Jobs

Last night someone asked why anyone would vote for Trump and I was reminded of something I wrote after the 2016 election. Joe is a school teacher with 20 years on the job. He goes to work every day in rather pleasant surroundings, it’s warm in the winter and cool in summer. He earns the average wage and has a good pension, health insurance, vacation, sick leave, holidays, group life insurance and disability insurance. Every year Joe sees his mortgage go down and his pension go up. Things are good for Joe and he voted for Hillary. Jim worked for Bethlehem steel. He too had a good job with all the benefits that Joe had but then China dumped cheap steal on the market and Jim’s company went out of business. Jim had to accept a job that paid less than half of his old wage and had very few benefits. Every four years some new face would run for president and tell Jim he would bring back the good jobs but it didn’t happen. After thirty years of false promises along came Trump. He was a disgusting person but Jim was willing to try anything. Much to Jim’s surprise his real wages went up for the first time since he lost his steel worker’s job. Jim along with many working people voted for Trump and they now lean toward republicans. Will Trump be able to bring back the jobs that Obama said were not coming back? Only if the country joins in with Trump but don’t count on it.