Posted on 09/26/2016 3:53:11 PM PDT by Lorianne
In 1971 70% of Americans were middle class. A clear majority. Today the middle class is now a minority. It is interesting that within one generation we have pushed the middle class into minority status yet most people still think they are middle class when the data clearly states otherwise.
This misperception is probably at the root of a lot of the political anger this year. If everyone is middle class and you are struggling, surely it is the system to blame. Forget about the cronyism on Wall Street and the deep capture of big money in D.C. – the answer is simple. The politicians are wrong and there is a simply solution to be had. There is no easy solution unfortunately and that is why anger is the currency of the day.
We have a deeply held belief in America that if you work hard enough, anything is achievable. This is something built into the core of our nation. If you go back to the Great Depression, while other countries were overturning systems and shifting deeply held ideology, Americans held steady and went out and voted. But people think they are middle class if they make $22k or $200k. The median household income in the U.S. is $56,000. That is the middle. Let us look at the figures here.
Middle class perceptions
The media has a distorted perception of what the middle class is. There have been politicians saying that $200k is middle class. That is absolutely not the case. And the media also makes it a point to rarely talk about income because they have started to wise up. Many people don’t make that much. Bring that to their attention and they may not buy all the products you are pitching.
(Excerpt) Read more at mybudget360.com ...
^^This^^
The definition of middle class is entirely dependent on where one lives. 56K/year in the mid-west is not the same as 56K/year in California.
Interesting how the author is so focused on money and material things. When I grew up in the 50s the term middle-class was more about complete family. War widows and their kids were only gratuitous middle class. Divorced and single parent households were lower class.
Money was part of the definition. But it was not the single focus of the author.
The definition of middle class changes with what is politically expedient at the time.
I made over 100k in the bay area, but with all the taxes and the cost of living, I didn’t live that well unless I wanted to live on credit.
I believe in luck, I find that the harder I work the luckier I get.
Actually how you live. It depends on taxes and the cost of living.
You must be from that town in Minnesota, where all the students are above average?
“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
The first marriage lasted 30 years and produced good kids and grand kids. Since she had no debt, she's living well on my pension.
Finally after many years I too have no debt and only minor bills. I am recovering, but don't have enough years left to get back up to "middle class."
I’m so sorry. 30 years is a long time.
I’ve been up and I’ve been down. Really down thanks to 2008! I feel for you, truly. Hang in there.
Funny how that works, eh?
Yes! Middle-class is much more than money. Typical of a modern-day author!
Without a middle-class in terms of values and monetary security, there is NO society.
Pathetic article. Class isn’t simply about annual income.
Put a plumber and a senior-level nurse together in a household and you have your $200K of income—but yes, they are “middle class”. (Actually “lower middle class” at that.)
I like that we all like to pile into the middle when considering where we fit with our fellow Americans.
Here in NJ the taxpayers are fleeing, and being replaced by foreigners who have no interest in paying government workers; that is why we are descending into Third World status in terms of our infrastructure.
the kind of people I myself represent in Parliament - salary-earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on. These are, in the political and economic sense, the middle class. They are for the most part unorganised and unself-conscious. They are envied by those whose benefits are largely obtained by taxing them. They are not rich enough to have individual power. They are taken for granted by each political party in turn. They are not sufficiently lacking in individualism to be organised for what in these days we call "pressure politics." And yet, as I have said, they are the backbone of the nation.Simply. The upper class considers their future secure, the lower class take no heed of the morrow, the middle class knows they have to plan for it.
Not surprising at all.
The communists have always hated the bourgeois, and as a key goal, the destruction of the class.
Those communists have been running the country for nearly a decade now, and they’ve been working hard to destroy the bourgeois, also known as the middle class.
Marx & Engles hated the middle class.
Mark
My dad was making $12/hr plus he got a $10,000 bonus and a free car from the family business back in the 1970’s. We had a big house by a creek and pond. The house was custom built for about $43,000 in 1962. Today the house is valued at about $450,000 (Minnesota)
High taxes and inflation make reaching and staying middle class difficult now.
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