General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn 81% of America’s counties, the median income is lower today than it was 15 years ago
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 havent 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.
That trouble started decades ago, well before the 2008 financial crisis, and it is rooted in shifts far more complicated than the simple tax-and-spend debates that dominate economic policymaking in Washington.
It used to be that when the U.S. economy grew, workers up and down the economic ladder saw their incomes increase, too. But over the past 25 years, the economy has grown 83 percent, after adjusting for inflation and the typical familys income hasnt budged. In that time, corporate profits doubled as a share of the economy. Workers today produce nearly twice as many goods and services per hour on the job as they did in 1989, but as a group, they get less of the nations economic pie. In 81 percent of Americas counties, the median income is lower today than it was 15 years ago.
THE REST:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/12/why-americas-middle-class-is-lost/
Wolf Frankula
(3,601 posts)1: Ronald Reagan. Millions of idiots (yes idiots) voted for him because 'He was such an nice man.", voting against their interests and pocketbooks. The plutocrats NEVER vote against their interests.
2: Values Voters. Those voting for (traditional family values, (famedy, warmedy, sedanedy, vanedy values) ) against their own economic interests. Hardly any of those anti-liberty measures have been enacted, even when the pols who support them have been in control. But their dupes still vote for the values pols who pick their pockets, because the mountebanks of the churches they go tell them to.
3: The end of the 'Cold War'. The Russian and Chinese revolutions terrified the plutocrats. So they toned down somewhat their opposition to organized labor. [Not completely: Remember the outcry about corrupt unions, 'Union Bosses', and the demonization of union leaders. Hollywood bears some blame for this. Remember all the movies with Mob connected Union leaders.] They saw that the workers would fight for socialism and worker control. When State Socialism collapsed, due to not having worker control, the plutocrats saw they could claw back all they had given up. They outsourced well paid jobs, and pocketed the difference. They gutted organized labor, and pocketed the difference. They plundered pension funds and robbed home owners and pocketed the profits.
What's the solution? An actual revolution. But I don't see one happening, not in this country. The old lefties like myself are too old for active campaigning. (I'm almost sixty.) The liberals have eaten too much Gandhi to take up the rifle, and too many are distracted by trifles like Spider Woman's butt. Others are terrified by the militarized police. The armed right, many who despise the banksters? Mak'st me not to laff. Most think that they can be plutocrats if they buy the right lottery ticket. The rest are merely blusterers. Send some soldiers to take them, and the Open Carry loons and Cliven Bundys will collapse.
Wolf
Skittles
(153,169 posts)ugh, it sickens me to this day
cer7711
(502 posts). . . deserves a living wage, as well.
As in those ancient, fabled days of the 1940s, 50s and 60s when a working man or woman (college-educated or no) could find a decent paying job without presenting to Human Resources (Orwellian phrase, that) a f#*king two-page resume, an addendum listing twenty personal and business references, a sterling credit report and a lab analysis of their blood and urine, for Christ's sakes!
Think about that for a moment. Where we were and where we are now.
Time was, only executives needed resumes. Now, the lowliest retail clerk or fast-food worker is expected to present all of the above to their prospective employer PLUS pass whatever further aptitude and/or psychological screening might be required of a 21st-century shoe clerk, ice cream dipper or book seller.
The game is: worker insecurity. Make jobs as difficult to obtain and hold as possible, depress wages and benefits and hector the rabble at every turn: It's YOUR fault your purchasing power, access to higher education and general health continue to decline.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Perhaps you meant "As in those ancient, fabled days of the 1940s, 50s and 60s when a working straight, white man (not woman)"
jwirr
(39,215 posts)like me are the ones who are still in trouble and never have been out of it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We should cut taxes.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Apparently.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)- K&R
And after TPP passes things are bound to change!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
madville
(7,412 posts)After NAFTA it's obvious the TPP will bring all our manufacturing jobs back.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)And we will live happily ever after.
edhopper
(33,587 posts)to ensure it will keep going in this direction.
And if they put a Repug in the White House in 2016, it is way downhill.