Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up

The New York Times ^ | 25 Jan 2015 | DIONNE SEARCEY and ROBERT GEBELOFF

[Theoria]

The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.

In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.

But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom. At the same time, fewer of those in this group fit the traditional image of a married couple with children at home, a gap increasingly filled by the elderly.

This social upheaval helps explain why the president focused on reviving the middle class, offering a raft of proposals squarely aimed at concerns like paying for a college education, taking parental leave, affording child care and buying a home.

“Middle-class economics means helping working families feel more secure in a world of constant change,” Mr. Obama told Congress and the public on Tuesday.

Still, regardless of their income, most Americans identify as middle class. The term itself is so amorphous that politicians often cite the group in introducing proposals to engender wide appeal.

[Theoria]

As well: The Shrinking American Middle Class

[cripplecreek]

Largely because Washington spends all their time fighting over tax cuts for this group or that group when taxes are only a symptom of the problem.

The problem is too much regulation, too much spending, and too much government.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

UN Agenda 21 at work to eliminate unnecessary human beings.

[Wolfie]

American blue collar labor priced itself out of the middle class. Or more accurately, it priced itself INTO the middle class until overseas manufacturing at pennies on the dollar became a possibility. So it goes.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Jimmah Cahtah proposed the Department of Energy to get us off “foreign oil.”

How many employees does DOE have today ?

[grania]

Uh, no, President Obama. Growing the middle class involves getting out of the way si people can develop their own potential and economic well-being. That involves fewer government programs, not more.

[Sooth2222]

There are actual useful definitions of "middle class" and ones spawned by Political Correctness. I think the NY Times is using the latter, probably because it extracts "values" from the definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

Maybe it's "mean" in the PC world to call someone who works with his or her hands for a wage "working class", but what else is it?

[SMARTY]

The ‘systematic pauperization of the middle class’ has been the Liberals' goal all along... Republicans are too attached to their ‘bipartisanship’ to admit it.

[bray]

The Dem plans are working.

Pray America is waking

[txrefugee]

Legal immigration at an all-time high, illegal immigration given free entry at our non-existent borders, marriage rates falling every decade, education failing at every level….and we expect the Middle Class to survive? The enemies of America destroyed the foundation of the nation and can smell victory in the rubble.

[cripplecreek]

Yeah the DOE blows lots of money on “green” energy crap.

Pretty much every agency out there blows money on every idiotic idea to come down the pipe.

Just this morning I saw that the state department had been trying to get Disney to use the “Frozen” characters to make global warming PSAs for kids.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

That this happens under 0bama is proof that we must give his policies even more chance to succeed. Err....or something like that.

[bert]

you are correct

America benefited from the post war boom resulting from the rest of the capable world being in recovery mode. Once there was a transition from rebuild to competition mode, things changed.

American wages were in fact across the board uncompetitive. Productivity saved the day. Once productivity edge was diminished things really changed.

It is not possible to actually grasp the degree of destruction to cities and to populations from which millions and millions are dead. America had no such problem.

America’s cities have become the problem. The cities are the rug under which the human detritus has been swept. The cities became obsolete but served well as collection vessels for those incapable of coping with the new era

[RayChuang88]

There's only one way to grow the middle class again: the biggest overhaul in income taxation since the passage of the 16th Amendment itself.

Implement the flat tax Steve Forbes proposed in 1996 now, then begin a conversion process that 3-4 years from now phases out the income tax, repeals the 16th Amendment, and replaces the income tax with something like FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 155).

[george76]

Government regulations and excessive , new, fees & taxes kills businesses.

Economic Death Spiral: More American Businesses Dying Than Starting ..

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3246702/posts

[wally_bert]

I’m glad that someone else remembers Forbes.

[PeterPrinciple]

One of the most unique aspects about the American experiment was the ability to move UP and DOWN THE social/economic/political stratus.

For practical purposes, we have lost this and it no longer exists .......

[Diana in Wisconsin]

All by design, Comrades. All. By. Design. ;)

[RetSignman]

The long sought after goal of communism is the destruction of the middle class in America.

It’s well under way.

[Theoria]

Looking back, the 'middle class' in America will be remembered as a aberration of history. The benefits from the post war advantages are over. The rest of the world has caught up and surpassed us in many ways.

Globalization, global wage arbitrage, immigration, debt spending, national debt, taxes, etc will finish US off.