Factory Jobs Aren’t the Future Working Americans Want
By Will Marshall

Undaunted by his predecessor’s failure to spark a manufacturing renaissance, President Trump also dreams of reindustrializing America. He won’t succeed either, because no president has the power to undo a half-century of post-industrial evolution.

Why have our two oldest presidents fixated on “bringing back” factory jobs? Both grew up in the ‘50s, when the United States bestrode a war-ravaged world like an industrial colossus. But the answer isn’t just nostalgia for a lost “golden age.”

There’s also a pervasive feeling that our country owes a promissory note to working families hit hard by deindustrialization. The disappearance of manufacturing jobs with decent pay and benefits — traditionally their ticket from high school to the middle class — has undermined their living standards and social standing.

Since 1971, the share of Americans who live in lower-income households has increased, reports the Pew Research Center: “Notably, the increase in the share who are upper income was greater than the increase in the share who are lower income. In that sense, these changes are also a sign of economic progress overall.”

The emergence of a highly educated upper middle class, however, is scant consolation to economically insecure working families. This divergence in the economic prospects of college and non-college workers is at the root of today’s working-class revolt against political elites here and across Europe.

Populists insist that the cure for economic inequality is more factory jobs. But is this really what working Americans want?