RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013

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signalmankenneth

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http://www.alternet.org/print/rip-middle-class-1946-2013

The 1 percent hollowed out the middle class and our industrial base. And Washington just let it happen?!!
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Our industrial base is gone? Damn, I better call in and see if I still have a job. I thought we were busier than fuck.
 
Conventional wisdom says that the middle class hasn’t caught a break for at least a decade and that incomes have stagnated or declined.

But research corrects a misconception regarding middle-class income.

In the seven years from 2001-2007 (inclusive), not only did the middle class get at least its fair share of overall income growth, the income gap between the rich and the middle class actually got smaller.

In an apparent paradox, the same Census Bureau database that told us that median household income was essentially unchanged in 2007 versus 2000 also tells us that the middle class enjoyed a higher income growth rate than did either the overall economy or the rich—and therefore that their income gap versus the rich had actually decreased.

The key lies in the difference between the “median household” versus the “middle class.” The median household is a single theoretical household exactly in the middle of the entire income-ranked list of U.S. households.

Conversely, the “middle class” has no official definition, but it is certainly tens of millions of households in size and presumably centered around the median household.

If the median household was an accurate proxy for the “middle class” then both of the statements above could not be true simultaneously.

On the other hand, if both statements are true at the same time, then the median household did not accurately represent the middle class. And so it turns out that there’s more to the story than we thought.


http://www.american.com/archive/2011/september/middle-class
 
Lots of people make enough money.

They're just taxed too much. Especially in places like here in New York City.
 
Lots of people make enough money.

They're just taxed too much. Especially in places like here in New York City.
 
To give you an idea....

My home is comparable in size to the one in the original post up top. I pay about $9,000 each year in property tax.

NYC income tax clips me for about $5000 per year.

Then there's state income tax. Federal income tax. FICA. Medicare...

Bridge tolls, railroad fees...

Cigarettes here cost $13 a pack. Good thing I don't smoke.

And so on...
 
For several years, just about everyone has implicitly equated the median household’s performance with middle-class performance.


Why?


Well, let’s face it: with no official definition of middle class, it’s easy (and plausible) to assume that as the median household goes, so goes the middle class.


It’s easier, anyway, than going to the trouble of defining the range of households that comprises the middle class, defining the range that comprises the rich, defending those two definitions, calculating the income growth rates for those two ranges, then, finally, comparing the results.


Just hanging our hats on the median household and calling it “the middle class” is a much quicker path to judgment about the success or failure of the policies of the past.


Unfortunately, relying on the median as a proxy for the “middle class” can lead to false conclusions about past policies—which in turn can lead to misguided future policies.




http://www.american.com/archive/2011/september/middle-class
 
it was a planned raping of the American people by the 1 percenters.


Bush and Cheney were their tools.

so were all you idiot right wing voters
 
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