ABSTRACT
In the 1980s and early 1990s an economic downturn and deindustrialization spread across the Northeast and Midwest resulting in the shrinkage of middle-sector employment (Harrison and Bluestone 1988; Levy 1987). Before deindustrialization, manufacturing provided the bulk of middle-sector jobs. As manufacturing jobs moved offshore, those jobs that remained, as well as newly created ones, are mostly in the service-sector. At the high end of the service sector are jobs such as doctors and lawyers; at the other end are low-skill “McJobs” with scant benefits and pay. Unlike manufacturing, where workers may start at low-end jobs and work up to middle-sector jobs, the service industry has no middle layer and therefore cannot provide the same opportunities for upward mobility.
