What is considered Middle Class?

quote:

---

I question the veracity of the claim that “38% of US jobs pay enough to support a Middle Class lifestyle”. In the US, the fabled Middle Class was fatally wounded when Ronald Reagan was elected and started his program of Trickle Down economic voodoo that continues to decimate our Working Class to this day. We may have redefined the term Middle Class to mean anyone who makes enough at their jobs that they don’t qualify for welfare, but that is hardly a description of the prosperous Post WW II Middle Class we had prior to 1980.


The fact is that there is no longer a real “Middle Class” in the United States in terms of the affluence of the original US Middle Class. While the Middle Class wage of the past could support a family, pay for healthcare for all, educate the children through college, and make it possible for a wage earner to actually own his own home, these things are no longer in reach of the average Working Class American. In the past, most jobs offered a pension plan to supplement Social Security when the worker reached retirement age.

The Worker of today barely makes it from one payday to the next, is typically overextended in debt, has no access to healthcare, cannot afford a college education, and has no prospect for retirement.
Americans don’t feel “prosperous” because they aren’t.


While the average European, Australian, Canadian, and Japanese can look forward to a prosperous life and retirement thanks to Middle Class wages in their nations, 20% of our children live in poverty, and the overall poverty rate is 15%. Our minimum wage in the “richest country in the world” is one of the lowest in the list of First World countries. Our wages across the board have remained stagnant for over a generation, and all of the gains in the economy from growth, productivity, and equity appreciation, go right straight to the top 5% of the wealthiest of our citizens. The workers get nothing.


And on top of these things, every time we grant a gigantic handout to the wealthy class by enacting “tax reduction” legislation, it adds to the National Debt that we Working Class folks have to pay off. Last year, to give billionaires and corporations even more wealth than they already have, our “government” authorized the addition of $1.5 Trillion to the national debt, that my grand children will be paying on for the rest of their lives.
The US no longer has a Middle Class. Most of our Working Class are technically “working poor”, and our economic policies, which are designed and enacted by the Wealthy Class, make sure that it only gets worse.

---