>Some of my buddies mowed lawns. That work has been taken by immigrants.
>Some worked as helpers on construction sites. Almost no construction going on around here and the few sites use immigrants as helpers.

Bill, these are huge generalizations. Sure, some parts of the country have a larger migrant work presence than others. On construction, my brother owns a construction company and he knows other owners in that industry. They don't use immigrants and they are building nearly year-round.

On the 40-50 year old parents supporting their families with those types of jobs - for five years I taught day and night classes for SetFocus in New Jersey. I had students in those types of jobs during the day and learning SQL/database programming at night. A number of them ultimately gotten better jobs. Was it tough for them? Sure was - and several times I had to help them through the tough spots when they wondered if it was worth it. I was on the phone or video-conference with some until 2 in the morning to talk them off the proverbial ledge. I felt some of their pain. But ultimately many succeeded.

No one is guaranteed anything. Going to quote Frank Herbert here..."'There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles". Sometimes that's the way it is. If anyone has a better approach, godspeed.