The Middle Class Mystique

[SoCalDem]

The convergence of the end of WWII, the emergence of media and the advertising industry boom created the myth.

After WWII, when the soldiers came home the natural thing to do for those young men was to marrry & start families. The creation of the huge middle class was all about consumption.

Prior to WWII, lots of young marrieds still lived with their parents and worked in the family businesses or on the family farms.

There was a large contingent of young people who could (with the help of the GI Bill, get their OWN place at a young age..and at the start of their family...THAT was new)

Easy credit created the harmony and hopeful feelings that created the "middle class"..

Housing was cheap, cars were cheap, living was cheap. ONE income could (and did) support large families..and pay for college for kids.

Media was in its infancy, and of course the shows refelcted the image of middle class..(or what Madison Avenue TOLD us was middle class). Everyone aspired to be middle class. Credit allowed people to live the middle class dream...as long as they could make the payments.

Once upon a time, people repaired and re-used things. I can remember my grandmother having her iron repaired. Manufacturing ever-cheaper items pretty much put the repairers out of business, and created mounds of trashed, everyday items filling our landfills.

For a pretty long time all the plates kept spinning, but as one after another support sytem has collapsed, the middle class is collapsing right along with it.

People who are old now, did get to live that myth for long enough to amass wealth, and their children (boomers) lived it as children, and claimed it as their birthright, but during their "earning years", they have had additional stressors that their parents did not have.

They entered the housing market with double digit home lonas, double digit car loans, the emergence of HMOs, the elimination of affordable college for their kids, the disappearance of unions and pensions.

The whole middle class myth was just a brief period of time between wars, when things were calm, and people thought it would always be that way..

[kiahzero]

1. With one post, you've decimated the field of political science.

Quick, start sending this off to journals!

[SoCalDem]

2. Thanks.. n/t

[WCGreen]

3. Cheap credit, affordable housing and a migratory

population actually started after WW1...

But why quible...

I am in my forties and I have friends that are still paying off student loans...

College is unafordable now for anyone but the wealthy, just like it was at the turn of the century... The last one...

[bryant69]

4. It is something to aspire to however

I agree that conditions that created the middle class in the middle of the century were specific, and that sociatle trends have moved away from that - however the goal for our economic policy should be to create a new middle class - i should think.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[wholetruth00]

5. Thanks to "the middle class" we have the Bush administration.

Since I am relatively poor or in the lower class, I am having difficulty feeling them.

[FogerRox]

6. A middle class has arisen 3 times

The BLack Plague killed 30% of the worlds population, this created a labor shortage. This led to the 1st Middle class. The 2nd rising was due to mostly all the new resources from the New World & rising economic & Landownership rights. Our Am Rev occured during this period.

The 3rd rising, really goes back to FDR in the depression, SS & Unemployement relief. FDR's CCC & WPA created so many jobs, coupled with Labor laws (Unionizing)such as the Child Labor law, helped create a labor shortage which drives up wages... which by the way.. created infrastructure, like bridges and roads. The top personal Income tax rate was increased to a peak of 92%. During the 4 years of WW2, wages tripled.

I have only covered the basics, but there is a bit more to it than that.

[SoCalDem]

7. Yes.. It was just a "particular" moment in time..not meant to last

media tries to tell us it will last, but they never do :(

[FogerRox]

8. Fuck that, I say we kick their asses.

[blonndee]

9. I keep recommending this book, but

I'll do it again, at the risk of being accused of being one of the authors! Sounds like you would love it. Authors Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Channels of Desire: Mass Media and the Shaping of American Consciousness. And if you can trudge through some repetition and somewhat tediously-constructed chapters, Lizbeth Cohen's "A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America" is a pretty great historical tracing of American consumerism, mass marketing, and citizenship, and how these all relate to and influence one another.

[hfojvt]

10. share of aggregate income

by quintiles and the top 5%
1970 - 5.4; 12.2; 17.6; 23.8; 40.9; 15.6
1980 - 5.1; 11.6; 17.5; 24.3; 41.6; 15.3
1985 - 4.8; 11.0; 16.9; 24.3; 43.1; 16.1
1999 - 4.3; 9.9; 15.6; 23.0; 47.2; 20.3
2001 - 3.5; 8.7; 14.6; 23.0; 50.1; 22.4

Everybody has lost but the top 20%. What changed between 1980 and 1985? Primarily ERTA - Reagan's tax cut dropping the top rate from 70% to 40%. Another part would be the Reagan FICA tax increase on wages from 3% to 7.65%.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie3.html

My numbers do not agree with the site because mine are from SAUS 1996 and 2001 (with the census bureau as the source). However, since the on-line source is the George W. Bush census bureau, I wonder about some of these revisions, but they do include this:

Changes in Shares

1967 to 1980 / 7.5 / -4.6 / -2.3 / 2.9 / -0.2 /-9.7
1980 to 1993 / -11.6 / -8.7 / -6.5 / -2.8 / 7.3 / 17.7

Also wonder why the site has not been updated now for two years!!