What happened to the middle class, blue collar man?

[opebo]

A bad policy was implemented called neoliberalism, little LBJ.  Now be sure to brush before beddy-bye or the bad policy will get you too.

[opebo]

The days where an unskilled blue collar could make a middle class income are all but over.  There are millions of skilled blue collar workers making a middle class (or more) income.  We will always* need plumbers and mechanics (and electricians and drivers and carpenters and on and on).

Seriously?  I think they make not much nowadays with mass unemployment and the loss of unionization.  It was really primarily full-employment macroeconomic policies and unionization which caused them to be paid more than a subsistence, dead0man.

[opebo]

I'm blue collar(ish), I'm not in a union, I make a middle class income, I exist.  There are millions of others like me.  There will always be a need for smart people willing to wear blue jeans to work.

But supply and demand, deadman - there are millions of such people unemployed.  Your wages should go down (and generally, for most of your ilk, they are).

[opebo]

Precisely, Libjay, their wages were at least double what modern earners would receive in those jobs.

[opebo]

Prole drift, a term the inimitable Paul Fussel coined. The thing is, so many of those higher skilled blue collar, and lower middle class jobs, got "commodityized" as it were. Damn those computers and scanners and all. Now a zombie can be a supermarket clerk.

Sheer poppycock.  These jobs were always 'simple' and easily learned.

What has changed, folks, is a political policy, not technology (which is largely irrelevant).

As Lief notes above about the jobs moving thither and yon, what has been reinstated is slavery.