces products for a niche industry that has requirements that are recognized worldwide as the most demanding set of standards in existence. They make the aerospace industry standards look like a couple of guys in a pickup hanging drywall. The welders who work for this manufacturer are the best that money can buy….because their welds are scrutinized by customers who could kill millions of people and create a wasteland of thousands of square miles should one of those welds fail. They weld in state of the art shops and in the field. They make a damn good living. In the neighborhood of $200k a year. Working 40 hours a week and home every night with the occasional trip to the field on the road for short periods of time. They possess a VERY rare skill set that is almost supernatural. There are fewer of them in the United States capable of doing the work and maintain the clearances required to do so than NFL players. They aren’t typical welders. Pretending that them making that kind of money means any welder can is asinine….and anyone making that argument is either ignorant or lying. The numbers are readily available and they ain’t close to what the Mike Rowe crowd claim. In any trade.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:38 pm to AwgustaDawg
You are a strange cat. I never said that there aren't welders who make a lot of money. You claim aerospace industry standards are stringent and that is not the case in my experience. Hell D1.5 Bridge welding is more stringent than some of the aerospace standards.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:40 pm to AwgustaDawg
I don't know what BLS is. IRS, sure, there are plenty of welders that are way underpaid for a multitude of different reasons. Job postings? Lol, post an ad for a welder at $25/hr and see what kind of clowns show up to interview.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:42 pm to notiger1997
quote:
Damn, how do ya'll keep any of them at that pay?
They're not really welders.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:43 pm to wadewilson
quote:
IRS, sure, there are plenty of welders that are way underpaid for a multitude of different reasons
What point do you think you are making in this conversation with this statement?
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:46 pm to Mingo Was His NameO
If I see a 50 something year old welder working in a shitty plant for $30/hr or less and I know he does good work, I'm going to assume that he either made enough money to be happy with already and just needs to work until retirement, or he's got somebody at home he needs to take care of.
There are a lot of high paying opportunities right now.
There are a lot of high paying opportunities right now.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:49 pm to wadewilson
quote:
If I see a 50 something year old welder working in a shitty plant for $30/hr or less and I know he does good work, I'm going to assume that he either made enough money to be happy with already and just needs to work until retirement, or he's got somebody at home he needs to take care of.
That’s an idiotic and incorrect assumption
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:51 pm to Mingo Was His NameO
K, cool, carry on.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:52 pm to Mingo Was His NameO
quote:
Mingo Was His NameO
I always wait breathlessly for your entry into these threads. Such a vast amount of knowledge you share based on your work experience.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 3:53 pm to wadewilson
quote:
I don't know what BLS is. IRS, sure, there are plenty of welders that are way underpaid for a multitude of different reasons. Job postings? Lol, post an ad for a welder at $25/hr and see what kind of clowns show up to interview.
Bureau of Labor Statistics which collects data from employers. The wages I posted are the median wages of welders in the United States and are gleaned from employees, employers, recruiters, job postings, contract amounts. An entire cross section of people in the industry who have a vested financial interest in tracking actual costs. It is the median wage of a welder in the US. The number is not wrong, it’s what the entirety of the industry reports. It does not imply in any way that there aren’t welders making far more….what it does in fact state emphatically is that for everyone making significantly more than that there are a bunch making less.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 4:09 pm to CootKilla
quote:
You are a strange cat. I never said that there aren't welders who make a lot of money. You claim aerospace industry standards are stringent and that is not the case in my experience. Hell D1.5 Bridge welding is more stringent than some of the aerospace standards.
I was agreeing with your post. There are an awful lot of welders who are making far less than the wages I posted.
I disagree completely with your premise that civil engineering standards comparable in rigor to those in the aerospace industry. The totality isn’t close….civil standards are less rigorous than oil and gas which is far less stringent than aerospace which is far less than Nuclear and Defense standards. Civil standards are far broader because they cover far more….they are further tightened up by other industries who base their base requirements on civil standards and heighten them to facilitate the unique risk inherent in their much smaller sphere. A nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that is designed to protect the lives of billions of people is built to a slightly more demanding standard than a bridge where a catastrophic failure kills 10,000 people. They aren’t remotely comparable.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 4:55 pm to AwgustaDawg
quote:
A nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that is designed to protect the lives of billions of people is built to a slightly more demanding standard than a bridge where a catastrophic failure kills 10,000 people.
Bruh, how many baws from Louisiana are welding on nuclear warheads?
Your takes are always out there. Are you familiar with D1.5 fracture critical welding?
This post was edited on 11/3/26 at 5:01 pm
Posted on 11/3/26 at 5:17 pm to CootKilla
quote:
Bruh, how many baws from Louisiana are welding on nuclear warheads?
Probably none, which is kind of the point. The idiots on this board use the 1% of tradesman to pimp the career. The 1% of college graduates make way more than the 1% of tradesman, which for some reason, this board can’t comprehend
Posted on 11/3/26 at 5:43 pm to Loup
They might be emotionally unstable, but those guys hold the world together, especially when it’s busting at the seams.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:17 pm to Mingo Was His NameO
quote:
% of tradesman to pimp the career. The 1% of college graduates make way more than the 1% of tradesman
1% is big of hyperbole but it seems like a lot of people want to claim the top 10% of income in a particular trade as the average. Of course completely ignoring the incomes of the bottom 10%. Most of those being in the deep South.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:20 pm to Loup
I met one in New Iberia. His thing was handstands. He was weird
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:28 pm to Loup
Welders, in my experience, have huge egos and even bigger spending habits.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:35 pm to Loup
Why do you think you have more than double the amount of down votes?
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:38 pm to soccerfüt
quote:Everyone who cooks your food at a restaurant is high as frick. If it’s a fancy place, it’s likely cocaine.
Different trades & professions attract similar personality types.
Posted on 11/3/26 at 7:50 pm to AwgustaDawg
quote:
They make the aerospace industry standards look like a couple of guys in a pickup hanging drywall.
This is bullshite.
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