Finally, A Simple Plan That Can Reverse Inequality and Save America's Sinking Middle-Class

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/finally-simple-plan-can-reverse-inequality-and-save-americas-sinking-middle-class


Author and entrepreneur Peter Barnes.
Photo Credit: peter-barnes.org

Editor’s Note: As economic inequality grows in America, very few people have put forth solutions that can revive the middle class. Peter Barnes is a writer and entrepreneur whose focus is improving capitalism to solve big problems like climate change and inequality. Steven Rosenfeld spoke with Barnes about his latest book, With Liberty and Dividends For All: How To Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough .

Steven Rosenfeld: Your book starts with a very sober assessment of the American middle-class. It’s shrinking. It’s disappearing in our lifetime. And the reason is that most work-related income is not enough. It’s insufficient and that’s getting worse. Tell me about that.

Peter Barnes: One can throw out all the numbers, but rather than do that, just think back. Some of us, like myself, are old enough to remember when there were lots of good-paying steady jobs, both in the private sector and public sector. They had benefits, covered health insurance, and provided pensions. That was what the middle-class was built on when I was growing up. Now, for a variety of reasons, including globalization, and automation, and the decline of labor unions, that is no longer the case. And most of the younger people who are entering the labor market today don’t get jobs like that.

It’s kind of a “you’re on your own economy.” Everybody temps. They have more than one job. They’re always marketing themselves on LinkedIn or something like that to get the next job. They don’t get health coverage. They have to pay for their own pensions and so forth. On top of which, education costs are way up. Students have debts they have to pay. All these things are different and they are not changing. They are going down, not up, as far as the middle-class goes.

Steven Rosenfeld: Yes, but your crucial observation is that work-related income is not enough.

PB: Right, well, that’s the point. We can’t rely on good-paying jobs to sustain a large middle-class in the future. It’s not enough. It’s not going to work.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[woo me with science]

2. Time for a guaranteed living income.

Cut out the bureaucracy and the skimming off the top of social programs by vultures.


http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/rethinking-the-idea-of-a-basic-income-for-all/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/opinion/wheeler-minimum-income/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/02/17/guaranteed_basic_income_the_real_alternative_to_the_minimum_wage.html

[DeSwiss]

5. Yessireebob! That's my kind of capitalism!

- None!

The solution to Capitalism is to leave it alone.

Completely.

Resource-based Economy - Where the entire planet's resources are held by all in-common.....

[Cosmocat]

3. This is a more honest start to the discussion

The old days of the 1960s style "middle class" are gone.

Where roughly a third or so of the people in this country could take a job with a reasonable salary AND health care coverage AND a pension are gone.

Flat gone.

Pensions are no longer and we are holding on to the incredibly ineffective employer based health care coverage we have with a death grip AND wages are horribly skewed. About 5-10 percent of people are making CRAZY good money, 40 percent of people are making OK money, again, with no pension and increasingly costly health care, and about 50% of people are making bad money with no retirement program or health care coverage ...

All the gains of working toward having actual LABOR rewarded by salary have been mostly reversed, and we live in a world today were the actual physical effort expended toward work is INVERSELY rewarded by pay. And, an increasing proliferation of service jobs vs manufacturing jobs.

Meanwhile, the people of this country merrily lap up the painfully counterintuitive neoliberal economic bullshit republicans and by extension the media puts forward.

We, collectively, fight to the death to avoid the obvious solutions - universal health care and a more robust national retirement system with solid living wage requirements.

[Romulox]

4. A public works program makes more sense to me. There are so many things that need doing,

and so many idle Americans, many of whom are educated and skilled, most of whom are trainable.

In the past I've suggested a nationwide information infrastructure project--similar to the national highway system, but with fiber optics--as a project that could put Americans to work at all levels of skills and all manner of disciplines. That's before accounting for the impact on private business. If we're creating money from the air, why not spend it on something like that?

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. +1.

[leftstreet]

11. +1

[handmade34]

7. ...

[ladjf]

8. What was the plan? nt

[bklyncowgirl]

9. I like the idea very much but I cannot imagine Americans going for it.

What it has going for it, a guaranteed base income, is simplicity and a certain liberating sense. Without fear of ending up on the street, you can do things like start a business or work at something you like that may pay less or move to another place to find better opportunities. This is something that is purely American.

Unfortunately it comes up against other things which are also purely American.

The right wing base likes having the poor and shiftless to beat up on. "What? Everyone gets it whether they work or not? Are you telling me that I have to work my *## off so 'those people' can live off my labor?"

Employers of course like having workers poor, cowed and disorganized. A negative income tax which gave everyone a standard of living--no matter how marginal--would mean they'd have to actually try to attract workers once again. Clearly an non-starter at the Chamber of Commerce.

On the left there are many who are deeply invested in our alphabet soup of programs designed to help people who might do quite nicely on their own given income stability and access to education. Some have a rather paternalistic view of the poor, feeling that many will not use their guaranteed income wisely without someone looking over their shoulders. While liberals fear they might do this, Conservatives are certain that the poor will spend their monthly income on booze and drugs rather than on food for the kids.

Also, where is the money coming from? Some will come from existing programs. The rest will have to come from raising taxes. As we've seen, that is not easy.

Bottom Line, I love the idea, I'd vote for someone who proposed it or something like it. I just don't see how it's going to come about.

[Teamster Jeff]

10. Raise the minimum wage... Fine

It doesn't even scratch the surface of what has been done to the middle class. It's playing small ball. We need big ideas like this