> There are plenty of blue-collar jobs out there that pay livable wages. They all require some degree of training.
We don't disagree
The consistent trait among all of these guys is that they did good work at a fair price, were pleasant and reliable to work with, consistently communicate and were honest. This results in these guys getting lots and lots and lots of word of mouth referrals, not to mention call backs for future work.
When people are putting up a reasonable chunk of their own after tax money for work like that, 99% of the time it's enough for them that their biggest concern is trust and word of mouth recommendations is where trusted referrals come from. Integrity goes a long way in the contractor world.
Keywords being experienced and bay area which is super expensive to live in. Non experienced wanna be workers in bay area have hard time to pay rent.
This is so totally and utterly not true. What you need these days is the same as you needed in old days: training. Going to college doesn't guarantee you anything unless your future employer considers it "training" -- which is not many fields.
There are plenty of blue-collar jobs out there that pay livable wages. They all require some degree of training. Even right now there's an enormous demand for experienced electricians in the bay area, and their salaries are starting to rival average tech workers -- especially if they decide to work overtime (which many of them are because the demand is so high).
I highly support and recommend Mike Rowe's organization which is doing a lot to actually help normal people find good paying jobs, and not selling them some absurd dream about education[0].
[0] http://profoundlydisconnected.com/foundation/