The All-American Middle Class Thang

[don]

At the park the other day the Great American Middle Class (GAMC) came up. Everyone agreed it was in peril. That led to an attempt to define what the GAMC really was.

My best shot was when the basics were being met - shelter, food, transportation - by the weekly paycheck, regardless how modest those essentials were, and there was some discretionary income left over, middle class status was won.

What's the 'Tulipers take on the GAMC question?

[c1ue]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

My view is Americans consider the GAMC to be whatever they desire, if they work hard enough.

For some it is a decent house in the 'burbs, 2 cars, and the opportunity for an education for the kids.

For many others, it is the McMansion, the 2 BMWs, the trips to Hawaii twice a year, Ivy League educations and so forth.

The real question is - will the loss of even a semblence of opportunity for option b, combined with a significant reduction of likelihood for option a, cause long term disillusionment and societal fracture.

As I've noted before, it is quite possible that it is option b which unites the widely disparate people, regions, and cultures in the USA.

[don]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

When the paycheck only covers the basics it grinds on people over time. There's the cyclical "emergencies"; car breakdowns, kid's expenses (new shoes), etc., and there's the psychological toll of just making it every week. For those people the GAMC is slipping away. When the basics cannot be met with the paycheck, I don't think anyone believes they're in the GAMC. The period between the early 50s to the housing crash, the last few decades masked by debt, may be seen as an historical aberration whose distribution of wealth allowed the widespread belief in a GAMC. Like my parents have said, they were fortunate to live in those times....

[lakedaemonian]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

I think of the Great American Middle Class Dream as that of my childhood in the 1970's.

My Dad worked, my Mom didn't(until we were much older).

ALL of our NEEDS were covered, and there was money left over for a few WANTS occasionally, with a strong emphasis on frugality as the rest went away for a rainy day.

We lived in a small but comfortable home with a small, comfortable mortgage.

Collectively living farther beneath our family means compared to the Jones' and intentionally avoiding the keeping up with the Jones' unproductive allocation of capital "arms race".

And most importantly, being able to sleep soundly at night.....since there's a good bit of "fat on the bone" to cover likely bumps in the road.

To me that's the GAMC Dream.

[don]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

I believe the GAMC also coincided with the type of capitalism most-embraced here on the 'Tulip. Real-world competitive capitalism, not monopolies, where hard work and "using your head" are rewarded.

[lektrode]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

I think of the Great American Middle Class Dream as that of my childhood in the 1970's.

My Dad worked, my Mom didn't(until we were much older).

ALL of our NEEDS were covered, and there was money left over for a few WANTS occasionally, with a strong emphasis on frugality as the rest went away for a rainy day.

We lived in a small but comfortable home with a small, comfortable mortgage.

Collectively living farther beneath our family means compared to the Jones' and intentionally avoiding the keeping up with the Jones' unproductive allocation of capital "arms race".

And most importantly, being able to sleep soundly at night.....since there's a good bit of "fat on the bone" to cover likely bumps in the road.

To me that's the GAMC Dream.

would second that definition and expand:
to most americans, i think the 'middle class' was The Aspiration that motivated most people to believe that if they worked hard, played by the rules, spent less than one made, saved for the future, etc and that by doing so, one could expect ones children to have a better life than they did - and generally this was true for _hundreds_ of years (300 anyway) - until just recently - meaning something changed, for worse, over the past 30years or so and methinks the downstroke began in the 60's, in the vietnam era, when the protest movement erupted in the streets, fanned by the ideological hijacking by the left of college campuses - the hippy generation has grown up with loose/sloppy definitions of the moral, ethical foundation that resulted from 'liberal' interpretation of just about every aspect of american society, from the constitution down thru the courts/criminal justice system, to the FIREmen gutting the _productive_ underpinnings of the economy to juice their bottom line for the quarterly bonus - all of this enabled by the rise of the political aristocracy - and while you might guess that i'm somewhat of a 'conservative' type (more libertarian) i happen to agree strongly with elizabeth warrens POV: http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/01/t...ss-on-the-html
but i lay the blame on the PC/diversity-celebrity-worshiping/nanny-state crowd that seems to think all we need is more gov programs, administered by them, naturally - and 'everythings gonna be alright' - all i can say is, i'm glad i'm a 50something and not a 20something.

[don]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

When the GAMC goes South....

Sewer-Project Blues

By M. O. WALSH

I’m just a guy in pajamas, chuckling about a “Yo Gabba Gabba!” episode my year-old daughter and I were watching, when I see a guy with a machete out my window. He’s hacking away at branches near my fence as two other men hammer spikes in my lawn. They undoubtedly work for the city. This type of thing ticks me off.

We’ve had sewer problems ever since my wife and I bought our home in Baton Rouge, La., a few years ago. The pumping station on our street used to give out during big rainstorms, spilling sewage down the slope of our yard, and in 2008, when Hurricane Gustav knocked the power out for two weeks, it was unspeakable. Since then, other things have gone wrong: the worst oil spill in history happened on our coast, the economy wallowed and my teaching contract with Louisiana State University was terminated because of budget cuts. So, lately, I’ve been a little on edge. Seeing these guys in my yard doesn’t help.

The truth is, ever since our daughter was born, I have become strange with worry. More often than my family realizes, I struggle with doubts about my capability, my authority and my power. Losing a job and raising a child can do that to a person, and it has done it to me. It’s nearly noon, and my hair is skewed. All I’ve said today is, “You go potty?”

Still, my property is my property. I look around for my dog, a harmless mutt, and picture the two of us barging out of the door, furious, sending these workers scrambling. I go to my bedroom and put on an old pair of jeans and a dirty T-shirt. By the time I get outside to confront them, my daughter in the crook of my arm, the guys are standing in the street.

They look rough and worldly, nothing like the college students I’m used to dealing with. I’m glad I didn’t shave. “Hey, fellas,” I say. “What’s the story?”

One guy has a cellphone and a scar on his hand. He’s probably the leader. “They’re putting in a new sewage line,” he says. “We’re doing land survey.”
“You can’t just come into my yard,” I tell him. All three of them look disinterested in the stand I’m making.

“It’s for the public good,” he tells me. “We’ve got access.”

“I’ve got a dog,” I say. “I’ve got a kid. You can’t just come in my yard without asking. My dog could bite you. My kid could get out.”

“We came out here yesterday,” he says. “I met your dog. He seems nice. And what, you don’t keep an eye on your kid?”

“That’s not the point,” I say.

The guy gestures at my back fence. “The city owns 100 feet on each side of that servitude over there,” he says. “This is a stimulus project. We’ll probably be out here a few weeks. We might have to dig right through your yard.”

“The heck you will,” I say and storm back to my house. My daughter waves at these men like relatives. “Stop it,” I tell her. “Daddy’s upset.”

I spend the rest of the day leaving scathing telephone messages with the manager of the contracting company whose name is on the side of its truck, sounding like someone I don’t want to be.

By the time my wife gets home from work, I’m a wreck. I’m making tacos, because they were on sale, for the second time this week. As I rant, she goes to the bedroom to change.

“You don’t understand,” I call to her. “I’m all about progress. I mean, I voted for this! We both did! Yet here I am out of a job, and these guys are getting paid to tear up our yard.”

Outside our house, a truck pulls up. I can see through the window that it’s the manager from the contracting company that sent those guys out here. He’s nicely dressed. He looks like a decent, honorable person. He rings the doorbell and waits.

I stare at him and know that I’m not going to win this battle. I have a hard time remembering why I even started it. I just want my family to be proud of me, I guess, to think I have things under control. The guy shades his eyes and peers through the window. I’m wearing an apron that looks like a picnic table. I’m holding a spoon. He sees me and grins.

I hear my wife say: “Honey, someone’s at the door. Can you get it?”

“No,” I tell her. “I don’t think I can.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/ma...l?ref=magazine

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

Middle class to me means beginning life without worrying about money, your parents assuring that your basic needs are met, upper or lower middle determined by benefits beyond the basics. But then at some point, typically by the end of high school or college as there might be a transitional period, you become soley responsible for your own financial well being--not having the security of a trust fund--when you begin to worry about money for pretty much the rest of your working life until a somewhat defined point when, if you've saved enough or lucked into a good enough pension and are not too unlucky in your investing or your health, you are able to stop worrying so much about money without continuing to work for it.

I do not believe that all parts of the middle class will ever be destroyed, that children will continue to grow up feeling secured by their parents' finances even if they are not born to a trust fund, that children will grow up to work for and worry about money. But I do not know if an extended retirement, which not so long ago did not even exist as an institution accessible to anyone but the very wealthy, will forever continue to be a typical aspect of middle class.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

At the park the other day the Great American Middle Class (GAMC) came up. Everyone agreed it was in peril. That led to an attempt to define what the GAMC really was.

My best shot was when the basics were being met - shelter, food, transportation - by the weekly paycheck, regardless how modest those essentials were, and there was some discretionary income left over, middle class status was won.

What's the 'Tulipers take on the GAMC question?

Don - You're essentially right. To simplify, I would say that if there is a full time worker in the household, they should be able to take care of a family of 4 or less with their income without being too exposed to one exogenous event that bankrupts the family.

An easy definition could be that 1 full time job at minimum wage = 100% FPL for a family of 4 ($22,050 as of now). That's $10.61/hr for a 40hr work week as the floor assuming no time off or paid vacations. The amount should go up from there. There should also be some basic catastrophic insurance (A&H liability, health catastrophic, life insurance, TDI, etc.)

It's somewhat arbitrary, and it would not be easy to survive on that amount, but it is probably doable. The $15,080 as the floor for full time work now is so low that I do not think it meets your definition. Even the $22,050 will prevent one from ever owning property in much of the US. The constant exposure to catastrophic financial events with no coverage in most of these jobs puts people at unnecessary risk as well.

One must also ask what is necessary. There are few semi-professional jobs that one can have these days where a supervisor would find it acceptable that an employee does not have a cell phone, neat & cleaned clothes, or reliable transportation. More healthful foods are more expensive generally - or at least require more prep time.

Functionally, I think you want the blue bars to hit the red line (or come as close to it as possible) in the graph below:



Despite the image, the percentage of workers earning minimum wage has declined drastically over the last two decades (from ~8% to ~2.5%) but one could easily see this figure going up over time if a jobs recovery is to happen at all. Still I would venture to guess that the percentage of workers earning within $2 of minimum wage is still up around 8%.

The point is that if working full-time consistently cannot guarantee enough income to continue employment and maintain health and shelter then there is no social contract - and obviously at that level, no middle class.

Another consideration is that the youth (<18 y/o) is the most likely group to live in poverty (18%). The poverty rate for 20 somethings is not much better. 50 somethings tend to do the best, and the elderly actually do much better than the youth.





http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/03200...w02_100_01.htm.

This is probably an artifact from the past (~1950-1980) when the GAMC was flourishing.

Of course, that is not to say that everything keeps pace with inflation. It is well documented elsewhere on ITulip that the CPI has been futzed around with considerably - and shadowstats it a good source for this. Still, even with a tinkered CPI, there has been real wage erosion at the bottom:



This, IMHO, is why the current unemployment crisis so difficult, what made the debt levels so unsustainable, and what makes the GAMC feel like it is slipping away.

[jiimbergin]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

I think of the Great American Middle Class Dream as that of my childhood in the 1970's.

My Dad worked, my Mom didn't(until we were much older).

ALL of our NEEDS were covered, and there was money left over for a few WANTS occasionally, with a strong emphasis on frugality as the rest went away for a rainy day.

We lived in a small but comfortable home with a small, comfortable mortgage.

Collectively living farther beneath our family means compared to the Jones' and intentionally avoiding the keeping up with the Jones' unproductive allocation of capital "arms race".

And most importantly, being able to sleep soundly at night.....since there's a good bit of "fat on the bone" to cover likely bumps in the road.

To me that's the GAMC Dream.

sounds right to me!

[brent217]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

So what would the bottom chart look like with a Shadowstats CPI line added?

[bpr]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

Interesting stuff, in that it's important to understand our contemporary myths. But one must admit that there is an inherent contradiction in a "great middle."

[dcarrigg]

Re: The All-American Middle Class Thang

So what would the bottom chart look like with a Shadowstats CPI line added?

I'll take a stab at that this evening. The shaded area would expand considerably as the top line would move up the Y-axis.