My hometown ”” Port Clinton, Ohio, population 6,050 ”” was in the 1950s a passable embodiment of the American dream, a place that offered decent opportunity for the children of bankers and factory workers alike.
But a half-century later, wealthy kids park BMW convertibles in the Port Clinton High School lot next to decrepit “junkers” in which homeless classmates live. The American dream has morphed into a split-screen American nightmare. And the story of this small town, and the divergent destinies of its children, turns out to be sadly representative of America.
It is wrong to base the status of we the working class on a single old town with outmoded 1959 manufacturing based economics. While small town factory jobs are crumbling they are screaming for workers here in High tech area of Portland Oregon. I do not have a college education and make 2.87 time more than 1959 minim wage( converting my wage into 1959 dollars ), in an 40 hour work week, testing computer equipment that will be built in China than Mr J 70 hours in a hot factory. I bet today a person working in Wal-Mart make the same amount as an unskilled factory worker.