Earlier this month, I participated in a National Skills Coalition (NSC) panel discussion focusing on results from an NSC-sponsored survey of public attitudes towards skills training. In aggregate, 93 percent of Americans favor increased investment in skill training. According to the poll, when presented with a range of economic policy options, respondents rated skill training higher than middle class tax cuts (85 percent), a jobs guarantee (85 percent) or a $15 per hour minimum wage (66 percent).
Of course, being against technical skills is like opposing motherhood or baseball — a sign of questionable judgment or grave moral failure. As always, the devil is in the details. Digging into the poll numbers reveals a more complex picture. Democrats (44 percent) and African Americans (52 percent) said they were “strongly” supportive of such spending while strong support among Republicans, Independents, whites and Latinos was significantly more muted (28, 29, 34 and 34 percent, respectively).
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