Technology And Middle Class Essay

During 1971, Richard Nixon, an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States, describes that “[for families and people everywhere] productivity...means that the individual worker gets a real increase in his wages, and not just a pay raise eaten away by inflation.” Ever since Nixon’s address to the nation on labor day speech, America has strived and increased rates of productivity, especially in regard to technology and possibly the most constant and obvious issue is that technology hurts the middle class and only benefits the upper class. According to a 2013 study done by David Autor an American economist and professor of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “United States still has two million fewer jobs
than before the downturn, the unemployment rate is stuck at levels not seen since the early 1990s and the proportion of adults who are working is four percentage points off its peak in 2000.” Because jobs are perishing and the unemployment rate has not gone up, it is important to analyze how technology replaced most of the middle class jobs and how this problem can be solved. Currently, such a problem regarding to the middle class is technology, or the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services. According to Federicca Cocco “The US did indeed lose about 5.6m manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010… [in which] a study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University [states], 85 per cent of these jobs losses are actually attributable to technological change — largely automation.” This depicts that the middle and lower classes will have access to fewer jobs which is problematic to the working economy because the productivity is rising yet, the employment rate is the same because of technology. Thus, while the robots tends to hinder the working people of the middle class, technology is especially detrimental to employees of the automation industry. When evaluating this employment issue of the middle class there must be an understanding that, new technology replaces average and low skilled workers. According to David Rotman, a science and business journalist, he has written extensively on chemistry, biotechnology, materials science, and environmental issues states, “fewer people work in manufacturing today than in 1997, thanks at least in part to automation. Modern automotive plants, many of which were transformed by industrial robotics in the 1980s, routinely use machines that autonomously weld and paint body parts -- tasks that were once handled by humans.” Slowly but surely robots are taking over some jobs that were once done by people. The middle class can be put into a category where these types of jobs are the norm. Therefore, since the middle class is losing jobs the middle class is declining economically. Also, Rotman states, “technological progress is eliminating the need for many types of jobs and leaving the typical worker worse off than before.” Jobs are disappearing one by one and individuals in the workforce are gradually decaying. This is to the point where there are more robots and electronic devices than employees in a company. Where most organizations believe robots are more useful than humans. Furthermore Rotman found, “digital versions of human intelligence" are increasingly replacing even those jobs once thought to require people.” The high class educated people made perfected artificial objects that are more productive and accurate than real workers. Which goes to show how technology is destroying most families in the middle class.

In assessing the issue in which the middle class is being hurt, the question arises, if technology is used to make things better and easier...why is it impacting the middle class in a negative way? Analysis by Rotman through an economical and global lense found that, “People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren't keeping up." This is why mid level jobs are being taken so fast in this day of age which is causing the median income to fall. When technology advances it allows for robots to do the average jobs so the corporations pay less for employment, in turn causing technology to be better and more efficient than middle class workers. In addition, productivity is high, yet there is less income and jobs in society for middle and lower class. The Scientific American, an American popular science magazine by which many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have contributed articles in the past 170 years, and is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. The text states, “ Corporate profits have doubled since 2000, yet median household income (adjusted for inflation) dropped from $55,986 to $51,017.” Thus, showing how the productivity level is increasing, but there is less money for individuals in the workforce to attain. This is because of technology and in turn hurting the economy and the middle class financially. Also, the text states, “ Productivity kept increasing while incomes -- which is to say, the welfare of individual workers -- stagnated or dropped.” This displays how not only did employee wealth decrease, their wealth ceased to develop. In the future this middle class issue will affect the United States of America economically in a negative way heavily because the flow of money will be slowed as a result. Plus, robots are more efficient than humans so there are fewer blue and white collared workers. White-collar work are jobs performed in an office, cubicle, or other administrative setting and blue-collar work are jobs that require manual labor. Robots are perfect for the most part, they are engineered to not make any mistakes and can function for a long amount of time. On the other hand, human workers are the opposite. No employee is perfect and they do make mistakes, some worse than others depending on the person and they get tired much faster. This makes businesses more inclined to choose robots over middle class workers to get the job because the businesses want to make the most amount of money possible. So, bosses and CEOs choose technology to run their business because they want profit and could care less about the previous worker’s well being. Christina Larson, a journalist in Beijing who writes about science, technology, and the human side of China’s economic boom. She is currently China Technology Correspondent for Bloomberg News, found that, “a single robot might replace two workers, and possibly as many as four.” Companies realize that they can get more profit by choosing robots over humans because of how much less money that has to be invested in employees of the workforce because of how many people just 1 robot replaces. It will not be long before all businesses realize this and put almost all middle class workers out of work... unless they bring something else to the table that a robot can’t. But, in the end technology will catch up and replace even those people as well. Furthermore, according to Larson, “A robot can be operated 160 hours a week. Even assuming competition from nimble-fingered humans putting in 12-hour shifts.” The advantages to using robots is so clear to companies nowadays that it is not a question anymore whether it matters that the individual cannot find work somewhere else. This situation only hurts the middle class because the high class people are the ones making the decision to replace those average workers.
However, despite the fact technology is the main reason behind the productivity increase and wealth decrease (why middle class is being hurt)there are many other factors that affect the middle class. Many of jobs have been taken out of the US economy by trade deals that let businesses replace American workers with low-paid, often mistreated workers in different places in the world. Bargains like the China/World Trade Association understanding transported employments to that country without making everything fair by permitting it to continue controlling its money. Likewise, corporate administrators who twist the tenets and Wall Street financiers who break the guidelines; their lobbyists, who work to change the standards; and the government officials who change to support them – in state houses, the halls of Congress and in the executive and legal branches (Eskow)this includes democrats and republicans. Despite all of these reasons, technology is why the middle class is being destroyed.
Ultimately, new technology creation harms the middle class.
New technology replaces average workers. Productivity is high, yet there is less income and jobs in society for middle and lower class. Robots are more efficient than humans so there are fewer blue and white collared workers. Despite the potential benefits of technology like better communication, Staying in contact is easier now than it has ever been. You can talk to, video chat with, or collaborate with anybody in the entire world. This has spurred on amazing things, and a better understanding of others cultures. Also, good medical care, A lot of new technology is constantly being developed for the medical field. Surgical procedures and everyday functions have been made so simple and efficient that the level of sickness and accidents have decreased significantly. Furthermore,improving business efficiency, the means of manufacturing goods has also been greatly streamlined plus, major reduce in waste, and lower costs for the consumers. technology fails in giving the middle class jobs. Which only leads to a bigger gap in wealth between the high class and the middle. This will continue until a specific program or solution is set in stone to help this
situation.