Those factory jobs weren’t low level jobs either. They provided a living wage and put families on the road to middle class standards of living. My mother in law still collects my father in laws pension as well social security. She barely worked a day in her life. Now we finance our own health insurance plans and barely afford to put our family on the employee plan. Pensions are a thing of the past. Raises are few and far between and job security almost nonexistent. The entire definition of a middle class family has changed. It’s two people working full time and still often struggling. I think the professions are disintegrating, too. Teaching, nursing, professors, even doctors and dentists lack the quality of the past. Less incentive to tackle any of them and school debt for those that do is oppressive.