Originally written 3/2/2022

At a 2016 political rally for presidential nominee Donald Trump, hundreds cheered as the billionaire briefly placed a coal miner’s helmet atop his head during his speech. The fashion statement invoked the classic image of the American working man: Grizzled, stoic, and white. This image, which once dominated the American landscape, reflects stereotypical blue-collar jobs like construction, mining, and factory lineman. However, this demographic no longer reflects the bulk of working Americans. Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos, wrote in a Guardian article, “the working class shifted from “making stuff” to “serving and caring for people.”” So service industry employees: fast-food cashiers, grocery-store stockers, and clerical workers now formulate the majority of this income bracket. Single mothers, minorities, and recent graduates fill these roles rather than exclusively white, adult men. Yet, the romanticization of white working-class families (think the Conners from Roseanne) rarely carries over to employees in the service sector. Customers instead hold these workers to higher standards, expecting nigh perfect service as the norm. Despite many service workers relying on tips (a noncompulsory choice for the customer), the public derides wage increases to unskilled positions. Neither of these groups receives genuine respect from the wider public or politicians. Traditional blue-collar jobs still exist and fail to support families– mainly stemming from the rust belt. However, all these individuals experience disadvantages in our flawed economy. No group should eclipse the other.

Though I face routine monetary struggles, I’ve afforded a decent dose of privilege in my life. I work part-time at a Costco warehouse, a setting often regarded as blue-collar. My circumstances allow me to maintain a sustainable standard of living while simultaneously paying for college. For many of my coworkers with more responsibilities, though, they barely scrape by. Additionally, my love of Charles Dickens novels, the kids-cartoon Hey Arnold, and the short stories of Raymond Carver– all narratives focusing on impoverished characters- informed my empathy growing up. My family’s financial situation continues to alter, but I’ve witnessed their polarization as income inequality and healthcare remain central in most political discourse. While some amount of inequality will always remain in a capitalist structure, America will never create effective change without class solidarity. Recent events may help knit divided working Americans if they recognize each other’s commonality.

To claim white, blue-collar workers are the only struggling Americans is comparable to claiming breast cancer is the only cancer. Just because breast-cancer patients struggle and maintain a strong advertising campaign doesn’t negate the existence and struggle of other cancer-type patients. We should invest in all types of cancer research, not just breast cancer. Similarly, we should vote for robust policies and regulations that protect the entire-working class, not solely those that maintain parting industries.

America championed its “essential workers” at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the praise waned as workers decided not to return to their companies once the nation returned to relative normalcy. The Great Resignation (as it’s dubbed) led to supply-chain issues and understaffed businesses. The consequences of labor shortages left the broader public– mostly unsavory customers– lambasting the once celebrated workforce. New McDonald’s employees received almost double the minimum wage ($7.25) in parts of the country, which frustrated white-collar professionals whose salaries looked fairly similar. Many politicians accused the stimulus checks most Americans received kept people from working; why work when you can make more sitting at home? But this argument holds little relevancy as most state stimulus checks ceased while the Great Resignation continued.

Current service jobs entail more than just “flipping burgers” or “scanning groceries.” The speed and expansion of the internet encourage Americans to expect more products at lower prices and in minimal time. Service employees live under extreme time crunches, yet these environments are considered normal. Before the pandemic, New York Times Reporter Andy Newman worked as a bike deliveryman for app-based food services. In addition to facing the dangers of the road and meeting disrespectful customers, he received no tip for almost two-thirds of his 43 deliveries (Newman, 2019).

But who is considered the working-class anyhow? No, definitive or widely accepted criteria exist despite many economists’ attempts. It’s instinctive to categorize working-class individuals by income or occupation, but one must remember the variations in living costs across the United States. Living in New York City is more expensive than living in a small Texan town. Many Economists will claim “working class” defines members of the labor force with less than a four-year college degree. Education is a more stable determiner than income or occupation, yet far from comprehensive. Recently elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams described cooks, dishwashers, and Dunkin Donuts workers as “low-skill” in a 2022 press conference. Vox journalist Jerusalem Demsus speedily decried Adam’s description. She argued, “By implying low-skilled workers inherently don’t have the academic chops to do the higher-paid, remote, work-from-home jobs, Adams succumbs to a common error: Believing that skill (not supply and demand for particular types of labor) is what differentiates higher-paid office workers from in-person service laborers.” Demsus later cites a New York Federal Reserve survey showing that about 40% of recent college graduates were underemployed or worked jobs that required no such degree (Demsus, 2021). Furthermore, blue-collar workers hold distinct skills despite their income.  According to a 2018 Washington Post analysis, “Only 13.9 percent of workers are employed in blue-collar professions, vs… 71.1 percent in the service sector.”

In contrast, let’s look at the definition of the middle-class. The Pew Research Center defines the middle class as households earning between two-thirds and double the median U.S. household income: about $48,500 to $145,500 in 2018 (Bennett, et al. 2020). So, one could contend anyone below this income bracket constitutes working-class. Once again, this definition fails to recognize differences in living costs across the nation.

No matter the criteria, it’s clear the definition reaches beyond workers in the industrial and construction sectors. The fundamental issue arises when the public judges employees as lazy or entitled based upon their occupation. Nobody will deny blue-collar Americans “work hard”; they arrive home sweaty, dirty, and often injured. These Americans work in dangerous environments with toxic chemicals or complex machinery, only to return home and barely support their families. If they survive to retiring age, they’ll often develop underlying health issues from their harsh environments. Unfortunately, the public doesn’t recognize the similar health issues plaguing retail and service workers. While the physical labor may not be as intense, spending eight hours dashing across a kitchen or grocery store still wears on the body. These workers are covered in oil burns and blisters rather than soot and callouses.

On top of the physical labor, service employees simultaneously deal with customers while most blue-collar employees work in isolation with one another. Customers expect friendly and obedient service regardless of their behavior. Since their tips reward employees’ performance, customers maintain all the power in the “transaction.” The psychological labor of maintaining an excitable, friendly demeanor for eight hours of physical labor coupled with angry/impatient customers becomes equally exhausting.

So why don’t these employees search for better jobs? As Demsas stated earlier, garnering an education in trade or undergraduate degrees seldom matters if the demand for high-skilled jobs remains low. Even if a worker sought an education, minimum wage pay only affords a citizens’ basic needs. Moreover, these low-wage jobs can’t (or won’t) provide healthcare to their employees. And still, somebody must work these jobs. Nobody can buy groceries if there’s nobody to stock the shelves or unload delivery trucks; nobody can order food if there’s no server to write down your order.

So why, when politicians speak to helping the working class, they only highlight workers in the industrial industry? Truthfully, many of these industries are on the decline. As technology rapidly evolves towards automation and America switches to more sustainable energy, these once mega-profiteering corporations in coal mining, steelwork, and lumberjacking are disappearing. Even highly industrialized farms mirroring factories replace our local agriculture. When we look deeper into Republican politicians, many corporations from these sectors fund these politicians. The money generated from an unregulated market economy supports the dying businesses and their investors but rarely trickles down to its employees. Equally, Democrats – once considered the working-class party– encourage globalizing the economy. Production becomes cheaper as jobs shift overseas, and advancing technology eradicates the need for simple manual labor. Democrats constantly push for cleaner, sustainable energy, eliminating fossil fuel industries. We cannot ignore the existential threat of climate change, yet, this shift leaves employees of the dying industries unemployed and untrained. Blue-collar workers recognize the threat, necessitating votes for politicians who will keep their corporations alive. I feel fossil fuel industries need to shrink significantly, but the government should retrain workers in sustainable industries to counteract the job loss.

Ultimately, pro-worker policies require public support and activism. No politician or party will fix inequality issues unless the public pressures the government, but the public must share common goals beforehand. The working class doesn’t exclusively include white, grizzled blue-collar workers; many more Americans suffer equally. The single-mother waitress, the Hindi postgrad stocking shelves, and the white, grizzled coal miner share more commonalities than with the business CEO-turned-politician playing dress-up. Topical social issues matter but shouldn’t take precedent over financial issues directly impacting Americans. Hopefully, by expanding our definitions, we’ll utilize the opportunities afforded by “the Great Resignation” to shift our conceptions of workers and labor itself. Our careers should facilitate Americans to explore their best lives, not the other way around.

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Bibliography

Bennett, Jesse, et al. “Are You in the American Middle Class? Find out with Our Income Calculator.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 23 July 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/23/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/.

Demsas, Jerusalem. “Stop Calling Workers ‘Low Skill.’” Vox, Vox Media, 11 Jan. 2022, https://www.vox.com/22871812/eric-adams-aoc-low-skill-workers.

Draut, Tamara. “Is This Your Image of the Working Class? You Need to Update It .” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 May 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/09/american-working-class-what-it-looks-like-today.

Long, Heather, and Andrew Van Dam. “Under Trump, the Jobs Boom Has Finally Reached Blue-Collar Workers. Will It Last?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Sept. 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/09/under-trump-jobs-boom-has-finally-reached-blue-collar-workers-will-it-last/. Newman, Andy. “What Our Reporter Learned Delivering Burritos to New Yorkers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 July 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/reader-center/insi