The secret shame of middle-class Americans (another op/ed)

[Hiraeth]

The Atlantic
Neal Gabler

Since 2013, the Federal Reserve Board has conducted a survey to “monitor the financial and economic status of American consumers.” Most of the data in the latest survey, frankly, are less than earth-shattering: 49 percent of part-time workers would prefer to work more hours at their current wage; 29 percent of Americans expect to earn a higher income in the coming year; 43 percent of homeowners who have owned their home for at least a year believe its value has increased. But the answer to one question was astonishing. The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew?
Well, I knew. I knew because I am in that 47 percent.

I know what it is like to have to juggle creditors to make it through a week. I know what it is like to have to swallow my pride and constantly dun people to pay me so that I can pay others. I know what it is like to have liens slapped on me and to have my bank account levied by creditors. I know what it is like to be down to my last $5—literally—while I wait for a paycheck to arrive, and I know what it is like to subsist for days on a diet of eggs. I know what it is like to dread going to the mailbox, because there will always be new bills to pay but seldom a check with which to pay them. I know what it is like to have to tell my daughter that I didn’t know if I would be able to pay for her wedding; it all depended on whether something good happened. And I know what it is like to have to borrow money from my adult daughters because my wife and I ran out of heating oil.

You wouldn’t know any of that to look at me. I like to think I appear reasonably prosperous. Nor would you know it to look at my résumé. I have had a passably good career as a writer—five books, hundreds of articles published, a number of awards and fellowships, and a small (very small) but respectable reputation. You wouldn’t even know it to look at my tax return. I am nowhere near rich, but I have typically made a solid middle- or even, at times, upper-middle-class income, which is about all a writer can expect, even a writer who also teaches and lectures and writes television scripts, as I do. And you certainly wouldn’t know it to talk to me, because the last thing I would ever do—until now—is admit to financial insecurity or, as I think of it, “financial impotence,” because it has many of the characteristics of sexual impotence, not least of which is the desperate need to mask it and pretend everything is going swimmingly. In truth, it may be more embarrassing than sexual impotence. “You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit-card problems,” says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. “Much more likely.” America is a country, as Donald Trump has reminded us, of winners and losers, alphas and weaklings. To struggle financially is a source of shame, a daily humiliation—even a form of social suicide. Silence is the only protection.

I know what it’s like to have to borrow money from my daughters because my wife and I ran out of heating oil.
So I never spoke about my financial travails, not even with my closest friends—that is, until I came to the realization that what was happening to me was also happening to millions of other Americans, and not just the poorest among us, who, by definition, struggle to make ends meet. It was, according to that Fed survey and other surveys, happening to middle-class professionals and even to those in the upper class. It was happening to the soon-to-retire as well as the soon-to-begin. It was happening to college grads as well as high-school dropouts. It was happening all across the country, including places where you might least expect to see such problems. I knew that I wouldn’t have $400 in an emergency. What I hadn’t known, couldn’t have conceived, was that so many other Americans wouldn’t have the money available to them, either. My friend and local butcher, Brian, who is one of the only men I know who talks openly about his financial struggles, once told me, “If anyone says he’s sailing through, he’s lying.” That might not be entirely true, but then again, it might not be too far off.


more at link:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-secret-shame-of-middle-class-americans/ar-BBrVmNt?li=BBnb7Kz

[hollysmom]

1. my brother died recently. just after I paid his back mortgage so he

Would not lose his house. Well then I started to help figure out the finances for the kids and it was a disaster. The wife died 6 months before and she handled the money. There was so much debt. They got an equity loan on the house and kept taking out. . The credit cards were maxed out.
They already went bankrupt so that was not an option. If they had not died. They would have been on the street. Oh and then there were the hospital bills.

[Hiraeth]

2. how close so many of us are to that same story - scary. My condolences on your loss

[hollysmom]

8. Well, after the accident and the drop in income, they never adjusted their spending,

But there are others I know that had a sudden loss of job and could never get more work. That is really not their fault. it is hard to adjust to living under the poverty level.

[nashville_brook]

3. hmm...47 percent can't find $400 for an emergency.

i guess these are the same "takers" that Mittens and others get their boxers in a wad about.

maybe there's a reason that almost half of Americans can't put their hands on $400. The middle class is gone, hollowed out. those hollering for more NAFTA, more Clintonia, more neoliberalism...they must see themselves as "winners" and "makers" b/c the rest of us can't afford the luxury of losing more jobs, benefits, and entitlements.

or maybe we can. maybe we should just all die and get out of their way. let them have it.

[MisterP]

4. here's the secret: EVERYONE is in this boat, and more so than ever

Gabler made the tremendous step of speaking up, fearing he'd be alone

let's show him, and let's show our owners, that his is the 100,000,001st story that'll break the dam

[tom_kelly]

5. Thank you for sharing that, Hiraeth. n/t

[Chakab]

6. If you can't come up with $400 for an emergency, then you are NOT "middle class."

The definition of that term is so expansive in American parlance that it means almost nothing.

You have people who are destitute claiming to be middle class. You also have people who make several hundred thousand dollars a year claiming to be middle class.

Surprisingly, many posters here on DU subscribe to the latter definition.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251952724

[Sherman A1]

7. K&R

There is unfortunately too much truth in this article.