First of all, you need to define working class. It's used in many different ways for different purposes. The traditional definition of 'working class' has always included white collar jobs, though. Programmers are not new to the idea of being employed for wages.
"What life is like" for programmers is not significantly different than for workers in most other industries. Their lives vary, their salaries vary. Often managers and other administrative jobs will make higher salaries for less work. As with any household in America it is common to require multiple people to work to afford the financial upkeep of a family. You get paid just enough to afford to live where you do; your employer isn't trying to make you rich, it's trying to make itself rich.
How are they different than workers in other industries if they have bosses and don't own their own companies? They get cheap accoutrements to hide long hours, monotonous work and lack of benefits. Mostly this is because managers/execs still think programming is special.
Will the high salaries last? That's almost the same thing as asking if the industry will last. All markets have highs and lows, and right now we're in a high. Eventually there will be a low. This seems like basic economics.
If your question was 'Are programmers the new blue collar workers', the answer is: not yet. We still have a romantic ideal of programmers as special or creative or inventive. Many are already without an alternate skill with which to market themselves, and in 20 years time when the "digital factories" move farther offshore, we'll see the next big bust in the US economy, and 20 years after that all of us will start manufacturing goods for the Chinese.
"What life is like" for programmers is not significantly different than for workers in most other industries. Their lives vary, their salaries vary. Often managers and other administrative jobs will make higher salaries for less work. As with any household in America it is common to require multiple people to work to afford the financial upkeep of a family. You get paid just enough to afford to live where you do; your employer isn't trying to make you rich, it's trying to make itself rich.
How are they different than workers in other industries if they have bosses and don't own their own companies? They get cheap accoutrements to hide long hours, monotonous work and lack of benefits. Mostly this is because managers/execs still think programming is special.
Will the high salaries last? That's almost the same thing as asking if the industry will last. All markets have highs and lows, and right now we're in a high. Eventually there will be a low. This seems like basic economics.
http://www.economist.com/node/12411838
If your question was 'Are programmers the new blue collar workers', the answer is: not yet. We still have a romantic ideal of programmers as special or creative or inventive. Many are already without an alternate skill with which to market themselves, and in 20 years time when the "digital factories" move farther offshore, we'll see the next big bust in the US economy, and 20 years after that all of us will start manufacturing goods for the Chinese.