Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumAP: Income gap widens as American factories shut down
X post at Labor
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140615/us--wealth_gap-manufacturing-ccf530f4f9.html
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
READING, Pa. (AP) In August 2008, factory workers David and Barbara Ludwig treated themselves to new cars David a Dodge pickup, Barbara a sporty Mazda 3. With David making $22 an hour and Barbara $19, they could easily afford the payments.
A month later, Baldwin Hardware, a unit of Stanley Black & Decker Corp., announced layoffs at the Reading plant where they both worked. David was unemployed for 20 months before finding a janitor job that paid $10 an hour, less than half his previous wage. Barbara hung on, but she, too, lost her shipping-dock job of 26 years as Black & Decker shifted production to Mexico. Now she cleans houses for $10 an hour while looking for something permanent.
David Ludwig poses for a photo at his home Wednesday, May 28, 2014, in Reading, Pa. He and his wife lost their manufacturing jobs and have been struggling financially ever since. For decades, American manufacturing provided entr{e9}e to the middle class, especially for workers without college degrees. No more. Globalization, automation and recession destroyed nearly 6 million manufacturing jobs between 2000-2009, casting many displaced workers out of the middle class and, consequently, widening the income gap between rich and poor. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
They still have the cars. The other trappings of their middle-class lifestyle? In the rear-view mirror.
The downfall of manufacturing in the U.S. has done more than displace workers and leave communities searching for ways to rebuild devastated economies. In Reading and other American factory towns, manufacturing's decline is a key factor in the widening income gap between the rich and everyone else, as people like the Ludwigs have been forced into far lower-paying work.
FULL story at link.
randys1
(16,286 posts)loans to American start ups to make here what we buy here...
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)foreign manufacturing is locating in the U.S. to take advantage of our low wages, right-to-work laws, tax incentives and enormous labor pool.
We are becoming competitive again by having our living standards lowered.
Capital on the march!
TBF
(32,006 posts)Capitalists have increasingly used technology to increase their profit margin in many ways. That is what capitalists are rewarded for doing - increasing profit margin. I don't see this slowing down anytime soon. The good thing for developing countries is that they have an opportunity to better their standard of living, but we see the losses here as people lose jobs, take pay cut after pay cut, and struggle to regroup. For workers the only chance I see is to band together worldwide against the capitalist owners in order to force higher wages. I think it will eventually happen but I can't predict when. It may have to get a whole lot worse as wages equalize around the world and workers realize technology can also be used to their advantage (which is why I've advocated so hard against the TPP).
Unca Adverse
(29 posts)! GLOBAL CORPORATISM ='s WORLDWIDE FASCISM !
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)I too am new and find some respite in "socialist progressives group" from the 'sturm und drang' of General Discussion.
But I occasionally get into the weeds. And homeboy Alabama, where Democrats are rarer than a right turn on a Nascar track.
Never been on NewsVine, so must be like-minded people all over!
Unca Adverse
(29 posts)Glad you did respond . . . I was about to try and cancel out of this participatory blog.
Yes, somewhere in Texas there is another fine person such as you (and also many others, too)!