Middle-class families in worse shape than ever, study finds

[Omaha Steve]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/28/news/economy/middle_class.reut/index.htm

Middle-class families in worse shape than ever, study finds
Typical families have not stashed enough money; struggling to pay for home, insurance, and education according to Center for American Progress.
September 28 2006: 4:41 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The typical double-income family is worse off financially than ever, a study released Thursday said, warning that few Americans have saved enough to brace for financial setbacks.

Middle-class families are struggling to pay for a home, health insurance, transportation and their children's college with wages that have not kept pace with higher prices, according to the study by a think tank headed by a former top aide to President Bill Clinton.

The middle class's financial condition has been a key issue ahead of the November elections, as Democrats warn that this group is fast losing economic ground amid skyrocketing prices and tax cuts that offer them little benefit.

"In our estimates, it's becoming harder for families to afford what we consider a typical middle-class lifestyle," said economist Christian Weller of the Center for American Progress, the political think tank headed by John Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff.

FULL story at link above.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Freepers love the way things are. I guess they are all "Upper Class".

[Tellurian]

5. They are as unprotected as any other middle class citizen..

no matter the stripe. Bush has them brainwashed into thinking they will be taken care of.
This is biggest Lie of ALL. Only the top 1% of Americans will be taken care of..The Rich
and the elitists. Bush is using Middle Class America to further his goals with Corporate
America. They are the disposable middle class Americans too blinded by their Christian
faith to see Bush for what he really is..Toxic Waste!

[leesa]

17. What is taking them so long to catch on? Surely their finances aren't

looking so very rosey.

[Tellurian]

19. Their ministries control the conversation..

If they lose their jobs, they are found another one, without regard to
matching pay. As long as the % they've pledged to the Church is covered,
they live with less and won't complain at least not to an outsider.

[spinbaby]

25. Here's why they don't catch on

Because they're being told that they, too, can become rich by being an "on trap manure." They will surely get rich because God wants them to be rich. This is why you see so many of 'em in business selling vitamin supplements and whatnot to each other.

[Craftsman]

31. Most peopel I know are struggling

Or are worried to all get out. The economy sucks. I just wish our leaders would start talking more about bread and butter issues. I would strike a cord with people.

[ikojo]

2. Didn't grow up middle class and am not now

middle class. Sure I am single with no kids and I make over $30k but I've never owned a house. I don't see how I can afford a house on my income. I have no one from whom to borrow a down payment so I'd be financing everything.

Studies have shown that one pretty much ends up in the class to which one was born.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0706jbf.htm

If class war is continual in capitalist society, there is no doubt that in recent decades in the United States it has taken a much more virulent form. In a speech delivered at New York University in 2004 Bill Moyers pointed out that,

Class war was declared a generation ago in a powerful paperback polemic by William Simon, who was soon to be Secretary of the Treasury. He called on the financial and business class, in effect, to take back the power and privileges they had lost in the depression and the new deal. They got the message, and soon they began a stealthy class war against the rest of the society and the principles of our democracy. They set out to trash the social contract, to cut their workforces and wages, to scour the globe in search of cheap labor, and to shred the social safety net that was supposed to protect people from hardships beyond their control. Business Week put it bluntly at the time : “Some people will obviously have to do with less....it will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more.”1

snip

Although Americans still think of their land as a place of exceptional opportunity—in contrast to class-bound Europe—the evidence suggests otherwise. And scholars have, over the past decade, come to see America as a less mobile society than they once believed. As recently as the later 1980s, economists argued that not much advantage passed from parent to child, perhaps as little as 20 percent. By that measure, a rich man’s grandchild would have barely any edge over a poor man’s grandchild....But over the last 10 years, better data and more number-crunching have led economists and sociologists to a new consensus: The escalators of mobility move much more slowly. A substantial body of research finds that at least 45 percent of parents’ advantage in income is passed along to their children, and perhaps as much as 60 percent. With the higher estimate, it’s not only how much money your parents have that matters—even your great-great grandfather’s wealth might give you a noticeable edge today.

[AX10]

3. Inflation is also higher than the government is saying it is.

[WCGreen]

4. according to the study by a think tank headed by a former top aide to

President Bill Clinton...


Well, they never ever say who is behind right wing think tanks....

So this study will be colored by that fact...

And they also never say Fox News, run by a former aide to Ronald Reagen and Bush 1....

[independentpiney]

21. That jumped right out at me too. n/t

[Lars39]

30. Roger Ailes?

'Cause that's a powerful reframe. :)

[WCGreen]

32. Yes, indeed.....

[Irreverend IX]

6. We are becoming a society based on debt slavery.

In the last few decades, entire financial industries have grown around the cultivation of virtual indentured servants. These are the mortgage holders, the credit card shoppers and the Stafford Loan students. Americans are bombarded with messages telling them that they need a big house and a fancy car and yearly Fiji vacations to live the American dream, and in order to secure these things they happily kneel before the banker and accept the iron collar of debt. They will pass it on to their children and their children's children, and even as their descendants work to dig themselves out of the ever-deepening hole, their taxes will be skyrocketing as the government struggles to pay off Bush's deficit. Such is the natural consequence of the "I want it now" consumer culture.

[1932]

15. So true.

[tanyev]

27. AKA, The Ownership Society.

[1932]

29. Yeah. The banks and your employers own you.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. cry me a river... and then try poverty

I wonder if I could hire myself out and show people how to live poor?

[Megahurtz]

34. If this keeps up much longer

all of the "Middle Class" will be in poverty. Trouble is most of them won't know how to handle it.

[Haole Girl]

8. Study finds?

Like we needed a study? :sarcasm:

[NOLADEM]

9. Really? Ever? Let's not go crazy...

Worse than The Depression? Worse than Reconstruction? Worse than the Rust Belt at its most bloody?

This kind of hyperbole damages one's credibility.

[Canuckistanian]

10. All is going according to plan...

The elimination of the middle class, those odious, capital-sucking, political-influencing, resource-demanding hordes has to be acheived.

The "investor class" must be protected!

[lovuian]

11. The end of the Middleclass in America

Welcome poor people and forget about the American Dream...

this signals a Depression is coming Deep and ugly

[FormerOstrich]

12. The really disturbing part...

is not only how wages are lower and prices higher but how corporations are given free reign to rip us off.

Start paying your credit cards a little slow/late. They'll rightfully drop your credit line. Except...they'll drop your credit limit to below what you owe and start charging you over credit limit fees.

Try to do the "right" thing by paying what you can to the collection agency only to have another agency start trying to collect on the same debt. Quit paying all of them and they sue you.

Mortgage companies won't work with you on payments until your house goes into foreclosure. Then, after all the Trustee fees and a ton of other expenses, they will suddenly work with you.

The banks deduct the largest payments from your balance first, followed by the smaller ones. Recently, I made a $100 deposit a day late. If they would have deducted the amounts in reverse order I would of had one overdraft charge of $35, not 6 for $210. Of course, with so many payments electronically queued, not expecting a $210 bit ultimately caused $805 dollars in fees for less than a month. All because of $100 dollars a day late.

Want to correct your cable/telephone/utility/etc bill to have the occasional $30-$60 billing mistakes removed. Well you better plan on taking a day off work because that's how long it's going to take you to get bounced around customer service hell. Even then you have to nearly have a stroke on the phone before getting it corrected.

I could go on at length about similar ways the sharks wish to part you from what few dollars you do have.

While a lot of these tactics might have occurred before this administration they have grown exponentially worse. Plus, the impact is worse because the safety net is gone. I'd like to see more analysis of the entire picture. I think it bleak, indeed.

[NotGivingUp]

23. boy, you got THAT right! i dread having to call any company.

[Carni]

24. Oh man ostrich! I hear you!

We had to close a business this summer (after being in biz for 20 years)

The icing on the cake -- nail in the coffin whatever you want to call it was from the overdraft fees we incurred due to one bounced check for like 300 dollars from a customer...it cost us about a thousand dollars in overdraft fees (plus)

They've got you coming and going and as far as I am concerned these banks and credit card companies are just out and out thieves.

[shanti]

13. and that's just a two-parent family

try a single parent family :(

[pitohui]

20. you need one income just to pay for food around here

it's scary, i don't know how a single person or single parent can do it

[1932]

14. To me, this is THE story of the last 6 years. It's not 9/11 or Iraq

in and of themselves. It's about how 9/11 and Iraq have been USED to distract people from the real goals of this administration, which are to shift as much wealth away from working people as possible and give it to the richest most powerful people in America.

[young_at_heart]

16. How many voted for Bush? "What's the Matter with Kansas" explains

Thomas Frank, a journalist/historian from Kansas, wrote an excellent book explaining how people vote against their own best economic interests because of explosive social issues that have been manipulated by the far right. Their way of life has been destroyed and yet they continue to vote Republican.

[llmart]

22. Yes, and it's because of that..............

that I feel no sorrow or pity for their plight. If these idiots continue to vote against their best interests, I hope they lose their houses, jobs, etc. If they're that stupid, then so be it. I'm only sorry when it hurts those of us who are smart enough to NOT vote for them.

[NVMojo]

18. But Bush's Haves and Have Mores are doing great!

[Vinca]

26. When the average cost of health insurance is more than

a minimum wage worker makes in a year, something is seriously wrong. (And forget health insurance for those of us who are a little older, a little heavier or have a chronic condition.)

[rodeodance]

28. no surprize here----everyday expenses are eating away at so many that

I know, including myself.

[bamacrat]

33. Its sad that we HAVE to save our money....

just to get by and there are people out there who dont have to save because they are paid 100 million dollars a year. just not fair. The caste system has returned. Some are royalty, most are peasants.

[Megahurtz]

36. Even sadder is that some of us

have no money to save.:(

[LiberalEsto]

35. We are drowning in bills

Even though my husband is paid pretty well, I've been without work the past two months due to a lack of clients at our office. We are stretched to the limit.

Car insurance has gone up.
Prescriptions have gone up.
Electricity has gone way up, "thanks" to Maryland's deregulation.
Gasoline costs have helped drain our savings.
Garbage collection went up due to increased gas costs.
Food has gone up due to increased gas costs and crop failures and storms.
Cable has gone up (when doesn't it?)


I don't know how people survive these days.