General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: United States has lost 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000 [View all]Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)The main one being that the rest of the world's manufacturing capacity had been largely wiped out in World War II, making the United States the only game in town. Health care costs weren't the massive clusterfuck that they were back then, either. Furthermore, unions were just plain stronger in all aspects then. While they never gained the foothold in the service sector that they did in the manufacturing sector, there's no guarantee that any new manufacturing jobs would be unionized.
And also, not for nothing, but the economic picture looked a little different if you weren't white and male back then.
So while I agree that the type of job security and lifestyle that people had back then was great, I'm not 100% sure that manufacturing is really the reason why that existed.
Also I want to add that while I agree with you about how it's ideal to be able to have a middle class lifestyle without a college degree, I don't think that's entirely about manufacturing. I think a lot of that has to do with so many people going to colleges that employers demand college degrees for jobs that don't really need them.