Middle Class[Income] Jobs ain't Coming Back?

[Midpack]

Seems to me, if we got serious about rebuilding our infrastructure, that would create a lot of middle class jobs for years to come, and then there is always the next big thing.

It would create jobs and that's good, but we should not (re)build infrastructure just to create jobs. I may get blasted for this, but while our infrastructure certainly needs attention, will (expanding) infrastructure be as important in the future? With more and more products & services being transacted remotely, the need may not be as important as it was 50 years ago.

And while I support rebuilding our infrastructure intelligently, it seems the best way for a variety of reasons might be through 'infrastructure banks' where funding (and priorities) are shared between private and public funds. Our politicians have a habit of building in their states/districts often without regard for what's really needed most. I would think having private investment would prevent 'bridges to nowhere' and the like...

 

[timeasterday]

I may get blasted for this, but while our infrastructure certainly needs attention, will (expanding) infrastructure be as important in the future? With more and more products & services being transacted remotely, the need may not be as important as it was 50 years ago.

People will still be driving, tractor-trailers will still be hauling those products, fuel needs delivered to your local gas stations. All of them would rather not have a bridge collapse under their tires or right on top of them. Infrastructure also includes our power delivery systems, most of which are using pretty old technology and getting undersized as our need for more power increases.

 

[Midpack]

People will still be driving, tractor-trailers will still be hauling those products, fuel needs delivered to your local gas stations. All of them would rather not have a bridge collapse under their tires or right on top of them. Infrastructure also includes our power delivery systems, most of which are using pretty old technology and getting undersized as our need for more power increases.

Some would argue that personal miles driven per capita is/will decrease. Most infrastructure rebuilding is probably needed (and already identified, there's a huge backlog of known projects). But we can ill afford to be building 'bridges to nowhere' or letting the infrastructure priorities to be left solely to political shenanigans - that was my central point. Thanks...

DOT: Monthly Miles Driven

 

[HFWR]

Some would argue that personal miles driven per capita is/will decrease. Most infrastructure rebuilding is probably needed (and already identified, there's a huge backlog of known projects). But we can ill afford to be building 'bridges to nowhere' or letting the infrastructure priorities to be left solely to political shenanigans - that was my central point. Thanks...

DOT: Monthly Miles Driven

Pork is a problem both in the government and on this forum...

 

[LakeTravis]

I don't think there was such a thing as an iPhone app developer ten years ago, now an entire well-paid industry has been built around that.

Next up could be 3D printing and affordable $500 desktop printers that people can use to print actual objects:

Why 3D printing will transform every industry - CBS News

SNIPPET:

Innovation is accelerating, and when the next great transformative change comes odds are that it will involve 3D printing.

 

[bUU]

Infrastructure has very little do to with going to Grandma's house, and only a little to do with commuting to work. Most of it has to do with getting corn from Nebraska to Maine, steel from Pennsylvania to Michigan, and lumber from Oregon to Texas.

 

[HFWR]

Infrastructure has very little do to with going to Grandma's house, and only a little to do with commuting to work. Most of it has to do with getting corn from Nebraska to Maine, steel from Pennsylvania to Michigan, and lumber from Oregon to Texas.

Add electricity, coal, oil, natural gas, automobiles, etc. Also include getting things to other regions of the world; i.e. rail, seaports, airports...

 

[bUU]

Okay let's all be honest... How many of us remember much of this from playing SimCity?

 

[HFWR]

Okay let's all be honest... How many of us remember much of this from playing SimCity?

In my case it was Monopoly.

 

[bUU]

I don't remember Monopoly having coal and oil, or seaports and airports.

 

[Meadbh]

Add electricity, coal, oil, natural gas, automobiles, etc. Also include getting things to other regions of the world; i.e. rail, seaports, airports...

Oil and gas pipelines, seaports, shipping, information system highways, airports, heliports, spaceports, plug ins (for electric vehicles), hydroelectric generation stations, nuclear power generating stations, wind power generating stations, waste disposal and recycling plants, people maintenance centres (e.g. hospitals).......

I had the very first edition of SimCity. Lots of fun for a while. I passed it on to the next door neighbour's kids.

 

[Koogie]

"Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries, 29 percent in industries that pay well."

Anecdotely, I see this happening around me and to people I know. Make sure that if you are in a shaky industry/job type that you end up in the 30%, not the 70%. IMHO, based on what we see in the US, this is how the middle class will fracture.

 

[InTheSticks]

I read this the other day. I've been seeing this for sometime and wondered why the media has not been reporting on it.

The quote below is very interesting and real world.

Webb Wheel Products makes parts for truck brakes, which involves plenty of repetitive work. Its newest employee is the Doosan V550M, and it's a marvel. It can spin a 130-pound brake drum like a child's top, smooth its metal surface, then drill holes — all without missing a beat. And it doesn't take vacations or "complain about anything," says Dwayne Ricketts, president of the Cullman, Ala., company.
Thanks to computerized machines, Webb Wheel hasn't added a factory worker in three years, though it's making 300,000 more drums annually, a 25 percent increase.

It's been interesting to see other folks thoughts on the article.

 

[marko]

RANT ALERT!: Is it just me?

IMHO the "middle class" died decades ago. All that's left is inertia and a dream; some romantic notion of a steady job, your own home, kids planning for college and two weeks at the seashore.

Fifty years ago you could do that being a milkman (as my milkman did!). Now, you need to be an executive making $200K to pull that lifestyle off.

So what is the middle class nowadays? An income of $75K? Here in the North East, that's almost subsistence. If you've got a few kids, you're just hanging in there with two incomes of $150K total. $250K?....careful, you're the greedy rich.

Meanwhile, expenses that weren't there 15 years ago: cellphones, cable TV, Netflix, computers, school fees, etc etc are draining an extra $500 to $900 a month away from you while the tax man camps out in your driveway with his hand out.

And when you do turn on that TV you see stories about (in this State), 19,000 'lost/unaccounted for' EBT cards each month but nobody is accountable and nothing gets fixed.

Seriously, in 1965, my milkman was able to own his own home, send 4 kids to college (paying full freight) and rent a cottage on the lake each summer...with a SAHM. What happened to that?!

Is there a middle class? Or is it now just a bunch of lame drones who plug away paying their bills along with everyone else's with some vague hope of getting ahead of it all, believing in a long, lost dream?

Sorry for the rant...hope I didn't offend anyone.

 

[dtbach]

On the bright side, there should be a lot of very intelligent folks taking your order at McDonalds. . . . .

 

[REWahoo]

RANT ALERT!: Is it just me?

I don't know. You got a mouse in your pocket?

 

[NotMyFault]

RANT ALERT!: Is it just me?

IMHO the "middle class" died decades ago. All that's left is inertia and a dream; some romantic notion of a steady job, your own home, kids planning for college and two weeks at the seashore.

Fifty years ago you could do that being a milkman (as my milkman did!). Now, you need to be an executive making $200K to pull that lifestyle off.
.

I would have to disagree with this a milkman with college age kids in the sixties would have been 20 and buying his first house in the forties. He would be looking at about 1,000 sq ft. no AC, one electrical outlet per room, one bathroom, closets that were tiny. He probably owned 2 pairs of shoes 3 pairs of pants.... I could make a long description of his lifestyle but I am to lazy. The point is you are looking at the past through Rose colored glasses. What you call subsistence living today is miles above the lifestyle your milkman had. If the middle class of today lived his lifestyle they would be able to do the same things he did. I think there has been a lot of lifestyle creep in the last 50 years that you are not accounting for.

NMF

 

[photoguy]

Next up could be 3D printing and affordable $500 desktop printers that people can use to print actual objects:

I think this is going to drive a huge number of small businesses. While technology is elimination some jobs (truck drivers I think is going to be the next big category) there's always new things that pop up.

 

[Mulligan]

RANT ALERT!: Is it just me?

IMHO the "middle class" died decades ago. All that's left is inertia and a dream; some romantic notion of a steady job, your own home, kids planning for college and two weeks at the seashore.

Fifty years ago you could do that being a milkman (as my milkman did!). Now, you need to be an executive making $200K to pull that lifestyle off.

So what is the middle class nowadays? An income of $75K? Here in the North East, that's almost subsistence. If you've got a few kids, you're just hanging in there with two incomes of $150K total. $250K?....careful, you're the greedy rich.

Meanwhile, expenses that weren't there 15 years ago: cellphones, cable TV, Netflix, computers, school fees, etc etc are draining an extra $500 to $900 a month away from you while the tax man camps out in your driveway with his hand out.

And when you do turn on that TV you see stories about (in this State), 19,000 'lost/unaccounted for' EBT cards each month but nobody is accountable and nothing gets fixed.

Seriously, in 1965, my milkman was able to own his own home, send 4 kids to college (paying full freight) and rent a cottage on the lake each summer...with a SAHM. What happened to that?!

Is there a middle class? Or is it now just a bunch of lame drones who plug away paying their bills along with everyone else's with some vague hope of getting ahead of it all, believing in a long, lost dream?

Sorry for the rant...hope I didn't offend anyone.

I imagine I would suffer from severe sticker shock in your area, if 75k is almost subsistence. Although all my income included is more than 75k, I live on under $4k a month and feel like a King. I fly to Vegas 4-6 times a year, ski once, usually a trip to the island each year, golf membership, eat out once a week, go to sporting events, concerts, and also have a mortgage and child support payments to boot. Living in rural "fly over country" area, I guess is a lot cheaper. Now I don't stay at the Wynn, but I am the king of deals, so my buck does go further due to my extra free time to find them.

 

[marko]

I would have to disagree with this a milkman with college age kids in the sixties would have been 20 and buying his first house in the forties. He would be looking at about 1,000 sq ft. no AC, one electrical outlet per room, one bathroom, closets that were tiny. He probably owned 2 pairs of shoes 3 pairs of pants.... I could make a long description of his lifestyle but I am to lazy.
NMF

hmmmmm.... not knowing each other, I won't discount your experience with the same certainty as you did to my experience.

My point (and personal experience) was this: In the 60's and early 70's, a guy could have a relatively unskilled job (milk/delivery man, factory/production worker, grocery/store clerk) with a stay-at-home wife and two kids and still be able to own a ranch-style home in a suburban subdivision on a quarter acre lot. A new gas powered lawn mower bought 'on time' at Sears. Maybe a 4 year old car and one or two weeks in the mountains for vacation. Kids maybe in parochial school and planning for a state college.

Was this the middle class? Maybe. I think so. A bit romanticized? Maybe, but I think a lot of people can relate.

What happened to that? Can the clerk at Safeway live that way now? I don't think so. If true, what now defines 'middle class'? Each part of the country has different expenses so an income range can't define it.

 

[Midpack]

RANT ALERT!: Is it just me?

IMHO the "middle class" died decades ago. All that's left is inertia and a dream; some romantic notion of a steady job, your own home, kids planning for college and two weeks at the seashore.

Fifty years ago you could do that being a milkman (as my milkman did!). Now, you need to be an executive making $200K to pull that lifestyle off.

So what is the middle class nowadays? An income of $75K? Here in the North East, that's almost subsistence. If you've got a few kids, you're just hanging in there with two incomes of $150K total. $250K?....careful, you're the greedy rich.

Meanwhile, expenses that weren't there 15 years ago: cellphones, cable TV, Netflix, computers, school fees, etc etc are draining an extra $500 to $900 a month away from you while the tax man camps out in your driveway with his hand out.

And when you do turn on that TV you see stories about (in this State), 19,000 'lost/unaccounted for' EBT cards each month but nobody is accountable and nothing gets fixed.

Seriously, in 1965, my milkman was able to own his own home, send 4 kids to college (paying full freight) and rent a cottage on the lake each summer...with a SAHM. What happened to that?!

Is there a middle class? Or is it now just a bunch of lame drones who plug away paying their bills along with everyone else's with some vague hope of getting ahead of it all, believing in a long, lost dream?

Sorry for the rant...hope I didn't offend anyone.

While no one could easily dispute your central point re: the erosion of middle class, your $ estimates compromise your credibility. With all due respect, is it possible your perspective is distorted from living in an oceanfront community outside Boston where COL is 145% of national average (many areas are less than 100% obviously) and housing is 204%? I doubt your milkman lived in Beverly Farms MA.

And income inequality trends have exacerbated the problem.

While it's certainly tougher, one can do very well on far less than you claim out here in (the vastness of) "flyover country" where most people still live. I know lots of people who have managed to live the life you describe from the 'good old days' with all the luxuries & technology of today on $75K/yr or less, well within reach for dual income families.

 

[marko]

While no one could easily dispute your central point re: the erosion of middle class, your $ estimates compromise your credibility. With all due respect, is it possible your perspective is distorted from living in an oceanfront community outside Boston where COL is 145% of national average (many areas are less than 100% obviously) and housing is 204%? I doubt your milkman lived in Beverly Farms MA.

And income inequality trends have exacerbated the problem.

While it's certainly tougher, one can do very well on far less than you claim out here in (the vastness of) "flyover country" where most people still live. I know lots of people who have managed to live the life you describe from the 'good old days' with all the luxuries & technology of today on $75K/yr or less, well within reach for dual income families.

My perspective could be skewed. I think the regional cost differences are real...the so-called $250K 'rich' live well but aren't all that rich around here.

I always marvel at folks on this forum who can live on $50K-$75K quite nicely, flyover country or not.

 

[NotMyFault]

hmmmmm.... not knowing each other, I won't discount your experience with the same certainty as you did to my experience.

My point (and personal experience) was this: In the 60's and early 70's, a guy could have a relatively unskilled job (milk/delivery man, factory/production worker, grocery/store clerk) with a stay-at-home wife and two kids and still be able to own a ranch-style home in a suburban subdivision on a quarter acre lot. A new gas powered lawn mower bought 'on time' at Sears. Maybe a 4 year old car and one or two weeks in the mountains for vacation. Kids maybe in parochial school and planning for a state college.

Was this the middle class? Maybe. I think so. A bit romanticized? Maybe, but I think a lot of people can relate.

What happened to that? Can the clerk at Safeway live that way now? I don't think so. If true, what now defines 'middle class'? Each part of the country has different expenses so an income range can't define it.

Ok maybe I was a little confrontational, condescending or arrogant. Let me try again. If we can't define middle class as an income level, lets try defining it as having the generally accepted average lifestyle. So my contention is that the generally accepted average lifestyle today is much higher today than it was. Things that didn't exist then are considered necessities today. Even going back to the seventies things were much different. My dad has a decent job but my mom still made some of our clothes. We only got one pair of school shoes and the old school shoes became play shoes. My point is that people could afford to raise a family on a factory or production job if they we were willing to accept the milkman's standard is living. I am not saying that that standard is bad it is just unrecognizable today. Imagine telling a 26 year old today to get rid of their smartphone, a couple of TV sets, their computer and anything else that wasn't commonly available to the milkman.
So to tie all this rambling together, I think that while the jobs and pay have remained relatively flat, people's expectation of a minimum lifestyle has grown by leaps and bounds.

NMF

 

[Midpack]

So to tie all this rambling together, I think that while the jobs and pay have remained relatively flat, people's expectation of a minimum lifestyle has grown by leaps and bounds.

"Minimum lifestyle" expectations undoubtedly make the squeeze seem more acute, but real pay has not remained even flat -the middle class is actually losing ground now despite a decade of relatively mild inflation. And the US Census Bureau chart below includes everyone - if you were to remove the top 20% who have done far better, the slide for the middle class is even more dramatic.

The erosion of the middle class, in income (and numbers), has accelerated. A scary prospect.

For American households in the middle of the pay scale, income fell to $49,445 last year, when adjusted for inflation, a level not seen since 1996.

Middle-class income fell in the last decade - Sep. 21, 2011

 

[NotMyFault]

"Minimum lifestyle" expectations undoubtedly make the squeeze seem more acute, but real pay has not remained even flat -the middle class is actually losing ground now despite a decade of relatively mild inflation. And the US Census Bureau chart below includes everyone - if you were to remove the top 20% who have done far better, the slide for the middle class is even more dramatic.

The erosion of the middle class, in income (and numbers), has accelerated. A scary prospect.

Middle-class income fell in the last decade - Sep. 21, 2011

This subject fascinates me. If I could start over and study this I would. How is inflation separated from added value? Are prices going up because of inflation or are things worth more because they are better? A car in 1968 was a box on wheels with a radio. A car today is more advanced that the Apollo rockets (maybe a slight exaggeration) and they cost millions to build. Does that mean when we compare wages today with wages then we all have a million dollars worth of buying power? Just going back 10 years cars have added multiple air bags, accident avoidance, adaptive cruise control and more. So is it inflation or more value we are paying for? Even things that we don't see the extra value in have some. Gas prices go up but how much is due to reformulated gas, ethanol, limits on drilling? These thing may not be valued by you or I but they are deemed a value to society. So are we really seeing a decline of wages against inflation or are we seeing an unprecedented growth in product value coupled with a population that is unwilling to live on the back end of the value wave.


NMF