It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series,

100 Years of 100 Things.

It's thing number 28, 100 years of making a living without a

college degree. Did it used to be easier to be middle class and non-college educated? Did our country

allow a mismatch to develop between education goals and workforce opportunities as the types of

jobs available changed over the last hundred years?

Did we price too many people out of going to college while not providing alternatives for

developing financially rewarding skills? Is there a bias today against hiring workers without bachelor's

degrees who could actually do the job? We'll look at 100 years of making a living without a

college degree and ask what families, educators, and employers should do now. And policymakers, too,

you know, this is an election year issue with non-college educated Americans being so many of the

swing voters in the swing states and the mismatch between their incomes and their

expenses being such a top concern for them. We'll bring on two guests in just a minute and invite

your oral history calls about your non-college educated parents and grandparents and about

yourself. But let me walk you briefly through a timeline of the jobs that Americans have had

that I think you'll find very interesting. This is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1900,

about 38% of the U.S. labor force worked on farms, 38%. By the end of the century, that figure was less than 3%. In 1900, the percent

who worked in goods producing industries, such as mining, construction, and all manufacturing,

was 31%. By the end of the century, it was down to 19%. This is the decline in manufacturing jobs, right, that everyone's debating today.

And a closer look at just that sector from the Pure Research Center, it says manufacturing jobs

...