Is the middle class disappearing?

Question

The price on everything from food to health care, and electricity to gasoline have skyrocketed in the last decade, yet the middle class has not seen much wage increase (only a decrease if you account for inflation). The middle class is now significantly poorer than it was only one decade ago, and the income gap between rich and poor is widening (as it has for the last six decades). What will happen if the trend continues? Will we be a nation like France before the revolution? Will the masses live in poverty while the few aristocrats at the top feed off of them, or is this simply a bad time in our history that the middle class will recover from?

Answer 1

You don't have to look far to see what will happen.

Mexico should be the richest country in the world with great climate and soil and could have a great tourist trade, beautiful coastline.

What happened?  They rich began to rule and used the tax breaks for the rich policy's so businesses could flourished and the rich became richer and the poor got lower wages.  The workers now are nothing more than slaves.  Even slaves get food and housing and clothes they cannot make enough to buy even those things.  They live in shacks and grow what little they get to eat.

The richest man in the world is a Mexican businessman, did that make him pay higher wages to his workers?  NO!  They still get $2. a day to live on.  While he has fleets of jets and so many mansions he lost count sound like anyone we know?

When Wal Mart became the richest business in the country, telling all their employees to vote Republican did they raise wages?

Look on Forbes 400 richest men in America, Wal Mart children is in the top 5 places.  Making Billions so much they can't even figure out how to spend it all.  Did it make them contribute to profit sharing for its employees?  Medical care?  higher wages?  Or some worthy charity?

No, they are still some of the lowest wage workers in the country.

Did they get tax breaks from the US government, yes they did.

The USA will have a hard time ever coming back from the last 8 years.

I am afraid it will take a revolution and I see that coming.  Why Mexico hasn't done that and hung the richest ones up on stakes is a big mystery to me.  Mexico is doing what France did and US isn't far behind.  But it has always done that way in history.  Remember Russia?  The few rich ruled over the masses until they over threw them.

Then everyone is poor and it starts over.

Answer 2

I think it's just a bad time that the middle class will recover from. I don't think it will have such a massive impact. In some countries, such as Austria, the middle class is relatively small and there seems to be only two classes of people: rich and poor. It seems like the divide is between lower and upper middle class, so that the lower class and lower middle submerge into one, as do the upper middle and upper class.  

Answer 3

The middle class is becoming the lower class of people. Money is just not there anymore. They increase minimum wage, and it seems like when they increase that, prices of everything else goes up. People even those who make 16.00 plus an hour are still struggling to make it, because everything cost so much!  

Answer 4

Vote Republican in November to hasten this separation.

Answer 5

Yes it is. The lower class is moving up with the increases in minimum wage and pay rates not going up. More are falling to the missing class.  

Answer 6

In the USA, class is not a lifetime assignment. People in the lower, middle and upper classes are constantly moving. Most do not stay in the same class their whole life. I believe it is an irrelevant question. The individual is in control of their own life.

The notion that the middle class is shrinking is controversial because the economic boundaries that define the middle class vary. Households that earn between $25,000 and $75,000 represent approximately the middle half of the income distribution tables provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Over the past two decades, the number of households in those brackets decreased by 3.9%, from 48.2% to 44.3%. During the same time period, the number of households with incomes below $25,000 decreased 3.5%, from 28.7% to 25.2%, while the number of households with incomes above $75,000 increased over 7%, from 23.2% to 30.4%.[44]

Also how each "class" is defined has been changing through out the years. Back in the 1960's the average "middle class" family did not own more than one TV,  one car, have air conditioning or take vacations to foreign countries.

Now the average poor family owns their home, has 2 cars, 2 TV's, cable or satellite, computer, microwave, dishwasher and has air conditioning. The income gap is not widening, more people are moving into the the upper classes.

Another factor is the large number of our population retiring now and in the near future. They have amassed wealth, paid their bills off, done raising kids and have the most expendable money, however they will be classified as poor because they no longer have an income. They live off pensions, social security and savings. Senior citizens in this country are the wealthiest class of our population.

Don't fall for talking points by the media and politicians trying to divide the citizens for their personal gain.