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Elizabeth Warren: What happened to the middle class?
Elizabeth Warren: What happened to the middle class?
Editor's note: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012 and is the author of "A Fighting Chance." She worked as an assistant to President Barack Obama and helped design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- A great crack in America's middle class came to light recently: While our country continues to lead the world as the richest nation, our middle class, once the most affluent in the world, has fallen behind. According to an analysis by The New York Times, Canada's middle class is now the wealthiest, and working families in many countries have seen their incomes rise much faster than those in the United States.
The hollowing out of America's middle class has been years in the making, but it wasn't inevitable that working families would fall further and further behind. Instead, it was the direct consequence of deliberate choices Washington has made over the past generation to put the rich and powerful first and to leave working people to pick up whatever crumbs were left behind.
<...>
Starting in the 1970s, even as workers became more productive, their wages flattened out, while the costs of housing, health care and sending a kid to college, just kept going up and up. In 1980, the minimum wage was at least high enough to keep a working parent with a family of two out of poverty. Now, the minimum wage isn't even enough to keep a fully employed mother and a baby out of poverty -- and on Wednesday, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to increase the federal minimum wage modestly.
- more -
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/01/opinion/warren-middle-class/
Editor's note: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012 and is the author of "A Fighting Chance." She worked as an assistant to President Barack Obama and helped design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- A great crack in America's middle class came to light recently: While our country continues to lead the world as the richest nation, our middle class, once the most affluent in the world, has fallen behind. According to an analysis by The New York Times, Canada's middle class is now the wealthiest, and working families in many countries have seen their incomes rise much faster than those in the United States.
The hollowing out of America's middle class has been years in the making, but it wasn't inevitable that working families would fall further and further behind. Instead, it was the direct consequence of deliberate choices Washington has made over the past generation to put the rich and powerful first and to leave working people to pick up whatever crumbs were left behind.
<...>
Starting in the 1970s, even as workers became more productive, their wages flattened out, while the costs of housing, health care and sending a kid to college, just kept going up and up. In 1980, the minimum wage was at least high enough to keep a working parent with a family of two out of poverty. Now, the minimum wage isn't even enough to keep a fully employed mother and a baby out of poverty -- and on Wednesday, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to increase the federal minimum wage modestly.
- more -
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/01/opinion/warren-middle-class/
The Minimum Wage Index: Why the GOP's Filibuster Will Hurt Workers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024911713
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