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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/30-statistics-show-middle-class-dying-right-front-our-eyes-we-enter-2012Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, that is rapidly changing. The statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the U.S. middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012. The decline of the middle class is not something that has happened all of a sudden. Rather, there has been a relentless grinding down of the middle class over the last several decades. Millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas, the rate of inflation has far outpaced the rate that our wages have grown, and overwhelming debt has choked the financial life out of millions of American families. Every single day, more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, more Americans fell into poverty last year than has ever been recorded before. The number of middle class jobs and middle class neighborhoods continues to decline at a staggering pace. As I have written about previously, America as a whole is getting poorer as a nation, and as this happens wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated at the very top of the income scale. This is not how capitalism is supposed to work, and it is not good for America.
Today I went over to Safeway and I was absolutely appalled at the prices. I honestly don't know how most families make it these days. I ended up paying over 140 dollars for about two-thirds of a cart of food. That was after I "saved" 67 dollars on sale items. When the cost of the basic things that we need - housing, food, gas, electricity - go up faster than our incomes do, that means that we are getting poorer. Sadly, if you look at the long-term numbers, some very clear negative trends emerge....
-The number of good jobs continues to decrease.
-The rate of inflation continues to outpace the rate that our wages are going up.
-American consumers are going into almost unbelievable amounts of debt.
-The number of Americans that are considered to be "poor" continues to grow.
-The number of Americans that are forced to turn to the government for financial assistance continues to go up.
After you read the information below, it should become abundantly clear that the U.S. middle class is in a whole heap of trouble. The following are 30 statistics that show that the middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012.........
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Skittles
(153,103 posts)THEY TELL ME EVERY DAY ON DU THAT THINGS ARE IMPROVING!!!! 
cstanleytech
(26,211 posts)Take my brother for example he works 40 a week usually full time but he only earns roughly 14k after taxes and the grocery chain he works for doesnt give raises often and they havent given one that would really offset for the cost of living being so much more now and I doubt they will because they just bought out winn dixie.
Skittles
(153,103 posts)that's true of a huge number of the people lucky enough to stay employed but you can BET the executives and CEOs are getting the money your brother and other workers should be getting - and this is NOT getting better
cstanleytech
(26,211 posts)better than they were say a year or two ago when the worry was if he would even have a job, thats not to say I dont think they shouldnt give the employees a larger share of the profits like say atleast 8000 more at a minimum per year after taxes but I am not going to hold my breath on that happening because they have no incentive to do so atm.
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)
burrowowl
(17,631 posts)
BlueIris
(29,135 posts)I was shocked to find out how many people are on government assistance. (Not ripping those who have to use it, just saying it's a sad reflection of the economy and our priorities.)
Citizen Worker
(1,785 posts)when United States Steel announce the acquisition of Marathon Oil rather than building a state of the art steel mill. That's over 30 years ago! Wake up!
raccoon
(31,105 posts)"#9 The total value of household real estate in the U.S. has declined from $22.7 trillion in 2006 to $16.2 trillion today. Most of that wealth has been lost by the middle class."
A lot of the "value" of real estate was due to the housing bubble. Real estate prices were raised to ridiculous levels, particularly in
certain parts of the country.
"#26 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps."
My fellow DU'ers, if you are a single mother, you are quite likely to be poor. I don't get it why some single women
have a kid, and another, and another. I know this view is unpopular, but still, single mothers are very likely to be poor.
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)Why does everyone immediately assume that a 'single mother' is a) lazy, b) immoral, c) stupid, d) just a general welfare cheat, or some combination? There are any number of reasons why a woman may find herself raising one or more children without benefit of a man around. Divorce, abandonment, and widowhood can all leave a woman as a 'single mother'. All three of my daughter's children were born 'in wedlock', but when her husband died, she was left a 'single mother'. And let me tell you, it is not easy raising three kids and trying to work full time. And single mothers tend to be poor because women don't get paid as much as men, and the SCOTUS has ruled that it is almost impossible for women to take their employers to court about it.
pitohui
(20,564 posts)and there it is, you said it, we all know it, there is NO equal rights for women in the united states constitution and never will be, we gave up on trying for it in the 1980s
that said, yes, if a woman has 3 kids, we do have to assume that she doesn't understand basic history and/or math (especially math) and that's one of the places where "single mother equals stupid" comes from...why do you have 3 kids when it's public information that 1) you are a woman and will not have the same chance to earn a good income as a man, 2) your chance of having an equal income to a man PLUMMETS to almost zero if you have more than one child and 3) husbands are allowed to die or divorce you
it is completely forseeable that a human male is not an immortal god and i don't personally know any intelligent woman of my generation or younger who would have 3 children w. a human male
so..that is why people assume the mother of multiple children is stupid, she may not be stupid but she made a very foolish choice that was entirely predictable that it couldn't end well
if you plan your life assuming everything will go right and perfectly you are going to have a difficult life & some people (who have never had the luxury of imagining for a moment that everything would go right) will judge you
if you think raccoon is a judgmental poster, you would be wrong, i believe she works overtime to be fair and to understand
and if i am judgemental, as i probably am, understand that i had a very difficult life and when i see people making UNNEEDED mistakes it just makes me sad
we need to teach our girls MATH and we need to acknowledge that, pope or no pope, if you have multiple children based on a man taking care of you, and it's 2011, i don't care if you have the IQ of stephen hawking your behavior is stupid, your children will not have half a chance, and people can't help but use their brains to make judgements about the obvious
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)So, you honestly believe that a woman should never have more than two children? If you don't know of anyone of 'your generation or younger' who would have 3 children w. a human male' (I guess it would be ok to have children with an extraerrestrial?) then you must not have a very large circle of friends.
raccoon
(31,105 posts)My mother was left a widow with 3 young children to raise.
That happens.
But when a woman keeps having children knowing there's not going to be a man around (or anyone else) to help with the
expenses and practical stuff, that's another thing.
I remember on 20/20 or some show like that, a young woman in IN who had one child when she was a high school
junior, another the next year and another the next. She wasn't married, and incidentally she wasn't a minority either.
Needless to say, she was poor.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Could have done without the "World's Coming to an End" doomsday conclusion.
Seems that site's too loaded with Freepers, Oathkeepers, Paulites and "Welfare Queen" believers for my tastes.
Huey P. Long
(1,932 posts)
lunatica
(53,410 posts)And most of us saw it coming in the last decade. We just didn't realize the Republicans would willfully accelerate it. The 1% are cutting off their nose to spite their face. And in the end they will also pay the price, even if no one does a thing to stop them. Actually, especially if no one does a thing to stop them.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)the Middle Class trading the elections off between the Republicans and the Democrats, we now have fascism.
The nations that have a system that actually provide for their citizenry and not just the top one percent all have a wide selection of choices - for instance the Green Party holds quite a number of seats in the German Parliament.
With the one exception being the state of Vermont, and its good people in the house and the Senate there, the rest of the nation has politicians that serve only the .05% at the top, even as they pretend to harken to the ideals of the former two party system. For instance, observers in California are more than confident of the truth of the statement that Diane Feinstein works for the interests of the Republican party and has set the stage for the Republicans to have the gubernatorial advantage in two past races for the governorship.
It is all One Big Money Party.
If you or I are invited to their dinners, it is only because we are to be on the menu itself!
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)They're not our jobs. They're just jobs. If the job can be done somewhere else cheaper, faster, or whatever, for whatever reason, they'll be done somewhere else.
The US had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen...until the rest of the world got into/back into the game. It's not because the US middle class was exceptional. It was pretty much luck. The US middle class was almost born into it in a way. Happened to be in the right place at the right time.
There is a reason they call it the cost of living. The basic things are going to cost more as time goes by because we have 7 billion people either wanting more stuff, or wanting stuff before they want even more stuff. We also have to share the planet with a lot of other life. You know how if the 1% takes more and more for themselves, the infrastructure starts to crumble, and the 99% has a lower quality of life? It works the same way when humanity(the 1% of the planet) takes more and more for ourselves, and the infrastructure of the planet starts to diminish.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)with the "ever thing's just fine crowd". Instead you should lower your expectations, live with less, and be happy a republican isn't in office.
Yes because the constitutional scholar we elected as President was blind sided with obstructionism. Apparently history was not part of his education.
Back when my dad was alive they called it stone walling. Yes, he didn't see it coming.
Granted it's unprecedented, but one would think he'd have a couple tricks in his back pocket instead of caving in immediately and constantly.
As I've said before, don't apologize for a politician, and making your high water mark mediocrity, is why we're here today.
-p
bvar22
(39,909 posts)You know that thing about a Giant Invisible Hand?
Thats all BULLSHIT.
They made that shit UP
and used smooth talking politicians to sell the fairy tale of a benevolent INVISIBLE HAND
to a gullible America.
The ONLY thing MORE stupefying than being able to SELL an "Invisible Hand",
is that they are STILL selling it 30 years later,
and SOME fools are STILL BUYING it.
There is NO Giant Invisible Hand.
There is NO such thing as "Free Trade".
There is NO such thing as a Free Market.
If you WORK for a Living, don't trust ANY politician who says they belong to the religion of the Invisible Hand.
That politician is NOT your friend.
Remember Me
(1,532 posts)the offshoring of jobs -- esp. tech jobs -- that happened from the 90s on. I watched as hundreds of thousands of good tech jobs -- service call centers, etc., -- were shipped to India, and marveled at the resilience of our economy to withstand all that.
Well, they finally drove a stake in its heart.
REP
(21,691 posts)What most people think of as "wealthy" - private schools, vacations, savings plus retirement funds, etc - is actually middle class. Attacks on unions, loss of manufacturing jobs, and yes, heavy taxation helped kill it off. There is still a small middle class, but most people fall into the working class or at best, lower middle class with the ranks of the working poor growing daily. The numbers of the actual rich remain fairly static, but their fortunes continue to grow as governments (not just the US) continues to kiss their asses.