Not Only Does Education Pay, It Might Keep You Employed



(chart courtesy of the Keystone Research Center's Policy blog. Be sure to check it out!)

Everyone knows that education pays, right? More education = higher wages = greater opportunity to be self-sufficient. Which is why everyone from the president on down is asking that adults get at least one additional year of education beyond high school (The Workforce Alliance and its Skills2Compete plan calls for two years of additional education).


During this economic downturn, another important byproduct of education is taking shape: more education seems to equal a smaller likelihood of unemployment. As you can see in this great chart from the Keystone Research Center (thanks, Mark!), high school graduates in Pennsylvania have a far lower unemployment rate than students without a high school diploma. Taking a few college classes or getting an associate’s degree correlate with even lower unemployment in Pennsylvania, while adults 25 and over with bachelor’s degrees have only a 2.2% unemployment rate.


In Pennsylvania, 38.6% of adults 25 and over have only a high school education. Over half of all adults in Pennsylvania (52.2%) have only a high school education or less. By comparison in the US, 29.8% of adults 25 and over have only a high school education, and 46.3% have a high school education or less.

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