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Edward Mcclelland's RIP, The Middle Class: 1946-2003

561 Words3 Pages

Many people will tell you now that the middle class used to be a thing. After many events the middle class has begun to decline and these events aren’t recent either. After events like, the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973, the union busting of PATCO and the types of jobs we used to have in the states around that time. Edward McClelland agrees in his essay “RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013” he illustrates a lot of the events and the people responsible for the decline of the middle class. Edward says that in 1970s it was possible for a high school graduate or even a drop out to get a job on an assembly line and earn more money than a high school teacher. (McClelland, RIP: The Middle Class 1946-2013) I agree with Edward that the middle class isn’t really a relative term anymore. The Arab Oil Embargo in 1973, really affected the middle class after the price of gas raised from 36 cents to 53 cents and while this happened Nixon lowered the speed limit to 55 miles an hour and introduced the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Law, which gave automakers until 1985 to double their fuel efficiency to 27.5 miles per gallon. Doing this causes auto industry jobs in the United States to get shipped overseas. “The Arab Oil Embargo would lead to the downfall of the American auto industry, whose generous wages and benefits set the standard for the …show more content…

Workers can setup strikes as a form of protest for improvements in their work environment but in 1981, Reagan fired the striking members of PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization). He claimed that the strike they were in was illegal. Doing this significantly put a hold on unions and strikes because of the fear of getting fired. Before PATCO, 300 strikes a year would happen, now there is about 30 a year. (McClelland, RIP: The Middle Class 1946-2013) I believe after this event the idea of unions are obsolete. You are not prone to find a union in much of the jobs we have

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