this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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It killed the US middle class, or better, was one of the bigger factors in doing so. The American middle class was strongest post war until the late 70s. That was when our economic policies shifted to off-shoring as much labor as possible, and when the Chinese special economic zone polices were started, in cooperation with the US. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the following decades gutted the US middle class.
Yeah, how can people not see this? The "American Dream" and times of middle class prosperity were very obviously before China opened its economy and became the new industrial hub of the world. And when off-shoring started, so did real wage stagnation/decline.
Selling the declining American middle class plastic toys did not "make" that class. What made it were stable well paying manufacturing jobs. Trump won't bring those back with a trade war with China, but the claim that Chinese labor "made" the American middle class is just delusional.
No one has found it odd that this happened around the time when a single person could no longer pay for a family for muh trad lifestyle.
The US middle class is diminished somewhat over a long period of time, not "killed". 1971 was 61%, 2021 50%. And the movement from middle class has been upwards and downwards.