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NYC still has lots of working class people. Retail, construction, services, low level office jobs, etc. Obviously someone has to do the work that keeps the city running.
NYC will always have working class people. Cities need working class people to do the work that other classes are not capable, or unwilling, to do. But when did the consensus that NYC may not be the best place for the working class transition become a reality for people. Or has that not happened and it is still just an abstract concept that we like to throw around because we can't understand how people are making it on x dollars an hour?
I'm reading articles that suggest that NYC hasn't been a working class city since the forties. Yet the city remained "affordable", depending on your definition of affordable, at least up until the eighties. So what does "working class NYC" really mean, in that context? And if the shift happened slowly, over an eighty year period, why do we hear so much about how unaffordable the city is today?
Meaning of working class can vary by who you ask; that is some define it by how someone makes their living, others via lifestyle, values etc..
Strictly speaking "blue collar" employment, that is where someone directly exchanges their labor for hourly pay is "working class". OTHO "white collar" employment where you supervise others, are involved in a profession or certain crafts, have a certain skill, make a living from your wits (education), and also held certain values associated with, you were middle class.
Today people tend to focus more on economic level rather than how people make their money. Firemen, nurses, LE, union construction workers, elevator repairmen... the list goes on of persons who are technically working class but are also firmly in the middle because of their wages. Meanwhile you have plenty of "white collar" persons whose income barely puts them into the median, in fact they are often well enough below to be considered poor.
When people say NYC has become too expensive for the "working class", just look at a few figures. The average RN salary is around $80,000 to near or over $100k. Yet just on that yearly wage it can be difficult to afford living in NYC, especially Manhattan. Ditto for NYPD, FDNY, teachers, DSNY, many types of office workers, people working in tourism (hotels) and so forth.
At the end of World War II, roughly half of New York's wage workers made, moved, or maintained physical objects for a living, everything from corsets to skyscrapers to aircraft carriers. In 1946, 41 percent of the employed labor force consisted of craftsmen, operatives, laborers, foremen, and kindred workers, the occupational groupings usually considered blue collar. Another 12 percent were service workers, many of whom performed manual labor: domestic servants, firemen, janitors, elevator operators, and the like.
In 1950 seven of the nation's ten largest cities had a higher percentage of their workforces engaged in manufacturing than New York did. Nonetheless, in absolute terms New York City had a goods-producing economy unprecedented in size, output, and complexity. In 1947, New York had more manufacturing jobs than Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Boston put together.
That was actually what prompted this thread. Good resource.
It is important to look at what sectors of manufacturing were in NYC to determine where and why they have shrunk.
By 1940 some 60% of the NYC workforce was involved in manufacturing. Today that number is down to around <20% IIRC.
By far the largest sector of manufacturing in NYC was the garment industry. Those jobs once plentiful from Maine through New Jersey began moving further and further south each generation in search of cheaper labor and better overall economic conditions (taxes, zoning, etc....). You can still see traces of former garment/textile manufacturing in Maine, MA, New Hampshire, etc...
New York and New Jersey received a large bulk of those jobs fueled by large numbers of immigrants from Europe, Syria, and in some places like Union City Latino/Hispanic (in that case Cuba).
The garment industry is very labor intense and thus subject to high employment costs. Manufacturing had already begun moving to the South in search of cheaper (and often non-union) labor. By the 1970's and 1980's helped along by various treaties and so forth things began to move to first Mexico than onto Asia or India.
Other shoe that dropped regarding manufacturing in New York City were changes in zoning in response to various issues (complaints or whatever) that made building new factories within Manhattan and other parts of NYC nearly impossible.
Turtle Bay area of Manhattan for instance was once a dirty, nasty area of manufacturing, slaughter houses and other industry. If you have seen old films (pre-1940's) of the area it looked much different than today. All that was cleared away for the United Nations, Tudor City and what we see over there today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Bay,_Manhattan
All this being said New York City like many other places still has plenty of working and blue collar jobs. Especially if you go by textbook definitions of what jobs/persons go where. It is just that due to various influences (unions, high cost of living, etc...) the wages and benefits paid often make such jobs seem anything but working class.
If you punch clock, work for someone else on salary, have a non or low skilled job and so forth you are working class. Cleaners in union hotels of NYC are working class, but they make nearly $70k per year and have excellent health and other benefits. Plumbers, electricians and other licensed tradesmen are also working class but they can and often do make *very* good money.
By that definition working class individuals should be able to make a go of it in the outer boroughs if they cannot afford to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Particularly those making 70k. I wonder if the "working class" arguments people give for New York being unaffordable has more to do with the service class, those making $15 an hour or less. Or not necessarily because of hidden costs someone making 70k cannot always account for?
The reason I ask is because on some of the earlier threads one person will say that 100k is middle class and another person will say something along the lines of 'you're crazy, I make it on 30k I just budget really well'.
By that definition working class individuals should be able to make a go of it in the outer boroughs if they cannot afford to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Particularly those making 70k. I wonder if the "working class" arguments people give for New York being unaffordable has more to do with the service class, those making $15 an hour or less. Or not necessarily because of hidden costs someone making 70k cannot always account for?
The reason I ask is because on some of the earlier threads one person will say that 100k is middle class and another person will say something along the lines of 'you're crazy, I make it on 30k I just budget really well'.
If you believe the noise about "affordable" housing (including preserving and expanding rent control laws) you'd believe that the City does want to keep "working class" New Yorkers in Manhattan or at least the City.
However when you look at the high and low income limits for lottery apartments things are different.
Very little "low income" units have been built. What has happened is a great number of apartments geared towards the median of a particular area (using federal guide lines IIRC). So it breaks down not by what one does or particular class, but total household income in relation to size.
Probably the best fictional depiction in recent memory of a working class New Yorker would be Archie Bunker.
As a longshoreman AB earned enough to own his own home and supported a SAH wife and mother along with one kid; but everything about Archie Bunker screamed working class at that time. From his political and social views right down to his behavior and pass times such as bowling.
Though not in NYC but along those same lines you have another fictional depiction, this time of the middle or even upper class; Frasier and Niles Crane. Though the brothers were born into working class (their father was in LE), they did everything possible to get up, out and distance themselves from their "common" origins.
One of the best episodes of their past coming back to bite Frasier and Niles in the behind is when contractors are hired to work in Frasier's apartment. Not only did a few of the guys turn out to have bullied the Crane boys in school, they as "laborers" or working class now make just as much (or more) money than the Crane boys who are doctors. Nile's jaw drops when after bragging about his BMW the plumber starts talking about his which is a better (and more expensive) model. When the guy goes on about how his son has an eye out for an even more expensive TOL model, that is more than Niles can take! *LOL*
Again point is labels like "working" or "middle" class are rather fluid IMHO. There are contractors/tradesmen doing work in white glove co-op buildings on the UES that earn as much as some of the persons who employ them. They however would never be approved to buy into such a building despite their income.
When people say NYC has become too expensive for the "working class", just look at a few figures. The average RN salary is around $80,000 to near or over $100k. Yet just on that yearly wage it can be difficult to afford living in NYC, especially Manhattan. Ditto for NYPD, FDNY, teachers, DSNY, many types of office workers, people working in tourism (hotels) and so forth.
Except with all the high paid public workers, private unionized jobs, etc. the median household income (including many two-income households) in New York City is $53k/year. There is a mass of blue collar jobs that have been lost in NYC, and an increase in high paid white-collar jobs.
One of the best episodes of their past coming back to bite Frasier and Niles in the behind is when contractors are hired to work in Frasier's apartment. Not only did a few of the guys turn out to have bullied the Crane boys in school, they as "laborers" or working class now make just as much (or more) money than the Crane boys who are doctors. Nile's jaw drops when after bragging about his BMW the plumber starts talking about his which is a better (and more expensive) model. When the guy goes on about how his son has an eye out for an even more expensive TOL model, that is more than Niles can take! *LOL*
The plumber was a master plumber who owned his business though, not a "laborer". Probably considered himself "working class", but he was at the top of it.
Except with all the high paid public workers, private unionized jobs, etc. the median household income (including many two-income households) in New York City is $53k/year. There is a mass of blue collar jobs that have been lost in NYC, and an increase in high paid white-collar jobs.
When you break that down things fall along the lines of those with college, post graduate degrees and or otherwise highly skilled professionals are earning; meanwhile those without such qualifications and or a marketable skill that warrants high wages aren't doing that well.
Remaining with professional nursing as an example that profession has gone from vocational/technical to highly skilled. As such pay as risen but many still feel for what nurses do they are not adequately compensated.
This is reflected in the fact at one time a newly licensed nurse with just a two year (technical) college degree (ADN) had no problems finding work in NYC with pay not that much different than a BSN degree nurse. Now most if not all large hospital systems in NYC want BSN as minimum for being hired.
Will agree with you that on balance NYC has lost manufacturing and other blue collar jobs. Will go further to say those jobs aren't coming back anytime soon, if ever. NYC and NYS is just too unfriendly business and manufacturing wise for a host of reasons.
Even if manufacturing did return to NYC in any large way the positions would not be what they once were. Much manufacturing jobs now require a vastly different educational background and skill set than say our grandfather's or great-grandfather's day.
The plumber was a master plumber who owned his business though, not a "laborer". Probably considered himself "working class", but he was at the top of it.
It's also just TV. In real life, what's the income distribution for plumbers (even master plumbers) and what's the income distribution for psychiatrists?
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