I don't want to pick on the nice guy featured in an RGJ Neighborhoods article Sunday, but I was shocked to see how much money he's making as a computer technician: $11.50 an hour, or $23,950 a year. Let me rephrase that—money he's not making. I don't know whether he gets any benefits.

Aren't politicians always saying laid-off factory workers, construction workers and so on just need to be retrained as computer technicians or similar workers to maintain their standard of living? $23,950 a year does not provide a comfortable standard of living.

And, speaking of being trained to do the job, apparently the only requirement for the position in the article was high school graduation. There goes another myth.

I wish this person well after he completes his network certification.

UPDATE: When Mr. Ann read this, he said I was being awfully hard on the guy in the article. That was not my intention at all; I thought I was being sympathetic to him. I want to emphasize that my criticism is directed only at the ignorant or dishonest politicians who keep the myth of high-paying computer jobs alive.