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Subscribe to Working-Class Perspectives - Working-Class Perspectives offers weekly commentaries on current issues related to working-class people and communities. Contributors discuss a variety of issues, from what class means to how it intersects with race and gender to how class is shaping American politics. We welcome relevant comments of 500 words or less.
For questions or comments about this blog, e-mail Sherry Linkon. For assistance with news stories about working-class politics and culture, call or e-mail John Russo, 330-207-8085. Categories
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The State of the Working Class
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Tag Archives: economic crisis
Deindustrialization as a Template for COVID-19
As we wrote in Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown, Youngstown’s story is America’s story. That’s true now as we try to imagine American life after the pandemic. No doubt, coronavirus is a natural disaster that is more contagious, widespread, … Continue reading
Posted in Issues, John Russo, The Working Class and the Economy, Youngstown
Tagged COVID-19, Deindustrialization, economic crisis, Youngstown
1 Comment
Managing Emigration in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland
One of the after-shocks of the economic collapse of the Celtic Tiger boom in Ireland was the return to high levels of emigration with more than 200,000 Irish born people leaving between 2009 and 2015. While mass emigration has long … Continue reading
The New Precariat and Electoral Politics
During the Presidential campaign, Americans have heard endless discussions about unemployment. But neither candidate has said much, at least not directly, about precarious employment or about the new precariat – that growing group (some would even say the growing class) … Continue reading
Working Hard? Or Hardly Working?
Are you a workaholic? According to the latest research there is more than one kind. Typical workaholics are “pushed” to their work and may suffer from poorer relationships at home and at work, as well as heart attacks and other … Continue reading
Welcome to the Informal Economy
It’s graduation season, and while commencement speakers encourage graduates to work hard and pursue their dreams, most new grads are worried about finding a decent job. All their professors can suggest is that students use internships to gain valuable work … Continue reading
Empathetic Indifference: Why the Democrats Lost
In 2008 white working-class voters in Wisconsin and Iowa gave Barack Obama 52% of their vote – and that was pretty important because in both states, working-class whites were a majority of all voters. In 2010 they were even larger … Continue reading
Posted in Contributors, Jack Metzgar
Tagged 2010 election, Democrats, economic crisis, Obama, politics, working-class voters
6 Comments
Welcome to the Working Class
As the financial industry celebrates its recovery from the Great Recession with huge bonuses, attention has turned increasingly to jobs. But that’s not a new concern: over the past three decades first the working class and then the middle class … Continue reading
Jobs, Ideology, and Policy: Putting Workers First
During the 1980s recession, as steel mills closed and auto plants began downsizing around the country, neoconservative economists insisted that the jobs lost to deindustrialization would soon be replaced by new jobs. In Youngstown then, we knew better. And as … Continue reading
Fixing the Foreclosure Problem
One of the sad legacies of the housing and mortgage securitization bubble and the subsequent collapse of the economy over the past two years is the virtual devastation of working-class neighborhoods throughout the United States. Thousands of homes sit vacant … Continue reading
Budget Cuts Threaten the Working Class
Last fall, I drove to Columbus for a one-day unconference with library technologists. We each took turns writing topics on the board about which we wanted to learn or to share. The attendees separated into small groups according to interests: … Continue reading
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