Sen. Marco Rubio’s claim Tuesday evening that welders make more money than philosophers has sparked a flurry of fact-checks and counter-fact-checks from reporters and commentators on both sides.
“Here’s the best way to raise wages: Make America the best place in the world to start a business or expand an existing business, tax reform and regulatory reform, bring our debt under control, fully utilize our energy resources so we can reinvigorate manufacturing, repeal and replace [the Affordable Care Act], and make higher education faster and easier to access, especially vocational training,” the Florida senator and 2016 presidential candidate said during the fourth televised GOP primary debate.
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“For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers,” he added.
Enter the professional fact-checkers.
“Rubio is wrong to suggest that studying philosophy is a waste of money and time,” the Associated Press reported. “Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce said in a 2014 analysis that median incomes were $68,000 for people with an advanced degree in philosophy or religious studies.”
“So knowing Plato and getting a college degree still pays off,” the report added.
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler and PolitiFact, which is a project of the Tampa Bay Times, also dinged the Florida lawmaker for his comments on employment, earnings and higher education.
“This was a great line by Rubio, well delivered, but it’s totally off base,” Kessler wrote. “It’s clear that Rubio was making a pitch for more vocational training in the United States, but his claim on welders doesn’t hold together. We rate Rubio’s claim False.”
This problem with these fact-checks, however, is that they assume philosophy majors go on to become well paid philosophy professors, and that employment in this field is a cinch. This is not necessarily the case.
The unemployment rate for recent college graduates majoring in religious and philosophy studies is 9.5 percent, according to the same Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce data cited by the AP.
For “experienced college graduates,” the unemployment rate is 7.3 percent, the study found. Both rates are higher than the current nationwide unemployment rate of 5.0 percent.
And contrary to what AP reported, the median income for people with an advanced degree in philosophy or religious studies isn’t $68,000; it’s $62,000, according to Georgetown University’s data. The class of philosophy major referenced by Rubio, the recent college graduate, can expect to pull in a median income of only $29,000 if he or she can find work.
“What Rubio was saying was obvious: you will have a better chance at a decent paying job in welding than you will as a professional philosopher. That’s because there are nearly one million jobs related to welding and machinery, and just about 23,000 jobs related to teaching philosophy,” wrote conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. “Median wage is therefore an idiotic measure of the relative success of ‘philosophers’ versus ‘welders.'”
“Using median wage as the basis for comparison would be similar to saying that you’re better off as a basketball player than a welder in America — it’s true if you make the NBA, but it’s not true if you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in the United States who play basketball,” he added. “It’s the equivalent of stating that you’re better off as a star actor than a welder — true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far.”
For some in media, these figures and statistics are beside the point. The fact-checkers, they say, are missing the bigger picture.
“So I think analyzing the salaries of philosophy majors (or actual philosophers) might be kind of missing Rubio’s point?” Bloomberg BNA’s Alex Parker said. “And Rubio’s point about vocational training — never mind the harmless liberal arts bashing — is sort of right, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t about defending didacticism. It is about scoring political points with deeply flawed logic,” Commentary’s Noah Rothman said.
Other in the press seemed surprised Wednesday to see that Rubio’s remarks were being characterized as a possible “gaffe” moment.
“[I] cannot believe the philosopher vs. welder debate is still going strong,” said the New York Times’ Emma Rolla.
The Huffington Post’s Elise Foley added, “It was funny to be like ‘FACT CHECK: philosophy majors do ok’ for a while but now it seems like some people actually think this is a gaffe?”
Rubio revisited his point Wednesday, telling a crowd in Iowa, “I said it last night, a welder makes a lot more than a philosopher, and it’s a lot easier to find a job. There are a lot more openings for welders than philosophers in America today.”
He added jokingly at a later event, “I am not going to win the philosophy vote in America. I’m going to find another major to pick on here soon.”
