It's Official: Gov Stats Shows the Middle Class is Dead

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Middle-Class-Vanishes-by-Chaz-Valenza-120101-954.html



There was once a middle class in America, and if you were an average worker you were part of it, but not anymore.

Peruse last year's government figures for the average American family's spending and debt. The conclusion is dumbfounding: it's official, 2011 was the year the middle class died.

:snip:

The BLS's statistically computed family, with 2.5 humans and 1.3 workers, is a fictional construct. But, it is also the one true benchmark that pinpoints the dead center of the American worker's economic situation.

Beginning last year the average American family: could not afford the average single family house... depended on their employer for health care insurance or went without... were in debt with no way out... didn't pursuing further education... saved nothing... slashed their food budget to the bone... and paid at least 30% of their gross wages in taxes.

More at the link --

[tblue]

1. Damn. That is unsustainable.

Wtf we gonna do? We are no longer held together as a nation of citizens. It's like the US is one big racket, just a mechanism for making some very people very very wealthy. Go Occupy!!!

[kenny blankenship]

4. 4 More Years! 4 More Years!

Sustaining that. He's all that matters.

[Huey P. Long]

18. Occupy or die. Simple as that. -eom

[PA Democrat]

2. 30% of their gross income in taxes!

But the right wing will distort this claiming 47% pay no federal income taxes. They fail to recognize all the other taxes the middle class pay disproportionately.

Thanks for posting this article.

[girl gone mad]

9. The middle class is overtaxed in my view..

and I fully support the payroll tax holiday. I think it needs to be expanded.

[cyglet]

13. It's just no longer a progressive tax system

not with the rich tax cuts (SOMEONE has to pay it if they don't....)

[girl gone mad]

20. Our government doesn't need to tax in order to spend (provde services).

Taxation gives our currency a stable value, but it's not necessary for our federal government to run a balanced budget. In fact, that would put us in a depression.

[eridani]

14. Not hardly. What we are is underserved.

We don't get from our taxes what taxpayers in other developed countries do, like education through college, health care, family allowances and a far more generous retirement. Instead we piss it away on maintaining a useless military empire.

[RedRocco]

3. our household is so far from average

that $49k in take home would feel like hitting the lottery. the only thing saving us is owning our decrepit 120+ year old house outright, though its getting harder and harder to come up with the $440 in property taxes each year.

[Arctic Dave]

5. And people still can't figure out why Occupy is happening.

Don't expect the politicians to help you. It is obvious they are only there for themselves.

[emilyg]

6. The politicians are thriving.

[bvar22]

7. the Middle Class is Dead,

and it was killed by greedy RICH people pushing a New Faith Based Economic Religion that demanded absolute fealty to a Giant Invisible Hand,
for which there was absolutely NO evidence of this Invisible Hand's existence.

Giant Invisible Hand is another name for Mammon.

WORD!


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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[Octafish]

8. Welfare for the Wealthy. Trickle-Down for You.

THREE YEARS of Wealthcare.

ZIP for me.

Happy New Year, Donnachaidh!

[eridani]

10. Three years? You're kidding, right?

It's been 30-35 years. Changing a longstanding trend like that is equivalent to trying to turn a battleship around with an outboard motor. But we have to try anyway, and electoral politics is only part of the solution.

[Octafish]

15. My Bad.

Sorry. I should have made clear: These gangsters go back.

What came out was my disappointment.

The late, great Carl Oglesby addressed the reason for our concerns:

http://www.sdsrebels.com/oglesby.htm

[valerief]

11. And NONE of that happened to the 1%. They just got more, more, more. nt

[neverforget]

16. That's what happens when they control Congress

Of, by and for the 1%.

[cyglet]

12. It's evident even without their models

when half of Americans are either poor or close to...

[WillyT]

17. Yep... K & R !!!

[Mr Dixon]

19. Shocked, but not surprised

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine this film lays it out, They tested this Chicago financial ideology in Chile back in the 60’s and now it has come full circle, minus the military dictatorship.

[woo me with science]

21. kick