Reply #15

Back in the 1990s, I had a manufacturing job, making satellite dishes, for $5.40 an hour. For full time work, that was $11,232 a year. The woman who worked as Mainstreet manager also had a job waitressing on the weekends, where she said she made $12,000 a year - just working two days a week.

The problem with the OP is that I do not believe that the good paying factory jobs he describes were ever the norm. Some people got them, it is true, but most people did not, not even in the good old days of the 1960s. In 1963, for example, which might be considered as part of the glory years for American manufacturing - the poverty rate was 15.9%. In 1973, the bottom 40% only got 14.7% of the national income, compared to 43.6% for the richest 20% and 16.6% for the richest 5%.

There are still people with good paying jobs, paying most of the taxes because they get most of the money. It's just that this kid is not one of them.