America is investing billions to build the world’s most advanced ships, aircraft, missiles, autonomous systems and satellites. But those investments mean little if we do not have the welders, machinists, technicians, engineers and mechanics to build and maintain them.
California should be leading that effort.
The state is home to more than 30 major defense installations and one of America’s most important aerospace and defense ecosystems. These industries offer skilled workers good careers – often paying $90,000 to $100,000 a year without requiring a four-year degree.
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There is just one problem: California has made it increasingly difficult for the workers we need to afford to live here.
A $100,000 salary sounds impressive until rent approaches $3,000 a month. Gasoline, electricity, insurance, food and taxes consume more of every paycheck and homeownership feels increasingly out of reach.
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We cannot talk seriously about California’s workforce shortage without talking about California’s affordability crisis.
The defense industrial base already faces an aging workforce and a shortage of skilled tradesmen. Across America, millions of manufacturing jobs could go unfilled in the coming years as experienced workers retire and too few young Americans replace them.
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California cannot afford to make that challenge worse by pricing workers out of the state.
The first part of the solution is getting more young Americans into the trades.
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For too long, our culture promoted a “college for all” mentality that treated a four-year degree as the primary measure of success. That was a mistake. College is the right choice for many Americans. It is not the only path to prosperity.
Skilled trades offer something increasingly valuable: the opportunity to earn while you learn.
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Instead of spending four years accumulating student debt, apprentices can begin earning immediately while developing skills employers desperately need. A young machinist, welder, diesel mechanic or heavy-equipment operator can establish a career years before many college graduates enter the workforce.
Artificial intelligence may disrupt some white-collar professions. But AI is not going to weld the hull of a ship, repair a diesel engine, machine a precision component, or maintain an aircraft on a flight line.
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These are good jobs. They are essential jobs. And California should be competing aggressively to attract the Americans capable of doing them.
The Trump administration is taking important steps nationally by challenging the outdated “college for all” model, reducing unnecessary barriers to career and technical education, expanding apprenticeships and opening additional pathways for short-term vocational training.
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The America First Policy Institute’s “America First Workforce Agenda” similarly recognizes that rebuilding American manufacturing requires government, education and private industry to put the American worker first.
But Washington cannot solve California’s problem alone.
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Sacramento has a responsibility, too.
It makes little sense to train a 22-year-old Californian for a $90,000 defense manufacturing job if that worker concludes he can afford a better home, and have lower taxes, cheaper energy and a higher quality of life by taking his skills to another state.
California government must make prosperity part of its workforce strategy.
That means building more housing, lowering unnecessary regulatory barriers, confronting excessive energy costs, reducing the cost of doing business, expanding career and technical education and making it easier for manufacturers to build factories and hire workers.
Workforce development cannot simply mean training people. It must mean creating a state where those workers can afford to build lives and raise families.
California once embodied that promise. It was the Golden State because Americans came here to build things, start businesses, raise families and pursue opportunity. Its aerospace industry helped win the Cold War and put Americans on the moon.
California can lead again.
But we cannot simultaneously say we desperately need machinists, welders, mechanics and technicians while pursuing policies that make those same workers unable to afford a home near their jobs.
National security and economic prosperity increasingly depend on rebuilding America’s industrial base. California possesses the installations, companies, universities, technical expertise and history to be at the center of that revival.
Now it needs the workers.
Parents should encourage young Americans to consider the trades. Schools should treat technical education with the respect it deserves. Industry should invest in apprenticeships and training.
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And California’s government must do its part by making the Golden State affordable and prosperous enough that the next generation of American workers actually wants – and can afford – to stay.
America needs them to build our arsenal. California should make sure they can build their lives here, too.
