Spare Your Tears for Joe the Plumber
Stuart Nachbar
October 23, 2008
John McCain´s presidential campaign went further into desperation mode when he brought up his opponents´ past encounter with Joe The Plumber, an Ohio single father who has wanted to acquire his boss´ plumbing business one day, if taxes permit it.
I doubt Senator McCain expected to give the real Joe the celebrity stature he´s attributed to Senator Obama earlier in the race. I believe he meant to show that Joe the Plumber meant Every Working Man who would prefer to keep his money in his pocket.
The analogy of Joe the Plumber was not a very good one, not because of the real Joe´s personal issues, but because a plumber is not an ordinary Joe. Plumbers, unlike assembly line workers or computer programmers who have seen outsourced their jobs outsourced off-shore, are far more secure than most of us. Only death and taxes are more common in our lives than leaks and clogged drains.
Three years ago, when I was in the software business, I visited a community college job fair. One of the employers seeking associates degree candidates was a New York local plumbers union. The union recruiter posted a sign in big bold letters that said that a licensed plumber could make $100,000 or more after completing a five year training and apprenticeship program. But he did not find many takers. In fact, he was quite frustrated by the lack of traffic at his booth. I was not surprised. Plumbing is dirty and hard work and young people who are used to working with computers—even automotive technicians, for example—would find it less appealing to handle washers and wrenches. However, a man or woman with the right stuff could make a good living as a plumber, without the fear of being outsourced.
According to Salary.com, the median salary for Level 1 plumbers (assuming union and non-union), an entry level, is $37,514. The lowest quartile salary is approximately $33,000, the highest slightly more than $44,000. The median wage for a plumber is about the same as it is for a college graduate with a liberal arts bachelor´s degree. The bigger problem is benefits; less than ten percent of these plumbers receive paid health care, which the site has valued at approximately $5,500. But under Obama´s plan, Joe the entry-level plumber would get a tax cut and his employer, if it is a small business, would get a tax credit for his health care.
If Joe the Plumber became Extraordinary Joe the Plumber, and he built a business, he would not only receive tax credits for employee health benefits, but also numerous write-offs for business expenses: equipment, vehicles, training, debt service, and more. Neither Obama nor McCain wants to tax his business more, though Obama would tax Joe the Boss Plumber more if he paid himself over $250,000 , or $42,000 more than Joe the Vice President will earn, after he gets settled in his first Washington home.
If Joe the Boss Plumber wants pay himself that much money and take advantage of his entrepreneurial freedom and the tax credits his business receives, and he is an ardent supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then as far as I am concerned he should pay more taxes.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
I doubt Senator McCain expected to give the real Joe the celebrity stature he´s attributed to Senator Obama earlier in the race. I believe he meant to show that Joe the Plumber meant Every Working Man who would prefer to keep his money in his pocket.
The analogy of Joe the Plumber was not a very good one, not because of the real Joe´s personal issues, but because a plumber is not an ordinary Joe. Plumbers, unlike assembly line workers or computer programmers who have seen outsourced their jobs outsourced off-shore, are far more secure than most of us. Only death and taxes are more common in our lives than leaks and clogged drains.
Three years ago, when I was in the software business, I visited a community college job fair. One of the employers seeking associates degree candidates was a New York local plumbers union. The union recruiter posted a sign in big bold letters that said that a licensed plumber could make $100,000 or more after completing a five year training and apprenticeship program. But he did not find many takers. In fact, he was quite frustrated by the lack of traffic at his booth. I was not surprised. Plumbing is dirty and hard work and young people who are used to working with computers—even automotive technicians, for example—would find it less appealing to handle washers and wrenches. However, a man or woman with the right stuff could make a good living as a plumber, without the fear of being outsourced.
According to Salary.com, the median salary for Level 1 plumbers (assuming union and non-union), an entry level, is $37,514. The lowest quartile salary is approximately $33,000, the highest slightly more than $44,000. The median wage for a plumber is about the same as it is for a college graduate with a liberal arts bachelor´s degree. The bigger problem is benefits; less than ten percent of these plumbers receive paid health care, which the site has valued at approximately $5,500. But under Obama´s plan, Joe the entry-level plumber would get a tax cut and his employer, if it is a small business, would get a tax credit for his health care.
If Joe the Plumber became Extraordinary Joe the Plumber, and he built a business, he would not only receive tax credits for employee health benefits, but also numerous write-offs for business expenses: equipment, vehicles, training, debt service, and more. Neither Obama nor McCain wants to tax his business more, though Obama would tax Joe the Boss Plumber more if he paid himself over $250,000 , or $42,000 more than Joe the Vice President will earn, after he gets settled in his first Washington home.
If Joe the Boss Plumber wants pay himself that much money and take advantage of his entrepreneurial freedom and the tax credits his business receives, and he is an ardent supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then as far as I am concerned he should pay more taxes.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
Print
Email
