In the 60's, factory workers were comfortably in the upper middle class, easily able to provide for their entire families. In the 60's things were more factorized, industrialized, centralized - more people were earning so more people could put money back into the economy.
Now one factory job, if you don't get laid off after a few months, will not take you out of the lower class.
What happened?
Free-market happened, apathy towards education systems happened, price-gouged tech-schools happened, big business happened, apathy towards R&D programs like NASA happened.
Big business runs the world, have their hands in the FRS, deep in US's FRS, and all nations have it. Scarcity has created a monster, while we could be post-scarcity - and the shrinking of the world may take us there - the big corporate fatties won't go down before a fight. But they will, unless they organize nuclear Armageddon. How? Monopoly of fossil fuels.