Are we ever going to see a return to high playing plant jobs with pension plans, $35 an hour, and double time overtime pay.?

[Hutch Starskey]

There will be much higher paying jobs designing, programming, and maintaining those robots.

Indeed.
Education is paramount today as technology expands into more aspects of life.
Until the right can stop vilifying education, they will continue to decline.

 

[task0778]

The short answer is tariffs

I don't think so. Right now we have a number of foreign automakers who have plants here in the US, in the RTW states. Workers in those plants do not get $35/hr jobs, so instead of building cars and shipping them to the US, foreign carmakers will build more plants in RTW states. So, the days of those high-paying jobs are over, at least as far as the automakers are concerned. And then there's the payback to consider.

You know what happens when you levy a tariff? The affected country(s) return fire and levy a tariff on you, and trade wars ain't pretty. Bottom line, it doesn't work and is a really bad idea.

 

[FranklinRoosevelt_FTW]

I think people need to realize that higher education is and has for some time been critical to staying ahead of the curve. The 1% certainly educate their children and help guide them into the professional world.

Education is important. Based on that view, what is your view of the future of the American middle class. In the past millions of Americans white and black including women were able to get a job out of high school, making a middle-class wage. At least during the World War II era of course many women replaced the men at the plants … many of them left the job after the War but some of them did remain.

Anyways, do you think that those types of jobs are gone now or won’t come back.? If so, I think it’s very unfortunate. Because how many positions that require a college education are going to need to be filled in America in a country country of over 330 million people?

Let’s also consider the astronomical price of a college education in America. There’s tons of examples of people well into their 30s are still paying off their college debt and they will be paying the debt off for a long time.. A lot of folks get a college degree but don’t end up pursuing work in that degree because they can’t find it or they don’t like it.

My dab of everything we are going through a tough economic time. 50 year high inflation. And all-time high for the price of homes and triple the interest rates on loans under Biden compared to under Trump. So right now in America the average American can’t afford a home and 99% of this country….

Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American

Home prices have jumped so much that Americans must pay a third of their income on housing, according to one study.

www.cbsnews.com

What do you think the future of home prices will be. Will they again become affordable for the middle-class American like they used to?

 

[Mac-7]

I don't think so. Right now we have a number of foreign automakers who have plants here in the US, in the RTW states. Workers in those plants do not get $35/hr jobs, so instead of building cars and shipping them to the US, foreign carmakers will build more plants in RTW states. So, the days of those high-paying jobs are over, at least as far as the automakers are concerned. And then there's the payback to consider.

You know what happens when you levy a tariff? The affected country(s) return fire and levy a tariff on you, and trade wars ain't pretty. Bottom line, it doesn't work and is a really bad idea.

The foreign automakers in America msy not pay the workers on the assembly line $35 an hour starting pay

But they arent slave wages either

Now as for china raising the tariff against us, be my guest

The US currently imports 10 times as much from them as they buy from us

So who is really in the drivers seat there?

And we cannot be held hostage by china threatening to cut off goods that we depend on

 

[initforme]

35 dollars an hour is $70,000 a year

And 70 grand isn't all that much. It's on the bottom end of middle class. At best.

 

[Mac1958]

Between automation, productivity, AI, software technology and outsourcing, those days are gone. A company simply cannot remain financially viable.

So what are we going to do about it? How will our political, business and social leaders come together, communicate, collaborate and innovate to create an America that will overcome these huge obstacles and dangers facing our country, our children?

Ha ha. Just kidding. They don't do that any more.

 

[initforme]

Making it harder to find workers would be a good start. It's too easy now and wages are too low because there's too big of a labor pool. Shrink the labor force big time and wages go up.

 

[Mac-7]

Making it harder to find workers would be a good start. It's too easy now and wages are too low because there's too big of a labor pool. Shrink the labor force big time and wages go up.

Liberals are flooding the labor pool with foreigners

What do libs think will happen to wages?

 

[initforme]

Liberals are flooding the labor pool with foreigners

What do libs think will happen to wages?

It's also on businesses. They hire the foreigners but nobody asks to hold them accountable. It's like this nation protects business owners. Not good economic policy.

 

[Mac-7]

It's also on businesses. They hire the foreigners but nobody asks to hold them accountable. It's like this nation protects business owners. Not good economic policy.

The nation should protect business, but not individual business owners at the expense of their workers

That's what makes the open borders come-one-come-all immigration policy so bad

Libs put the interests of foreigners above Americans

 

[Dayton3]

And 70 grand isn't all that much. It's on the bottom end of middle class. At best.

Really? 70 thousand a year is enough for most people to afford a house ina decent neighborhood and a couple of decent vehicle payments. Sounds like solid middle class t o me

 

[mikegriffith1]

View attachment 920032

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My dad, uncle and grandfather worked those types of jobs seen above. Along with many millions of Americans, if not many more throughout the 20th century. It was a pro American job. These folks were building America.

Now today the country is almost entirely different. You have a bunch of stay at home dads. Female headed households. Households with a single woman raising four or five kids especially in the inner cities. It wasn’t like this in the 1950s even the 1970s.

Those types of pictures above represented the bulk of middle-class jobs. You can of course throw in truck drivers Perhaps carpenters as well but people know what I’m talking about here. These were the bulk of the middle-class jobs.

So what is it going to be as we dive into the 21st-century. is the American middle-class going to continue to get worse and worse? Under Joe Biden we’ve seen a doubling in the average cost of a home, and a triple in interest rates on loan, compared to what it was under Trump. The middle class has been struggling for decades, but under Joe Biden it got hit really bad.

Is Joe Biden going to give us a better middle class. That’s an honest and open question to Biden and Trump supporters. What do you think? Do we need Donald Trump back?

Or is there going to be some kind of a great CEO like another Henry Ford or Rockefeller that leads the way.??

I agree with much of what you say here, but we can't place all the blame for inflation on Biden. Trump piled up a huge amount of debt and borrowing, which certainly contributed to the inflation that began in mid-2021 and peaked in 2022.

Also, Biden's economy has been very good overall. I quote from Robert Shapiro's recent article in Washington Monthly:

Since January 2021, real fixed business investment has increased at a 5.4 percent annual rate, twice the 2.7 percent average rate under Trump. And here, too, Trump lags Biden even with his pandemic pass for 2020: Real business investment increased on average by 5.0 percent per year from 2017 to 2019, compared to Biden’s 5.4 percent annual rate.

Based on the official data from the Census Bureau, applications to start new businesses averaged 304,000 per month over Trump’s term, peaking at an average of 365,000 monthly in 2020. It’s a decent record but not as good as Biden’s: From 2021 to 2023, applications for business starts averaged 444,000 per month, an average nearly 50 percent higher than under Trump.

Far from mismanaging inflation, Biden tamed it. As a result, America has fared better than other advanced countries. In 2023, while U.S. consumer prices rose 3.3 percent, they increased 4.1 percent in France, 3.9 percent in Great Britain, and 3.7 percent in Germany. And we beat inflation without sacrificing growth: In 2023, real GDP grew 2.5 percent in the United States compared to growth rates of 1.0 percent in France, 0.5 percent in the United Kingdom, and negative 0.5 percent in Germany.

The entire article can be found here.

Trump deserves great credit for returning the GOP back to its protectionist roots, especially his imposition of tariffs and support for the USMCA trade deal. Biden has kept most of Trump's tariffs and has left the USMCA fully intact.

Again, I'm not a Biden supporter. I did not and will not vote for him. But he has done many good things, in addition to many bad things.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Most of these workers could have migrated into technical roles but there are those who, like coal miners, simply refuse to recognize the world for what it is.

What Goes Around Is Pushed Around

It's not "what the world is." It's what a sheltered and hostile ruling class made it to be. Eliminate their Birth-Class Supremacy, including their control over what ambitious imbeciles can class-climb, and we can go back to the days when America was great.

The invention of the telephone created millions of jobs and eliminated none. More important, workers replaced by other technologies didn't have to pay anything or be unemployed while learning those new jobs.

See A.E. Housman's poem about "A World I Never Made."

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

See
Russian Revolution
French Revolution

When the gap between rich and poor grows to an intolerable level.. The rich will be no more.

Friendly Bacteria and Deadly Bacteria

Which rich? Eliminate birth privileges and get rid of those who don't belong in that class.

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

Americans are now generally considered so stupid...........

When you call the local Family Dollar or Power Company, the recording tells you to dial 911 if this is an emergency.

Yep...YOU are considered an imbecile. (If you ever vote Democrat you actually are)

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

MAGA has the idea but they're on the wrong side.
They fight for the powerful.
When their need has passed the powerful, whom they serve, will cast them aside.
And when those they abuse come to power...MAGA will be a useless relic to be disposed of like last week's trash.

Your Doom&Gloom Won't Happen If Sheep Become Rams

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

Your Doom&Gloom Won't Happen If Sheep Become Rams

If Ifs and Ands were Pots and Pans........

If they haven't by now. Forget about it. But dream on.

 

[Dadoalex]

What Goes Around Is Pushed Around

It's not "what the world is." It's what a sheltered and hostile ruling class made it to be. Eliminate their Birth-Class Supremacy, including their control over what ambitious imbeciles can class-climb, and we can go back to the days when America was great.

The invention of the telephone created millions of jobs and eliminated none. More important, workers replaced by other technologies didn't have to pay anything or be unemployed while learning those new jobs.

See A.E. Housman's poem about "A World I Never Made."

First, I never ever ever ever said that technology costs jobs.
It creates different jobs but tech ALWAYS grows jobs in the end.

BUUUUUT

In 2024 people still whine over losing
coal mining jobs (the GOP is big on this whine)
brainless assembly line jobs
jobs that have simply disappeared...

Why?
I haven't the foggiest idea.

My family went from the coal mines, to the auto industry, to highly paid professional in less than 2 generations. Not a one of us regrets moving on or wants to go back.

Why anyone wants to retire with Black Lung is a mystery.

 

[Dadoalex]

What Goes Around Is Pushed Around

It's not "what the world is." It's what a sheltered and hostile ruling class made it to be. Eliminate their Birth-Class Supremacy, including their control over what ambitious imbeciles can class-climb, and we can go back to the days when America was great.

The invention of the telephone created millions of jobs and eliminated none. More important, workers replaced by other technologies didn't have to pay anything or be unemployed while learning those new jobs.

See A.E. Housman's poem about "A World I Never Made."

First, I never ever ever ever said that technology costs jobs.
It creates different jobs but tech ALWAYS grows jobs in the end.

BUUUUUT

In 2024 people still whine over losing
coal mining jobs (the GOP is big on this whine)
brainless assembly line jobs
jobs that have simply disappeared...

Why?
I haven't the foggiest idea.

My family went from the coal mines, to the auto industry, to highly paid professional in less than 2 generations. Not a one of us regrets moving on or wants to go back.

Why anyone wants to retire with Black Lung is a mystery.

Friendly Bacteria and Deadly Bacteria

Which rich? Eliminate birth privileges and get rid of those who don't belong in that class.

Never happen.
But, at least twice, they got rid of the class.
Faster, more efficient...

 

[Dadoalex]

Your Doom&Gloom Won't Happen If Sheep Become Rams

Put your red hat on when you say that.