Why is the middle class in America shrinking and hurting so badly?

Question

http://www.themiddleclass.org/main.cfm

http://www.themiddleclass.org/

Answer 1

Historically this happens everytime we have Repubs in power. Repubs are still hanging on to the "trickle down economics" theory of the Reagon administration. But..the money doesnt trickle. The top 3% hang onto and control the largest share of the money, and the poorest portion of our society benefit from social welfare programs...leaving this huge middle class between a rock and a hard place. Sadly hard working folks that were middle class during the Clinton admin have now joined the lower class.
Repub policies to not raise minimum wage and to make it easier for our blue colar jobs to go overseas directly affect our middle class. Wake up America!

Answer 2

Bull! The middle class is just fine. But the left-leaning press won't let you hear that, because they don't want to report any good news while Bush is President. Sort of like during every Thanksgiving during Reagan, every news broadcast always had to have a sad story about the homeless who aren't doing as well as you.

Yes, we've had a few years with some slight declines, due to a poor economy resulting from the dot.com bubble bursting, then 9/11 (and the economic hit we took), and then being at war.

Still, despite all that, the percentage of home ownership is at record highs. Unemployment is at 4.7%, which is almost the lowest rate ever, certainly lower than about 28 of the last 30 years.

The census bureau reports that the middle 60% of households (middle class) lost ground in 2001 - 2004, but is making up ground again. See link below.

The truth is that when we had the dot.com bubble in the late 90's and 2000, all income groups made substantial gains. I didn't hear anyone complaining then? But the bubble was unrealistic. Companies were hiring far more people than they should of. I remember in my old company, during that time you were hired if you had a pulse. We would get $100 cash bounties for bringing in anyone even remotely qualified. And that pushed up wages unrealistically due to the tightness of the labor market. When the bubble burst, people got laid off, and wages went down. That was still felt during the recovery as we never had that tight labor market again until this last year or so.

However, the middle class is better off now, than they were in 1997, as measured in inflation adjusted dollars. Were things that bad in 1997? I don't remember seeing that on the news.

Answer 3

Its called supply side economics, repuglicans do this, (another answerer mentioned this he called it trickle down economics's, same thing) The repuglicans believe that if you give the rich more money that it will eventually make jobs and improve the economy, this is not the case and it has never worked. Nixon, Reagan, Bush sr, and now G.W.B. has all tried it. It has always caused a recession. Always. I like to describe it this way. If you got three boxes stacked on the floor and you want to move them and you go over and pick up the top box, only that box moves but if you lift from the bottom then you move them all. Clinton did this and it is called consumer driven economics, he put additional taxes on the rich and reinvested that money into infrastructure and that created good paying jobs, in turn these people spent their money which created more jobs. The whole thing snowballed and we experienced the greatest expansion ever. Now that we are under the repuglican economic plan they have lifted the top box but the others are left behind. I hope this helps.

Answer 4

This is an interesting question. To see what has happened, you will need to set the idea of Democrat and Republican aside and look at the concepts of the liberals and the conservatives.
Liberals believe in wealth redistribution. In other words, they want to take money from the middle-class an give it to the disadvantaged.
Conservatives believe in wealth accumulation. In others words, they want to take money from the middle-class and keep it for themselves.
These two philosophies had been kept in check for years by the moderate middle class. The moderate middle-class, however, has been systematically eliminated from congress. Conservatives and liberals have split the moderates by introducing moral issues into the political arena like abortion and gay rights. These hot-button issues have loaded the congress with only liberals or conservatives.
This absence of moderates in congress set us up for the perfect storm: the free trade agreements passed during the last ten years.
The free trade agreements satisfied the desires of both liberals and conservatives. It allowed the liberals the opportunity to redistribute America's wealth abroad to so-called poorer nations. It allowed the conservatives to get richer off the backs of cheaper labor overseas. It effected the middle-class in a very negative way. It ushered in the exporting of good paying middle class jobs. Jobs that once payed a fair wage with benefits were quickly sent abroad and replaced with lower paying service jobs.
THe effects of this is clear. Big business has an exploding bottom line while more Americans are under employed and fewer have health care coverage. The economic data clearly shows the American wage earners salaries are not keeping up with the economic expansion, while wages in other countries like China are increasing.
If you are a member of the middle-class and profess to be either a liberal or a conservative you have been duped by the wealthy. To undo this, we must elect more moderates to congress. Being a moderate has nothing to do with party affiliation. A moderate can be a Democrat or a Republican. A moderate will cross party lines to vote for the country and not the party. When voting for your elected officials, you must listen to them and their beliefs to judge whether they are a liberal, a conservative, or a moderate. You cannot depend on voting along a party line to get yourself represented in congress.

Answer 5

Because many, many manufacturing jobs have been out sourced to countries with a cheap labor force. If I may quote Ross Perot who, when referring to the NAFCA agreement, stated,"the sucking sound you hear are the middle class jobs leaving America for Mexico". One need only to go to Wal-Mart to see people lined up 10 deep to purchase goods, most of which were manufactured in China, A Communist Country, I might add. In the short haul, outsourcing leads to increased profit. In the long haul, without the middle class economic suicide becomes a reality. No middle class to purchase goods, no profit.

Answer 6

the people ignored the founding fathers wisdom to prevent wealth concentration - now there are superwealthy - money is power - power to rob [often legally] - 1% get 90% of world wealth - ie they have robbed the third world and the poor first world - now they are robbing the middle class

why why why why why why why

does the people every time allow wealth to build without limit, way beyond what a person can earn by their work????????????????????????????

do the people not get that money is power to rob?

bill gates has been paid US$500,000 AVERAGE every hour he has worked

do people think this money falls from the sky?

it comes over shop counters, out of people's pockets

US$500,000 an hour is a license to take out US$500,000 worth of goods and services after putting in one hour's work - how can it not be overpay? - how can it not cause underpay? - ie theft, ie injustice in pay, causing righteous resentment, causing violence [war and crime]

1% get 90% of world income - ie, 10% away from getting 100% of world income

how can people be so blind???????????????????????

if pay was proportional to work [ie, just] every family working average hard would be getting US$75,000 a year - peace and plenty for all

the people allowed unlimited wealth concentration although the american dream was based on preventing wealth concentration

the people have a revolution and bring down the plutocracy, and then the people allow plutocracy to grow again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we have super extreme injustice - and hence super extreme violence

when do we wake up to the simple truth???????????

if this 90% of world income was returned to its earners and true owners, every family in the world would get another US$70,000 a year - and world peace - why isnt everyone extremely keen to do this?

99% of people are underpaid - 99% of people will be better paid with this just change, this reversal of the giant theft - why arent 99% of people extremely keen to make this change? - why are 99% of people awed and subdued by 1%? - 99 against 1?

why is humanity unable to wake up to, to realise, the giant theft?

why hasnt everyone said: these superfortunes are ridiculous - and dangerous - they are causing such severe underpay that 1% of humans a year are starving to death - they are causing such intense anger that the whole world is at each others throats, building bigger and bigger weapons, and now we suddenly find we have weapons that can block out the sun from everywhere and kill all life 60 times over

why arent people saying: enough is enough, this has gone on far too long? -

if you plot the lowest hourly pay at 1000th of a metre, and the average hourly pay at one metre, you have to go up 1000 KILOMETRES to graph the highest hourly pay

how super hyper mad!

what are we thinking????????????????????????

see my other answers for more happiness strategy

Answer 7

Because the Democrats keep increasing the definition of 'Poor' and decreasing the definition of 'Rich'. They don't leave anything in between to call 'Middle class'.

Answer 8

Bad economic policies by the cons. They want to bring us back 100 years.

Answer 9

Maybe you should ask George W. Bush.

Answer 10

the middle class is shirinking mainly due to globalization, i think , as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. it may be as well because the real wages are not raising.