America is changing but virtually nobody is following the big news story. The winners and losers in this transition are readily apparent, but only if you cut through the fake news and wrong conclusions that protect those that the media want to coddle. We simply have become a nation devoted to creating lower-paying jobs. And this groundswell in employment change is fueling one of the biggest booms in affordable housing history.
Episode 180: It's All In The Jobs Transcript
In a lot of crime shows, there's a saying, "Follow the money." By following the money, you're able to cut through a lot of the BS to see who really had the motive to do the crime. To see where the final perpetrator must lie would be whoever is connected to where the money went. In many ways, you can do the same with the United States economy and to see the direction it's heading by simply following the path of the money.
This is Frank Rolfe with The Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast. We're going to be talking about jobs where the jobs are going away, where the jobs are being created, how that impacts not only the mobile home park industry but the nation in general. So let's start off with the jobs that are going away. We're all aware we've had a pandemic. We all know that basically many things have changed. The internet has changed a lot to do with the way we run businesses and the way we buy products today. So let's just go over this list. This list came from a very prominent site that does hiring, who finds employment for Americans. And these are the jobs that are shrinking. What we're trying to figure out here is how many of these jobs would be ones that you would find typically from a resident in a mobile home park.
The most lost job right now, audiologist. I don't think you would find many audiologists in a mobile home park. Next, event coordinator. I don't think you're going to find many event coordinators in a mobile home park. Product demonstrator, nope, can't say I've ever seen a product demonstrator in a mobile home park. Optician, no, not sure there are any opticians in America in a mobile home park. Chef, and I'm not talking someone working at a fast food restaurant, I'm talking to chef at a very, very fancy sit-down dining establishment, no, I don't think you have many chefs in a mobile home park. Executive assistant, nope, I don't think executive assistant is a job you typically find in a mobile home park. Stylist, no. Coach, no. Brand ambassador, no. Physical therapist, pretty sure not. Professor, very, very confident that I'm correct that there are very few professors in mobile home parks in the United States. HR generalist, no, I don't think so. Accounts payable specialist, nope, don't believe so. Sales manager, no. Accountant, no. Account executive, no. I think it's safe to say for the list of the jobs that are most in free fall in America today, very, very few, if any of those are jobs that residents of mobile home parks are involved in.
So now let's move to the list of the fastest growing jobs. So these are the fastest growing jobs right now in America. They're ranked from fastest growing to lowest, fastest growing being up 648% the number of job openings, and that falls to a grocery manager. Now, I can see a grocery manager living in a mobile home park because I did a little extra research on that. The median base salary of a grocery manager is 32,000 a year. Yes, I can see that in a mobile home park. An order selector that has a median base salary of $32,072 per year, yes, I could see an order selector in a mobile home park. Warehouse manager, pays $46,000 in the median base salary, I don't know if I see that all the time in a mobile home park, but I could see that.
Customer service sales, $24,026 a year median base salary, yes, I can see someone in customer service all the time in a mobile home park. Forklift operator, $30,116, yes, absolutely, I can see a forklift operator living in a mobile home park. Public health advisor, pays $52,087. No, I don't know if I would really see that as a typical job of someone in a mobile home park, so I don't know on that one. IT specialist, $51,717, again, I'd say no, I'm not sure that really is something that you see much in a mobile home park. Warehouse worker, median pay $30,068, yes, I can absolutely see a warehouse worker in a mobile home park. I know for a fact we have many, many of them in our mobile home parks. Retail merchandiser, median base salary, $24,137. Absolutely, mobile home parks are filled with people who are retail merchandisers. Material handler, this is someone who, I believe, based on the job description here would work, for example, in Amazon, moving packages from one end to the other so they can be sent out, medium base pay, $30,165. I can absolutely see that in a mobile home park.
So let's look at what the list we just went over, the fastest declining jobs in America and the fastest growing. Do we see any commonality there? Yes. The fastest declining were all high paying jobs in which no one really typically would live in a mobile home park. And the fastest growing are all lower paying jobs that are the kind that you would typically find in a mobile home park. It's as simple as that. The bottom line is that employment is shifting very much to lower paying jobs, but that's just because of the pandemic. That's just because of the way people are changing, evolving in how they buy things. But we've just gone through a presidential regime change, and it hearkens me back to the era of Obama. During the Obama era, 50% of all the jobs created during that eight-year run all paid $30,000 a year or less.
Now, I've been watching what Biden is doing. Biden is bringing back pretty much most of the same cabinet from the Obama administration, many of the same ideas, nearly identical to what we saw during Obama. So in many ways, this looks to me like an extension of those same priorities that yielded all those low paying jobs back in the 2008 and on era. So, you have now a third force that's going to be from promoting these lower paying jobs. You've already seen the primary focus of Biden has been, to some degree, wanting to raise the minimum wage from seven and a quarter an hour up to $15 an hour. I don't know if that will be successful. It certainly sounds like the Republicans are not in favor of it, but as we know, the Democrats currently hold all three chambers of government. So it's very possible they'll pay it past that.
But once again, the focus is on lower paying jobs. I'm not seeing any focus at all on creating higher paying jobs. Absolutely none. I don't see any kind of program trying to stimulate the desire for people to hire people at higher rates of pay. I think it will have a huge impact on America going forward as it did all the way back during the Obama administration, because the winners and the losers in the economy going forward will be totally based on those who have products and services that rely on people who earn a lot from those who earn just a little. Mobile home park business is one of the great beneficiaries of this, as it was during the original Obama administration, because what we do is we provide housing at a very, very low price point.
And not just the same housing everyone else does, we don't provide attached apartment style dwellings. We provide the thing that people really want, detached dwellings. No neighbors knocking on roofs and on walls, the ability to park by your front door, having your own yard, having a sense of community. These are the items that drive most Americans' choice in housing, and when it comes to detached housing, the only form of housing that offers all these benefits. We stand alone. We're the only people who can deliver that in an affordable price. We are the only form of sustainable, affordable housing in the United States.
So as these jobs shift and people earning a lot disappear, and those earning not quite so much grow, in some cases geometrically, it's going to go ahead and push the demand for what we do to ever higher levels. We saw that in 2020. We saw our sales and our own portfolio go up 50% since the pandemic hit. Why is that? For the very simple reason that America is changing, it's evolving, it's shifting. In some ways a pandemic, I think, may have just sped up that evolution. That evolution is driving people into our business model at rates of speed we've never seen before. So although I don't know where America is heading in many other industry segments, I have no idea the future of what's going to be happening here in the good old USA, I do know one thing that's for sure, and that is the future of mobile home parks are extremely bright. You can see how bright it is if you simply follow the money.
Simply watch the jobs being created, watch the jobs that are going away. Think about where those people are going to live, might live, can afford to live, and you'll see, as always, everything points right to the mobile home park. This is Frank Rolfe from Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast series, hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.