America's new poor: the end of the middle-class dream

[CHIMO]

The men clustered in the shade of trees, in the 90F heat of a car park in Atlanta, form the lowest layer of America's so-called middle class. They stare, alert like greyhounds, at the vans leaving the hardware store. When one pulls up they rush, 15 or 20 together, to the driver's window to negotiate. The hired man leaps in with his bag of tools: he'll earn $10 an hour, cash, for basic building work.

But even the lowest layer has layers within: the Hispanic men are recent migrants; mainly young. The African Americans are older, gaunt. "They're only hiring Mexicans," one tells me, and gives a hard-faced stare when I ask why.

At Goodwill, a charity-run job centre in Atlanta, you can meet the next layer up: former legal clerks, accounts secretaries, computer technicians – the whole story of black self-advancement is present in this room. But now it's all one story: most have been out of work for months, some for years.

Go to the pristine cul-de-sacs where this supposed middle class lives and you will find, every couple of streets, a lawn as high as a wheatfield, indicating a home that has been repossessed. Even the survivors hang on by a thread. Juan and Kenyoda Pullen have been renting here since their home was repossessed. Sometimes the rent does not get paid. When they lost their jobs – as postman and bank clerk – their combined income dropped from $75,000 to $14,000 a year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/12/end-of-the-middle-class-american-dream

[Scuba]

1. And Wall Street paid themselves $144 Billion in bonuses. n/t

[glitch]

2. THIS year. Not counting last year, the year before, next year etc ad nauseum.

The article does seem to miss that middle and working class wages have been stagnant if not falling for 30 years, implies that "credit" is the root of the problem of the disappearing middle class in America.

He needs him some Robert Reich. http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780307592811-0

[Scuba]

3. Good point.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. what is sad...

is that people can only see it now, because it is affecting the middle class. What about america's old poor? We have ignored poverty in this country for the last 30 years, and the ones who ignored the hardest (the middle class) are now getting first hand experience. I am an atheist, but I love the line that goes "what you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done unto me". We have ignored the problem, and now it is biting us in the ass.

[cornermouse]

5. k & r

[The Uncola]

6. As it happens to more and ...

... more of us, and it will, as surely as the Sun rising tomorrow, there will come a breaking point. When enough people find themselves with nothing left to lose...

[raccoon]

7. "...their combined income dropped from $75,000 to $14,000 a year."

Which means Juan and Kenyoda will be paying far less in federal and state taxes than they formerly did.

Multiply this couple by thousands, and look what happens to tax revenues. And state/city/etc., budgets and services.....

[grasswire]

8. Stand up! Fight this!

It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to let this happen!

The people, collectively, still hold the power to stop this if we only WILL demand the following:

1. Tax the rich their fair share

2. End corporate welfare

3. Enact legislation that ends offshoring of jobs and brings jobs home.

4. Pass a significant stimulus to every adult man and woman making under $100,000/yr now. Now.

They want us to think this is inevitable. The downturn too big to stop.

That is bogus.

Get mad! Stand up! Fight back!