What do you mean by “before”? Are you talking about the 40s and 50s? So Like 70 years ago? Back before globalization and the growth of 100s of emerging economies? A time when there was no land or housing scarcity issues and we were literally having an industrial boom in this country?

I’ve been hearing daily since I was a teenager in the 90s that blue collar work is dying, and white colllar work is the way to have a decent salary and nice benefits. I am blue collar kid, who much would have preferred doing construction, but I sucker it up went into science and started a career trajectory in the white collar world. Why? Because every fucking day I was told that the life my parents was no longer going to be available to me. Did you not get the same memo?