Since the 1970s Better Paying Bluecollar Jobs Have Disappeared
The Blue‐Collar Blues
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September 9, 1970
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A generation ago, during the great organizing drive of the American labor movement, blue‐collar workers could say, with G. K. Chesterton, "And we were angry and poor and happy, and proud of seeing our names in print." Today, after three lecades of eco nomic growth, the workers' song should be re written to go, "Still we are angry but now we are middle class and unhappy, and longing to see our names in print." Now they feel that they have become "forgotten Americans," and they want more attention paid to their grievances. In creasingly, as at the White House on Labor Day, attention is being paid.
Economic Analysis
What is really bothering these blue‐collar recruits to the middle class? And what can be done to ease their problems?
President George Meany of the A.F.L.‐C.I.O. says that the "gut issue" is the pocketbook issue.
Certainly the great majority of workers—like other Amen cans—feel that inflation is mak ing them poorer, despite higher earnings.
But is it really so? Over‐all data are misleading because they Jump part‐time and fernale labor together with full‐time male workers, thereby dragging down the rate at which the average income of family bread winners has been rising in the last five years.
A special tabulation of cen sus data prepared for a study of blue‐collar workers by Pro fessor Sar Levitan of George Washington University shows that since 1965 the average white married man, employed in a blue‐collar job, has had 15 per cent real increase in his annual income, measured in dollars of constant purchasing power.
During the entire decade of the 1960's, white men in blue collar jobs had real gains of 25 par cent—about the same as whites in all other occupations.
With more wives working and more men moonlighting, family incomes of white workera rose still more dramatically during the 1960's.
At the start of the decade, the income of white families headed by blue‐collar workers aged 26 to 34 averaged $7,570 a year, measured in 1969 dollars.
By the end of the decade, the average income of the same white families had gone up to $11,053—a real gain of 46 per cent.
But that gain in average family, income, which lifted so many into the middle class, may have come at the cost of heightened personal and social strains.
Moonlighting obviously is source of tension, and so may be the big movement of wives into the labor force. In 1960 only 33 per cent of the wives of white blue‐collar workers held jobs. By 1970, this figure had risen to 44 per cent.
Another source of tension may have been the faster progress of Negroes than whites in income and employ ment. Measured in constant dollars, the annual income of black families headed by, blue collar workers aged 25 to 34 increased from $5,785 in 1960 to $9,494 in 1970—a gain of 64 per cent, compared with the 46 per cent increase of families headed by white workers in comparable jobs.
The gain of Negro and other nonwhite families in all occu pations was even more rapid.
From 1960 to 1970, all non white families enjoyed a real increase in family income of 88 per cent, with annual earnings going up from $5,433 to $10,198.
Many Wives Working
The wives of Negro workers were even more likely to be employed than those of whites. In 1960, 43 per cent of the wives of black workers held jobs; by 1970 this number had risen to 57 per cent.
Not only did Negroes narrow the income gap during the 1960s, but they succeeded in Increasing their share of blue collar jobs, especially in manu facturing.
Blacks increased the number of blue‐collar jobs they held by 42 per cent during the decade, while whites gained only 7 per cent.
To be sure, the total number of blue‐collar jobs (what the census calls "operatives and craftsmen") held by whites was 14.3 million in 1970, compared with 1.4 million held by non whites.
Some Whites Disturbed
The narrowing of the income gap between whites and blacks undoubtedly bothered some whites. Relative income may be more important to the ego than absolute income.
It is even possible that many white workers, with more ab solute income, feel less secure after graduation to the middle class than they did before. They have taken on large debts. They have acquired homes and real estate that represent the largest share of their assets—and they fear huge losses of property values if there is "block‐bust ing" and Negroes move in.
Even more broadly, white workers who have moved up in the world are afraid of change that will wipe out the middle class social values that they have struggled to achieve by working overtime at exhausting jobs, by moonlighting, by let ting their wives go to work, and by going heavily into debt.
This threat to their social values is what turns them so bitterly against demonstrating students, long‐haired hippies, and opponents of the Vietnam war (all of whom they tend to lump together). And this is why they try to wall themselves off from the slums, from which they have escaped and which pose threats of violence and degradation of another kind.
What can be done about the economic and social grievances of these Middle Americans?
Remedies Proposed
A task force headed by As sistant Secretary of Labor Je rome M. Rosow has suggested a long list of measures for help ing the blue collar worker, In cluding—
¶Training programs to help them upgrade themselves into better jobs;
¶Child care services for their working wives, and not just for welfare mothers;
¶More adult education in high schools and community colleges—Mr. Rosow notes that education helps reduce racial hostility;
¶Govemment assistance to make it easier for their children to go to college;
¶Public relations programs, such as awards to workers and special postage stamps, to give more status to blue‐collar jobs;
¶More tax breaks for those in the $5,000 to $10,000 class.
At the same time, the Rosow Task Force would provide work ers with more recreational facilities, such as vest‐pocket Darks, improved local trans portation, improved disability protection, better housing, and other social benefits.
But such proposals run up against one overwhelming ob stacle: Forty per cent of all American families — including 70 million family members— have incomes between $5,000 and $10,000 a year.
It is simply not possible to provide a significant increase in social benefits for these 70 million people without increas ing taxes—including the taxes they themselves must pay.
If, as the Rosow report sug gests, their taxes are to be cut, then the taxes of others must be raised still more.
Certain specific programs may be targeted at the low end of the lower middle class. The family Assistance Plan of the Nixon Administration, for in stance, would help those just above the poverty line—the so called working poor. But it cannot do much for the vast majority of the lower middle class.
The problems of this third of the nation cannot be solved in isolation from those of the rest of the nation—inflation, un employment (which is hitting white‐collar as well as blue collar workers these days), an overstrained Federal budget, urban congestion, pollution, crime, choked transportation, an inadequate educational sys tem, strained race relations, as well as war and threats to national security.
At bottom, the blues of blue collar workers are the blues of America, and the solutions to their problems must be national.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/09/archives/the-bluecollar-blues-groups-woes-mirror-americas-trials-but-the.html
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