You Call This A Middle Class? “I’m Trying Not to Lose My House”

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/you-call-middle-class-im-trying-not-lose-my-house



It took less than two years for Kim Brown to go from middle class to minimum wage.

In the fall of 2011, Brown was a Web support technician for an electronics distributor in Chicago, helping customers navigate the company’s website. She had been in the job for 11 years, earning a $45,000 salary, plus benefits.

“I wasn’t rich, but I felt like I had a life,” she said — as good a definition of middle class as any.

That November, the company announced it was moving its office to Cleveland. All the employees were invited to go along. All declined, including Brown, who had lived in Chicago her entire adult life, since arriving to attend college. Having been laid off, Brown was eligible for unemployment benefits — which she figured would last until she found a new job. The last time she’d looked, in 1999, she’d found work right away.

Despite sending out “hundreds of résumés each week,” Brown couldn’t land a full-time job. At age 46, with every month of unemployment making her less attractive to employers, she was wondering whether she ever would. She exhausted her 401K, and only a sympathetic landlord, who cut the rent to $800 a month, allowed Brown to hang on to her one-bedroom apartment.

[KG]

1. this country's economy is nothing any politician, or their loyal followers, should crow about...

[xchrom]

3. +1

[dotymed]

4. This countrys economy

Is because 99% of the politicians, especially POTUS.
Cue the PARTY.

[Plucketeer]

35. this country's economy is nothing any politician, or their loyal followers, should crow about...

Not out loud anyway. In the company of their financiers tho...... they can crow. What we're seeing develop is and always has been, by plan. There's been a calculated off-shoring of what used to be OUR jobs in an effort to make our US workforce desperate enough to be willing to work for WAY less than they used to be contented with.
We're now seeing the return of some jobs to the land with which so many good ol' American brand names are associated. And you can COUNT ON politicians (of ALL stripes and colors!) and corporate magnates dressing themselves up as heros for "dragging" those jobs back to the USA! Ooh-Rah!!

[bvar22]

60. The problem with those jobs that are coming back...

...is that they pay 1/2 the wages and NONE of the benefits they paid when they left.

Ross Perot predicted the return of manufacturing jobs,
AFTER the wages and benefits had dropped to 3rd World levels.

Ross was right.....

Yep. Ross was right,
but Bill was smooth.
He was so smooth that when he told the American Working Class that competing with the 3rd World
for their JOBS would be good for them,
they believed him.

[Plucketeer]

61. That was the whole POINT

of taking them offshore - so they'd be gladly embraced, no matter what they paid or offered.

[bvar22]

71. ...AND they KNEW it when they did it.

Thank You, Bill,
and the "centrist" Koch Brothers funded DLC "Democrats".



You will KNOW them by their WORKS.

[jsr]

69. The crazy old fart was right.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[reformist2]

5. Don't ask for whom the bell tolls, Wall Street, it tolls for thee.

At the end of the road of all these stories of economic woe, will be the total collapse of Wall Street.

You can't keep raking in trillions of dollars of profits from a population that can't even find a decent job. This is how the profits were made, making life worse and worse for the working class - but the profits disappear when the workers can't find work at all. They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

[zeemike]

10. I don't think they are worried in the least about it.

They are confident that they have a militarized police force to protect them from the rabble, and once they have decimated the middle class there will be plenty of cheep labor around to serve them.
Neo-feudalism is the goal...and all those billions will be used to own all the property.

[reformist2]

14. They may not be worried about control, but they are eyeing the exits as far as the casino is concern

The current US stock market is worth something like $20 trillion. The bond market is worth several times that. It simply cannot be supported by a nation of people making $10-12 an hour.

[zeemike]

18. True enough, but they do have an exit strategy

And it is real estate...and they are using that money to buy it up.

I once knew this woman who inherited a hugh fortune...here father was a stock trader during the roaring 20...and when the crash came he had cash and did not have it all in the market.
And after the crash he bought 50,000 acres of land in the Ozarks for something like fifty cents an acre that was timbered...and there were plenty of poor people that needed the money so they sold their land.
Later he cut all the timber and made lots of money from it and still kept the land which then became worth a hell of a lot more than he paid for it.
The real wealth is in the land, and it's resources...and that is where those billions that they have will go, and people that need the money will sell it cheap.

[pangaia]

20. Land and.......WATER !!!

[Lizzie Poppet]

62. They'd damned well better START worrying.

They are few, we are many. And every single day, more and more of us are getting pissed off. Really pissed off. Their militarized police forces wouldn't last a week...if they're stupid enough to drive us to the desperation of violence. Hopefully, they haven't corrupted the political system to the point where things can't be fixed without resorting to such horror.

But I'm losing confidence that this is the case...

[zeemike]

64. Well the police and military is not the only thing they have.

They also have a militarized right wing militia that they have told that we a commies and want to establish Marxism and Sharia law that they can unleash on us.
And then it is civil war, and the last civil war started like that in Kansas.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. And the fucktards really do beleive this :

“Our greatest shortcoming is not the income inequality of the top 2% from the bottom 2% but the systematic destruction of the middle class through handouts creating the entitled and complacent class.”

says the article.

The great republican AND libertarian hallucination is "people don't want to work anymore"

[xchrom]

7. do they believe it or is that their Sales Pitch?

i've become very cynical about the earnestness of most things political -- especially the right.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Perfect example of your point to be found here:

from the left, no less.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024589592

[xchrom]

16. oh yeah -- rattle those swords baby.

it sells. what can i say.

[malthaussen]

19. No, no, they're quite right.

The only thing is, the "entitled and complacent class" is that top 2%.

-- Mal

[Sunlei]

8. "All the employees were invited to go along." This is unusual for 2011 businesses.

Just curious why the person telling their story didn't change their mind and ask for their old job back. Even if it did mean a move to a new apartment/city.

[Ed Suspicious]

11. It's a common tactic in IT related fields;

to close up shop in one city and move to another part of the country. I suspect the offer is made because it somehow lessens the employer unemployment compensation bourdon.

There are many potential reasons workers don't follow these offers. One of the reasons that a business applications developer friend of mind turned down an offer was that the joint custody of his son would have been effectively removed. He found a consulting job in a local industry and stayed behind because to leave would have meant giving up his son or taking his son from the son's mother. That's just one of many compelling reasons to not uproot one's life at a company's whim. (Working spouse seems to be another obvious reason)

[Sunlei]

21. I understand those reasons but that is a choice to not accept offered continued employment.

The person in the story was made to sound totally alone. Only mention about a reasons for refusing the job offer was, "All declined" "who had lived in Chicago her entire adult life, since arriving to attend college."

I was wondering why the person didn't call and ask for the job back right away when she noticed it was difficult to find work again. (I guess) though the story is incomplete, the employee accepted a compensation package if they didn't accept the continued job.

They make those packages look really good to get rid of people, but they don't have to take them.

No matter now as unemployment should last longer for all as it is. And our country needs a bill where- anyone who imports foreign visa workers should have to hire from the American unemployment rolls.

The visa worker programs and unemployment payments are both Gov. programs. They shouldn't be biased against Americans who need jobs.

[DhhD]

27. During the time of Reagan, it was the new business plan to, restructure, so they

can hire a new work force at entry pay and benefits. Restructuring is not the word used today as Capitalist wants to hide how the war against the middle class began and is still continuing.

[Sunlei]

9. let's get a bill through where before any foreign visa workers are imported unemployment ranks must

be offered the jobs first.

[aggiesal]

34. I've been advocating for a law that ...

if the unemployment rate in a specific field exceeds a threshold like for example over 7% then no foreign workers can be hired until that level of unemployment is reduced to less then say 3%.

Or make it progressive system.
Right now I believe that the US allows something like 300,000 H1B's in this country.
That amount should only be allowed if the unemployment rate were less then 3%.
Bring down the amount to 250K if unemployment rises between 3% & 4%.
Drop to 200K if unemployment rate rises between 4% & 5%.
Drop to 150K if unemployment rate rises above 5%.
100K above 6%
. . .
There are plenty of qualified engineers unemployed that can't find work because of these H1B's and corporations are pushing congress to increase the H1B's limit.

Trust me, those engineers current employed WILL be affected by an increase in H1B's allowed into this country.

[Sunlei]

42. That is a very, very good idea!

please tell them both

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

[mstinamotorcity2]

44. Kinda seems workable!!

We must do some thing.

[skydive forever]

12. That could havebeen written by me

Started a $10 an hour part time job yesterday and am happy to have even that. Only I was making about $70000 a year before my lay off.

[Chico Man]

13. Perhaps sending out hundreds of resumes a week

Isn't an efficient way to find a new job?

[Fumesucker]

17. Better to ask your father to get you a job through his extensive contacts

[Chico Man]

56. Tried that

Sent him over a hundred emails and text messages - apparently he didn't appreciate the spam. Unfortunately his contacts got wind as well (small industry).

If only I tried something else..

[Ed Suspicious]

24. There is definitely something to this. I'm of the mind that I target a few employers and spend my

time framing and rehearsing the ways I can help the company. We only have one body to give, an investment of time in selling the product that is you, and even becoming a persistent pain in the HR ass, a pain in the ass who just won't take no for an answer is more effective. Starting with a temp service so that you are already on the inside puts you in an even better position.

Whenever I read "send out hundreds of resumes per week", well that just sounds like the junk-mail model and I know what I do with 99% of my junk-mail.

[Ed Suspicious]

25. That's not to say my method will land a job, and I acknowledge times are tough out there. I just

think a disconnected email-centric approach is too impersonal to achieve great results.

[Sunlei]

28. It isn't but isn't that a requirement to receive unemployment?

[former9thward]

38. Sending out hundreds of resumes a week?

No it is not. Most unemployment programs ask you contact 2-3 employers a week to keep qualified.

[Sunlei]

39. The article only mentioned the emails.

I've never been on unemployment so I don't know.

[former9thward]

40. Contacts can be made by any method.

There is no need to physically go to an employer or even phone them up.

[Sunlei]

43. I looked requirements up. More is required than just 2 or 3 email 'contacts' a week.

http://www.texasworkforce.org/ui/bnfts/ongoing-eligibility-requirements-receiving-unemployment-benefits.html#participationActivities

To me "The Story" seemed to leave a lot out about the persons job search.

[former9thward]

49. The OP is about Illinois.

I have been on unemployment in IL. Just 2 a week. And they never check anyway.

[Sunlei]

53. They never check or require anything of Illinois?

They do have a very confusing website. I can find how to get unemployment benefits but can't find on your website the requirements to continue benefits.

http://www.ides.illinois.gov/

[former9thward]

59. Can't tell you anything about the website.

I was on unemployment there years ago before the internet was in wide use.

[JJChambers]

22. We need a mandatory living wage and mandatory maximum wage

I would like to see the mandatory living wage be at least 20/hour. I would also like to see a maximum wage where no one in a company is permitted to earn more than 25 times more money, annually, than the lowest paid employee of the company. That would still be just over 1 million dollars a year for the highest paid employee, if the lowest was making the 20/hour living wage (41k/year).

[RC]

33. And that is where Contract Workers comes in.

The actually work for another company, or for themselves, even though they are working for you.

[Sunlei]

37. Yes, but isn't it a start to demand a Federal minimum raise?

All states are required to match the Federal minimum.

Why don't little rs working for crap wage demand a higher minimum Federal? What are they afraid or ignorant of?

[HughBeaumont]

23. Shared. It's all about what I asked in my recent post about wages . . .

Is this situation the fault of the government for trying to make things an atom speck fairer for severely underpaid workers or is this situation the fault of said short-term/short-sighted small businessperson for being under the mistaken notion that the ridiculously low 7.25 an hour insult would remain in place for eternity? Is the small business owner under the notion that workers in 2014 are paid too much? Fact after chart after graph after study proves that idea dead freaking wrong, and if you have workers with no disposable income, there will be no DEMAND. That's not "Economics 101", that's Common Freaking Sense.

I just have to understand why these people thought that they could get away with paying people a pittance forever . . . and it IS a pittance. With studies showing that 40% of workers now making LESS than the inflation-adjusted minimum wage of 1968, it borders on idiotic to think that a proper inflation correction (which used to be sound economics and sound capitalism but is now apparently "SOSHULTITS" in 2014) is "asking too much".

Is it that they just want every other company besides theirs to get demand going by increasing worker's wages? Or should it be phased in gradually for small businesses, right away for large ones? Is that a fair plan or is there more to it than that?

[Demo_Chris]

70. They can and will pay as little as people are willing to work for. nt

[4dsc]

26. In hindsight she should have moved to Cleveland

She should have thought this out a little more before refusing to move to Cleveland.

[L0oniX]

32. Cleveland? Have you ever been there? Might as well move to Camden. You will need a gun.

Even the police will tell you to stay off the streets after dark ...that's what they told me when I went there to help a friend get inducted into the R & R Hall of Fame.

[Oasis_]

45. That's nonsense

Many of the bars and restaurants downtown, in Tremont and Ohio city are jam packed until well after midnight. I've never had any problems.

[ScreamingMeemie]

48. Many here will take the slightest opportunity to make a dig at an area they

know next to nothing about.

[joeglow3]

47. Compared to Chicago? Really??????

[Ikonoklast]

63. What total nonsense.

If you are too frightened to walk around Cleveland you just might be scared of the Boogey Man, too.


You won't need a gun, I never did, and I have been all over that city at night.

I have worked in some of the toughest neighborhoods in Cleveland with zero problems.

But then again, I look like the type of person you get warned about.

[L0oniX]

65. I've walked down Market street of San Fransico , NYC 42nd street, down town Tampa past midnight...

with no problems. When a cop tells me it is too dangerous to walk down town Cleveland after midnight I believe them. I have been mugged before. So I guess you know what I think you can do with your "nonsense" comment.

[Ikonoklast]

66. Unless you were taking a stroll through the 4th District late at night,

downtown Cleveland at night is a pretty safe bet.


Cleveland has a pretty vibrant night scene that attracts quite a few people. Not too many of them are getting mugged or shot, like hardly any at all, ever, as the police presence demanded by those businesses downtown make certain it doesn't happen.

I will take my previous and current real-life experiences going out and about in the city of Cleveland over what one cop said.

[L0oniX]

67. Walking from the Hall of Fame to bus station after close is safe now? Ok good for you then.

[Ikonoklast]

72. Yes, downtown is the safest part of the entire city, statistically and numerically, it is lower

in overall crime than all other parts of the city.

[DhhD]

36. It could be that many people still have the Reagan restructured economy in mind; only now

there is no job to go to, or new jobs are all underpaid with no benefits. Many losing their homes in coming years will simply rent then until they are shifted. Plutocracy will determine where you live. It will not be moving up the ladder anymore, it will be total control of the peasants by shifting (the population to concentrations). Peonage was stopped by FDR by the mid 1930s. Wall Street and the Robber Barons want Peonage back. Extended unemployment benefits have stopped. SNAP has been reduced. There are privatized agencies to take care of the rife raft (middle class).

Every American had better wake up and look at the important issues and go vote to rid ourselves of this ever evolving plaque. The change of moving from foreclosure to renting could be accomplished very quietly.

[Sunlei]

50. good points. republicans have said they want to do away with the (way to low)minimum wage

I don't understand why any middle class American who depends on a paycheck, would vote republican.

When (if you take them at their word) republicans will do away with the minimum wage.

America will be flooded with visa-workers who will accept $7 a day. That's what the Mexicans in the border factories are paid today.

[reformist2]

41. She should have just sold herself to the highest bidder.

[ScreamingMeemie]

29. "All declined, including Brown, who had lived in Chicago her entire adult life..."

My father was born, grew up, attended college, and got his first "real job" in Milwaukee. He started a family, and then was told,"Hey, Schlitz is opening a plant in Winston-Salem, NC, so we're moving you there..." and he went. Because the alternative was to lose his job. My generation is still a little "me" focused when it comes to that. Why in the heck didn't these people take the job?

I feel for the subject of this article. I feel worse for the middle class workers who don't get the option to transfer.

[riderinthestorm]

46. My dad did the same thing. My parents were both born, grew up, went to school in NYC

ALL of their family was in NYC - all of them.

But when the time came to open the new facility in the Chicago area - he went.



I really sympathize for those with custody arrangements and other situations that make it impossible to move but there is a fair few who just don't "want" to... in this economy I think that's a fool's gamble.

[WillowTree]

52. That went through my mind, too.

In an economy like this, it's prudent to go where the job is. Nothing says you have to stay there forever if you don't like it. But these days, if they offer to take you with them, smart money says to go.

I feel for her, but that wasn't the wisest choice.

[fujiyama]

58. Gotta agree

I got a job a few years ago out west and within a few weeks and they announced they were moving all operations to a certain southern state. Some people bitched and it was kinda rough for some of the employees (some couldn't make it due to family commitments), but the company DID offer everyone a job at the new facility. I wanted to keep my job so I moved and things worked out OK (at least for the time I worked there).

[L0oniX]

30. For the working class a good job is the bottom line.

Nothing else is more important ...unless you can live fine without money. Fuck war ...fuck policy ...fuck the fed ...fuck religion ...fuck the police ...fuck the NSA ...fuck the sociopath billionaires. We the working class people should demand good jobs and settle for nothing less from any political candidate and office holder.

Here's my idea ...and not just mine. It's an old one. Tax the fuck out of the rich! What this will do is force them to work more. The only way to make up for a loss because of taxes is to produce more volume. Producing more volume requires more people jobs. When the rich were taxed a lot more this is what they had to do to keep making their money. What we see now is the rich trying to make as much money as possible with as few people involved as possible. We must change that. We must also change the short term profit methodology. This is very bad. For a corporation or company it says "we don't care about the future" ...get in and get out ...Romney style. We need those long term jobs from companies that plan to stay in business for decades. Without that there never will be a middle class again. You can go making 6 figures for 5 years and then end up without a job and never get a job again so what good did making 6 figures do for you? Better to have that 20< year job and have a steady dependable life style. The Romney types are part of what is killing us.

[Walk away]

57. I agree about sending the rich back to work but it's the difference...

in the percentage between employment income taxes and investment income taxes that is really screwing us.
I have a bunch of clients who are mini-millionaires that closed their businesses/practices in their forties and live off their investments. That's great but they pay so little taxes. However you are making the money that you live on, you should be fairly contributing to the community.

[DeSwiss]

31. K&R

[B Calm]

54. It's been in the tank since Reagan,

when he busted labor unions and gave us trickle down economics!

[Spider Jerusalem]

68. It was never a "middle class".

People let themselves get suckered into thinking of themselves as "middle class" by politicians. Americans have a weird resistance to considering that they might actually be "working class", for some reason. This is probably the chief reason for socialism's failure to gain much of a toehold in the USA; everyone thinks of themselves as "middle class", from the cashier at Wal-Mart to Warren Buffet. And socialism doesn't flourish where there's no socioeconomic class consciousness.