How Apple Empowers and Employs the Working Class

AUSTIN, Tex. — During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump complained that America had lost too many manufacturing jobs and promised to force big companies like Apple to bring that work home. “I’m going to get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China,” he said.

For a host of reasons, Apple is unlikely to produce iPhones in the United States. But opening a smartphone factory in this country is not the only way to provide solid employment for working-class Americans who lack college degrees.