Declining Middle Class Troubling
The expansion of both the upper and lower economic classes suggests that the well-educated, skilled class of society is taking more of the wealth and perhaps self-dealing opportunities unavailable to the working class.
At one time the working class was able to provide products and services and to make a very decent living, allowing them to buy a home and participate in a good standard of living. The last four decades have been politically dominated by the Democrat party, and only very recently has the Republican Party held the House and Senate. The Democrat Party has also always held itself out as the “party of the common man,” so it is especially intriguing that the self-proclaimed title is exactly opposite to the economic results we are now seeing.
In addition, there is a significant divide in the racial makeup of the economic divisions, even though President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and the anti-discrimination laws and policies implemented in the 1960’s were touted as the answer to solving the over-representation of minorities in the lower economic class. In fact, that has not been the case:
According to the study that was released on Wednesday, “married adults (both with and without children at home) are more likely than unmarried adults to live in upper-income households and less likely to be in lower-income households” and white and Asians “are more likely than black and Hispanic adults to be in the upper-income tier, and they are less likely to be in the lower-income tier.”
The study also found that “the rising share of immigrants in the Hispanic adult population” (29% in 1970 to 49% in 2015) is likely the reason why “Hispanic adults have slipped down the income ladder since 1971, driven by an increase from 34% to 43% in their lower-income share.” Foreign-born Hispanics were less likely to be in the middle class than U.S.-born Hispanics. The study also found that “in terms of differences by nativity, foreign-born adults are more likely than U.S.-born adults to be lower income (38% to 27% in 2015), and less likely to be upper income (16% to 22%).”
According to Pew, “the hollowing of the American middle class has proceeded steadily for more than four decades. Since 1971, each decade has ended with a smaller share of adults living in middle-income households than at the beginning of the decade, and no single decade stands out as having triggered or hastened the decline in the middle.” But the Great Recession and the housing crash [under Obama] according to the study, especially hurt middle-income Americans, whose financial portfolios are more dependent on the value of their homes.
The study also found that mechanics, laborers, and transportation occupations were some of the job groupings with “shrinking shares of overall employment” that “lost income status since 1971.” According to the report, “manufacturing accounted for 26% of employed adults in 1971, compared with 11% in 2014. In 1971, 15% of workers in nondurable goods manufacturing and 16% of workers in durable goods manufacturing had upper-tier incomes, compared with 26% and 27% who did so in 2014, respectively.”
The study found that “beginning in the early 1990s and intensifying during the following decade, jobs increasingly have been concentrated in high-skilled and low-skilled occupations.” But politicians on both sides of the aisle have been pushing for massive increases in high-tech guest-worker visas in addition to more low-skilled immigrants that will threaten Americans across all income levels, especially those looking to stay in the middle class and enter into it.
Both Democrats and Republicans have much to answer for as they push citizens out of the market in favor of cheap labor, most of whom will end up in the lower strata of the economy along with the displaced workers that fall victim to the immigration scheme.
The changing world economy has certainly affected the economic makeup of the American economy, but the increasing divide between the haves and the have-nots has also given rise to reactions such as the “1%-ers” who are demanding that the government step in and “spread the wealth.”
That simply means a move towards socialism or communism, and Democrat presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both promising huge giveaways such as free college education and gigantic new taxes on the “wealthy” in order to “level the playing field.”
What is not generally discussed is the fact that government workers are moving much more quickly into the upper tier, given their out-sized compensation, perks and retirement packages, the likes of which private enterprise can never hope to match. And with each new entitlement promised, the shrinking middle class is taxed and “fee’d” in order to pay for others, driving them further down the economic ladder.
Government is rarely the answer to economic stress in a nation and generally seeks to protect its’ own flanks while pushing for greater and greater revenue collection. This United States of earlier years, with a healthy and vibrant middle class, is slipping away and could soon look like other countries, with the middle class a mere afterthought in a stratified national economy.
Source: www.breitbart.com
The working half are now the “working poor”, and we are a dying breed.
You and pretty much everyone you know are considered LOW CLASS!!!!!!!!!
That’s for sure
I am watching the debate my favorite you don’t want to know because we got to get rid of all these people that we don’t know who’s jihad we’ve got to do something
Donald Trump for President
You are right absolutely Clint.