Think you're middle class? Think again!!!

[dropkickpa]

We've all noticed how our money doesn't go as far as it used to. We think that, as middle class citizens, we should be doing better, right? That meeting the costs of our daily lives shouldn't be this hard, that we're middle class, it should be like it was for our parents. I have news for you, you are not middle class, you are probably the working poor. But the gubmint tells you that you're middle class, I mean, look how far above the poverty line you are. The thing is, the federal poverty line is bullshit, through and through. For one thing, it hasn't been updated in eons, so inflation hasn't been taken into account. For another, it is calculated based on the minimum food cost in emergency situations (NOT on a diet that will keep you healthy). It doesn't take into account how much your rent is in your city, how much it costs to get to and from work, how much your gas bill will be this winter just to keep your home at 65 degrees.

An uncertain economy and major changes in welfare and workforce development policy have given
new urgency to the question of self-sufficiency. As many parents leave welfare and enter the labor market,
they join a growing number of families who are unable to stretch their wages to meet the costs of basic
necessities. Even though many of these families are not poor according to the official poverty measure, their
incomes are inadequate. But what is adequate income—and how does this amount vary among
different family types and different places? To answer that question we have developed a measure of income
adequacy: the Self-Sufficiency Standard.

The Self-Sufficiency Standard measures how much income is needed for a family of a certain
composition in a given place to adequately meet their basic needs—without public or private assistance.
Below we will explain the origin of the
Standard; how it differs from the official poverty level; how it is calculated; what it looks like for Wyoming
families; and how various public work supports, public policies, child support, and other available resources
can help families move toward self-sufficiency. We conclude this report with a discussion of the varied
ways that the Standard can be used as a tool for policy analysis, counseling, performance evaluation,
and research.

We feel better when we don't think of ourselves as poor. Poor is what other people are. Poor is bad. Poor is uneducated. Poor is conservative. Poor is dirty. Poor is badly-behaved children with snot caked on their face and shabby clothes. Poor is rednecks. Poor is ghetto-dwellers. It's not us, right? Wrong. YOU are just like them, poor. It's still okay to revile the poor, to stereotype them as lazy, do nothings. Welfare-queens (fuck you very much Mr. Reagan). You work hard, a good job, you have a degree!! But you just can't seem to keep up with your bills let alone the Joneses.

Poverty is so unglamourous, it's a sidebar in debates and policy stands. Supposedly good liberals ridicule the poor with taunts and insults when they tell them "I would donate/march/volunteer, but I can't afford to", calling them slaves, telling them that they aren't good liberals/democrats because they aren't willing to make the sacrifice to stand for what they believe in. An 8 hour work day at $10.00/hr is equal to $80.00 before taxes. $80.00 is equal to roughly one electric bill. Equal to 2 weeks of groceries for a family of two (I'm being generous, the cost is generally higher than this). But they are slaves and bad dems because they are not willing to "sacrifice" for one day to march with you. The working poor do not have a choice that is acceptable. I do not expect someone to sacrifice their childrens health and basic needs to fulfill my ideals, I would just speak louder for those who cannot be there, so that their voices can also be heard.

Why play the more dem/librul than thou game? Isn't that type of thing what we are fighting AGAINST??

Classism is alive and well in America, even among the good, progressive, liberal types. And it is more heart-breaking and demoralizing when it comes from those who should be fighting for us, those who should be our friends, than it ever could possibly be coming from the "other side".

Are you middle-class? Or are have you been duped into believing it? Are you upper-class, and carry around the idea that the poor are just lazy? Have a look at the documents below, and keep in mind, they are not accurate for today, even those done in 2005, because inflation has increased.

This is what it REALLY costs just to keep your head above water in America today. I am poor, I am the working poor. I have a degree, I work hard, full-time, at higher than minimum wage, in the biomedical research sector. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? My income is considered BARELY enough to survive, going by the single person standard. Problem is, I have a kid, and am far below what is necessary to survive. But the gubmint thinks I'm doing okay, I'm above the poverty line.

I have a face. There is no such thing as the "faceless poor". We are your friends, family, neighbors. We belong to the same political party as you. We vote for progressive candidates. We hate what has been done to our beautiful country just as much as you, if not more. But to you, we are slaves. Less than you. You are better, because you are willing to make a "sacrifice" for what you believe in. I'd sacrifice, but I have nothing left to give. I'm empty. There's a saying, "you can't get blood from a stone". I am that stone, but I am not granite, I am shale, I will break and shatter. My world is a precarious one at best, and I am not alone. I am angry. I am tired. I am filled with hope and rage and despair, all at the same time. I cry with joy and pain, and I fight, tooth and nail, for what I believe in.

I am human, and YOU are just like ME.




Alabama 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/AL%20FULL%20FINAL%20with%20MAP.pdf
Arizona 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/AZ%20full%20final.pdf
California 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/2003%20CA%20Full%20Report%20with%20Map.pdf
Colorado 2004 - http://www.cclponline.org/pubs/sssfullreport5-04.pdf
Connecticut 2005 — http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/FinalCT%2005%20Full%20Report_12-13-05%20.pdf
Delaware 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/ACF1E5.pdf
Florida 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Florida%20Standard.pdf
Georgia 2002 - http://www.womenspolicygroup.org/pdfs/GA-FINAL-fullreport.pdf
Hawaii 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/HI%20-%20fullreport_FINAL_R.pdf
Illinois — 2001 http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/ILFullReport.pdf
Indiana 2005 — link
Kansas 2004 - http://www.kac.org/docs/SelfSuff3rdEd.pdf
Kentucky 2001 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/KYFullReport.pdf
Louisiana 2003 - http://www.agendaforchildren.org/pages/LASelfSufficiencyStandard.pdf
Maryland 2001 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/md%20-%20full%20report%2012-117pdf.pdf
Massachusetts 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/MAFESS.SSS.report.pdf;
Mississippi 2003 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Full%20final%20report%202-26.pdf
Missouri 2002 - http://www.womenscouncil.org/documents/self-sufficiency.pdf
Montana 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/MT%20full%20report%20final.pdf
Nebraska 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/ACFD8.pdf
Nevada 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Nevada%20final%20report.pdf
New Jersey 2005 - http://www.lsnj.org/PDFs/PovertyResearchInstitute/RealCostofLiving2005.pdf
New York City 2004 - http://www.unitedwaynyc.org/?id=69#sss
New York State 2000 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Resource-StandardReport-NY.pdf
North Carolina 1997 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Resource-StandardReport-NC.pdf
Oklahoma 2002 - http://www.captc.org/pubpol/SSS/okFullReport.pdf
Pennsylvania 2006 - http://pathwayspa.org/policy/FINAL_PA-2006_full%20report5-15-06.pdf
South Dakota 2000 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Resource-StandardReport-SD.pdf
Tennessee 2002 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/TN-FINAL-fullreport.pdf
Texas 1997 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/Resource-StandardReport-TX.pdf
Utah 2001 - http://www.utahchildren.net/pdf_files/UT_SSS.pdf
Virginia 2002 - http://www.vakids.org/Publications/SSS-VA%20Full%20Report%207-9.pdf
        2006 http://www.dss.virginia.gov/geninfo/reports/agency_wide/self_sufficiency.cgi
Washington, DC Metropolitan Area 2005 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/FINAL%20DC%20SSS.pdf
Washington state 2001 - http://www.sixstrategies.org/files/WAcomplete.pdf
West Virginia 2005 - http://www.wvwic.org/reports/WV%20SSS2005%20All%20Families%20Tables.pdf
Wisconsin 2004 - http://www.wiwomensnetwork.org/selfsuffbody2004.pdf
Wyoming 2005 - http://wyoming.gov/governor/policies/documents/WyomingSelf-SufficiencyStandard2005_000.pdf

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Great post and thank you! nt

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

85. Somehow, we've managed to make poverty "look good",...

,...without acknowledging the struggle to meet basic needs. I manage to "look good" without giving away the fact I may not be able to pay my electric bill next month,...or the fact I don't have money to pay either for the healthcare my family needs or any emergency with my car let alone school clothes for the family.

Nevertheless, I've still managed through life via others' graciousness or thrift stores or, hell, even setting up a vendor booth when and where possible. Whatever it takes to survive (and I am 'edumacated').

However, I'll never forget when I met this woman, an exceptionally radiant and beautiful woman, a complete stranger at a little cafe in Seattle. I don't know what drew me to the table where she sat, alone, other than her complete comfort with being with herself.

We felt immediately comfortable with sharing our lives. She listened, attentively, to my life situation. She was warm and compassionate. Then, she told me about her period of homelessness. Her appearance simply did not match the desperate story she shared.

She lived scavaging through the "well-to-do" trashcans for a full 18 months sustaining a make-shift shack under a bridge in Seattle. I COULD NOT IMAGINE THAT!!! There this indescribably attractive, thirty-somthing woman sat before me and told me SHE had to live as a human scavanger to survive.

I've lived and live tough financial times beneath the cost-of-living, here, in the U.S.A. But, that lovely woman still managed to make poverty look better than I ever could.

The mask of poverty,...betrays the truth, though. Thing is, we live in a double-edged culture where "appearance" will save you from condemnation; YET, you are suppose to be open and honest with yourself and others in order to be a healthy person that can contribute to society.

[dropkickpa]

91. We hide it, make it pretty

Because appearances mean so much. It's the shame, the embarrassment of somehow not being good enough, at our jobs, at managing our money, that we hide. We are made to feel defective if we aren't able to "keep it up", because it has to be our fault, right? It's something we're doing wrong. Well, I call bullshit. If everyone having these struggles stood up and said "I'm hurtin, and I don't know how I'm gonna make it through" it would echo around the country and couldn't be ignored or hidden anymore. When everyone is in the same boat, why hide it?

[Odin2005]

102. It's Secular Calvinism.

The notion that the poor are unvirtuous and defective comes from the influence of Calvinist Christianity on American culture during the colonial period. To Calvinist Christians how well off you are is a sign if you are one of the "elect" that gets to go to heaven or not.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. It makes me sick to my stomach to see what Republicans have done to our country.

These people are Nazis.

[dropkickpa]

9. They're killing us

bit by bit.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

49. Yes. I abhor those people who voted them in. nt

[QC]

3. K&R! n/t

[SoCalDem]

4. Remove the accoutrements and cash from a rich person,

dump him/her into a small town in middle america..let's give him/her no phone access, and see how they manage.. Oh, and let's give him/her a raging case of the flu..and a broken down car..

[DemBones DemBones]

108. Probably you meant this to be included in "accoutrements,"

but he definitely needs to be in old clothes that were obviously cheap to start with, and shoes that are coming apart. Nothing to give away his formerly privileged life.

Just mentioning it because when you said "accoutrements and cash" together, it made me think of credit cards, check book, ID, etc.


They made a movie about this called "Trading Places," which was beautiful.

[annabanana]

5. Not only have they convinced us we're "middle class"

. . we are all "this close" to being really rich... just one big break .

[dropkickpa]

11. Yeah, we just have to work just a leetle bit harder

Doncha know? :banghead:

[loudsue]

52. Or buy a lottery ticket....

Another way for the government to divert our taxes that should go to education, and spend it on the war, republican no-bid contracts (which fund the RNC) & corporate welfare instead. Our lottery tickets (in many states) fund education, instead of our taxes doing that.

:kick:

[Odin2005]

103. I agree, the lottery is an immoral tax on the poor.

IMO lotteries should be banned.

[Ken Burch]

73. ...and get a LEETLE bit meaner...

:eyes: :puke:

[Crayson]

97. Carrot on a Stick...

Animal Farm: "I shall work harder!!"

[dropkickpa]

98. Should be a donut

Because we all know american poor are fat and lazy. :sarcasm:

[Katherine Brengle]

6. This is important stuff --

the federal poverty standards are so low as to be ridiculous. At about $50K a year for a family of 3 (in Massachusetts), we are considered to be living well above poverty, but still live paycheck to paycheck after all our bills and groceries.

Things are so out of whack...

[silverojo]

7. This is so very, very true!

K&R for a very eloquent and fact-filled post.

[babylonsister]

8. Thank you. Great post.

:thumbsup:

[stillcool]

10. reminds me of this...

taken from the book THE RICH AND THE SUPER-RICH. Copyright 1968 by Ferdinand Lundberg.
because the copyright has expired it is available for free down-load at this internet library
http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/0303socialcriticism.html

One

THE ELECT AND
THE DAMNED



Most Americans--citizens of the wealthiest, most powerful and most ideal-swathed country in the world--by a very wide margin own nothing more than their household goods, a few glittering gadgets such as automobiles and television sets (usually purchased on the installment plan, many at second hand) and the clothes on their backs. A horde if not a majority of Americans live in shacks, cabins, hovels, shanties, hand-me-down Victorian eyesores, rickety tenements and flaky apartment buildings--as the newspapers from time to time chortle that new Russian apartment-house construction is falling apart. (Conditions abroad, in the standard American view, are everywhere far worse than anywhere in the United States. The French, for example, could learn much about cooking from the Automat and Howard Johnson.)

At the same time, a relative handful of Americans are extravagantly endowed, like princes in the Arabian Nights tales. Their agents deafen a baffled world with a never-ceasing chant about the occult merits of private-property ownership (good for everything that ails man and thoroughly familiar to the rest of the world, not invented in the United States), and the vaulting puissance of the American owners.

It would be difficult in the 1960's for a large majority of Americans to show fewer significant possessions if the country had long labored under a grasping dictatorship. How has this process been contrived of stripping threadbare most of the populace, which once at least owned small patches of virgin land? To this fascinating if off-color question we shall give some attention later.

Statements such as the foregoing on the rare occasions when they are ventured (although strictly true and by no means new)1 are bound to be challenged by the alert propaganda watchdogs of the established order. These proprgandists, when hard pressed, offer an incantation about a mythical high American standard of living which on inspection turns out to be no more than a standard of gross consumption. The statements must, therefore--particularly in this age of burgeoning one-sided affluence--be monumentally and precisely documented and redocumented. Not that this will deter the watchdogs, who have limitless resources of casuistry and dialectic to fall back upon as well as an endless supply of white paper from denuded forests.



Critical Scholarship Takes a Hand

But (fortunately for truth) critical scholarship, roused from its one-time somnolence by echoing charges and counter-charges over the years, has finally been led to make penetrating, detailed, exhaustive and definitive revelations of the underlying facts--although the findings of such scholarship are not featured in the controlled prints, are not publicly discussed and are not even alluded to in polite society. As far as the broad public is concerned in an age of unrestrained publicity, when even the martyrdom of a virile young president is made overnight into a profitable industry, the facts about the skeletons in the closet of the affluent society are shrouded in secrecy for all except those queer beings willing to delve for hours among dusty tomes in library crypts.

Nonetheless, irreproachable scholarly analyses of diamond-hard official data fully support my initial assertions, which to the average newspaper reader. may seem incredibly. iconoclastic, ludicrously wrongheaded or the maunderings: of an idiot. Further along, some of the complex reasons for the odd situation will be touched upon, after the paramount position of the wealthy and the ways they are maintained have been fully depicted.



A Nation of Employees

Most adult Americans in the quasi-affluent society of today, successors to the resourceful (and wholly imaginative) Americano of Walt Whitman's lush fantasy, are nothing more than employees. For the most part they are precariously situated; nearly all of them are menials. In this particular respect Americans, though illusion-ridden, are like the Russians under Communism, except that the Russians inhabit a less technologized society and have a single employer, There are, of course, other differences (such as the fact that Americans are allowed a longer civil leash), but not of social position. And this nation of free and equal employees is the reality that underlies and surrounds the wealthy few on the great North American continent.

Those few newspapers that make a practice of printing foreign news occasionally survey Latin American countries. The writers are invariably grieved to find a small oligarchy of big landowners in control, with the remainder of the population consisting of sycophantic hangers-on and landless, poverty-stricken peasants. But I have never seen it remarked that the basic description, with the alteration of a few nouns, applies just as well to the United States, where the position of the landowners is occupied by the financiers, industrialists and big rentiers and that of the peasants by the low-paid employees (all subject to dismissal for one reason or other just like the peasants).



The Banana Republics

These same writers, focusing attention on Central America, refer caustically to the "banana republics"--those countries, economically dominated mainly by the United Fruit Company, where political leaders are bought and sold like popcorn and where ambitious insurrectos from time to time overthrow earlier insurrectos who run the government for their own profit. But the United States, sacred land of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Madison--"Of thee I sing"--itself often displays many similar aspects, mingled with a heady atmosphere at times reminiscent of rural carnivals, Oriental bazaars, raucous gambling houses and plush bordellos. If anyone thinks I exaggerate he should notice how the mingled images of Coney Island, Atlantic City, Miami Beach, Hollywood, Palm Springs, Broadway, Las Vegas and Madison Avenue often disconcertingly float into plain view at political conventions, state funerals, elections, court proceedings and congressional hearings, much to the glee of enchanted but I fear disrespectful and unconsciously alienated spectators.

Conditions in the United States, mutatis mutandis, are not nearly so different from conditions in other countries as North American natives are customarily led to suppose by imaginative editors. As in the "banana republics" we have assassinations and attempted assassinations of the chief of state at regular intervals--Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy shot dead; Truman and both Roosevelts the targets of would-be assassins; any number of local jefes politicos bullet-drilled. This is not to say that those differences that exist between the United States and the Central American republics may not be important. The point is that, while the differences in favor of the United States are endlessly stressed for public edification--such as the prevalence north of the Rio Grande of indoor flush toilets, an engineering marvel long antedating television sets--the grim similarities are seldom or never alluded to. To refer to them would be considered unpatriotic.

In the matter of domestic gunplay, for example, the United States far outdoes any of the "banana republics." Since 1900 more than 750,000 persons have died in the United States of nonmilitary gunshot wounds inside or outside the home, and the annual death rate from gunplay is now 17,000, or about 50 per day. 2 Other forms of violence are equally prevalent; and violence in general, to the dismay of the genteel, is the staple theme in American films and television, reflecting the external society. More than one and a half million have been killed by the automobile since its vaunted introduction into the United States.

Crime to purloin a phrase, is rampant. From the Wickersham Report of 1931 down to a presidential commission in 1967, several national commissions have surveyed, recommended and wrung their hands as the tide of crime (much of which is not reported) has risen. In addition to frequently disclosed tie-ins of organized crime with local politicians, the associations of the organized underworld are openly traced up to the congressional level.3

In ancient days the messenger who brought bad news to the king was frequently executed. Those who produce unwanted messages such as these are now generally stigmatized as "muckrakers," themselves unclean, as though an epithet disposed of the phenomenon.

Even in such a presumably distinctive Latin American feature as the intrusiveness of the military, the United States now clearly overshadows anything in this line the Latin American republics are able to show. Compared with the political power and influence of the American military today, Hohenzollern Germany (at one time designated by horrified American publicists as the acme of cold militarism in modern times) was only a one-cylinder, comic-opera affair. The Pentagon of today--its agents busy in Congress and the Executive Branch, with the politicians obviously standing in awe of the bemedaled generals, with the defense-industry corporations loaded with retired officers--could flatten an entity like Hohenzollern or Hitler Germany with a few well-placed blows. The youth, too, are freely conscripted, as though they were German peasants.

[dropkickpa]

13. Thank you for this!

Rings eerily true even now, 40 years later!

[stillcool]

17. This book blew my mind...

when I first read it. That this information was available...but, who knew?..way back when, makes me wonder how many other books were written in an attempt to expose the truth. It is a book I refer to time and time again, and I am really grateful that it is accessible on the net. The Soil & Health library has many other publications as well.

[Hardrada]

20. Always loved this book. So well written.

So few took heed of it. I read it and almost immediately it seemed the Reaganites were in power and the false dreams were reimposed more vigorously.

[Joe Chi Minh]

41. Wow! And it's all become turbo-charged in the meantime.... What a voice

in the wilderness!

Excerpts from the entire book should be required, mandatory reading in all secondary schools during morning assemblies. Are you listening Dennis? Trouble is, the latest battle-tank wouldn't provide you with sufficent protection.

[tblue37]

47. Good reading, but what does the fact of high fatality rates from

automobiles have to do with any of the other stuff? It srikes me as a complete non sequitur.

[stillcool]

64. I'm not sure...

I assumed that seeing as it was written in the pre-Nader, pre-lemon-law days...it might be a reference to the Ford and DuPont family businesses.

[TahitiNut]

81. "pre-Nader"??

You never heard of "Unsafe At Any Speed"???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

[stillcool]

84. ..That's what I was referring to...

meaning...that the auto industry had yet to be held accountable for any cars failings. Jeez....did I mis-speak?
(I had to edit to remove the 'huh?'...that was in the header...not who I want to be.)

[rudy23]

12. Katrina should be a big wake up call for the middle class

Think those are all poor people who lost everything and are now living in formaldahyde trailers?

Think again.

[rucky]

14. If that didn't do it...

let's see regular working people try to get a mortgage nowadays.

[dropkickpa]

15. Exactly!

But it's soo much more comfortable to think that they didn't have all that much to lose in the first place, so it's not too much worse for them where they are now.

[rudy23]

19. Exactly.

No, don't buy the media hype. These are middle class people with jobs and houses and the security that many of us think we have, who are being treated like prisoners in their own country.

[superkia]

16. And they wonder whats happening to America's children.

This rise of inflation with our pay not increasing the way it should and we have a huge part of the population that has to work so much to make ends meet. So now we have a society that doesn't have enough time available to spend quality time with their children or that cant afford to make the right food choices. Americans obesity problem didn't come from Americans becoming lazy, I think it has more to do with poor wages that have deteriorated the quality of life for many. Allot of people are depressed because they cant take care of their children like they want or they cant even spend that good time with them at the dinner table?

I don't have children but for all that do, I hope that our country is as good as we all think it is and it starts taking care of its people. Not just the wealthy ones.

[Nikia]

18. But I think that there is something harmful about people thinking they are "poor" also

I think that in some ways that it encourages less empathy for the poor, not more.
If we, who do not have to make difficult financial choices, do not feel fortunate, we might not appreciate the situation of those who have to make difficult financial choices. It may also make people less likely to give to the poor if they believe that they themselves are poor.

[dropkickpa]

21. I find the opposite is the case

The poor are so often "other" that people don't relate. And the stereotypes of what "poor" is allows that othering. When people see that what poor really is, it's a wake-up call, because it is much closer to their own situations than they ever thought. Instead of being so far to fall that it would "never happen", people see that it's not that far at all. I believe it adds impetus to make some sort of change, because it is much closer to home than many ever thought.

I've done volunteer work in food banks, kitchens, etc, and most often, it ain't the rich doing it, not by a long shot. It's people like me, the poor but *slightly* better off, because we know what it does, and want to help that much more, because that could so very easily be us someday, or was us in the not so distant past. Writing a check is all well and good and is a great help, but it's the time, the personal effort that makes the biggest difference in people's daily lives.

[Nikia]

25. I guess I am thinking of certain situations

Like my mother-in-law telling me how her parents paid for her expensive wedding and my parents should do the same because her parents were from a poor family (turned out not to be so poor). Also, "Look how so and so's kids are dressed. I am poor too but I see that my kids get proper clothes." It allows for a different type of snobbery.
It also doesn't seem very nice for me to complain about being poor in the break room if my normal wage is their time and a half. It is a little bit like someone weighing 130 comaplaining about being fat next to their friend who is 200 pounds or someone who dropped out of college complaining about feeling bad about that fact to someone who dropped out of high school. I know what poor is and it just seems insulting to the truly poor to call oneself poor when one does not have to make tough economic decisions like they do.

[dropkickpa]

26. But that's the thing

There's a lot more people than we realize that ARE having to make those tough decisions. I have to choose everyday. I KNOW many others here do too.

The intent of this thread was not a "Woe is me, I'm poor!" pity-party, it was to draw attention to the oft ignored and ridiculed (even here) fact of poverty and poorness in the US, to bring awareness to it, and to hopefully

1. motivate people to shine a spotlight in these issues and get people to demand attention from their chosen candidates/reps
2. get some of the people here on this board to show a little more compassion to their fellow DU'ers
3. raise awareness of how bamboozled the people of this country have been by shiny, pretty things and the assholes in charge who like it just that way
4. get rid of the "But I don't have the right to demand change" because I'm doing a little better than him and her and them.


The ONLY way I can justify even having a $33/month internet connection is that I NEED it do work from home, both to stay caught up so I can come home to my kid at a decent time and to not fall behind on sick and vacation days, which would force me to stay extra late upon return to work.

[rucognizant]

37. Nikia!

The poor DO NOT want to be given TO! WE want the opportunity to make our way in this world like everyone and the fa schist machine is insuring that it is VERY DIFFICULT IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
I am having a lot of trouble with my energy company. Their bills are 1/8 of my below the poverty line SS income. I am dependant on their electricity, to use my computer/internet, that MAY be my ticket to a slightly better life! ( NOT rich, just able to afford petunias for the front yard of my gallery!)Apparently, according to the electric companies figures, it uses about $60.00 worth of power a month!
Prior to the last economic meltdown ( 1990, as a result of Reaganomics,) when I was earning over 4 times as much with my small business, my TOTAL electric bill ran about $60.00 per month! I did not have a computer, but I was running a 500W projector bulb 8 -0 10 hours a day to paint from!
BTW, at birth I was given by my Grandfather, ( as were all the cousins,) Atlantic City Electric Company Stocks! Am I ever a poster child for the way YOU ALL are headed!
The Bangor Enron company's only response to me was "Well go to your town for the money, or your church!" Well yes, that takes care of this month's bill but doesn't address that this is an ongoing monthly crisis. The SS income needs to be raised AT LEAST TO THE MINIMUM WAGE!
ANd about that church, ( faith based charity organization........yes they did pay $100. toward my bill in March.I can't ask them again!
ANd their food pantry? You get 2 cans of vegetables, 2 cans of fruit, per month, i meat serving, lots of macaroni, tabasco popcorn in Little packets ( not even a bag of regular popping corn,) and past due date cupcakes from the local market and out of date soups.) NO dairy, NO Gov. surplus cheese!
When I hear MSM say how generous Americans are I think of all those kind souls, who weed out their pantries, and contribute the out of date stuff to the local food bank, feeling very good about themselves...........................
No it isn't good to think of oneself as being poor, but when one has to defend one turf from loss of services rather than putting that time into work that might make a difference.............when one has been accustomed to buying in bulk, paying in advance, all those little things that, save a $ here or there, it is galling not to be able to do that any more, instead you have to spend more for late fees etc.!
I now have a tax exempt certificate, enabling the state & feds to track my sales/earnings...................BUT I can only purchase tax free items that will directly passed on to the buyer, ie: canvas board,
canvas, paintable craft items, That $25.00 paint brush, doesn't qualify, because it is going to stay in my studio, not be passed on to the buyer! Never mind that when the canvas is finished the paint brush may be as well! Prior to 1986 the tax "reform" all art supplies were nontaxable if you had a certificate.! These are th "little things" of which the adult population of today is clueless, because most people over 16 can't afford to be an artist!
Buy good art, support a dying lifestyle........................

[sanskritwarrior]

22. Weird

according to that chart, for Hawaii I am 3 times above the self suffiency standard alone, add in my wife and it is 5 times.......I thought soldiers were supposed to be poor?

[tabasco]

60. The self-sufficiency standard for two adults is over $30,000.

So E-7's get paid over $90,000 a year now?

You and your wife clear over $150,000?

Wow, I should have stayed in for those big pay raises.

Either that or you're lying (per norm).

[Aviation Pro]

71. Actually, he's not lying....

I'm assuming Farsi Warrior is an E-7 with 16 years of service. Here's how the numbers breakdown:

Basic Pay: $3511/month
Basic Housing allowance for Hawaii: $2553/month
Basic Allowance for Substenance: $279/month
Cost of Living at $37/day: $1100/month
Total: $7443/month

7433
x 12
-----
89196

Of course, God forbid, he should end up back at Ft. Meade where the service will immediately rip most of that pay away.

[Aviation Pro]

79. Oh, I forgot language pay if he is certified to the 2+ level....

...that's an additional $1000/month.

[sanskritwarrior]

82. E-7 with 14 years

but I do have a 2+ language identifier...........

Thanks aviation.........

Hey Tabasco, I never lie, you seem to have some kind of grudge against me dude..........I know how much I make here in Hawaii, apparently you don't know how much we in the Army make.......

[sanskritwarrior]

107. got nothing to say do you???

LOL....wanna call me a liar some more???

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

23. K & R. Good post, good research. Thank you. nt.

[WillyT]

24. Great Post... Don't Know if It Applies Anymore, But...

George Carlin used to have this saying:

The rich do none of the work, and don't pay any of the taxes.
The middle-class does all of the work, and pays all of the taxes.
And the poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle-class.

Don't know if that still holds true, or if it ever really did for that matter. But I know what he was trying to say.

Thing is, in ANY country, if you start shrinking the middle-class, and growing the numbers of the poor, it is the rich that eventually has the shit scared out of them.

:shrug:

[truedelphi]

27. Thank you for posting this - and of course the Gubmint MUST say we are middle class

If they admitted that we were poor - then they would have to amend the tax tables and allow us to stop paying taxes.

My dad was in his early forties in the nineteen fifties. At that time, he never made more than 5500 dollars a year.

He always had at least $ 1,000 in savings. As he was fond of saying he couldn't sleep at night unless he had 25% of his income in the bank, the savings account was probably more. He paid cash for a brand new car every four or five years.

We lived in a very nice place inside a safe and beautfiul neighborhood. We took a two or three or more week vacation every single year. We never worried about health expenses or health insurance (He was insured through his job) My mother worked part time because she wanted to and spent the money on frivolities.

How was this decent life possible?? Well if you look at a tax table for those years - $ 5,500 minus the deductions for two kids and being a sole earner allowed my father to pay taxes on only $ 1,000 of that income.

Now the person working in the early 2000's has to make ten times my dad's salary to have less than he had. I know a lot of people who make ten times what he did - if they are in California they are living pay check to paycheck. Lucky to have even $ 1,000 in the bank much less one fourth of the income. If married, both people work.

Again how is it possible that such "affluence" is not enough?? For one thing - the rise in housing prices. And again, look at a tax table. Figure out how much you must pay on that salary. Especially if, since homes are extremely expensive, you may well be *UN*entitled to the mortgage deduction, yet paying huge amounts for housing.

THE TAXES ARE ELIMINATING THE ABILITY FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON IN AMERICA TO HAVE ANY SAVINGS, TAKE A VAcATION, HOLD HEALTH INSURANcE Etc.

[GOPBasher]

28. I'm dirt poor, despite a lot of education, and I can't support my family.

I have a BS in physics, magna cum laude, and an MS in education. But no one will hire me as a teacher -- the only thing I have any experience in -- and I'm currently working in a factory for $9.50/hr. My wife and I have two kids, and she's in school right now, not bringing any money in. Thus, we literally can't support our children without help, though thankfully we have plenty of that. We live with her mom (my mother-in-law) in order to get by, and my parents have helped us tremendously in the past as well. If it weren't for our families helping us, we'd be living on the streets -- I mean, it's not like there are any government safety nets anymore.

I can't imagine the people who are in my situation but don't get help from anyone. Those are the people the government should help, but after 30 years of right-wing maniacs in control, our safety nets have been cut underneath our feet.

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. Why is it, I wonder that in the UK and the US, as professions,

science and engineering are considered the poor relatives of the law, finance (the invisible-earnings spivs) and accountancy? While, I'm pretty sure that in Germany and France, it is the other way around.

Mind you, in France, I was told, managerial posts in the civil service, possibly including politics, require a law degree! I think we'd have very 'small governments' all right, if it was required in our countries!

Ah, well, the spivs can get along fine without manufacturing industry - until the inevitable depression comes along.

[DemBones DemBones]

109. You could get a job teaching physics if you could coach!

That's how sick our education system is.

[ConsAreLiars]

29. The Ameican "dream." If ANY haven't yet read former DUer DuctTapeFatwa's "Advice to the New Poor"

now is the time. Your post tells the truth, a truth many close their eyes to. But, if you haven't yet done so, read this very long 7-part essay. I don't think I've ever read anything as eloquent and honest:
http://www.pkblogs.com/ductapefatwa/2003/11/advice-for-new-poor-part-1-some-advice.html

(edit the inevitable typo)

[blondie58]

33. what a very poignant essay that is

thank you for posting this- it is well worth the time to read it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

53. Heart-breaking. The more so for dealing with what must be a fairly common phenomenon.

[davekriss]

56. I remember that

DuctTapeFatwa's Advice to the New Poor Series, originally posted here, was devastatingly moving and an excellent consiousness raiser to what a slippage into poverty would mean to those of us in the middle under attack by Republican regimes.

I was so sorry to see DuctTapeFatwa go from DU. There have been so many excellent posters come and gone from here over the years...

[glowing]

30. Florida's is def. off... especially after it went through housing boom.

Its so much more expensive now than 2002... It wasn't so bad then. Now housing is out of control, even rent and transportation is horrible and all other expenses rose with the gas. I'm working poor.

[DUlover2909]

31. I think the real standard should be the ability to save money.

If a person works for 40 hours per week and make at least minimum wage, that person should be able to pay their share of utilities, housing, food, clothing, transportation, medical insurance, and entertainment (however meager, I mean, what is a life with no distractions, hobbies, or enjoyment?). After all those things are funded that person should still be able to set aside 10& of their income for their retirement. What's going to happen to those of us that work paycheck to paycheck and never get ahead? With inflation our social security income will be sorely insufficient to maintain basic needs, much less live comfortably in our old age. People can't work forever.

[barbtries]

89. i expect to be working

basically up until the day i die. i see no alternative. savings? ha! not enough money to pay the rent. and since i'm working in a place where it's been made fairly clear to me that to request a raise in pay is more than likely to result in the loss of a job, i can't see this changing for us. i am actually considering quitting los angeles and moving across country to NC where rents are about 1/2 of what they are around here. after spending my entire life here - almost 52 years - i never thought i would be relocating. but the pros are outweighing the cons in almost every respect and if i can get a job out there, i really think we'll do it.

[deutsey]

32. We're living in a new Gilded Age, which means there's the rich and the rest of us

There's no middle class in feudalism.

[gollygee]

34. Yep

That's what is going on here exactly.

[Tab]

35. Two weeks of groceries for $80?

When I was growing up, a major, I mean MAJOR food shopping trip with my mother would go over $100, but now - it doesn't take much to have a $40 grocery bill. Most items are $3 or $4, and if you go through the express lane (14 items or less) times 10, you've got $40 right there.

If I was a student, I'd probably be back to ramen noodles, but as a parent, that $80 would be gone in a split second.

[Warren Stupidity]

40. $200-300 in this house per week.

It is more like 40-60 per person per week. Of course we have teenagers.

[dropkickpa]

76. Oh yeah, always higher when there's kids

especially teenagers (I have 5 brothers, and there's only a 12 year gap between youngest and oldest child). Growing bodies and minds need good food, and lots of it. I'm sometimes amazed at the amount of food that Dropkid, a 6 year old girl, can put away when she's in the midst of a growth spurt.

[RebelOne]

99. I am a single person.

And I spend around $100 a week for food for me and 2 dogs.

[dropkickpa]

105. Wow!

I spend about $220-250 a month on food for me, Dropkid, the dog, and the guinea pigs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. Five things that drain the near-poor:

1. Lack of decent health/dental coverage. My attempts to stay debt-free were shattered by $2800 of dental work in two years.

2. The need to own a car in most places. Either there is no public transit at all or it doesn't run in the places and at the times that are needed. Even owning a beat-up old hand-me-down car that's all paid off deducts $3,000 a year from my disposable income.

3. The rise in housing prices. Ironically, it's the places where one doesn't need a car that have the most outrageous housing prices.

4. Rising tuition, even at public institutions, which serves as a barrier to upward mobility and job retraining.

5. Middle class people think that they MUST own a house. That compulsion can drain one in two ways, either with whopping mortgage payments or with having to move so far out into the country to avoid whopping mortgage payments that you end up with whopping car payments and gas bills.

That's on top of inflation, which is higher than anyone is admitting. (Someone else on another thread noted the ever-shrinking package at the supermarket.)

A lot of people disparage the 1950s, and yes, there were underlying problems that nobody talked about, but I spent my elementary school years in a Midwestern industrial town. Most of my school classmates were the children of assembly line workers. They had one wage earner, but there wasn't one family that didn't own a house and a car.

We are truly seeing downward mobility.

I'm just waiting for some John Stossel wannabe to come on and tell us that we have it good because we have DVD players ($39) and are better off than the people of Bangladesh (where at least prices are lower).

[Tab]

50. Rental is just a small part of it

Since I became a homeowner, I've at least broken even - lived for free, if you will.

Credit cards, however, will drag you into the dust and you don't mention those. A bad card, or late payments, and suddenly a $900 purchase ends up costing you $3000.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. That's how I was able to pay the dental bills

:-(

[Wednesdays]

78. But you CHOSE to do that, so don't complain

You made your own bed, lie in it.

:sarcasm:

[Joe Chi Minh]

38. What a brilliant and much needed post! When you can afford to send your

children to private schools and run two gas-guzzlers, you're middle-class.

Otherwise, you're on a downward sliding scale to poverty. At best, you're being stiffed. Most people though are clearly under the cosh, and everyone's resources and tolerance are finite. An ugly scene in both the UK and US. Never were Kuchinich and Edwards more needed.

You have great grounds for hope. Would that it were so in the UK.

The classlessness thing is funny, being as it is, so full of ambiguities. I was just reminded that in Oz, you call your doctor and bank manager by their Christian names. But they too are mostly 'under the cosh' - thanks to decades of right-wing Labour and now Howard's far right.

[Warren Stupidity]

39. My rule of thumb: the FICA cap.

2007: $97,500.

A family of 4 earning more than the cap is 'middle class', below that: 'poor'. As a general guide it seems to work. At 2-3x the cap you are 'upper middle class'. At 4-5x you are 'income wealthy'. The nice thing about the FICA cap is that in order to keep the screwage constant this regressive tax is COLA'd every year. A lot of people resist appraisals like the self-sufficiency standard as it puts them into the midst of the working poor, and that is emotionally difficult to accept. However these studies document the massive screwage that working people in this country have been bamboozled into accepting. Will we ever wake up?

[Lucky Luciano]

42. I live in South Manhattan...in 2004 they are saying

the minimum self-sufficiency level is $40K for a single person. In 2007, that level is probably $60K. That is quite minimal no doubt. My bloody studio costs $3K!One could probably get a studio for $1K in the lower east side though.

[Labors of Hercules]

44. These numbers are TEN bloody years old!!! nt

[dropkickpa]

45. Yes, and many people are even further now

Hell, 2 year old number aren't accurate anymore, with costs rising even more now.

[elehhhhna]

46. TEXAS hasn't UPDATED since 1997 !!11! Hmmm. Wonder why?

[TalkingDog]

86. Inflation calculator should help:

http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

[NMMNG]

48. I already knew I wasn't middle class

Never have been, probably never will be.

[loudsue]

51. K & R This is what John Edwards keeps trying to tell people.

And he GETS IT!! I'm glad he has made this a central part of his campaign.

You notice the republicans, during their debates, are still talking about creationism, abortion and gays, bombing countries and "terror, terror, terror". ....fiddling while Rome burns.

:kick::kick::kick:

[rucognizant]

55. And the Repug constituents..........

All say "Well I work HARD & I pay my taxes!" It's all the fault of all those young unmarried women who collect welfare! Can't see beyond their noses!
I just went to the store to get milk for my noon coffee.................The price has doubled............but I noticed, alcohalic beverages are about the same price as they were 16 years ago when I moved to Maine! Can't we drive our cars on gin & vodka?
Pisses me OFF! How many of the poor, are poor because there was an alcholic family member, destroying the budget?

[Xipe Totec]

54. KR&B!

Kicked, recommended, and bookmarked!

This puppy is a keeper!

[FloridaJudy]

57. I'm working class. Always have been.

Sure, I'm a "professional". So were my parents. But we had to work to keep a roof over our heads: we couldn't just live off of inherited wealth, or our stock earnings. The only difference between me and a coal miner is that he does a more dangerous job at lower pay. Now that many college grads are working for poverty wages with no benefits - if they can find work at all - the similarities are even more apparent.

These piddly differences in class "status" just hide the real truth. There's only two classes in this country: the rich and the rest of us.

[ooglymoogly]

58. A great post....a dose of reality....big k&n

[AnotherGreenWorld]

59. Middle-class people have it harder because of Republican policies. But they're hardly poor.

That word is used far too broadly.

[dropkickpa]

77. But what I am saying is that

the middle class has shifted, but the powers that be keep telling everyone that isn't the case. In the reports I listed, the numbers given are the minimums for that area to be able to afford a sustainable life without assistance. Not rich, not awash in luxuries, but to simply survive debt-free without assistance.

[mntleo2]

61. Lucky Ducky Here!

...yeah I am one of those supposedly uneducated, conservative, ghetto-dwelling, single mom with a "snotty-nosed" grand-niece and ooooo yeah, I am livin' the high life. Why, there is no more fun than trying to start your car with a bad lifter valve in the freezing cold at 4:30 AM in the morning so you can get your kids to daycare where they will pick up the flu and give it to you, and then you can do this while having a 103 degree temp and give it to everyone else you meet! There is nothing like having to figure out which you should pay ~ the light bill or fix that car, it is just a blast! I wonder why all the upper income folk aren't lining up to get those "free" food stamps from someone who looks at you like you are a piece of dirt, par-tay on!

Oh yeah!

Frankly I cannot see how you can be poor and *not* be a "librul" and most of the hard working folks I know in my position ARE liberals. They have no idea how we snicker at the idiocy of upper income people who just do not have a clue and do not want a clue.

I do not sense the snobbishness you speak of in my circle of liberal friends who are better off than I am. But then I am picky ~ my mama taught me never to trust a Republican. They are good people, they just do not have a clue as to how hard it is is all, but they try to have one, and I appreciate this about them more than they know!

Look at Venezuela, because they are by far the majority, the poor came out and voted in a 3rd party candidate. Because of their numbers, they decimated all the other classes and voted upper income people out of office and put in a guy like them. If the "middle class" was smarter they would realize they have a HEUEUEUEUGE voting base they could tap in to if they got their noses out of the air and actually looked at the "real people" around who are more like they are than they know.

More importantly, they better watch out ... Venezuela's example is just around the corner right here in the "ghetto" next door...



Love
Cat In Seattle

[dropkickpa]

80. Most of the snobbish-ness

I've seen is right here on DU, and, sadly, a lot of it is unconscious (at least I hope so).

[pink-o]

62. I was born at the end of 1954

..to a "middle-class" family. Most of you know what happened to my generation of kids who never had to worry about a roof over our heads, food on the table or a good education.

We had time to think. Unlike poor or very rich people, we neither had to work after school to help our families, or stay insulated in the country-club life and preserve the status quo. The middle class baby boomers are the ones that helped bring civil rights to the forefront, to resist conformity and the call to war and basically to change the fabric of our society in the 60s and 70s.


The system is well aware of this. Without a middle-class, well educated populace, those in power will remain in power while the rest of us acquiese because all our time is spent making ends meet. Middle-class is dangerous to The System. Those who maintain it have learned a lot in 30 years, and wiping out that demographic is part of the plan.

[Warren Stupidity]

63. Minor nit pick re civil rights

"The middle class baby boomers are the ones that helped bring civil rights to the forefront"

Actually it was the WWII generation that did this. The folks leading the charge in the 40's 50's and early 60's, from Rosa to Martin to Malcom were all 'the greatest generation', not boomers. Think about it: you were 16 in 1970, the civil rights movement peaked in '64 - 68.

[pink-o]

72. Yeah, that's true. I meant all the changes in the 70s

For women, gays, et al. And I'm not crowing about all our "Accomplishments" I know we dropped the ball in the 80s and allowed the current crap to take root and flourish.

At aged 52, I've come to believe it's all about marketing anyway. Women were given a few crumbs from the Big Table because The System realised we'd spend our own money far more readily than if our husbands controlled the purse strings. Gays have been marketed to lately, since corporations have come to understand and exploit the disposable income of a well-off couple usually without kids

Even the "youth" demographic, being touted as the only one that matters--well, that's obvious marketing. There are plenty of things a woman my age is not gonna buy, cuz frankly I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me anymore. I have a certain education and life experience that can't be snowed, so marketers tend to dump me on the scrapheap. I mean, what're they gonna do, try to interest me in buying their cigarettes or their purple eyeliner? So youth is feted, "oldth" is faded according to The System.

So if middle-class is the market, then what's gonna happen to consumer goods when there's no more middle class? We've seen it go on with the Sub-prime Mortgage market: it's all about plastic and debt. The poorer you are, the more The System will sell you goods so you can pretend you're not.poor So what if you default on your loans, credit cards or leases? The corporations are covered--they can absorb the loss!

[Deja Q]

70. Then why do they offshore?

The people they are educating will do the same things in their countries.

So it's not all bad.

Particularly as some of those folks are in China.

[ProudDad]

66. This is probably the MOST IMPORTANT post at DU

in months...

Get some CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS, FOLKS!!!!

There's a very small class of the corporate capitalist masters who are laughing at you all the way to their fancy resorts to count their huge bank accounts, assets and perks.

The rest of you are mainly deluded into thinking that your better off than you really are...

They use the Dow Jones and force you into piddling 401K's to make you think you have a "stake" in their Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, in your real lives, you're just a couple of paychecks from the street...

Don't fool yourselves, it's not just the republicans. Clinton One was a master at pulling this particular brand of wool over your eyes at the bidding of HIS corporate capitalist masters...

Don't expect much better from ObamClintWards in '09...

K&R

[DemBones DemBones]

113. Agree with all you said. Too bad posts can't be recommended because

I'd k & r yours.

[me b zola]

67. k&r

[TheOtherMaven]

68. Deceit, Misdirection, Relabeling

All the many tools They use to keep the public bamboozled and complacent.

"Upper class" was reserved for those with inherited wealth, who did not have to work for a living at all.

"Middle class" used to mean white-collar professionals who worked more with their heads than their hands. (There were refinements such as "Upper middle class", "Middle middle class" and "Lower middle class", depending on how prestigious the jobs were and how much money they made.)

The term for the blue-collar types with overalls and greasy hands was "Working class". No one called them "poor" - and they weren't, by any reasonable definition.

Then bracket creep, egotism, and bureaucratic bamboozling got into the act.

The term "Working class" was deleted from everyone's vocabulary, and they were redefined as "Lower middle class" - even though they weren't and everyone who was at all honest knew it. They and their children were given horrendously expensive "middle class" aspirations - a "nice" home with a "nice" car in a "nice" suburb, sending their children to college so that they could continue the bracket creep and maybe get into the middle or upper middle class, or marry into the upper class, and all the expensive lifestyle changes ("nice" clothes, "nice" things) that went with all that.

Bracket creep got to the "middle class" too. Lower middle class wanted to be middle-middle or upper-middle, and got sold an even more expensive bill of goods. Middle-middle and upper-middle wanted to be upper class - and some of the more prestigious and well-paying professions were accommodatingly shifted. And their lifestyles got much more expensive too.

Even the upper class wanted more, and got it - they sprouted a "super-rich" category and a lot of wannabes who couldn't afford that lifestyle but were determined to have it, no matter what they would have to pay later.

But what no one told anyone was that it was a super-Ponzi scheme and as unsustainable as all such schemes. Not everyone CAN squeeze into a higher bracket - there simply isn't enough room. And the game can only continue as long as there are more suckers willing to buy into it. The day eventually comes when there aren't enough suckers buying in, and the whole fragile house of cards comes crashing down.

That day is at hand - visible on the horizon, if it isn't already here. (For too many of the suckers, it has been here for some time.)

Welcome to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, suckers.

Maven

[dropkickpa]

75. Precisely

Our working class has been destroyed and is now the working poor. It's a travesty that people who work so damn hard are just falling further and further behind. Wages aren't even close to keeping pace with inflation, so most people are effectively earning less and less money evey year (for those who haven't been off-shored or replaced by younger, cheaper labor). A family that was once *sustainable* (no big luxuries, but stable and more than 1 step from ruin) on a single income is now unable to support themselves even with 2-4 incomes and much lower aspirations.

I know so many people who just want to be able to pay their bills and maybe, every now and then, have a little bit of a luxury like a new fridge without the fear of losing everything because of a week-long illness.

[Desertrose]

69. Amen, sister!

Great post...:applause: and a :hug: from another working poor...

DR

[Wednesdays]

74. Both of my grandfathers "worked the line" for Ford and Chrysler

One retired with a quarter million in his savings account, not to mention a generous pension from Ford. The other grandfather enjoyed his retirement with two houses--one a summer vacation home by the lake.

No hourly wage earner today could even dream of such a future.

[Yavin4]

83. Debt Is Not The Same As Equity

The key tool that the elites use to make the working poor think of themselves as either middle class or even wealthy is D-E-B-T. All of the trappings of an upper middle class lifestyle is at your fingertips if you are willing to do one simple thing, go into debt.

You want go to college - Go into debt.

You want a new car - Go into debt.

You want new clothes - Buy them with a credit card.

You want a new home - Get a mortgage.

Can't qualify for a mortgage - Get a ARM with low interest in the first two years.

You want to re-model your home - Get a HELOC.

On and on and on. People tie themselves up with tons of debt and declare themselves middle class. Debt is an insidious device used by the elites to make a population docile and complacent. We don't ask why a college degree should cost $80,000. We just ask where can we borrow the money to pay for it. We don't demand universal healthcare. We just offer up our credit cards to pay for healthcare.

[Lucky Luciano]

94. Corporations and the government use outrageous amounts of debt

too. Just look at all the LBOs of the past few years! Look at our national debt.

That said, some debt can turn out to be a worthy investment with returns that far exceed the interest payments and return of prinicpal.

[barbtries]

87. i am poor and i know it

but i am also a first class person, as are all of my poor friends. thank you for this post

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

88. Your post reflects my initial reaction to the OP.

:hug:

Maybe, I should have followed suit in experience. But, I didn't.

[nankerphelge]

90. Most people are a lot poorer...

than they'd like to think they are.

[kineneb]

92. now amongst the poor, below self-sufficiency for the county

2 adults living on SSDI payment of $1238/month...
not adjusted for inflation, self-sufficiency for one adult was $15K/yr. in 2003.

Our max. income was $45K in 2001... never were middle class.

[treestar]

93. We are the richest country in the world and we live pretty well

compared to the rest - it is unseemly for us to whine on this topic, as a nation.

Sure * is dragging things down but let's not be too self-pitying - and be more concerned with those who are truly poor.

[dropkickpa]

95. This is the type of attitude I was talking about

It's not about comparing ourselves to the rest of the world. Of course we're better off than a, say, bagladeshi peasant. But I am not talking about them. I am talking about the decline in quality of life the people of this country are suffering in comparison to our predecessors just in the last 40 years.

Don't complain, poor people, there's others worse off than you in the world. Be grateful for what you have and keep quiet like a good little citizen should. :sarcasm:

[Warren Stupidity]

96. compared to some

Compared to some other nations we don't do so well. For example: life expectancy: we are number 42. Wake up.

[AnotherGreenWorld]

100. That's not because American is filled with poor people though.

It's because we have a for-profit health care system controlled by doctors who care more about money than people.

Also, one of America's major health problems, obesity, exists precisely because most American's don't have it as bad as they all might think.

[Odin2005]

101. The term "middle class" has evolved into an opiate of the masses.

Originally the term was used to mean the professionals, managers, and small business owners. Now it's used by the elites to sow division between better-off working class people and the poor.

[TZ]

104. Middle class and poverty income considerations

also don't seem to take into account the cost of living being MUCH different in parts of the country. Here in the DC metro area, salaries are generally higher than most of the country..however since housing is expensive and most have longish commutes to work because they have to live far out to afford decent housing so pay alot in gas/car insurance/maintenance. I make a decent salary but I am single with no kids. If I had a family even this half way decent salary would not be that great if I had no other income to supplement it.

[Doremus]

106. They have adjusted the index many times.

When the poverty rate gets too high, they simply raise the threshold.

Voila! Fewer people in poverty. All's well with the world.

[w8liftinglady]

110. I'd love to find a single,professional mom to home-share

rents are so freaking high-then utilities.I wish I had thought of this before my foreclosure.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

111. I fell out of the middle class.

I should be a white collar professional by my education, on paper (three degrees, highest is a J.D.)

No job, no interviews, no insurance. One of the discouraged unemployed that stopped looking that they don't count in the figures.

Gonna sell my house and move to the country so I can survive.

[DemBones DemBones]

112. There are an awful lot of unemployed people that are not counted

because you only "count" while you're drawing unemployment benefits, which soon run out, despite the fact that you're still unemployed.

If all the permanently unemployed people could organize, just for the purpose of finding out how many there are, the figures would shock some people. It might be a good way to meet interesting people, too, certainly to meet people in the same boat. Demonstrations could be organized, too.

What do you think? Would you go to a meeting of other discouraged unemployed people?

Underemployed people, who can't get anything but part-time or temp work, could be part of this, too, as could the employed living below the poverty line. A coalition of those shafted by the economy for whatever reason seems like a good idea.

Something has to be done and I don't know who, if anyone, is working on these issues in a significant way.

Anyone have any ideas on this topic?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

115. I never got unemployment.

I had some crappy sales jobs and a few temp jobs after I got burned out on my only profession back in '94. Since then no steady income. Got sick of the BS from the stupid bosses who were threatened by educated and skilled people. Now I've committed the ultimate sin--grown old, as in "over 40".

[DemBones DemBones]

117. Employers try to prevent you from getting unemployment, even

though you pay for it. The lies they tell are unreal. And most of them definitely resent people who are more intelligent and better educated. You can't win. If you are honest about your education, honors, awards, experience, etc., your boss is likely to be intimidated and make you miserable If you leave out anything, like your graduate degrees, or an impressive job, you can be fired for lying on your application.

The rich want us to be serfs again, not that we've ever gotten too far away from that.

[w8liftinglady]

114. I have been looking on craigslist for 5th wheels

and campgrounds.It would be such a money saving thing once my middle son is out of high school.my youngest is excited about it.

[krispos42]

116. Hey, where's Minnesota?

You know, Jesse Ventura and collapsing bridges?

[dropkickpa]

118. Hasn't been done

I didn't list Iowa, either, because theirs is not available via the interweb.

[krispos42]

120. Waaaaaa!!! I don't exist anymore!!!!

:-)

Thanks!

[bobbolink]

119. The only hope for really poor people is for more and more "muddleclass" people to become POOR.

Until then, we are dismissed, forgotten, and left to die.

As in, Katrina, etc.

Only when they become like us will it change.

Until then, the deaths continue.

[Trillo]

121. Nah, I never really thought that.

Maybe for about 3 years I did think we were moving toward middle class, but alas, twas not to be.

So many lies have been told to us... such as:

"Work hard and you too can get ahead" :rofl:

[dropkickpa]

122. "Work hard and you too can get ahead"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:



ouch, my sides hurt now.

[mbee]

123. Just send in to get a bumper sticker

ERASELITISM & can't wait to get it.

[Javaman]

124. Hahaha I'm striving just to make it to lower middle class. nt.