The fading middle class

[Liberal_in_LA]

Middle class' share of the nation's income is shrinking

For Reno car salesman Tim Ticknor, the squeeze on his middle-class existence gradually has turned into a chokehold.

In 2005, he was making more than $90,000 a year selling used cars to people who had moved to the Southwest for its booming economy. It was an income that allowed him to rent a townhouse with his wife and daughter in a gated community.

Over the next six years, as the economy slowed, so did his income. First, it dropped to $70,000, then after a time it fell to $30,000.

The car dealership where Ticknor last worked, making $90,000 a year, is bankrupt, and he is hustling as a day laborer for a temp agency.


Tim Ticknor hoses down his mother-in-law's single-wide trailer in Reno. After the car dealership he worked for went bankrupt and he could no longer afford the $1,200 rent on the family's town home in a gated community, he, his wife and daughter moved into the trailer.



Victoria Froelicher pays $2,300 a month on a three-bedroom house she bought in 2007 for $420,000. It is now worth an estimated $285,000.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-25/middle-class-disappearing/50914822/1?csp=24&kjnd=Hx%2BrF5wpLp6tmBLp0MCHnEOUlwmoL43pQXaOLr1ZoB2tqOuhhi3sB8soYF4YON/G-3a9e8064-153e-46db-b14a-fb5d9dd2a70b_MdjEkzVoGuvtd4U7VlEl3uB4Iid3b59kPr2Hoh2V96/QjkEPUQDmGb4jAonqU6yp

[deutsey]

1. And people wonder why OWS is striking such a raw nerve?

:shrug:

[Fumesucker]

2. "Mission Accomplished!" -The Powers That Be..

[Bryn]

3. Ouch!

:(