jayeff

The US has long been shipping jobs overseas, call it whatever you like. Your second point however is grossly inaccurate.

When manufacturing companies first started closing down plants here, the brave new world of white collar jobs for more money, was the promise made to ease the pain then.

To a very limited extent that promise was fulfilled, but primarily because of natural growth in some industries. Educational standards were not improved: the US still has one of the most expensive, least effective education systems of all the G7 countries. I'm always suspicious of conveniently round numbers, but the US Chamber of Commerce estimated a couple of years ago that it was costing US business $1 billion a year because it could not find qualified staff for many high-tech and other technical positions. Companies either hired from abroad or held back on projects they might otherwise pursue.

In any case, the number of new white collar jobs was always fewer than the reduction in blue collar jobs. Most former manufacturing workers (and school-leavers who in other times would have entered manufacturing) went into low paid service industry or retail positions, or they became unemployed.

So what exactly is supposed to happen next? There is no new wave of highly paid jobs on the horizon and even if there were, what guarantee these would stay at home? And it isn't only the hi-tech jobs that were supposed to be our salvation, going abroad. Printing is done overseas. Companies maintain their accounts departments in other countries. Even architectural and legal research services are sourced outside the US. The trend is surely going to continue. With fewer people on good salaries, we need less of the people in low-paid roles to serve them. Tax revenue declines. That should already sound familiar...