PPI - Radically Pragmatic
  • Donate
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Locations
    • Careers
  • People
  • Projects
  • Our Work
  • Events
  • Donate

Our Work

Holzer for The Hill, “The Path to a Strong Middle Class Moves Forward, Not Backward”

  • June 5, 2017
  • Harry Holzer

To be elected president, Donald Trump rode a wave of anger and disillusionment among white non-college voters who are bitterly disappointed over their recent economic experiences and hopeless about their futures.

Trump exploited their anger brilliantly, feeding them false hopes that he would restore their lost jobs in manufacturing and mining, thus resurrecting the pathways that once enabled Americans with only a high school education to join the middle class.

But this plan will fail. The new digital technologies and market forces that enable goods to be manufactured much more cheaply by machines or foreign workers cannot and should not be reversed; any remaining manufacturing jobs will be far fewer in number than before and require much more technical skill than most workers in these industries ever had.

Continue reading at The Hill. 

Related Work

Budget Breakdown  |  July 3, 2025

Passage of ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Renders Republican Deficit Hawks Extinct

  • Ben Ritz Alex Kilander
Blog  |  July 2, 2025

Senate Republicans Go Nuclear to Blow Up the National Debt

  • Ben Ritz
Op-Ed  |  June 18, 2025

Weinstein Jr. for Forbes: It’s The Early 1990s Bond Market Again

  • Paul Weinstein Jr.
In the News  |  June 18, 2025

Ritz on SiriusXM POTUS: The Julie Mason Show

  • Ben Ritz
Podcast  |  June 18, 2025

Ritz on The New Liberal Podcast: Breaking Down the Big Beautiful Bill

  • Ben Ritz
Podcast  |  May 21, 2025

Ritz on the Concord Coalition’s Facing the Future Podcast: Is Trump Repeating Biden’s Mistakes?

  • Ben Ritz
  • Never miss an update:

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
PPI Logo
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Donate
  • Careers
  • © 2025 Progressive Policy Institute. All Rights Reserved.
  • |
  • Privacy Policy
  • |
  • Privacy Settings