By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. Public Affairs, 292 pages. Hardback, $26.99.

Both assembly-line and technical and engineering experts continue to watch their jobs move to Mexico, China, India and an array of Third World countries.

Democratic and Republican leaders played a central role in allowing this to happen, with some exceptions, notably the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

Yet most political discussions, such as those during the past election campaign, routinely ignore the real causes and real solutions.

"The Betrayal of the American Dream" is a primer that should be read by all Americans who really want to understand problems in our job market and our economy.

Authors Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, formerly reporters for "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and "Time," currently write for "Vanity Fair." They have won two Pulitzer Prizes.

The future of middle-class America

Several years ago, Apple, America's most profitable corporation, seemed to offer the promise of well-paid and long-term jobs. But Apple "left most of its American workers behind. ... Apple decided to take the money and run."

Today, thousands of Chinese workers toiling in sweatshops under "deplorable working conditions" make Apple products.

"Unlike in the past when companies manufactured in the United States for decades," Barlett and Steele write, "Apple shipped its jobs overseas in less than a generation."

Growing numbers of college graduates struggle to find jobs today, while American executives profit handsomely.

In 1980, the average CEO made 42 times the pay of an average factory worker. Today, the average CEO makes 325 times as much.

As CEOs saw their salaries explode, their taxes began shrinking. In 1980, the richest 1 percent of all Americans paid 47.9 percent of their incomes in taxes. In 2007, they paid 19.8 percent.

Those salaries do not come from the "natural working" of private markets, as many political and business leaders routinely claim. They come from markets the wealthiest crafted and created for themselves, Barlett and Steele argue.

We are witnessing the end of middle class America.

In 1979, our economy reached a "zenith" of more than 19.5 million well-paying manufacturing jobs -- 18 percent of the total workforce. By 2001, there were only 11.6 million manufacturing jobs -- just 8 percent of the workforce.

President Ronald Reagan is famous for promoting deregulation, particularly of airlines when he fired 11,345 federal employees of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO, when they walked out on strike in 1981.

But the initial deregulation of airlines and trucking companies came under legislation Jimmy Carter pushed through Congress. Carter also began deregulation of the housing and mortgage industries.

In an unregulated market, Barlett and Steele argue, big airlines swallowed small airlines. Many went bankrupt.

In 1978, the 10 largest airlines took in 88 percent of all passenger revenue. Today, there are not even 10 airlines left. American, United and Delta control two-thirds of all domestic air travel.

"Deregulation is one of the greatest triumphs of America's ruling class, but for middle-class workers and their families, the fallout has been devastating," Barlett and Steele argue.

In 1999, Bill Clinton played a central role in repealing portions of the Glass-Steagall Act -- deregulating banks, financial services and mortgage lenders.

Passed during the New Deal in 1933, Glass-Steagall reined in bank excesses and prohibited them from risking clients' savings by marketing stocks and mutual funds.

Lost jobs and disappearing income

When today's political leaders talk about how to solve our economic difficulties, they routinely ignore these facts.

Between 2001 and 2008, tax cuts for the wealthy cost the United States Treasury $700 billion in lost revenues.

Companies paying the lowest taxes included: General Electric, Boeing, Wells Fargo and Exxon Mobil. Many companies avoid domestic taxes by setting up overseas headquarters, often based in a post office box, in places like the Cayman Islands.

Between 1952 and 2011, corporate taxes dropped from 32 percent to 7.9 percent of all taxes collected by the federal government.

Today, many of the wealthiest Americans lead movements advocating cuts in programs that help middle-class Americans -- programs like Social Security and Medicare.

But Social Security and Medicare payments play no role whatsoever in creating our current economic problems and federal debt.

Industries central to American middle-class prosperity are shrinking or have disappeared, industries making shoes, clothing, machine tools, glassware, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, televisions, computers and cell phones.

Today, 90 percent of all the roses sold in the U.S. are imported, most of them from Colombia.

The last time we enjoyed a trade surplus was in 1973. The annual trade deficit grew from $6 billion in 1974 to $160 billion in 1987, near the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

The cumulative foreign trade deficit accumulated since 1976 tops $10 trillion.

The number of textile industry workers plummeted from 746,000 to 120,000 between 1984 and 2011, particularly harmful to workers in states like North Carolina.

"Every occupant of the White House, regardless or party, has been equally zealous in selling out workers on trade," Barlett and Steele argue.

Every president -- Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- has vigorously promoted "unrestrained free trade" with countries that pay their workers poverty-level wages and have no laws to protect workplace safety or the environment.

Clinton played the central role in passing the North American Free Trade Agreement, opposed by a minority of senators, including Byrd.

"The sword of Damocles for many U.S. truckers," Barlett and Steele warn, is a NAFTA provision to "allow commercial trucks from Mexico to use U.S. highways."

Legal actions and suits have delayed implementation of that provision.

But Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama have all backed legislation to allow Mexican trucks to cross our borders -- a policy will devastate jobs held by American truckers and threaten road safety because Mexico has such weak vehicle regulations.

Congress, the new book emphasizes, has been "long indifferent to the plight of American workers."

Barlett and Steele also discuss other developments threatening the future of the middle class, including the disappearance of pensions.

Since 1985, U.S. corporations have terminated 84,350 company pension plans, frozen thousands of others and barred new employees from buying company pensions. Today, virtually no new pension plans are being created.

The number of top 100 companies, in the Fortune 500, that offered workers company pensions dropped from 67 to 17 between 1998 and 2010.

"The Betrayal of the American Dream's" is exemplified by the story of the reconstruction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. In 1989, an earthquake damaged the bridge, which had nearly 300,000 vehicles cross it every day.

Then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger played a central role in plans that eventually reconstructed the eight-mile long bridge -- importing steel from China rather than using steel made in the U.S.

In 2010, Schwarzenegger paid a visit to a factory in China praising its workers for making steel used for the new bridge.

Schwarzenegger's cost calculations totally ignored the negative impact of wages not paid to U.S. workers, wages that would have been spent to buy products from American businesses and to pay American taxes.

Multinational corporations and Wall Street analysts "view free trade as a way to hold down wages and increase profits. ...

"In exchange for short-term profits and hefty compensation, they are jeopardizing the country's future," the authors write.

"Congress has largely been on a 30-year holiday from economic reality -- at least as far as the middle class is concerned."

The fascinating and readable book ends by quoting the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis:

"We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy. But we cannot have both."

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvagzette.com or 304-348-5164.