dagblog - Comments for "The Middle Class Risks Consuming Itself"

Yes it does as well as the

ocean-kat — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 22:53:36 +0000

In reply to This leads into a debate on

Yes it does as well as the still sexist world that sees women as the care givers and men as the income providers. But it's not so much what I can imagine as what my friends told me. My whole life has been about me imagining a radically different lifestyle for myself than is the norm. I can imagine revolutionary change far beyond what society will every achieve in my life time.

This leads into a debate on

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 21:51:03 +0000

In reply to From the Ann Lowrey article,

This leads into a debate on wages for female workers - why X% of men, yet you can imagine the compromise is beneficial to a mother, not as much to a childless single or 45-year old...

From the Ann Lowrey article,

ocean-kat — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 20:21:12 +0000

In reply to 1. Important must-read piece

From the Ann Lowrey article,

Some people want the structure and community that work can provide well into retirement age. They may want the freedom and mobility that comes with “van life”. Or the flexibility of temp gigs.

While Lowrey begins her discussion on the elderly temp gigs this is a trend that started with younger workers decades ago. I watched many middle class people with little more than a high school education turned into temp workers. The Bethlehem Steel had a large number of support people hired by BS with good pay and benefits doing jobs like landscaping and janitorial services. They fired all those workers, most of whom were rehired through a temp agency like Manpower to do the same job. At lower pay with no health care, benefits or union protections.

When I was traveling or going to school I took advantage of that when I ran short of cash. Often I'd get a factory job through a temp agency and a significant minority of the workers were also temp workers, who had been working there for a year or more. As temp workers with lower pay and no benefits. Most of the workers were permanent hires with full union benefits, doing the same work as the temps.

So it worked for me who had no desire to make more money than I needed to live in what I saw as reasonable comfort. I also talked to some of my educated friends who liked the temp worker economy. On friend, a nurse, who left the profession to raise a family while her doctor husband made the money loved it. She could get temp gigs by, for example, giving flu shots at pharmacies. Her kids were older, she had some free time away from them to work, but couldn't work full time while raising her family.

But for most people forced into the temp economy they lost income, lost benefits, lost worker rights.

1. Important must-read piece

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 17:55:37 +0000

In reply to The Middle Class Risks Consuming Itself

1. Important must-read piece by @AnnieLowrey on America's ongoing economic dilemma. I'd like to use as jumping off point to provide some more context on the longer-run economic trajectory. https://t.co/hKG7iLeHm4
— Richard Florida (@Richard_Florida) December 31, 2019

(click on for full thread)