Pay at the shipyard typically starts at around $22 an hour before overtime, often rising to more than $27 an hour after six months, with generous benefits including paid time off and pensions. Her goal: to land an interview for a job at the General Dynamics-owned Bath Iron Works. Moody was recounting her story at a noisy training center where she was in her third day of a three-week, 120-hour Southern Maine Community College course in welding, plasma-cutting, grinding, blueprint-reading and technical math. That’s when Moody realized something else she shares with many of those other workers who want to switch careers: She’d need more education to get a new one. So she joined the legions of Americans quitting their jobs. The last straw was when Moody asked for a $2 raise above the $18.50 an hour she was making and the boss said no.

Credit: Molly Haley for The Hechinger Report She quickly found she’d need more education to get a new job, and signed up for a three-week community college course in welding, plasma-cutting, grinding, blueprint-reading and technical math. “And he’d to say to me, ‘Why is your boss so mean?’ ” Vanessa Moody worked at a silkscreen printing company until she was turned down for a raise after routinely putting in 60 hours a week. “We only had Saturday night to hang out and Sunday to do things,” said Moody, who is 32.

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