I think you can still do fine as a craftsman....but like most other things you need to actually be good at your craft. And yes, like most other jobs you need to start at the bottom rung and work hard for crap pay for a while. Years ago that was kind of understood as the path forward in many professions, but today too many people are either a) too lazy to work hard or b) think they are above such "unfairness".
The only place I've seen so far where you can walk in and demand your terms as an idiot right out of college, is software developers.