In his Feb. 25 speech, Beloved Leader Obama said, “Right now, three-quarters of the fastest growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half our citizens have that level of education.”

Where does that 75% number come from and what does it mean?

It comes from this Bureau of Labor Statistics document, I am quite sure. I’m aware of no other data referring to “fastest growing occupations.

To get to 22 of the 30 occupations (just short of 75%), you need to add together those where a master’s degree is the “most significant source of postsecondary education,” those where a bachelor’s degree is, those where an associates degree is, those where a first professional degree is, and those where a postsecondary vocational award is. If you only look at the numbers of occupations, it looks as if we’d better get more people into postsecondary education and fast.

But what if we look instead at the numbers of workers in the occupations expected to grow the fastest? Some of those occupations have high growth rates, but only have a small number of workers (for example, forensic science technicians).

I added up the numbers of workers (expected increase from 2006 to 2016) in all the occupations listed where on the job training is sufficient. It turns out to be almost 52 percent of the total. Add in the ones where a postsecondary vocational award is called for — for example, manicurists and skin care specialists — and it rises to over 53 percent. Include the jobs where vocational training the leads to an associate degree (e.g. physical therapist assistant) and it’s over 58 percent.

So instead of proving what Obama wants us to believe about the need for increasing “investment” in higher education, the BLS figures show that there will be a lot of jobs for people who don’t go beyond (or perhaps even complete) high school and those who take some vocational training.

A few paragraphs later, Obama insisted that the nation should have “the highest proportion of college graduates in the world” by 2020. Again, that sounds nice, but the BLS also has data showing that large numbers of college graduates currently end up doing jobs that don’t call for any academic preparation.

Is it important for the country to have young people spend more years in formal education because that will enhance our productivity and ability to compete? Or is it just something the Obamacrats desire because it benefits one of their most dependable interest groups?