In Australia which this reply chain is about trades get paid exceptionally well if you have a successful business operation (not working for someone else). There's simply an oversupply of university graduates and a very liberal visa program for IT workers. Most tradies here have their own business so any income figures are highly misleading. As an example he may earn 65k on his tax retrun but his wife does the "accounts" (65k goes there too) + the cash jobs that they don't declare on tax. A good tradie can earn 150k easy and pay less tax than the average office worker due to clever business accounting. And there's always work; and none of those "horror" stories you hear about software interviews here on HN and other sites.
My comment was specific to the USA and maybe even certain parts of the USA.
> Most tradies here have their own business
Maybe this really is true in Australia. IDK. People say this a lot in the USA, but both statistics and personal anecdata indicate it's complete bullshit. Starting a business is hard. Getting the money to start up is hard. Handling cash flow is hard. Handling everything from deadbeat clients to litigious clients is hard.
> + the cash jobs that they don't declare on tax.
Software engineers can also make $$$ by committing tax fraud and other crimes.
It's not criminal per se. It's all in the law - they just aren't perks available to the typical employee. The cash jobs are but they're in a business where they can get this; a typical engineer can't ask to be paid in cash from a large corporate client even if they are freelance. In Australia it isn't that hard - people often can't get tradies here and as a tradie you are spoilt with calls for work. I personally know some pretty rude tradies that constantly get work anyway despite doing bad work. Getting a tradie to travel more than 5km to do work around my house depending on the trade is hard; they have enough work within a 5 K radius not to bother. They can charge what they like and typically do. Especially for the top end of town.
