**this is not what a real stenographer looks like**
Imagine typing fast for a living and making $100,000 a year. There are lots of stenographers who made a living wage with stenography in the year 2020.
There's an industry wide shortage going around. Nobody can higher a court reporter because they are in such low supply. The demand is still there because courts need accurate transcripts and they need it right now. AI still has a long way to go before it can replace court reporters.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently 21,300 court reporters and simultaneous captioners in the United States. That's a very small number.
This number is expected to "grow" 3% in the next 10 years. I put "grow" in quotes because 3% is barely any growth.
The steno industry has been stagnant for quite a while. This is most likely due to the expensive entry cost and the arduous process of becoming skilled enough to become a stenographer.
But things have changed. Plover has made it easy to use steno, and the community around Plover has made it free and easy to learn steno. Even the machines are literally fifty times cheaper.
I'm very excited to see how Plover and the Open Steno community will shape the stenography industry.
