Some Kentucky editorialists greeted the announcement of 1,500 new full-time jobs by Amazon.com with complaints that these will not be high-paying or high-skilled positions. Others reacted with yawns at the prospect of 1,000 new jobs in Campbellsville and 500 in Lexington.

All of society yearns for high-paying jobs for every American. But it would be unrealistic to turn our backs on lower tier jobs while awaiting those in high-tech. There is a place in the economic scheme of things for lower tier jobs for people with appropriate education and job skills.

Not everyone can attain a job as a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon. Aptitude, ability, education and training determine who qualifies for those jobs with high-level skills and high incomes. What is attainable is public policy that provides strong educational training opportunities so that all citizens can reach their greatest potential in the job world.

To reject the creation of new lower skill, lower paying jobs fails to recognize economic realities. In Kentucky’s quest for upper echelon, it must at the same time allow its less educated and less trained citizens a chance to work.

America’s economy is humming and the unemployment rate is 3.1 percent for adults over 25. However, the rate is 14.3 percent for teenagers who generally occupy the lower job sector. Job snobs in the bureaucracy and the media who dismiss the worth of lower level jobs operate outside the bounds of real life.

These companies do not come to Kentucky for our climate -- they come because the jobs involved require little prior knowledge, unique skills or creative thinking. A significant portion of our workforce is without advanced education and skills. These jobs cannot demand higher levels of pay but they are meaningful jobs, needed jobs and opportunities for people with matching skills to earn a living for themselves and their families.

Amazon.com is not a pariah, so bring on its jobs. Let’s simultaneously pursue those "dream jobs" for Kentuckians. This quest will be more successful as the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville become more important national research institutions.

Amazon.com has applied for tax incentives. State economic incentives -- tax dollars used to induce business and industry to located in Kentucky -- are good economic development tools when used wisely. Too often, these incentives are granted without holding recipient companies responsible for long-term jobs.

Certain obligations should be required of any business or industry receiving tax incentives. Otherwise, companies play "musical chairs" by moving from state to state, seeking even better tax breaks. The Campbellsville site chosen by Amazon.com is the former location of the Fruit of the Loom Corporation. Fruit of the Loom, a recipient of Kentucky’s tax incentives, chose Campbellsville in part because of cheap labor. It moved out of this country for yet cheaper labor.

West Virginia is presently experiencing a significant loss of jobs because Rite Aid and Kroger distribution centers are leaving the state for other states with more and better tax incentives. These companies were paid by West Virginia taxpayers to locate their businesses there. Bidding competition between states for new jobs is destructive to their economies if the businesses are not held to any obligation to repay incentives if they vacate the state and eliminate the jobs.

Bidding wars do not create new jobs -- they merely move existing jobs while businesses play one state’s "freebies" against the taxpayers of another. States would do better to concentrate economic development incentive funds on providing infrastructure assistance such as roads and utilities, as well as job training and skills improvement, rather than giving away tax funds to employers. Infrastructure, job training and skills improvement programs are assets that remain in the community, even if the business turns fickle and leaves. Monetary incentives move on with the departing company, an additional loss to the community.