This article is brought to you by the Middle Class Party, dedicated to building a unified America through practical solutions and shared commitment. Our mission is clear: to bridge societal divides and empower the backbone of our nation—everyday Americans. This piece highlights the perilous state of the America we hold dear, now at risk of slipping into obscurity. It underscores the urgent need for the middle class to come together and champion common-sense economic reforms that will enhance the well-being of our country.
But as the years went on, the U.S. started to lose its manufacturing edge.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. manufacturing sector has experienced significant job losses over the past forty years, even as the country has been a major driver of overall employment growth. In June 1979, manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million jobs.
Yet corporations across the country, eager to take advantage of cheaper materials, tax breaks, and lower labor costs began farming out manufacturing and factory work overseas.
This was only exacerbated by presidents, especially the Clinton Administration. President Clinton signed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. which was promised to provide "good-paying American jobs," a rising trade surplus with Mexico, and a significant reduction in illegal immigration. However, the opposite rang true. NAFTA resulted in a net loss of 700,000 jobs in the United States. The anticipated surplus with Mexico turned into a chronic deficit, and economic dislocation in Mexico increased the flow of undocumented workers into the United States that many would argue still continues to this day.
Robert Kuttner, American Prospect editor, remarked that NAFTA, "was less about trade and more about making it easier for U.S. based multinationals and banks to take over Mexican companies."
Case in point, Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary. While he sold Americans on NAFTA and the benefits to the average worker, he later took a job as chairman of Citigroup's executive committee, where one of his roles was buying Mexican bank Banamex for $12.5 billion in 2001.
The NAFTA framework was later used by George W. Bush to design the World Trade Organization, negotiate more than a dozen bilateral trade treaties, and open the American market to China. In fact, within months of its passage, more than 80 corporations, from Walmart to Home Depot, announced plans to shift production to China. This shift to China has resulted in a net loss of millions of jobs in the United States.
And while there was significant job growth, with twenty-two million private sector jobs created, the majority were in retail trade, hospitality, care work, and similar sectors. These types of jobs—similar to those Clinton had fostered as Arkansas governor—lacked health benefits, pensions, and decent working conditions. These positions eventually evolved into the "gig economy," which continues to affect many workers negatively today.
Despite this, Bill Clinton would go on to make tens of millions giving speeches while the policies he enacted caused millions of Americans to suffer. One example was a $285,000 paid speech Clinton delivered at the “China-U.S. Private Investment Summit.”
By June 2019, the number of U.S. manufacturing employment had dropped to 12.8 million, a decline of 6.7 million jobs or 35 percent from the all-time high. Since 1979, manufacturing employment has declined during each of the five recessions, and in every instance, it has failed to fully recover to pre-recession levels.
This doesn’t bode well for the middle class. Wages and benefits from manufacturing jobs once provided adults with only a high school education a path into the middle class and a chance at the American Dream. These have since been replaced by lower-wage service jobs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2031, 63% of all jobs (27.1 million) will offer an average annual wage of $40,698. Meanwhile, 37% of jobs (16.7 million) will provide an average annual salary of $107,988. Nearly all of these higher-paying positions will be white-collar roles, typically requiring a college degree or advanced skills.
But having a degree or advanced skill set doesn’t grant immunity. In 2024, white collar jobs are being offshored.
This practice has only continued in recent years.
In response to challenges such as labor shortages and rising wages due to inflation, companies are increasingly accelerating their efforts to outsource jobs to lower-cost countries. A recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta revealed that 7.3% of U.S. business leaders plan to move more jobs offshore, building on the trend of remote work within America.
The jobs increasingly being outsourced abroad are often middle-class or upper-middle-class positions, such as six-figure earners and college-educated software developers.
And what cannot be offshored now has a far cheaper alternative: artificial intelligence, which requires no benefits, rights, or salaries.
Goldman Sachs estimated 300 million jobs could be lost or diminished by artificial intelligence. For companies, there will be cost savings due to AI. They can deploy their resources toward building and growing businesses, ultimately increasing annual global GDP by 7%.
The loss of manufacturing jobs as well as the offshoring of white collar jobs and replacement by AI will only further contribute to the loss of whatever remains of the middle class. We can’t let this happen.
We need a solution.
We need a voice that not only stands for the middle class, but protects it.
We need a Middle Class Party.