[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

An auto mechanic is a service position. A long haul truck driver is a service position. An accountant is a service position. A network administrator is a service position. A nurse is a service position. A soldier is a service position.

But when you say that only X jobs were manufacturing, while all the rest were in industries that don't "actually produce anything tangible", you seem to indicate that non-manufacturing jobs are less important, lower paying, or less real than a manufacturing job.

Just is not so.

[snopercod]

I guess my bias is showing, but I consider "service" people as merely support for those who design, build, test, and troubleshoot tangible goods that can be sold.

The lawyers, accountants, bean-counters, government regulators, janitors, etc. are merely overhead for the ones who built America.

The test is simple: Who would still have a job if the other were to suddenly disappear? Example: If the people who design and build the airplanes at Boeing were suddenly to disappear, would the janitors still have a job?

No, they wouldn't.

But if you reversed it and made the janitors disappear, the engineers would still have a job.