Cities With Best Blue-Collar Jobs

You don't need a college degree to make a decent wage. Forbes picks up on research from the Praxis Strategy Group to list the US cities with the highest blue-collar wages. (Think oil and gas mining, construction, waste handling, and manufacturing.) Here are the top cities, all of which have seen a spike in these types of jobs since 2010:

1. Houston, with an average blue-collar wage of $102,726
2. Oklahoma City, $68,526
3. Detroit, $80,964
4. Grand Rapids, $66,157
5. Nashville, $64,217

Click for the complete list. And note that this spike "seems likely to be more than a merely cyclical phenomenon," writes Joel Kotkin, especially given US gains in energy and manufacturing. (As for that college degree, one columnist thinks it may not be worth much.)