Why America’s middle class is lost

[Jesus Malverde]

One day in 1967, Bob Thompson sprayed foam on a hunk of metal in a cavernous factory south of Los Angeles. And then another day, not too long after, he sat at a long wood bar with a black-and-white television hanging over it, and he watched that hunk of metal land a man on the moon.

On July 20, 1969 — the day of the landing — Thompson sipped his Budweiser and thought about all the people who had ever stared at that moon. Kings and queens and Jesus Christ himself. He marveled at how when it came time to reach it, the job started in Downey. The bartender wept.

On a warm day, almost a half-century later, Thompson curled his mouth beneath a white beard and talked about the bar that fell to make way for a freeway, the space-age factory that closed down and the town that is still waiting for its next great economic rocket, its new starship to the middle class.

They’ve waited more than a decade in Downey. They’ve tried all the usual tricks to bring good-paying jobs back to the 77-acre plot of dirt where once stood a factory that made moon landers and, later, space shuttles. Nothing brought back the good jobs.

Those jobs aren’t coming back. Not at the old North American Rockwell plant, and not in thousands of similarly socked towns.

Yes, the stock market is soaring, the unemployment rate is finally retreating after the Great Recession and the economy added 321,000 jobs last month. But all that growth has done nothing to boost pay for the typical American worker. Average wages haven’t risen over the last year, after adjusting for inflation. Real household median income is still lower than it was when the recession ended.

Make no mistake: The American middle class is in trouble.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/12/why-americas-middle-class-is-lost/

[BeyondGeography]

1. My Big Bang theory

the owners are screwing the fuck out of everyday people. As the article shows in detail, it's not a theory. Encouraging, coming from WaPo.

Lots of ferment in the air. 2016 will be interesting.

[Octafish]

2. Great article. It's why I'm a Kennedy-Truman-Roosevelt Democrat.

JFK Continued the New Deal as the New Frontier

[Jesus Malverde]

4. Excellent linked article..thanks..nt

[jtuck004]

3. Over 10 million people moved down into poverty during this administration alone.

And most, especially the kids, will be there long after it's gone. Maybe the rest of their lives. And the tens millions of people who would have depended on them for their lives are in trouble now too.

Proof positive that the strategy outlined in Stress Test (by TImothy "Killer" Geithner) to inflate bankster's profits works. For banksters. It is destroying the lives of many others, however.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. I live in a town just like Downey.

Until the late 70's-early 80's, people could get a decent paying job right out of high school at one of several mills. They lived a nice, middle class life. My father was one of these people. So were all of my relatives. They all have good lives.

Today, all the mills are closed. A few have been re-opened with different management at very low wages. We now have retail jobs at Walmart and other big box stores. There are too many people who cannot find any work at all, or are only finding part time, low pay jobs.

They call this the Rust Belt for a reason.

[NewDeal_Dem]

7. Same kind of town here. A narrow strata has relatively well-paying jobs in government,

a few well-paying mills or corps and medical.

The rest have MacJobs paying minimum to about $11.

The rest are on the state in one way or another.

It used to be a good place to live. Now it's basically a shithole.

[RKP5637]

6. America’s middle class has little representation. Rather, the middle class is used to feed USA, Inc.

with little in return to the middle class, and no representation. Any thinking TPTB and congress gives a F about them, or corporate American cares about the middle class, really needs to get a grip on reality in the new USA IMO.