Middle Class Suffering Through “Lost Decade”

[phantom power]

The great middle class, the group lauded in campaign ads by every politician in the country, is wasting away according to a Pew study. Using the broadest possible figures (between 67% and 200% of the national median income), the study shows that the middle class has declined to a bare majority of the population. Furthermore, those remaining in the middle class have suffered the worst decade in post-war history.

A study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center highlights diminished hopes, too, for the roughly 50 percent of adults defined as middle class, with household incomes ranging from $39,000 to $118,000. The report describes this mid-tier group as suffering its “worst decade in modern history,” having fallen backward in income for the first time since the end of World War II.

Three years after the recession technically ended, middle class Americans are still feeling the economic pinch, with most saying they have been forced to reduce spending in the past year. And fewer now believe that hard work will allow them to get ahead in life. Families are now more likely to say their children’s economic future will be the same or worse than their own.

The history of the US economy has been one where shared prosperity has always been the key to rapid growth. The benefits of productivity were divvied up between labor and capital, to the benefits of both. That ended in the late 1970s, as productivity soared but wages stagnated. Never has this been so true than in the last decade.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/23/middle-class-suffering-through-lost-decade-study-shows/

[truedelphi]

1. Outsourcing has succeeded in making the middle class perched on the brink of

Extinction.

Forty nine cents out of every dollar of profit goes to some Financial Firm somewhere. And they are no longer lending to most of the middle class.

And Fifty seven cents out of every dollar that is spent by the Federal government goes to Defense.

If you aren't a banking executive, or you aren't running a defense contracting company, you are wondering whether you will be around next year.

[MichiganVote]

2. Not to mention health care and the service sector which is going to implode

[RKP5637]

3. It's an insane model. Ship jobs out of the country and create Demand here. Greed drives the

model and in the big picture greed will take the model under. Anyone thinking the current capitalistic model is going to work for the 21st century really has to be smoking something.

TPTB know exactly what's going on, hence security, surveillance and militarization of police continue, as well as oppression of OWS or anything similar. Lack of obedience to the economic model will not be tolerated.

I don't think survival of the middle class is even a consideration anymore. It's now more a question of how to control unrest and adherence to a failing system which we caused to fail ourselves.

[woo me with science]

4. This was a deliberate theft and a deliberate restructuring

of where the wealth goes in this country.

Calling it a mere "decade" obscures the fact that nothing is being done, and nothing is planned to be done, to reverse the crime that has been perpetrated on Americans. There is no hope on the horizon and no urgency about this coming from our government. In fact, a new round of austerity is headed our way after the election, and it will be bipartisan.

Our government is corrupted in both parties. It protects the thieves and targets those who speak the truth about these crimes. Our political process as it now stands is not going to fix it.

[RKP5637]

5. Exactly, and it's been in the works for several decades. Money has power, the rest of us

just talk.

This economic system could have been fixed by now, but that is not part of the equation. Nothing is going to get done to fix it, there is absolute grid lock, none want to lose out on the $$$$

I think in my lifetime these will seem like the best of times compared to the future. If there's magic coming I sure don't see where it's coming from.

And what do we have now, about 50% of the country in poverty or damn close to it ... "we the people" don't have control of any of this. Any standing in the way will be mowed down.

[toddwv]

6. Thank you Trickle-Down.

Of course, the best way to keep big business and the super wealthy from hoarding all the cash is to give them even more cash to hoard.

Also:

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