‘That’s Asinine’: Ramsey to Military Wife Whose Husband Is Leaving $60K Army Job for Welding Pay They Can’t Name

“Well, that’s asinine.” Dave Ramsey said it on the October 14 episode of The Ramsey Show. A Fort Campbell military wife named Princess had just admitted that nobody in her household knows what her husband’s welding apprenticeship will pay. Her exact words: “We’re not sure. We don’t really know.”

Her husband leaves the military in March 2027. His paychecks come to “1900. The 1st and the 15th,” which Ramsey pegged at “like 60 grand a year.”

Princess stays home with three children, ages 6, 4, and 18 months. The family’s remaining debt is $21,839 on a car loan.

Twelve days before the call, Thumbtack co-founder and CEO Marco Zappacosta appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box to explain why Gen Z sees skilled trades as more resilient than white-collar careers in an era of AI disruption. That is a story about a generation. This family is about to stake its only income on the same idea, with no wage attached to the plan.

Ramsey Got This One Right, and the Paycheck Math Proves It

Ramsey’s judgment holds up. Welding is a solid career. The real mistake is swapping a known paycheck for an unknown one when four other people depend on it.

Start with what actually lands in the bank. Two deposits of $1,900 add up to $3,800 a month, or $45,600 a year in take-home cash. Ramsey’s $60,000 figure sits higher because military compensation includes benefits that never appear in a direct deposit, among them housing allowances and family health coverage. When the husband separates from service, the family has to replace every piece of that package, not just the base pay.

Now apply Ramsey’s own example. He said that for a “three-year apprenticeship at $30,000 a year, screw that, go do something else.” At $30,000 a year, gross monthly pay is $2,500 — $1,300 less than today’s deposits, before taxes. Stretch that across the full apprenticeship and the family falls $15,600 short of current cash pay each year, totaling $46,800 over three years. Measured against Ramsey’s broader $60,000 estimate of total compensation, the cumulative gap reaches $90,000.

John Delony added the warning that trades-boom headlines tend to skip. He knows certified tradespeople who “have run aground because that’s not a magic ticket. Any more than a four-year degree is a magic ticket.” His prescription: “have a plan, know who’s going to pay you, have jobs, have some business sense.”

Starting Wage Decides Whether This Move Pays Off

Ramsey put it plainly: “Welders can make 100 grand a year in the right situation, but they can also make nothing because they didn’t have a plan.” The national data fills in the range between those poles. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median annual wage for welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers at $53,750 (about $25.84 an hour) as of May 2025, with the bottom 10% earning under $39,240 and the top 10% clearing $77,530. Specialty work in pipeline or offshore welding can push well past six figures, but those jobs require certifications and experience that an apprentice doesn’t have on day one.

Convert the target into an hourly rate using a standard 2,080-hour work year. Matching the current paychecks requires about $22 an hour. Matching Ramsey’s $60,000 total-compensation figure takes about $29 an hour. The BLS median of $25.84 sits between those two marks, which means a fully credentialed welder earning the national median could keep this family close to even — but an apprentice earning entry-level rates almost certainly cannot.

If the apprenticeship starts at or above the break-even rate, the career switch costs the family little in year one. If it starts below, a household of five draws down savings every month. For perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported median full-time weekly earnings of $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026, equivalent to roughly $65,052 a year. The paycheck this family is walking away from lands near that national midpoint.

Use the Months Before Separation to Put a Number on the Plan

Ramsey was blunt about the opportunity: “You have freaking seven months to plan this.”

1. Name the dollar figure first. Delony’s method: “Here’s the dollar amount I want to make. I’m going to reverse engineer that with my welding.” Start with the cash you need to replace, then layer on the cost of replacing every benefit.
2. Get the wage in writing. Ask the apprenticeship sponsor or union local for the starting hourly rate, the raise schedule, and the guaranteed weekly hours. Multiply the hourly rate by 2,080 to arrive at the real annual number.
3. Price family health coverage. Find out the exact date military coverage ends, then get quotes for a family of five. That monthly premium belongs inside the target income figure, not as an afterthought.
4. Clear the car loan before separation. Eliminating the $21,839 balance means the new paycheck carries one fewer obligation during the leanest months of the apprenticeship.
5. Line up income for day one. Ramsey said the husband “needs to go do something with his life that gives him instant money the day he leaves the military.” If the apprenticeship wage cannot cover the household’s basic expenses, taking a paying welding job first is the smarter path.

A trade is not a financial plan until a wage is attached to it. Get that number in writing before signing anything.

Editor’s note: This update adds the Bureau of Labor Statistics median welder wage of $53,750 a year (May 2025 data) to contextualize the apprenticeship wage discussion, identifies Thumbtack’s CEO by name as Marco Zappacosta, and confirms the BLS Q2 2026 median full-time weekly earnings figure of $1,251.

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