Paul Ryan is not "blue-collar." Neither is Joe Biden.

[patrick1]

Oh look another thread where JJ is so needlessly pedantic to the point that he looks like a fool.

Well, we Al insisting that blue collar means something it doesn't.  He seems to have the mindset of the Labour Party in the mid 1980's (which they abandoned in the mid 1990's). 

The irony is that I can remember, basically as an adult, when probably more that 1 in 5 workers were blue collar and, as a child, when it was more than 1 in 4.  I actually can remember people in manufacturing working in shifts. 

JJ, the irony is that you insist on playing the professorial role while missing the overall point.  Many millions do the 'blue collar' work that you proceeded to describe:  THIS IS NOT VERY FEW..  However, you then shift back and try to adhere to a strict definition to what is an imprecise shorthand term. I'm awfully happy at your knowledge of the history and etymology of the term but in your insistence on having the last word/being right it seems you continually engage in sophistry of the highest order.

[J. J.]

What do you thing assembly line workers do?  Those people are industrial workers,.  That includes workers such as car workers and steel manufacturers.

Were you dropped on the head as a child?

The whole issue here, o.k, is that you claimed that 'very few' people have blue collar jobs in the U.S., before immediately listing occupations that employ millions of people in that very same country.

Christ.

Yes, Al, especially in comparison the numbers that there were, as you have noted.

Al, in the US, currently, we have 142,101,000 employed.  Yes, a few million are very few.

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I never wrote anything about maids or bartenders. This was what I wrote:
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Well, when I posted that Rubio's parents, who were a maid and a bartender, were not blue collar, you took issue with it.  You didn't say, "Oh, I agree."

...and all that I'm trying to argue (though Lord knows why, because I certainly don't) is that 'blue collar worker' is an informal term for 'manual worker' rather than an absolutely precise term with a single very clear meaning.

"Manual worker," in the US, would not be limited to "blue collar worker," and the connotation would exclude numerous "blue collar workers."  The term "proper job" has no real meaning in the US.

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Al, as I've pointed out, the term has less meaning today, with a number of "pink collar" positions, nurses, teachers, some government workers, having become "professional positions," but, as noted these positions, along with things like maids, cooks, store clerks, cashiers, secretaries,  were considered "pink collar jobs."  My old position, a welfare caseworker, was, in the 1950's and 60's, considered to be "pink collar," or "a woman's job." 

By the way, you can't retire something unless it has been around for a while. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

Can't we all just agree that Everyone running for President, and Vice President, make and have more money than we do? None of them had an everyday Job like the rest of us for a long time.

No, because it is important to wonder why this is the case.

The decline of unions and the concurrent centralization of power by the richest Americans in all spheres, including the political?