Yeah...
...so had coffee with an old high school friend.
She moved back home after losing her job in Chicago. Now living with her parents.
Her dad used to work at the paper mill in Muskegon and so did her brother. The Sappi paper mill. They were a major employer here in town for a century or so. Over 100 years. They employed entire generational lines of Muskegonites.
My friend's father used to make $70,000 a year at the paper mill. He was able to help his daughter go to college at a very prestigious university. She was the FIRST in her entire extended family ever to go to college.
$70,000 a year. He could support his family on a single income. He could afford a modest home in a modest neighborhood. He could afford a modest, not luxurious, living for his family. But he could make it happen without undo trouble.
But the paper mill closed down. The mill that just a few years ago employed hundreds of people, is now shut after a century of operation. A company that survived the Great Depression.
Now my friend's father got a raise at his new job after being there for 9 months. His raise was from $10 an hour to $11 an hour.
Incidentally, that's the going wage for a new manufacturing job. Compare that to the livable wage a factory job used to make.
From $70,000 a year...enough to raise a family at a union job...to $22,000 a year. And his college educated daughter is living in his basement.
These are stories that have some sort of distant, academic flavor to them. Some dude sees a 63% drop in his income. His income is slashed by a third. Factory workers are making a THIRD of what they were making.
And you know what? There's very little actual complaining going on. My friend's father isn't complaining about it too much. He just does what he's always done. He gets up, punches in, and works and then goes home. He's just paid two thirds less than he used to.
We are very close to the point where Not Working and Working are nearly similar in quality of life.
When that day comes...it's going to be very bad for everybody.