Posted on 01/19/2017 6:00:52 AM PST by expat_panama
The American middle class is disappearing. We hear it from everybody. Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) focused throughout his campaign on what he termed the “disappearing middle class” — disappearing, Sanders said, thanks to income inequality. Sanders explained, “If you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, you know what, we’ve got to transfer that back if we’re going to have a vibrant middle class.” From the other side, Donald Trump has echoed the same message: “The American worker is being crushed. . . . The great American middle class is disappearing.”
No matter the messenger, the message is the same: Those in the middle of the income spectrum have been squeezed out, and the beneficiaries have been those at the top...
...demagogues on all sides of the political aisle insist that Americans are living worse than they did years ago, or that they’ve stagnated in their progress. Never mind that they have nicer things, that they live longer, that their lives are easier, that they even live in bigger houses — the median size of a new home in the United States is 2,467 feet as of 2016, a 61 percent increase over the past 40 years.
No, Americans must be having it rough.
Part of this perception is the tendency to romanticize the past... ...and that only government can fix that problem. Government can’t fix that problem, because that problem doesn’t really exist.
Government can only exacerbate that problem by destroying free markets that make better products more cheaply available, inhibiting the free movement of labor, and insisting that artificial redistribution of income can substitute for the free exchange of goods and services.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Source: EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis data
This appears under each graph. Note that the source is not just BLS but EPI's analysis of an analysis. What the hell is that?
Unfortunately if you want to get any perspective in economic news these days you have to use these types of sources. All of the MSEM(Main Stream Economic Media) outlets are totally in the tank for the globalists and the Cheap Labor Express. ALL OF THEM.
Leo W. Gerard
United Steelworkers
Gerard is the international president of the United Steelworkers.
Mary Kay Henry
Service Employees International Union
Mary Kay Henry is international president of Service Employees International Union, where she has worked since 1979.
Lawrence Mishel
Economic Policy Institute
Mishel held a number of research roles, including as a fellow at the U.S. Department of Labor, a professor at the Cornell ILR School, and an economist for several unions.
Debra Ness
National Partnership for Women and Families
Ness worked in numerous capacities at the Service Employees International Union and the National Abortion Rights Action League.
Anthony “Marc” Perrone
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
Perrone is the international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
Christopher M. Shelton
Communication Workers of America
Christopher M. Shelton currently services as the president of the Communications Workers of America.
Dennis Williams
United Auto Workers
Dennis Williams was elected UAW president in June 2014
It is unfortunate the all the major economic media outlets are in the tank for the globalist cartel
Nothing says "fight the globalist cartel" like a bunch of big liberal unions. DERP!
If they would just acknowledge that there are big losers in the Free Trader globalist economic model that protectionist nationalistic approach to economics is not only viable it was the model for the first 150 years of this countries existence. This would be a start. They can't even do that. Our esteemed economic gurus in the MSEM might pick up a history book for once and actually expand their myopic view of the world.
You are free to build charts and data to refute the claims made. It’s not like the Main Stream Economic Media (MSEM) is that interested. Heck it may exist some where now. Go for it! Find us the data that show wages are increasing and the middle class is thriving. Do it. I am lazy spoon feed me.
Ben is nothing more than a globalist shill who spent the campaign trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. Secondly economic data has been cooked by the government for decades now, but when you review unfakeable data like white male life expectancy it’s declined over the last 10 years despite massive improvements in healthcare. Ben doesn’t give a damn about such things because he’s getting big fat checks from free traders to write his propaganda.
Ben,
Little piece of advice. You seem like a bright young guy.
Get the hell away from the Beltway once in awhile and spend some time in Flint or Toledo or in the Mon Valley.
D.C. is like Disney World. It’s not real.
He’s a never Trumper through and through.
He’s on the local radio in the morning. He never endorsed Hillary but he clearly wanted Trump to lose.
I noticed that he compares 1967 household income to today, adjusting for inflation.
However few Women worked in 1967 compared to today. I.e. He forgot to point out that it often takes 2 incomes for a family to be considered middle class compares to 1 income 50 years ago.
Some progress Ben.
OK w/ the bright young guy part but who's Ben?.
The author of the article you posted.
Commielib BS doesn’t have to be refuted on FR. It needs to be laughed at, and the people who post it (who all, without exception, have always been protectionists).
EPI is a left-wing think tank. It took the BLS data and added its special sauce. Generally, EPI favors big gov addressing whatever is making the sky fall that particular day.
George Washington was a protectionist, you on the other hand are douche bag.
You sir, are not George Washington, by any stretch of the imagination.
When you trash protectionists you are trashing every founding father I can think of.
I find it difficult to imagine that many Founding Fathers, if alive, would rely on EPI as a foundation to make an economic argument.
Again you dodge the issue. Every founding father would be in favor of what Trump is doing. You would be a shunned mercantilism supporter. Hated by them.
Again you dodge the issue. Every founding father would be in favor of what Trump is doing. You would be a shunned mercantilism supporter. Hated by them.
Discussing what you have posted on this thread is not a “dodge,” unless your original post was the dodge. And, as I have stated countless times in the past, “saving high-paying jobs” is the phrase you hear from our contemporary politicians (Repub and Dem alike). I’ve never seen Washington or any other FF use that term.
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