What The GOP Means By Middle Class

[TheMastersNemesis]

When the GOP talks about the middle class and their concern for it, they are NOT talking about the US. They are talking about a middle class in a place like China. Most workers in China are lucky to make $1.00 an hour. If you make over a $1.00 an hour in China you can probably be considered as middle class. Remember many of the factories there pay only about 55 cents an hour.

The GOP standard for a good wage in the US is about $10 an hour or less. All you have to do is look at what they support and you will understand what they consider to be middle class. They even hate the present minimum wage and many GOPPERS say there should be no federal or state minimum wage. The market should determine the wage rate in a "free market".

Even though the GOP lost they WILL NOT CHANGE their attitude or ideas. They are already saying they need to get liars as good a Reagan was to put out the same swill. And FOX news will help them put out the swill.

So we cannot be complacent because we will see how they act during the lame duck session of Congress. For GOPPERS elections do not matter even if they lose because they are determined to run the country their way.

And in a way they have succeeded in so many ways over the last 32 years. Now they will lay in wait for 2016 to find another Reagan so they can run the country their way.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Profits über alles

They what to turn the ecomy into a industrial farm type setting.

Cramped, dirty, production until death.

[coldbeer]

2. I can't believe how stupid my friends are

My wife and I are the only democrats! We live well but
can't make ends meet on Social Security. This younger group
have jobs and can't make ends meet and they think they
are Republicans.

We worked every day and paid our union dues. We own
our home and vehicles. Got money in the bank. But, even
living modestly, our social security does not cover us.
What in the hell are these morans thinking when they
go vote?

[SheilaT]

3. I want to respectfully disagree.

I believe that their idea of Middle Class is someone who makes around $250k per year. More accurately, I think they believe that Middle Class income is in the $100k to $500k per year.

What they somehow don't get is how very little money a sub $10/hour wage is in this country. They also don't understand is how brutal it can be on the front lines in those jobs: the retail store workers, the workers on the speeded up assembly line, the call center operators.

It has been my observation that far too many of those who have office jobs do not have any comprehension of just what blue-collar and pink-collar work is all about. And here I'm including all those who have little or no control over their time at work, the ones who must wait for mandated bathroom breaks, the ones who must serve a constant stream of customers. This also, the way I define it, includes K-12 teachers because of the way they are confined to the classroom most of their workday.

The two times in my life where I had a conventional office job I kept on marveling at how easy it was, how much extra time I had in the work-day to chat with co-workers, or go to the bathroom whenever I needed to.

The other very important issue (and the whole topic is very complex and needs an entire book) is that the GOP is very actively pitting one group of workers against all others. They do it in a way that encourages all workers to be dragged down to the Lowest Common Denominater. For instance, they'll note the relatively short work-year of K-12 teachers, totally leaving out the continuing ed requirements for them. And here I'm just pointing out one very small aspect of the teaching life. There are many others, including prep time, grading, extra duties such as lunchroom or playground monitoring. You teachers can fill in the rest.

Or the relatively high pay of firefighters in some places. As if the physically hard work and genuine danger of that job is trivial, or matters about as much as the physicality or danger of my job on an information desk.

It goes on, and everyone here can come up with examples. I simply chose two groups that have been the overt targets of the GOP recently.

But back to the OP about the wages. You are absolutely right that they see nothing wrong with the low wages paid to WalMart workers and the like. They absolutely do not understand that you can't raise a family with only one bread-winner on those wages. But they do think of those people as working class, not middle class. They just don't get it that the working class paycheck is not what it was when the working class was far more unionized and those working class wages were relatively much better.

Another aspect of the low wages that they don't understand. Often they themselves are in a two wage-earner family. So they also are seeking out some kind of care for their kids. But because they are pulling down a six figure income each, they can afford a quality and type of care, especially if they have live-in nannies that is absolutely beyond the reach of the mom and dad each making less than 10 dollars an hour. They have no clue.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. We're not the middle class. We're the riddled class.