The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.
So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and “free trade” that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn’t tell us that the “global economy” would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough
Found by QB.
#29–Father==ECA is certainly saying more than your dismissive review. I earned Big Bucks in my career and often thought about life as a coal miner or farmer or galley slave in the Roman Navy or assembly line worker etc. who made LESS BUCKS. I marveled at the “unfairness” of it all and even in hindsight would say that if the salary structures were reversed, and my career path was structured to get paid less, while those other careers got paid more, I WOULD NOT CHANGE CAREERS.
Psychic Income. Job Satisfaction. Enjoying what we do and who we work with.
One of the top 10 lies our society pushes is that highly compensated individuals are “worth it” in any sense of the word. Yes, its how the capitalist system absent appropriate regulations is currently running, but it need not be that way.
Think outside the sewer and try a little creativity, try to tell shit from shinola and in counterpoise to your summary of ECA==stop thinking you are worth more than anyone else.
Bobbo,
I well know the variation in pay that is available, and that that variation is not completely coorelated with “skill”.
I know people with HS level education that today earn well in excess of $150,000 per year and do practically no work yet suffer in difficult situations. I also have met homeless people with degrees who have lost their way, and wish they could find their way back.
Idealy we would all do what we want, but that isn’t the point of work. We are paid to work because our time is worth something, and the job is worth doing. If you wanted to work for free, that is your business.
The point is that we all can continue to try in the face of failure, or we can give up. The freedom of choice is ours.
How dare you criticize my tone, when you are frequently, and on average, much worse than me.
Ready==social studies repeatedly show that careers/income/success are only weakly positively correlated to intelligence.
Your own experience in life must have revealed to you some pretty stupid successful people? Some pretty smart low performers?
Yea, verily!
Too many of the rich and successful people I have known were characterized by a very simple philosophy/mind set: if you are helping me to make money, then you are my friend. If you are hindering me in any way, then you are my enemy. Run thru your personal expeirences and see if that isn’t as true/more true than your rather naive cause and effect.
#32,
uNIVERSITY, is for those people that THINK they will make more money then OTHERS. Doing a JOB for money, rather then JOY/happiness/willingness.
Going to school, college/University should be to KNOW MORE, KNOW what you WISH to know.
And how many in the past, went to 6th grade and made millions? Can you say Edison. DO I NEED, to give you names? or do you know some of them?
Further education SHOULD BE for your Own education. When I heard that HOME ECONOMICS was a college course, I laughed.
Doing this 1 thing would increase the value of our Dollar, Force companies to SELL BETTER products(crap costs as much as good products), regulate Business and corps, and NO ONE would be working min wage.
Father==stuck in your rut eh? I didn’t comment on your “tone” but rather the net effect of your comments.
Working for free is your own red herring, no one else mentions it.
Yes, we all have freedom of choice but only WITHIN THE MATRIX provided by our overlords. I see no reason at all while coal miners who exchange their TIME and their HEALTH should not get a kind of “combat pay” if you will upping their income over the pick and shovel skills required.
I would never be a coal miner, nor a football player. My health is worth too much to me. Those jobs could be paid twice mine and I would not complain as I would retain the free choice to take those jobs should I wish the trade. The problem today is a misallocation between labor and capital wherein the worse jobs are also paid the least.
Surely you can take one step towards ECA and see that our system does not allocate risk/reward in the most equitable way possible?
Or is the contested jungle your only frame of reference?
Bobbo,
Your thinking doesn’t interest me. I will go back to skipping your posts.
ECA,
You are, of course, free to believe and spout whatever you want.
Father–as your free will and lack of insight permits.
The logic is hard to believe. it is.
Forget min wage.
Make a MAXIMUM WAGE. and let everyone have it.
Everyone needs enough money for Bills, home, car, fuel, utilities, insurance(we can debate that one NEXT). Then alittle spending money.
any more and its a waste.
Look at detroit. then wonder HOW taxes in that city got so HIGH. Then think of the workers in that area, that HAD EXTRA MONEY.
Either the CORPS want it, or the Gov. wants it.
If everyone makes about the SAME, then the WHOLE economy is based on workers salaries, NOT ROBBERY.
Everything has to Balance according to the WAGE everyone is getting.
YES, there are ways to improve your life and live in a bigger house…GET OTHERS to move in with you and SHARE IT.
ECA–care to go back and answer the question at Post #31 or continue on your way of being an equal match for Father?
It’s all trickle down economics guys and gals. And we all know what runs downhill!
I still remember that the “service economy” was going to take care of all of us. I never got the logic of that one. Thanks Ron for inspiring W. He seemed to have finished your job 🙂
I’m amazed no one amidst Bobbo, ECA and Father have brought up unions. Where is that big union pension now? What happened to all those dues? Just like Social Security, I’ll wager. Not going to happen.
Bubba, I suppose thats because Unions are not directly raised when talking about the death of the middle class?
I was talking with a friend of mine today, big union pension in his future, and he and I agreed it is totally at risk when the states go bankrupt and restructure those unfunded debts===JUST AS THEY SHOULD DO.
Yes, the corrupt unions made deals with the corrupt governments and sold their votes but only for the “promise” of payment in the future. All such corrupt unreasonable bargain should be thrown out.
How long can California tread water with lead weights tied to its feet? And how many/how fast will the dominoes fall after Ca. Tumbles?
Sad when the only justice is to drag others into your own misery, but them’s the cards.
Nice triple whammy for anyone who saved for anything: Great Recession, Dollar Inflation, then (State) Pension Bankruptcies.
Ha, ha, Where’s my great deal? Silly Hoomans.
#31..
If you think of the costs of schooling. Consider that at an EQUAL wage, it would Probably be 10-20% of the cost. you arnt paying for administration that gets 2-3 times what a teacher gets.
Also, its easy on parents to GIVE ALITTLE to assist a student. AND getting an intern job in HIS/HER OWN FIELD would be easy, as a side job.
Consider WHO is sitting at the door to the college/Uni..THE BANK/CC/LOANS..
Also the Cost of LAND isnt HIGH any more either. you would have MORE people going into/back to school, to LEARN. LEARN anything you wanted. ALSO, corps/companies could sponsor the PEOPLE THEY WANT to goto school, thats HOW it used to be.
A little state/fed assistance wouldnt be BAD. But its not going to become a $100K debt when you graduate.
#45,
yes I covered unions. DELTA DID IT. They took ALL retirement funds to re-capital THE BUSINESS..no cut wages on top. And then you ask about your luggage..
Low paid union workers PAY into Social sec…I WANT EVERYONE to pay into it and NO TOP LIMIT.
And sense we all make the SAME wage..there is no need for a UNION.
Oh wow, everyone is waking up to find that the US is going back to the way it was before 1949?
The state that all of the world has lived in since the dawn of civilisation? Where there is only the rich and the poor?
Welcome back to reality.
Cursor_
ECA==sadly, even on directed effort, you totally FAIL to answer the question. Go back and try it again.
Cursor==thats a very nasty thing to come to terms with, but you raise an interesting question: the necessary elements to create and maintain a middle class==seperate and apart from the elements of political will also necessary to do so. In a vacuum, I’ll guess we still have the former, but don’t even recognize the latter.
The Repugs would be most appropriately labled: The Party of the Super Rich, tag line: Our mission is to destroy the Middle Class. And yet so many feel their own liberty threatened if they aren’t spounting their dogma from the poor house.
Silly Hoomans.
Thinking about it just a little bit, I think “any” society can have a relatively large middle class. Between societies, that middle class will be more or less affluent but the MARK of a middle class is the absent of a disproportionate lower and upper class.
Sad people will vote for policies that destroy the middle class/themselves on the notion that somehow they are “better off” keeping everything their eyes can see, their hands can grip, when the truth is just the opposite.
Pure hubris to think you are going to vote for a system that only benefits the top 2-3 percent of people and that YOU are going to be in that 2-3 percent? And even then, what have you gained but an isolated house in a gated community with an armored car? THAT is the sort of society where GUNS are going to make a difference, but they won’t be aimed at “the government.” They’ll be aimed at the private security forces maintaining the social spoilage system.
Silly Hoomans. ((Yikes! I “hate” being repetitive. Silly me.))
The problem with this sort of article is that we aren’t even dealing with a good definition of what “middle class” actually means. Factory workers have never historically been considered members of the middle class, but we are talking about them as if they are. Instead of labor classes (workers, managers, etc.) we are instead talking about income groups… and that clouds the entire discussion, because there are different problems associated with whichever definition we are choosing to use.
#51–SL==why is that a problem when both are under attack in very much the same way?
You are making a distinction without a difference.
bobo,
the difference comes with WHERE the money goes After you make it.
Those workers in steel mills, there money goes to bills, Kids, Medical. They made big money, but the cost of living went UP in the areas. Those That were SMART, got out to the country and paid LESS. workers tend to LIVE near work.
#31,
Why should a ditch worker get 8 years of pay over a person learning to be a Doctor?
BECAUSE the person WANTS to be a doctor. He has a REASON to be a doctor. NOT for the money/glory/drugs.. HE wants to HELP PEOPLE.
And the BEST part of stabilizing the wages. ALL those nice toys SHOULDNT COST him an arm and LEG.
ECA: still living in the nineteenth century, stuck somewhere between Ricardo and Marx.
You could toil away four times longer to make your product than I do making mine, and I could earn twice as much because people place more value on my product than yours. The amount of labor used to produce a product is unrelated to its value, and this has been understood for over 100 years. Additionally, what your labor is worth is based on the proportion of your contribution to the value of the final product. If I work on an assembly line where machines are doing most of the work, then the contribution of my labor to the final value of each unit is much lower than if I was doing most of the work myself. So my share of its value also is lower. This, again, has been understood for a long time.
Your idea that everybody should earn roughly the same thing, and everything above is a waste, shows your total disconnect with reality, and lack of familiarity with even the most basic of modern economic theories. Even if you completely disregard the incentives of higher wages in the future for delaying entry into the labor market to pursue more education now, the fact is that a ditch digger will always earn less than a doctor, because the work of a ditch digger is not valued as highly as that of the doctor.
The reason for the declining middle class
http://fora.tv/2010/03/03/Richard_Wolff_Capitalism_Hits_the_Fan
Ariane==thanks for the link He starts off interestingly saying “The current crises is not an economic one….” so it will be fun to see how he spins the issue. At 1:45 it will be tonight before I can listen to it all.
I don’t think it is “capitalism” that has hit the fan but rather the retarded notion that capitalism is “self correcting.” Of course it is but in ways too destructive to allow.
SL,
So, you think that 1 persons job is worth more??
And how much are the execs at DELTA worth if they KEEP NEEDING TO BE BAILED OUT??
PART of capitalism is that “IF you dont make any money, those on TOP DONT GET PAID” isnt it?
Thats what the BOARD MEMBERS/ STOCK HOLDERS/ and BOSS’s WANT..PROFIT. and the FINAL PROFIT? is Split at the top.
If you as an individual, BUILD something, and SELL something, you can put ANY price on it.
BUT, the SHOP that works on your car..
Charges $80 per hour..
$10 to the mech
$20 to the supervisor, who watches 5 mechs.
$15-20 to those doing the paper work.
$10 to bills and rent
$20 in pocket. FOR NOTHING.
You should WANT KNOWLEDGE.. NOT for the money.
I hope you understand that the Corp mentality AT THE TOP, is NOT what is taught at SCHOOLS.
BUSINESS that is taught in University ISNT what is on the streets.
Do you think those persons on TOP would notice the Janitor DIDNT clean his room? How long would this last.
I will only say, that IF’ there is NOT a job, that NEEDS to be filled, as a NECESSITY..then the Value of it can be raised, if no one wants it.
BUT, you need a BASE. min wage IS NOT A BASE.
A TOP WAGE IS A BASE.
#42, #57
Make a MAXIMUM WAGE. and let everyone have it.
Clearly, you have absolutely zero understanding of economics. What you are discussing is a price ceiling on wages whose effects are well known. You create a disincentive for people to work. In fact, it is in the worker’s best interest to work as little as possible to earn that maximum wage because they can then spend the rest of their time finding ways of making money through other avenues. You create a disincentive to be productive or said another way, to improve their quality as a worker. That economic philosophy has been tried and is a proven failure: it’s called communism.
Sea Lawyer said it well: the value of labor is directly related to the contribution to the value of the final product (or the company in general). “Worth” is only measured by one means: what the market will bear. So, yes, one job is “worth” more than another because someone is willing to pay one person more for a job than another.
I have no idea where you were going with your car shop. The reason that the shop pays $10 to mechanic and not $20 is because the owner is able to find workers at that rate. If they could not, then the rate would go up until they were able to find workers. If being a mechanic took years of costly education, then no one would take the job at $10/hr. Furthermore, you are ignoring one the most important aspects to business: risk. The owner is putting up their own money to rent the shop, pay for the insurance, deal with being sued by customers or laborers and so on. It is the owner that goes bankrupt if the shop isn’t profitable. Profit is the reward for taking risk. It should also be noted that successful businesses do not pocket 100% of their profit but reinvest it in order to improve the business.
Seriously, you need to take a couple of courses on microeconomics. You have no understanding of how individuals or businesses make decisions when faced with scarcity.
http://fora.tv/2010/03/03/Richard_Wolff_Capitalism_Hits_the_Fan
Ok, but nothing we haven’t heard before, maybe a slightly different emphasis.
Basically, employers found the could KEEP the increases in profit caused by the increased productivity of their employees and not give it to the employees in the form of higher wages. This caused wage stagflation so more members of the household had to go to work. When that hit its limit, then money the rich had deposited in BANKS was loaned to employees so their life style could continue.
My connection stopped after the first question in the Q&A session which is always the more interesting part.
Yep: lack of appropriate regulation.
#58
Thomas.
AND YOU want the INDIVIDUAL to choose between MONEY and what they WANT/CAN do?
Bobo, at LEAST debates with me. And he is almost on my side.
IN THE USA,
If a worker got MORE for working HARDER/doing MORE..many would be earning 3x pay.
Manpower CUTS for BETTER PROFITS, started about 1989.. we went from 500 employees to 300 TOTAL. I had 3 jobs insted of 1. Even the UNION wouldnt help.
Thomas,
ALL your points are good..
IF a corp is interested in BUSINESS and reality. but they ARENT. the Major corps are interested in 1 thing and HOW to make you by CRAP.
In communism you didnt have a choice of job. You worked WHERE you found a job. In Russia, EVEN before Communism..it was the same.
With a WAGE CAP, a company can Pick and CHOOSE, or hirer the next one, try them out, HIRE the next one until they get the person they WANT/NEED.
Cost of education GOES DOWN.
Cost of living goes down.
Taxes?? the gov knows how much they will get..ONLY.
Corps would know the amount of TAX and Profit.
Stock market? NOT NEEDED.
Even in your synopsis, a corp doesnt NEED the stock market. they use THEIR OWN MONEY. they dont do it now. you are using the BASIC concept of HOW a business works. They arent USING THAT. This isnt business 101..
With the profits many of these corps are making, the money SHOULD be advancing it into the future..IT ISNT. They HOLD onto what they think WORKS, they make money AS fast as they can, as it wont LAST LONG.
They have no initiative to bring BETTER/NEWER reasonable priced products to the store. They want a product that FAILS, so you can buy a NEW one.
Oh,
and that mech, I was talking about..
He has worked on cars all his life and his father taught him, then he went to school for it. he has all accreditations. It cost him $20k for the school, and he graduated with Honors. They wont pay him more, because THEY SAY he has NO 20 years experience. REALLY, he wont find ANYONE to pay him much more. as they ALL have the Supervisor. they only need 1 supervisor for 5-10 mechs. Until HE and a FRIEND can build their OWN buisness, he will NEVER make more money.
#59, you missed the last question then, which actually provided a good analysis of the issues, that the problem is that the United States moved a state of labor shortage to one of surplus. Labor has a hard time commanding higher wages when there is competition (which is why organized labor spends so much political effort putting up barriers to competition).
Where Wolff falls short though is that he focuses on wages and conveniently ignores non-wage compensation, which has increased at a rate well above inflation over the same period of time. The truth is that total real compensation has not been stagnant, but has increased. Non-wage compensation is often worth much more than just an increase in wages, which is why workers have been happy to take more fringe benefits (health insurance, child-care, 401k programs, etc.) in exchange for much slower increases to wages.
61,
Yep, agreed.
The problem is that the CORP can write those off as deductions, with very little tax.
AS to the person that worked for DELTA airlines for 6 years, got 3+ million in PAY, but also got 20 years of paid retirement with a Clause against Bankruptcy.
ALSO,
what they dont tell you about a retirement fund..
That the money you get from it, is considered in Social security RETIREMENT..IF you paid into it.
Average Starting of SS, is around $600 per month with a LIMIT of $600 from retirement, which would eliminate SS payments.
ALSO, retirement MAY NOT cover MEDICAL.
Lower increases in wages, for benefits for LOWER wage employees? only the BETTER corps supply ANYTHING.
Anybody really think this isn’t a deliberate cause sought out by neocons like Shrub/Cheney? Think again.