Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How did the economic prosperity of the 1950s affect the workforce?

It pretty effectively moved the manufacturing workforce in
the United States from the lower classes to the middle class.  The prosperity, along
with the fairly recent legalization of unions and collective bargaining, lifted the
workforce economically and saw the beginning of benefits, retirement, medical insurance,
etc.


In those days, it was possible for people working
those jobs to earn a living wage, afford their own modest home, and most importantly,
could do so on just one wage, unlike today's largely two-parent
workforce.


As pointed out above, I also believe that this
prosperity and the gains the workforce experienced created an expectation among workers
that they deserved and were entitled to the gains they had made.  Today, almost everyone
who works believes that.

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