Solano Real Estate Scene: Blue collar wealth

The key to Solano County achieving greatness as a real estate market is building the middle and upper-middle class. Educating the blue collar class of our community with financial intelligence is critical to making Solano County a destination for Bay Area residents and their families to relocate here and buy our homes. Sixty-five percent of our population has less than $2,000 in savings accounts and many are living on government assistance or barely making it paycheck to paycheck with low-paying jobs. The key to reducing this 65 percent down to 40 percent starts in the public schools. We need to have the best schools and we need to encourage all the kids to attend college. Those that don’t need to be taught all during high school that making $15 to $20 per hour in a job that requires little skill is a recipe for being poor. I know a lot of wealthy blue collar people but most are financially conservative and intelligent, or at least they became smart about money after making mistakes in their early adult years and learning from those errors. The blue collar jobs today that pay well are plumbers, electricians, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, mechanics, stationary engineers, pipefitters, oil refinery operators, computer programmers and technicians, and we can even throw in paramedic firefighters, correctional officers and cops. None of these jobs require a college degree. However, all of these jobs require training through apprenticeship programs and many applicants for these competitive fields have at least two years of junior college. Great neighborhoods have low crime rates and great public schools. The only way we will achieve greatness in Solano County is by attacking poverty and helping these folks move into the middle class and become blue collar wealthy homeowners.