Middle class hanging by thread as rich get richer, poor get poorer

[OhioChick]

The cost of living is outpacing income in Ohio. One local couple, who think they are doing everything right, learn how easily a family can fall into bankruptcy. Their journey may sound familiar

By David Giffels
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Sunday, Mar 16, 2008


THIS COULD BE YOU.

This could be you sitting in the living room of a house that you'd never notice otherwise, a low brick suburban thing, the inside walls painted with care by the people who've made it their home, with a dog resting on the floor and a pair of cats trolling for attention.

This could be you telling your story, about a husband and wife who tumbled off their middle-class foundation, who thought they did everything right, who keep spreadsheets and budgets, who pay all their bills, who work hard and bring home a decent paycheck, whose debt is not out of the ordinary.

Not out of the ordinary. You don't read much of that in the newspaper. You read about victims and fools, people who lost everything or screwed up big time — people nothing like you.

But these two — there's nothing unusual about them at all. They get up in the morning, they go to work, they work hard, their effort is valued by their employers, they bring home their money and they pay it into their house and their cars and their taxes and their groceries and their medicine.

There's no American dream in that. It's the standard agreement. They went to college, they work in offices, they each bring home thirty-some thousand dollars a year. They bought a house for $150,000; in the two-car garage is a 12-year-old SUV and a 6-year-old economy sedan with eight payments left.

There's no fancy jewelry, no steroidal television set. They play by the rules.

This could be you agreeing to tell your story as long as the newspaper doesn't use your name, asking to be anonymous because you are anonymous — that's all you ever wanted — and you want to stay that way, because you are so ordinary that no one would ever suspect you'd gone bankrupt, a condition you describe as ''the dirty little secret of the middle class.''

You're ashamed. You're embarrassed. You, the one who does the household finances, you feel like you've let the other down. You look at your preschooler and you wonder whether you've cost him some future you never even got a chance to plan.

You look at each other, and even though you know with cold hard reason exactly how you got here, you still wonder:

How did we get here?


Disappearing act

More:

http://www.ohio.com/news/16723051.html

"Breeze54" suggested that I cross post this here. (Was in "Editorials") :)

[avenger64]

1. Marx warned that when the members of the bourgeoisie begin ..

... to fall into the proletariat, that's when you get the right conditions for revolution.

[jwirr]

6. But the polls say the Dems cannot beat McCain.

:sarcasm:

[avenger64]

8. False Consciousness ....

... no :sarcasm: at all.

[Greyhound]

19. Things certainly do seem to be heating up, don't they?

:kick: & R

[Ilsa]

2. "They play by the rules." If only Bushwipe and Crook Cheney would

confess that doing the opposite is their philosophy for getting ahead.

[Baby Snooks]

3. It's far worse than this story indicates...

I have been there, done this twice. You never really get back on your feet unless you're extremely lucky. I filed under the old bankruptcy law. The new one is even worse. This one couple was fortunate to have been able to keep their house. The new law does allow, in certain circumstances, for creditors to foreclose. And of course who voted for the new law? Quite a few Democrats. Including Hillary Clinton.

It affects more than just your credit rating. It affects your marketability in the job market. You become a "risk" in some sectors. You're suspect. You might be tempted to steal. That is the attitude. Not based in fact. But attitudes rarely are.

And of course added to the crisis, and it is a crisis in middle-class America, is the prospect of mandatory health insurance. Imagine only having a $12 a month cushion and being told by the government that you must now pay $1,200 a month for health insurance for your family.

The problem really is that Congress is not "middle-class" and so it has no concept of the impact of much of the legislation it passes. That includes the Democrats as well as the Republicans.

[demgrrrll]

4. Great article well worth reading. I shudder to think what is coming down

the road.

[Warpy]

5. Enron provided the first cautionary tale

and a warning for everybody. People who did the right things, worked their way through college, put off all self gratification, worked for the right company, saved everything they could manage to put into their retirement plan, and played by all the rules got left with nothing when it was revealed the whole thing was a house of cards and they and everyone else had been robbed for years by a small group of unimaginably rich crooks.

That's something the Democrats need to address, the fact that we can do everything exactly right and still be vulnerable to an illness, offshoring, downsizing, or other things completely outside our control. None of us is safe in a GOP economy that shifts all wealth to the top and tells the rest of us to charge it because all that wealth will trickle down some day.

This is what they always do, the GOP, and they haven't changed their dogma since Harding, Coolidge and Hoover got us into the last Great Depression.

If the Democrats don't put kitchen table economics back into the party platform this year, they deserve to lose.

And they just might.

[pitohui]

7. i can tell you myself why she couldn't get another job

it's the bad back requiring all those monthly co-pays, once you have a bad back you had better hope the job you're in will be there for you forever because ain't nobody hiring somebody with a bad back no wonder how marvelous their resume, it was awful luck for her that she was downsized
and even worse luck that she apparently had no idea that she was unemployable by a "real" company until it was too late and she'd screwed herself out of unemployment benefits by taking the job at the "shady" place

[bobbolink]

9. And, the question is, have they now started to see poor people in a more caring light?

Not all, but so many of these people who prided themselves on "playing by the rules" were some of the most biggoted against poor folk.

It's really too bad that it takes their own downfall to "get it".

[taught_me_patience]

10. Ohio is one of the hardest hit states

but it still went for Bush. People continuously vote against their best interests.

[OhioChick]

15. "it still went for Bush"

I beg to differ...

[citygal]

17. Agreed.

I know they cheated in 2004. Ohio should have gone for Kerry.

Oh well, the SOS/SOB Ken Blackwell got his in 2006 when he lost the race for governor. My in laws, who are die-hard Republicans, refused to vote for him (and I won't get into the "why"). At least Dems are in charge of the voting this year there.

[Breeze54]

11. And this scenario is spreading all across the US... to the "New Poor"

:(

:kick: & Recommended



awe crap... You shouldn't have mentioned me. It was just a suggestion.

[Warpy]

12. Good work, and it's why the suburbs

now have more poor folks than the inner city does. That shift happened about the middle of last year, before the shit really started to hit the fan.

I can't imagine how bad it is this year.

[Breeze54]

13. Maybe that's why but also because there's no affordable housing in the cities anymore...

At least not in Boston. Many are pissed off about it and I suspect
the poor are moving to the suburbs so they can find affordable apts.
Rents are cheaper outside the cities and so is food and gas.

[Warpy]

14. When I left, I was paying $625 for a one bedroom in JP

I saw a copy of the Globe last year and found that equivalent places (and it was a DUMP) were going for $1600/month and up.

Boston has always been unaffordable for people who hold ordinary jobs, people who keep the city going. It's why so many of us had multiple roommates in a living arrangement best known as a zoo.

[Breeze54]

16. Then you know first hand! My nephew lived in a "zoo" in JP too!

:hi:

[citygal]

18. Chicago is the same...

Housing prices in the city are ridiculous. A lot of my friends having children are moving to the 'burbs because it is far more affordable.

[raccoon]

20. Great article. That could happen to anybody. K&R. nt

[callous taoboy]

21. My trust-fund hippy-turned-Mepublican brother was giving me shit

the other day about the economy, saying it is the media's fault for the economy hurting, claiming that the media is causing panic so nobody is spending like they used to. Oh, he's a realtor which could be why he was such a sour-puss the other day. Used to be an acid-dropping, long-haired FREAK
back iun the day, used to carry a chain saw in his truck to cut down developer signs out in the sticks. We were driving through a drop-dead gorgeous tract of land that is now being sold off in parcels the other day and he was wishing he was in on that action. I think he did too much blow back in his musician days. I hear that that stuff literally burns holes in your noodle.

[Peace Teacher]

22. This is certainly not an isolated case. It happens everyday... everywhere.

[Mountainman]

23. I don't understand this. In one story they say the middle class is disappearing.

And I suppose they mean it is a bad turn of events. Yet most of those in OH voted for the people who put them in that place and the media there supports the right. Blackwell in now on MSNBC as a commentator. I moved from OH in 1982. I saw it coming. The turn to the right after Reagan got in office.

I know this, the ultimate end of the conservative agenda is no middle class. Just a wealthy ruling class and laborers who keep them comfortable.

I feel for these people but they vote against their own best interests every time.

I got a degree in 1979 and left in 1982. Never looked back.