Too many are losing too much too fast.
A new study has found the American Dream dead, under apparent delusions of
grandeur and with heavy traces of pharmaceuticals and dead tissue debt.
Several large tumors were found inside, with the largest connected to student
loan.
A rapid decline in upward job opportunities and a contracting wealth gland
stunted the Dream, and precluded the inevitable end. It seems that body’s
metabolism simply could not keep up with the burden of so many adverse
indicators, including decreased blood flow and metastatis throughout various
parts of the body politic. Lethargy and idleness contributed towards a loss
of strength. The rest was a consequence of chronic debilitation.
Middle-class families, pillar of the American dream, are no longer
in the majority, and it’s now official according to the Pew Research Center…
Things have been on a downward slide since the deindustrialization of the
1970s, but things have now reached a point of no return.
Via the LA TIMES:
The nation’s middle class, long a pillar of the U.S. economy and
foundation of the American dream, has shrunk to the point where it no longer
constitutes the majority of the adult population, according to a new major
study.
The Pew Research Center report released Wednesday put in sharp relief the
nation’s increasing income divide […]
The tipping point for the middle class occurred over the last
couple of years of the recovery from the Great Recession as the economy
continued to reward highly educated workers, well-to-do investors and those
with technical skills.
Rapid growth of upper-income households, coupled with an increase in
less-educated low earners, has driven the decline of the middle-income
population to a hair below 50% of the total this year, Pew found. In 1971,
the middle class accounted for 61% of the population, and it has been
declining steadily since.
[…]
Pew defined middle class as households earning two-thirds to twice the
overall median income, after adjusting for household size. A family
of three, for example, would be considered middle income if its total annual
income ranged from about $42,000 to $126,000. Pew analyzed data from
the Census Bureau and the Labor Department, as well as the Federal Reserve.
Most Americans have traditionally identified themselves as middle
class, even those at the top and bottom, reflecting a kind of cultural
heritage tied to the American dream of self-reliance. But the Great Recession
and subsequent slow recovery have shaken that image.
A Gallup survey this spring showed that just 51% of U.S. adults considered
themselves middle or upper middle class, with 48% saying they are part of the
lower or working class. As recently as 2008, 63% of those polled by Gallup
said they were middle class.
With the relatively low thresh hold established for being counted as part
of the middle class, it is staggering how many people no longer qualify. It
shows just how many Americans are becoming poor or increasingly desperate to
make ends meet.
It is no surprise either that many Americans who officially qualify for
the middle class feel that they are too insecure, financially, to belong to
the well-adjusted norm of “middle class”:
Elizbeth Espinoza and her husband, Carlos Arceo, both 38, fall squarely
in the middle class, according to Pew. The Downey couple, who have two
children, ages 4 and 6, gross about $110,000 between them, not counting
benefits, such as healthcare insurance. By Pew’s definition, a household of
four is in the middle tier if total income is $48,347 to $145,041.
But Espinoza, who works as a student programming coordinator at the UCLA
Labor Center, sees her family as barely straddling the middle class.
The reason: high living costs, including $850 a month for child care
and hefty student loan payments.
“I’m on the border of middle class, and I feel this way because I
feel like being part of the middle class means being comfortable financially,
and I think we struggle with that,” Espinoza said. “When you look at
that expense-to-income ratio, it’s just a lot more difficult to have that
comfortableness.”
This point is not lost on most Americans, but rather a difficulty that nearly everyone seems to
be facing right now.
Paying for necessities is becoming rapidly more expensive and costly in
housing, food and goods – and that isn’t helping anyone back into the calm
waters of a vibrant and healthy middle class.
Instead, further trouble is ahead, and nearly any economic shock could
force millions of families to come unglued and driven into desperation.
Things have gone too far, and it won’t be good for the rich at the top of heap either
when everything comes undone. We are facing an absolute disaster.
Read more:
Billionaire: “We Are Destroying the Middle Class. That’s What
Keeps Me Awake at Night.”
What Middle Class? Most Americans Make Less Than 30K A Year:
“So Many People Barely Scraping By”
As the Middle Class Dies, Millennials Give Up: “The American
Dream Is Not Really Alive”
What American Dream? “The Middle Class Is Dying And Poverty
Is On The Rise”
