Middle Class 101
One interesting thing about growing old is that you have been a witness to a lot of history. Of course, at that time you usually aren’t aware that what is happening around you will become historic. But, from a distance of 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years you can see a lot of the processes that shape events and create consequences. Also, by having a father that is still alive and almost 90 years old, you can stretch your view of historic change even further. My father was born in 1926, so he was rather young when the Great Depression with its 30% or more unemployment affecting the country began. Heavy government intervention and a whole lot of programs to help put people back to work created a temporary life raft for many affected. During that time, my Grandfather lost his job and had to survive by part-time work, growing their own food and by mutual support among friends and relatives. They were all poor and hung together to make sure that nobody went under. There was not a lot of what was called the middle class and when WWII came along and created opportunity for everyone to work and make enough to survive, things began to look a lot better. My father was drafted into the Navy right after he graduated from high school in 1944 and learned a lot of useful skills for war but not for civilian life.
War creates a lot of change and is very expensive. Taxes on the rich to help pay for war and the availability of jobs to help win the war, created a movement of wealth from the top down to the working classes and helped bring people into the middle class. After the war my father eventually learned enough to become a machinist, what was then called a tool and die maker. It was skilled labor and it paid very well, he was able to get married and start having children. I was born in 1951 and soon after, my father was able to build a house. In the later 50’s a local recession and lack of jobs forced him to move to Utah where he was able to buy another house and 15 acres of a small farm from my mother’s sister. With the cold war fully in swing, there were many government contracts in Utah and plenty of work for his expertise. And, unlike my parents, me and my sisters and youngest brother were able to grow up in a financially secure and happy environment, free from want or need, all products of a strong middle class. (In my next blog I will look at the effects of growing up in the middle class and the aftermath of late 20th century politics to reduce the middle class.) (Below, my mother, Janet, and my father Bernard and me, about 10 months old. Behind us is the very small 2-room house (?) that they lived in while my father and grandfather build their main house from a purchased kit. And me getting a bath outside since the plumbing in the little house was rather inadequate.)
