Laborers do construction work on a street in Somerton, Yuma County, Arizona, on October 18, 2026. In Somerton, an agricultural town that is almost entirely Latino and typically favors the Democrats, about 40 percent of residents voted for Trump in 20
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – A new study set out to find how much of the country actually works blue-collar jobs and landing at the top of the list of the states with the largest percentage of blue-collar workers was one from the Midwest.
Blue-collar workers in the Midwest
The backstory:
To find this, SmartAsset analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and broke down the percentage of workers in each state that worked either a blue-collar job, a white-collar job, and a pink-collar job.
SmartAsset determined that blue-collar jobs generally involve manual labor, skilled trades, manufacturing, construction, transportation and similar hands-on work.
On the other side, white-collar jobs are generally characterized by office work and administrative tasks, including professional and managerial roles, while pink-collar jobs are service-oriented occupations, including personal care and food service.
By the numbers:
Landing at the top of the list for the entire country was a state in the Midwest, Indiana, where it was discovered that 33.4% of Indiana residents worked blue-collar jobs, the highest percentage in the U.S.
Not far behind in the Midwest was North Dakota, with 31.1%, followed by Iowa at 29.4%, and then Wisconsin at 29.2%, each also ranking in the top 10 for the U.S.
In general, all the Midwest ranked in the top half of the country — except for Minnesota, which finished ranked 36th at 24%.
Here’s the full list of how many blue-collar workers make up each Midwest state:
- 1. Indiana – 33.4%
- 6. North Dakota – 31.1%
- 9. Iowa – 23.4%
- 10. Wisconsin – 29.2%
- 15. Michigan – 27.8%
- 16. South Dakota – 27.6%
- 18. Ohio – 27.5%
- 24. Illinois – 26.3%
- 36. Minnesota – 24%
Big picture view:
As for the country as a whole, just behind Indiana was Alabama at 32% of workers in the state working blue-collar jobs. The rest of the top five rounded out with Wyoming with 31.9%, Mississippi with 31.5%, and Kentucky with 31.2%.
On the other end of the rankings, Massachusetts ranked as the state with the lowest percentage of blue-collar jobs with 19.2%, just behind New York with 19.6%.
The Source: This story was written using information from a study by SmartAsset and was reported out of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.