From CNN's Carol Costello and Ronni Berke
Danny Borden has been a steelworker in Cleveland, Ohio, for the past 32 years. But last month, he was laid off from his job at the Arcelor Mittal plant. It wasn’t the first time he was furloughed. This time, he has a feeling he won't be going back to work.
“Angry?” he asks. “I'm very angry, you know, but I just can't let the anger get to me.” Along with his job, Borden lost his his way of life – the daily freeway drive, the banter with co-workers he’s known for decades, and of course, his economic status.
“I don't see no middle class. Is there a middle class now? I don't see it,” Borden says. “I see myself as fortunate, but I really don't see myself as middle class.”
Is Borden right? Is the middle class extinct?
“What you have is real fear,” says Paul Sracic, head of the Political Science Department at Youngstown State University. “You’re in a point of transition. The manufacturing jobs that have traditionally been here and been available to people, everyone knows they’re not going to be there anymore. I think people would be a bit more secure though if they had some confidence that something was going to be there to replace it.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1980, 21-percent of the nation's jobs were in manufacturing - the bulk of good-paying middle class jobs. Today, just 9-percent of jobs are in manufacturing. As some economists say, that puts the middle class in a massive economic black hole.
Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, says, “we have to start creating jobs and we have to work on creating good jobs for people so they can start earning good family paychecks and increase their consumption based on that.”
But, Borden doesn't see that happening in Cleveland. He says it will be hard for a fellow coming out of high school these days to find a job that would enable him to buy a car, a home and raise two college-bound kids.
“I hear everybody talk about jobs but where are they at? Because they're not up here, so I don't know where they would go,” Borden says.
He’s been hearing about "green jobs" replacing manufacturing jobs one day. But, those jobs pay around 12 bucks an hour-60 per cent less than what someone like Borden would make in the plant. It may be too late, he adds.
“The blue collar jobs are gone, and they’re gone overseas. And we’re giving the people that take the jobs overseas, we’re giving them tax breaks and all kinds of money to ruin America. That’s the way I look at it, so we’re rewarding everybody for taking American jobs away.”