Posted on 09/21/2013 10:17:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Do you consider yourself to be "lower class"? Most Americans wouldn't dream of thinking that way. Even at the toughest times of my own life, I always considered myself to be "middle class". Traditionally, the vast majority of Americans have described themselves as either "middle class" or "working class", but now we are witnessing a huge shift. According to survey results that were just released, the percentage of Americans that identify themselves as "lower class" is now at an all-time high. It is still only 8.4 percent of the country, but the fact that this number is rapidly growing shows that something is changing on a very fundamental level. In America today, less people than ever believe that they have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves, and according to a brand new Gallup poll that was just released, 20 percent of all Americans did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over the past year. We have 47 million people on food stamps and we have more than 100 million Americans enrolled in at least one welfare program, and that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. We have gone from a "land of opportunity" to a land where tens of millions of people are being crushed by the system.
When I mentioned above that "less people then ever believe that they have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves", perhaps you doubted that statement.
And I wish that it was not true.
But according to the Los Angeles Times, that is exactly what one new survey shows...
Last year, less than 55% of Americans agreed that "people like me and my family have a good chance of improving our standard of living," the lowest level since the General Social Survey first asked the question in 1987.
And even those that are "educated" are becoming more pessimistic...
From 2002 to 2012, the "lower class" among Americans with one to four years of college more than doubled — from 2.6% to 5.8%.
So what about you?
Would you describe yourself as "lower class"?
Not that there is anything wrong with that. It can be very hard to be optimistic about your economic situation when you are trapped in poverty and everyone around you is trapped in poverty.
Even as Barack Obama boldly proclaims that we are in the midst of an "economic recovery", poverty continues to grow. In New Jersey, poverty hit a 52-year high in 2011, and when the final numbers for 2012 come out it is anticipated that they will be even worse...
Poverty in New Jersey continued to grow even as the national recession lifted, reaching a 52-year high in 2011, according to a report released today. The annual survey by Legal Services of New Jersey found 24.7 percent of the state’s population — 2.1 million residents — was considered poor in 2011. That’s a jump of more than 80,000 people — nearly 1 percent higher than the previous year and 3.8 percent more than pre-recession levels. ”This is not just a one-year or five-year or 10-year variation,” said Melville D. Miller Jr., the president of LSNJ, which gives free legal help to low-income residents in civil cases. “This is the worst that it’s been since the 1960 Census.” And it may get worse: The report warned Census figures for 2012 to be released this month may be higher.
There are two Americas today. In the "good America", stock values are soaring and almost everyone has a job. People from that America openly wonder why everyone is so concerned about the economy.
In the "bad America", unemployment is rampant and poverty is everywhere. At this point, low income households have an unemployment rate that is over 21 percent, and there is not much help on the horizon.
In the old days, if the wealthy wanted to get wealthier, they needed the rest of us to run their businesses and work in their factories.
But today, they have figured out that they can make much larger profits by replacing us with computers, robots and machines. They have also figured out that they can ship millions of our jobs to the other side of the planet where it is legal to pay slave labor wages with no benefits.
This is putting a huge squeeze on average American workers. For most Americans, the only thing that they have to offer in the marketplace is their labor. Unfortunately, that labor is not valued as much as it used to be.
Yes, the elite still need us to do service jobs for them. Those are not easily replaced by technology or shipped overseas. So they still need us to cut their hair and flip their burgers.
But without a doubt we have a structural problem with unemployment. As the Brookings Institution recently discovered, it would take 8 million more jobs before we could say that we have "recovered" from the last recession...
Last month, the unemployment rate fell to 7.3% from 8.1% a year ago. That might signal progress, but the share of workers with jobs was 58.6%; it has remained close to that for several years. The unemployment rate is inherently flawed and isn't the best measure of economic progress; it counts only those with jobs or actively looking for work.
And in a frustratingly slow economic recovery that has discouraged countless workers, it risks ignoring these missing workers -- an estimated 6 million, according to the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.
The Washington-based think tank has come up with what it calls the "jobs gap," or the number of jobs it would take to offset the effects of the Great Recession. Factoring in the millions of jobs lost during the Great Recession and the number of jobs needed to absorb new workers, the nation needs 8.3 million jobs to fully recover from the recession.
And of course the quality of our jobs continues to decline as well. In America today, only 47 percent of adults have a full-time job, and one out of every ten jobs is now filled by a temp agency.
Unfortunately, thanks to Obamacare this trend is going to get a lot worse. Millions more Americans are going to be forced into part-time employment. For example, just check out what Trader Joe's is doing...
Trader Joe's, the grocer once lauded for providing health care coverage to its part-time workers, is about to push those employees off its plan.
According to a memo obtained by the Huffington Post, the company will stop covering employees who work less than 30 hours per week.
The change is set for the start of 2014. Instead of insurance, workers instead will get a check for $500 in January.
"Depending on income you may earn outside of Trader Joe's, we believe that with the $500 from Trader Joe's and the tax credits available under the [Affordable Care Act (ACA)], many of you should be able to obtain health care coverage at very little if any net cost to you," said Trader Joe CEO Dan Bane in the memo.
I wish that there was better news to report, but we have to be very honest about where we are at as a nation.
In order for there to be a thriving "middle class", there needs to be lots of middle class jobs.
Sadly, the number of breadwinner jobs that the middle class depends upon is shrinking.
Unless a miracle happens, the percentage of Americans that consider themselves to be "lower class" is probably going to continue to grow.
So how would you solve this problem?
Well, obviously - - I mean, how low class did America have to be to elect and then RE elect an African communist president?
Low class elects trash class.
Do the grifter nobamas consider them selves to be lower class?
The percentage of Americans I consider as “low class” has reached an all time high in the past few years, as well. And I don’t consider economics in making that assessment.
The elitists encourage the increase in the lower class.
At the peak of the real-estate bubble suddenly my house was worth a mindboggling $256k. That was more than twice what I paid. At the gym one day, a certified *sshole said, “I just bought me three houses to flip this morning.” Here was a guy who didn’t have two nickels to rub together. I went home and put my house on the market. It sold in two weeks, but by the time I closed the bubble was collapsing all over. The buyer’s realtor assured him that our area was immune. (Yeah, sure.) I bought and paid for a doublewide in the woods on the “bad” side of town. My friends were appalled that I’d become trailer trash. But I owned it. Now they’re all buried in houses they can’t afford and they’re losing their jobs. Only one of my former coworkers is still employed where I worked. Have I gone down class? Yes. But I now have 1900 square feet of garage that’s better built than my 2,000 sq ft. doublewide. I’ve never been happier. Depending on how you measure “class” I’m way down on the scale. But then I don’t lay awake at night worrying about how I’ll pay the mortgage, either.
You made an astute decision that will pay off for a long time.
“You made an astute decision that will pay off for a long time. “
But speaking of “lower class,” I shot a six foot diamondback. Blew his head off. It was the size of my forearm for about four feet with the rest being skinnier on both ends. I told the neighbor lady and you’d have thought I said there was gold in the driveway. She sprinted over while speed dialing. There was a flurry of calls, a brief but spirited auction and she was heading off to meet a guy who’d left work early to pick up the corpse.
In the south, that’s a belt, a hat band, rattles to dangle from whatever desperately needs rattles and snake steak. They were quite upset that the head was blown off. I got lectured on aiming behind the head. (You put it in an ant bed until clean, then bleach it and it becomes a coffee table centerpiece.)
Lower class...yep, I be there.
Great news for the have not they love to see the haves become have not they are loaded with hate for the haves and the country it’s why they elect Obama it’s one reason his poll numbers stay at 40%.
That's true. The narcissistic sociopaths who are the only personalities capable of participating in elections under our MSM-driven system simply love the Peronist model, and want it here so badly they can taste it.
I’ve got a small diamond back waiting to be made into pens.
I follow the wise words of my grandmother...you might be broke, dear, but you are never poor.
Not personally, but they've been growing exponentially over the past 5 years or so...
This isn’t the first time you posted this. I remember this story. Great story.
“This isn’t the first time you posted this. I remember this story. Great story.”
Thank you. I figure that with the huge FR audience I’d have mostly new people reading it. It bothered me to sell a really nice house on one acre of woods in a nice neighborhood. But it was the best decision I ever made. Changing my lifestyle to live in the woods was 100% positive. I never hear my neighbors, unless they’re killing deer in their back yards and that’s “mostly” during the hunting season. I have no lawn requiring weekly cutting. No bushes to trim; just trees, trees, and more trees. (My cat sits and waits for the few grass chutes and chews them the minute they show.) The two downs are: dirt road and distance to town. I wash my car frequently and it always looks bad, and I’m 18 miles from the edge of town. That’s a gallon of gas in my Marauder, which I no longer drive. I bought a Jetta TDI “Sportwagen.”
What I learned though is that any house will do. Why do people enslave themselves to live like the Joneses? Nearby Wakulla county is 70% mobile homes and all of their schools are A’s and B’s. But where I live there are only a handful of A and B schools. (A mobile home in an A or B district carries a premium for location.)
good for you.....you have your priorities straight.
they want their pristine wilderness without the peasants camping in their tents and cooking their hotdogs...
they don't want us to have children...
this is where we are headed....
I ask myself that almost every day.
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