They used to be low-paying, hard or dangerous jobs of low prestige and respect. Only the desperate, blacks and immigrants could be expected to take them.

But today, the line between 'good job' and 'shit job' has become inflated. Jobs like retail sales or factory worker are no longer respectable, low-level clerical and administrative work is being automated or taken over by minorities and the undocumented. Even skilled labor has dropped in prestige as union membership has declined. Certification schemes and diploma inflation has made highly skilled technical positions impossible to attain by mere experience on the job, you have to get a diploma or a license to do them any more. I have three college degrees and 40 years professional experience as a geographer/cartographer and I can't get a job in my field because I don't have a Master's in GIS..

And now that AI is taking over, mid level management work is being automated, so people like HR professionals and computer programmers will be replaced by software.

The professions? Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects? Have you noticed how more and more often these folks all are starting to have foreign-sounding names? Maybe that's because in this country Math and Chemistry and real technical expertise is too haaaaaard and too booooooring for American kids, who are now studying lunatic disciplines like real estate investment counseling, fashion journalism, or sports marketing. Don't minor in a foreign language or a liberal art, kid. Get your MBA, instead.

Pretty soon there will only be two social classes, Capital and Labor. And that's why we need two political parties.