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"A working class hero is something to be / If you want to be a hero well just follow me"
Trump made an interesting proposal recently to end taxes on overtime wages. I think this proposal is a non-starter for practical reasons, but is still directionally correct. Ending taxes on overtime wages is intended to help the working class. And the working class in America are not being given a fair shake. Our society feels as if it is run for the benefit of retirees and people with fake email jobs. We need to take action to rectify this.
Despite what some people may say, blue collar work is awful. It pays little, it's hard on your body, it's often hourly (so no pay when you take off to go to the dentist), the benefits are typically bad, etc.. While some people can get rich by operating a business providing blue collar services, this is an extremely hard and frustrating path. Is it any wonder that young people only want white collar jobs?
The Democratic Party solution for this is of course more welfare for the working poor. I think this policy is deeply destructive as it disincentives labor, and creates a captive class who are dependent on the government to live. (This might be a feature, not a bug, to some Democrats who envision a permanent ruling majority).
But I think a more constructive way forward is to increase the value of blue collar work. Tariffs help with this, even if they reduce overall prosperity. This overtime proposal is interesting since it only rewards people who are already working more than 40 hours a week. And it will, of course, hit mostly blue collar workers.
And, with that, the party alignment feels complete. Trump is winning among blue collar workers by nearly 20 points, and losing among white collar workers by similar margins. Democrats are promising subsidies for white collar workers such as student loan forgiveness. Trump is promising to reward his own base. Personally, if we're buying votes, I think Trump's proposals are better.
Lowering taxes at all is bad on its face since the government needs more taxes and less spending. It's worrying that neither side really cares about ballooning debt, since it will almost certainly have a far bigger impact on the lives of regular Americans than something like climate change ever will in our lifetimes.
Poor people have been doing pretty well recently, actually. The Gini coefficient has been flat or declining for the past several decades (in FRED's most recent data for 2021 it was lower than any year since 1992). Also, if you want greater incentives for work, bolster the EITC.
I don't buy the notion that blue collar work is uniquely awful. It might be tough on the body, but it also has a relatively lower barrier to entry, and some people outright prefer it. How does capitalism balance the upsides and downsides? With a little tool called "market wages". If blue collar work is so bad, why don't blue collar workers just sign up to get those supposedly worthless, trivial desk jobs? Your argument feels like the right-wing equivalent of "women are only paid 77 cents for every dollar a man earns".
Because they lack connections to centers of powers. Sinecures are not awarded to just anyone.
More specifically, credentialism makes it more difficult for people without rich parents to get fake email jobs.
I've dug ditches and worked in finance. This isn't the issue. Credentialism isn't what is stopping diggers from working fake email jobs.
IMO "fake email jobs" is a bit of a Russell's conjugation: "I have an important role keeping [industry] moving, you work remote as a middle-manager, and that guy over there has a fake email job." Not to say that all such jobs are useful, but I'd bet there'd be a fair bit of disagreement about whether any specific role qualified. People often don't have good visibility into what other departments are doing, and I'd bet nobody considers their job this way, but absolutely does sneer at, say, the accounting department ("it's all just a spreadsheet anyway") or purchasing.
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