NYT: The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest

[kpete]

The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest
APRIL 22, 2014

The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

The numbers, based on surveys conducted over the past 35 years, offer some of the most detailed publicly available comparisons for different income groups in different countries over time. They suggest that most American families are paying a steep price for high and rising income inequality.


the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?hp&_r=0

[AngryAmish]

1. This country is fucked.

It won't get better in our lifetimes.

[MohRokTah]

2. That single statistic marks the end of any claims to American Exceptionalism.

So long as the American Middle Class is not the richest in the world, we cannot claim exceptionalism in the world. That argumetn is now dead and buried.

[etherealtruth]

3. .... in a few years we will be number three, number four

welcome to U.S. serfdom ... we are not quite there yet, but getting closer and closer

[Jesus Malverde]

4. Considering much of the so called middle class wealth is debt.

It wasn't really middle class to begin with. It was just living the middle class lifestyle.

[tavernier]

5. Tell me about it...

I'm an LPN... I used to make 15 $ an hour 25 years ago. Now I work as a CNA because my title has been eliminated, and i make a buck less. I will be dropping my license soon because it costs too much to carry it. I used to work in the ICU... Now I scrub toilets. But the nurses in my home health agency all turn to me for answers to medical questions, as few of them have ever worked in an ER or even on a hospital floor.

I just applied for a part time job with the schools, working in food service. It pays minimum wage, but that and the CNA jobs I can pick up might supplement my social security enough so that I can at least take a vacation once every two years. AND hubby works a part time job. AND... We have a 401k... but I hate to withdraw out of that, because the taxes kill us.

Welcome to the new America!

[WillyT]

6. K & R !!!

[Laelth]

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

-Laelth

[Enthusiast]

8. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Just wait until the long term effects of limiting access to higher education becomes apparent.

If the government successfully cuts medicare and social security living standards will plummet.

[pampango]

9. What do Canada and Europe do differently? A question our government intentionally ignores.

Progressive taxes, stronger unions an effective safety net lead the way.

The struggles of the poor in the United States are even starker than those of the middle class. A family at the 20th percentile of the income distribution in this country makes significantly less money than a similar family in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland or the Netherlands. Thirty-five years ago, the reverse was true.

Three broad factors appear to be driving much of the weak income performance in the United States. First, educational attainment in the United States has risen far more slowly than in much of the industrialized world over the last three decades, making it harder for the American economy to maintain its share of highly skilled, well-paying jobs.

A second factor is that companies in the United States economy distribute a smaller share of their bounty to the middle class and poor than similar companies elsewhere. Top executives make substantially more money in the United States than in other wealthy countries. The minimum wage is lower. Labor unions are weaker. And because the total bounty produced by the American economy has not been growing substantially faster here in recent decades than in Canada or Western Europe, most American workers are left receiving meager raises.

Finally, governments in Canada and Western Europe take more aggressive steps to raise the take-home pay of low- and middle-income households by redistributing income.

"Even with a large welfare state in Sweden, per capita G.D.P. there has grown more quickly than in the United States over almost any extended recent period — a decade, 20 years, 30 years. Sharp increases in the number of college graduates in Sweden, allowing for the growth of high-skill jobs, has played an important role.

They each have five weeks of vacation and comprehensive health benefits. They benefited from almost three years of paid leave, between them, after their children, now 3 and 6 years old, were born. Today, the children attend a subsidized child-care center that costs about 3 percent of the Frojelins’ income."

The effective taxation in Sweden is commonly cited as among the highest in the world ...

[davidthegnome]

10. I've suspected this for a while.

Last year, in my sociology class, the Professor wrote on the board how much money the working class, and the middle class earns. I never realized before that that "Middle class" meant upwards of fifty thousand dollars a year. My parents, who back then I thought of as "very upper middle class" turned out to be only average working middle class. Then I realized just how few people make money that's even anywhere near what they do. I had to drop school because of debt - and I'm working for eight dollars an hour, I've been at my current job almost a year now.

We are becoming a Nation in which people will be forced to live two, perhaps three or four generations together in the same home due to simply necessity and affordability. I am not sure that this is a bad thing though. I think that Americans have become very isolated, and very lonely overall. Even those of us who live in Cities tend to have most of their relationships on a more superficial level in this age of wondrous technology.

I used to complain a lot about how poor I was, to think life sucked because I was poor. Then I realized just how fortunate I am compared to most of the Country - and even the world. I have security in that I will probably always have a place to live and food to eat, my parents have (and continue to) make certain of that. At thirty years old, I realize that I will likely not be independent at any time in the near future, I cannot conceive of a way to make enough money for that. That's okay though. I have everything I need and more.

I have the deepest empathy and sympathy for those who have to struggle by on their own, who don't have families that are willing to go the distance in supporting them.

As the republicans and democrats continue to hack away at our social safety net, to make international trade deals that supposedly benefit us and this "global economy", I suspect that things will get harder for those of us who have to work at these poor wages. They will get even worse for those of us who can't work, or who can't find work.

It's a mess - and there are no simple solutions, no easy answers. The best thing I can think of is a new "New Deal". We need a government with the same kind of inspiration, motivation and compassion of FDR. If we're ever going to really "turn the corner", something has got to give.

[MillennialDem]

11. I doubt that even factors in the Canadian/European/Japanese/Australian/New Zealand

middle class getting much cheaper if not outright free healthcare.

When you factor that in, the american middle class is probably more like #15

[mackerel]

12. Australia is looking better and better.

[winter is coming]

13. Wordy title. "The American Middle Class Is No Longer" would have sufficed. n/t

[Fumesucker]

14. Two words..

[Ishoutandscream2]

17. Agreed. But I would go a bit farther

Ronald Reagan started this massive fuck up with his trickle down, voodoo economics.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. Canadians are getting thwacked in a different way, particularly housing prices

Every major Canadian city is succumbing to "Manhattanization" (urban gridlocked hell) where virtually every new development is some sort of luxury condo complex that will be bought by an international investors (money launderers and tax evaders) and sit empty. While existing housing is priced into the stratosphere.

I work in Calgary and when I interview locals for jobs one of their first questions is whether there will be an opportunity for them to transfer to the US... and how quickly.

[jtuck004]

16. We had 7 million foreclosures, 9 million now underwater...

Tell 'em to step right on down. Because a huge percent of our sales are now going to investors and we are becoming a rental nation. That's a big purchase, with the broken system we have being floated on 1.2 trilion being paid out to banks for their profit in lending to the wealthy, a float which won't go on forever, whether the problem is fixed or not. Tell them good luck with that whole "grass is greener" philosophy

From A mortuary of 7,000,000 foreclosures and counting: Nation still faces 9.1 million properties that are seriously underwater:

And this is with 14 million more people than we had when the crisis started...