There really seems to be a wrong angle on this thread. The fact is that it's the MIDDLE CLASS that's not shopping as before, not the "poor".
The middle class has none of the discretionary dollars they have had before. Taxes, health costs and retail prices on everything is going up, while the middle-class income stagnates. So the middle class isn't spending and "shopping" like they used to because then they WILL be poor.
Our economy is being killed because corporations, manufacturers, retail stores, etc. are shutting down every day due to NO CUSTOMERS.
Generally speaking, the rich are doing fine, the really-poor pay no taxes and get many free benefits.... but people better start paying attention to what's happening to the middle class.
It's a robust MIDDLE CLASS that's the stabilizing and saving factor in any civilized, free enterprise country. This is precisely why the middle class is always the target for destruction by the Left, including our own socialist government.
The upcoming election is crucial...(the understatement of the year).
Leni
minutegal, you are quite correct about middle class not shopping, but the real reason is missing in your post.
Manufacturing jobs are backbone of middle class jobs.
Millions of these jobs have been exported to cheap labor countries to increase profits. Basically nothing wrong with free trade, but everything wrong with unfair trade. Our foreign trade pacts are terrible. Try exporting American made machines to Japan or China. There are myriad of obstacles! But their goods come into US with no restrictions. Foreign made cars arrive at US ports by the millions facing no restrictions. The reciprocity for American made cars is not present.
Until the foreign trade imbalance of Trillion dollars every year is addressed, expect middle class to keep shrinking. Importing cheap foreign workers on H1-B visa’s causes more devaluation of middle class wages. But since almost all career politicians depend on the ultra rich donor class, nothing is going to change. The middle class is steadily morphing towards the lower income group.
Certainly the Democraps are quite aware of this... they campaign on helping the middle class so no one will perceive that it is them that are plundering the middle class... the bourgeoisie [although that is really misapplied in the US: the working class is comprised only of the anti-capitalist crowd... if you are satisfied with the capitalist system then you are bourgeoisie.]
This has been a cornerstone of Hildy's campaign theme [which is a vacuous drek full of nothing but empty promises that the proletariat are supposed to enthusiastically embrace.] Of course it is the middle class that works to support this society - the Tea Party - so who else to plunder? Not the rich, which have just what the Clintoons and the Democraps want: wealth.
The Marxist Dems say that they are going to stick it to the oil companies or the big corporations. I asked some Dem 'useful idiots' once: where do the oil companies get their money? They all looked at me blankly for a while; finally I replied: they get it from you standing at the fuel pump... The politicians know you are not informed well enough to understand that when you punish big corporations with taxes, or fines, or penalties, that it is the consuming public that ends up paying that bill!
SO - like the Bolshevics and their lackeys - we all cheer for sticking it to the big guy and then wonder why, in the end, we end up impoverished.