I sometimes discuss issues of the day with my erudite, learned mother. There is one discussion that she doesn’t get (having been retired some few years now.) She doesn’t understand that education is no longer a direct pathway to middle-class comfort, as it was for her and hers.

The middle class is being winnowed out in front of my middle class eyes. Although pushing on in years, my career is underdeveloped enough that this collapse is not something I will watch in the rear view mirror. This is my life. Heaven only knows how my kids will need to respond to the Big One earthquake…

I was taken to write today reading this data-driven Medium post. There are plenty others of them, not least referenced in my Future of Work posts. My honest reaction, usually: “Oh Shit.”

“Oh shit.” “‘Both middle + high-skill jobs are being steeply replaced with low-skill jobs” https://t.co/ybYgjcgAaN pic.twitter.com/Ow0iIHqc02

— Jonathan Anthony (@ThisMuchWeKnow) August 30, 2015

However, all is not lost (yet). I am a pragmatic optimist. The genesis of the TMWK blog – and most of its content – is my own inner dialogue of what is going on around me (macro), and what I can do to respond to it (micro), embrace it, wrangle it, and eventually (optimistically) win the day!

Tomorrow, I will share an idea about how I am responding, to take ownership of this predicament.

Middle class for the win!

←This Much We Know.→