One of my chess club buddies (an expired USCF member) brought this up the other day. He thinks that I am almost alone in having the combination of being a chess enthusiast and having a job that involves a lot of manual labor.
Does anyone here have a blue collar job? (Retirees count.) Are we really mostly a federation of the highly educated?
My line of work is construction (lots of grunt work) and I have no college experience whatsoever.
not me
But I have known a few.
No big deal
I don’t, but of the nine people who make up the core of the club I’m trying to form, at least three do.
In Peoria, I count seven of twelve right off. In my LaSalle-Peru club I count five of nine that are blue collar workers.
So the majority of people in my club are of the blue collar worker variety 
I think it depends on location. At one time, while most of my friends were in high school or college, we all had blue collar jobs. After college, even the manager trainee and executive training involved actually doing blue collar jobs to understand the business. Most became suits, but those that remained in blue collar fields are now in much better health than most who sit behind a desk. Some, like my brother, exercise a tremendous amount to remain in shape, but the guys who still work hard for a living actually seem to stay younger, and those that still play chess seemed to have stayed at “35” physically and mentally, even if they are pushing “65”. I think stress has a lot to do with it, but an active lifestyle, and the right kind of physical activity seem to be a fountain of youth. I wish I had stayed that active, I think my health would be much better. I think of 12 to 15 guys in our group, only two are blue collar, and the rest are either white collar or former military.
It might be a generational trend, but certainly when I started playing in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s in Syracuse, NY, a lot of the adults in the Syracuse Chess Club were “working guys.” One of the officers built lights at Crouse-Hinds, one was a garbage truck operator, and another (also an officer off and on) was a TV repairman. A fourth, a National Master, worked a variety of manufacturing and construction jobs. There was a couple professors and some white-collar folks too, but there definitely were blue-collar folks too.
Fewer people work these kinds of jobs anymore (particularly in Upstate NY), so it stands to reason there would be fewer in chess.
I’ve worked both white and blue collar jobs with approximately equal frequency. As was stated in earlier posts a lot of this depends on when and where. I first started playing tournament chess in the mid-60s, when there were a lot of good paying blue collar jobs and, at that time, I think there were at least as many blue collar rated chess players as white collar.
I play chess, have a college degree and deliver pizza for a living. Times are tough 
I worked at Firestone in Decatur, and a lot of people there played chess. As a matter of fact, now that I have a white collar job, I do not notice that there is any higher percentage of chess players in the white collar job arena then there was in the blue collar arena. I think that there are just fewer blue collar jobs around these days.
Many of my friends and class mates all have advanced Degrees in Computer Science and Engineering, and it is feast or famine. I went into the Oil – Natural Gas field, since it seemed a little steadier. The pay was less, but I had steady employment, and did not miss having to look for work every five years. If it was not so sad, it would be funny. On my first rig, we had two engineers and three programmers, and you soon learned to get on a different crew, and not let the other guys know you where a “college boy”. At least we had all our fingers…
IM Jay Bonin works for a news paper company while not playing chess