Is Your Collar Changing Colors?

This campaign season, we’ve been endured the candidates espousing their support for “green collar jobs.” But does anyone know what these jobs are exactly? As the New York Times puts it, green collar jobs are just updated versions of blue collar jobs. If a steel plant goes from producing steel to make cars to producing steel for wind turbines, its workers’ collars go from blue to green. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the steel plant is producing less pollution or is, in itself, better for the environment.

Definitions for what makes a green collar job vary depending on job duties and the industry they’re in, but it’d be nice to know what defines these jobs that now number 8.5 million in the U.S.