system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are economic classes dependent on the type of jobs available? More specifically, to maintain a middle class, do certain types of jobs (manufacturing for example) need to be available.

It’s a very vague question so let me explain. Politically, the issue of a “shrinking middle class” has been a hot one in the US for a long time. I’m not sure if that’s actually happening or not but because it’s a mainstream political concern, let’s assume it’s true. The decline in middle class jobs is often attributed to the decline of industry either through globalization/outsourcing or dying businesses(coal mining for example). 

What I hear as a common solution to this is to simply create middle class jobs. I hear two different ways of getting their that varies in implementation across political ideologies:

1. “Bring jobs back” or reevaluate trade agreements with other countries to support domestic production and, by extension, employment. 

2. Create middle class jobs out of new and growing industries, such as renewable energy production. 

These discussions, in my belief, forms a narrative that a middle class is difficult to maintain without something in between unskilled, low-valued labor that anyone can do but simply doesn’t pay very much, and high skilled labor that pays beyond middle class but isn’t accessible to everyone.
gpt
The relative pay of a job is dependent on the supply and demand of that job. 

Despite what politicians will tell you, there is no way to "bring jobs back" from other countries because most jobs were replaced by technology and capital, not sent over the border. Domestic production is coming back, not because of protectionism or trade agreements but because the technology to fully automate the production of many simple products has become cheaper than even the cheapest labor available. This isn't going to bring back any blue collar manufacturing jobs, just highly specialized technical jobs to maintain the machines.

The problem isn't that there aren't enough 'middle class jobs', it's that the education system isn't keeping up with the economy and giving people the right skills to get the jobs that pay a middle class wage or higher.