The Pittsburgh Working Class: Unraveled in the Midst of Deindustrialization

Beginning in the late 1960s, Black workers—who often served as general laborers and second and third helpers in the Pittsburgh steel industry—began to feel the first wave of impact from deindustrialization. While only a handful of these first layoffs affected White workers, “a rising sense of instability was creeping into steel work, intensifying its daily dissatisfactions, especially for Black workers” (Winant). At the time, management denied that the plants were in danger of shutting down, but the “shuffling and downsizing of employees sent a clear signal”—one that was just the beginning of the job instability and insecurity that would soon spread among the working class in Pennsylvania, having a particularly negative impact on minorities.

In the words of historian Gabriel Winant, “the social fabric of Pittsburgh has been woven around the steel industry.” Before the transition to a service-based economy that started in the 1970s and 80s, seemingly all aspects of life in Pittsburgh and its “steel town” boroughs were constructed around the steel industry and the plethora of jobs it provided. When the steel industry as everyone knew it collapsed, many other aspects of day-to-day life for the working class unraveled. Economically, men who previously held fairly compensated jobs at the steel mills were left unemployed and without a formal education. They had a few different options: try to secure one of the few jobs available that utilized their blue-collar skills, get “retrained” for a different profession, work entry-level service jobs, or, rely on a combination of help from family/friends and the little governmental support available. Although many workers attempted to receive training for a different job under the 1975 Trade Readjustment Act (TRA), many didn’t get the opportunity because even that program—specifically designed for displaced industrial workers—was “woefully underfunded” (Winant).

Considering the immense economic need of many working class families that resulted from deindustrialization, women began entering the workforce to provide additional income. Notably, because Black men were typically laid off first or for longer periods of time, it was Black women that entered the workforce first (Winant). While the economic need that pushed them to employment is not positive, I do think it is important to acknowledge that, in this context, deindustrialization in Pennsylvania can be viewed as a starting point for dismantling the fairly rigid gender stereotypes of the time period. Even though women often obtained jobs in hospitals because of their “caretaking abilities” and “nurturing instincts,” the fact that they were participating in the workforce in any capacity, for any reason, represents a social shift.

Even with more women participating in the workforce, many families were forced to rely (at least to some extent) on federally funded social services. Although, conservative policies were lowering cutoffs for federally funded food and income assistance programs, in turn making it more difficult to qualify for help. There were also immense cuts to federal programs for childcare and a decreased capacity for meeting the needs of the elderly. As a result, the working class was stressed. They were losing their jobs, struggling to find new ones, experiencing significant shifts in familial structure, fighting for support from the government, and combating feelings of shame when they finally were able to receive very minimal federal assistance. Many members of the working class were struggling with their mental health, and in some cases, this stress even manifested to physical illness.

Winant points out that for areas like Pittsburgh, industrial property was a significant source of tax revenue, so idling of factories was a “fiscal catastrophe [that caused] sharp cutbacks in almost all basic services.” While the weak state of the economy is one explanation for why social welfare was so meager during this time period, I think there also was—and continues to be—a prominent stigma that contributed. When president Reagan visited a Pittsburgh retraining center in 1983, he stated that the program was “an example of hope and effort and self-help” and that it “offered a permanent solution to economic displacement, in contrast to ‘the quick-fix’ of monetary policy.” I think these statements illustrate a widely believed notion that monetary assistance is the “easy way out” and will discourage individuals from helping themselves. The prominence of this way of thinking fueled conservative policies that limited investment in social welfare programs, in turn making them so meager, even when many working-class families were in dire need.