Is the Middle Class Dead?

Posted By: AZ Moderate
Posted on: Jun. 5, 2009 at 1:22 PM

62 Comments

3.7 / 5

Based on 3 ratings.

Email Friend

Add to Favorites Add to del.icio.us

del.icio.us

Digg It!

Slashdot It!

This was aired on CNN this morning. Thought you should know.

Just Sayin’ – Is the middle class dead?

Posted: 06:17 AM ET

Carol Costello - Contributor, CNN's American Morning
Filed under: Just Sayin'

From CNN’s Carol Costello and Ronni Berke

Danny Borden has been a steelworker in Cleveland, Ohio, for the past 32 years. But last month, he was laid off from his job at the Arcelor Mittal plant. It wasn’t the first time he was furloughed. This time, he has a feeling he won’t be going back to work.

“Angry?” he asks. “I’m very angry, you know, but I just can’t let the anger get to me.” Along with his job, Borden lost his his way of life – the daily freeway drive, the banter with co-workers he’s known for decades, and of course, his economic status.

“I don’t see no middle class. Is there a middle class now? I don’t see it,” Borden says. “I see myself as fortunate, but I really don’t see myself as middle class.”

[…]

“The blue collar jobs are gone, and they’re gone overseas. And we’re giving the people that take the jobs overseas, we’re giving them tax breaks and all kinds of money to ruin America. That’s the way I look at it, so we’re rewarding everybody for taking American jobs away.”

For the video and the whole story, go here: http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/05/is-the-middle-class-dead/

I did a google search to find it and came up with a lot of stuff on the subject. It seems I am not the only one that sees the writing on the wall.

Cities Shed Middle Class, and Are Richer and Poorer for It - New ...

Jul 23, 2006 ... Does it matter if there is less room for a middle class? ... SOME big American cities are flourishing as at no time in recent memory. ...

www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/weekinreview/23scott.html - Similar pages

1. USATODAY.com - Middle class barely treads water

Millions of middle-class families can no longer afford to live on two incomes. With personal bankruptcy at an all-time high, it's mostly the middle class ...

www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2003-09-14-middle-cover_x.htm - Cached - Similar pages

2. The Undeclared War on America's Middle Class | Corporate ...

No more middle class, just two classes, the ruling class and the working masses... This is what every fat cat corporate douche fantasizes ...
www.alternet.org/workplace/41192/ - Cached - Similar pages

Etc.

Much more but this gives you the idea. The Google search key for this was “no middle class”.

Click here to view more articles by AZ Moderate

Rate This Article | Create Account

Anonymous commenting has been disabled, you must login to comment on articles.

Signup for an account

Comments:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next »

ObamaInCharge

Jun. 5, 2009 at 04:00:02 PM

View Profile

You should expand your search parameters to "middle class" + "screwed".

link:[nymag.com]

link:[consumerist.com]

link:[www.amazon.com]

Report Abuse

postman

Jun. 5, 2009 at 05:39:30 PM

View Profile

[This is a reply to comment by ObamaInCharge on Jun. 5, 2009 at 04:00:02 PM]

ObamaInCharge
Jun. 5, 2009 at 04:00:02 PM

You should expand your search parameters to "middle class" + "screwed".
......

View this Comment

Don't worry Mody.

The economies coming back. We only have unemployement at 9.4%. Twenty-six year recorh high.

Never mind we were told.

These were the claims made by the Administration.

StimulusPrediction

Report Abuse

ObamaInCharge

Jun. 6, 2009 at 10:06:26 AM

View Profile

[This is a reply to comment by postman on Jun. 5, 2009 at 05:39:30 PM]

postman
Jun. 5, 2009 at 05:39:30 PM

Don't worry Mody.
The economies coming back. We only have unemployement at 9.4%. Twenty-six year recorh high.
Never mind we were told.
These were the claims made by the...

View this Comment

It would help if you link to your sources when regurgitating data:

link:[www.illinoisworknet.com]

There are two ways to view this graph. One is to stupidly assume that since job loses look a lot like the economic projection without the stimulus, then we really didn't need the stimulus in the first place. Brilliant!!! Thank god you are just losing mail, and not actually running anything.

The second way to look at this graph is to wonder just how f***ed we would be if we didn't have the stimulus we did have. The idea was to create more jobs than we were projected to lose, and obviously we didn't do enough. It would have been far worse. Bruce Jacobs was ranting on the radio a few weeks ago that Obama didn't create "one" job with all his spending because unemployment is rising. Obviously you have reached the same moronic conclusion.

I'll grant you that this graph reflected a more optimistic view than most economists had at the time. But most economists also believe that the stimulus package was far too small, and watered down by far too many tax cuts that Republicans insisted be a part of the stimulus spending. Never mind that we have been doing tax cuts as a knee jerk response to any economic situation for the entire Bush administration, and the result was the very crisis we are trying to fix.

We wasted a lot of money placating Republicans who voted against the stimulus plan anyway (because it wasn't ALL tax cuts). I hope we don't make that mistake again. Time to stop catering to the Neanderthals.

FYI:

Bang for the Buck = estimated one year $ change in GDP for a given $ reduction in federal tax revenue or increase in spending.

Tax Cuts

Non-refundable lump sum tax rebate 1.01
Refundable lump sum tax rebate 1.22

Temporary tax cuts

Payroll tax holiday 1.28
Across the board tax cut 1.03
Accelerated depreciation 0.25

Permanent tax cuts

End alternative minimum tax patch 0.49
Make Bush income tax cuts permanent 0.31
Make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent 0.38
Cut corporate tax rate 0.30

Spending Increases

Extending unemployment insurance benefits 1.63
Temporary increase in food stamps 1.73
General aid to state governments 1.38
Increased infrastructure spending 1.59

link:[www.thenextright.com]

Report Abuse

Phaedrus

Jun. 6, 2009 at 01:20:54 PM

View Profile

Great graph Postie. Imagine how many more job losses we'd have w/o the stimulus! I mean, that money is going out to "shovel ready" projects. And everyone of those heavy eqipment operators would also be outta work w/o that stimulus bill.

Report Abuse

Hispanic Woman

Jun. 6, 2009 at 02:08:41 PM

View Profile

Rating for this article

[This is a reply to comment by postman on Jun. 5, 2009 at 05:39:30 PM]

Things are starting to turn for the better now that we have flushed the faulty intelligence in the Whitehouse. Unfortunately it will take time and sacrifice to clean up after the spoiled brat from Texas.

You rightwing zealots have had Obama failing before he was elected. Nobody is listening to you any more.

Report Abuse

postman

Jun. 6, 2009 at 08:07:04 PM

View Profile

[This is a reply to comment by Phaedrus on Jun. 6, 2009 at 01:20:54 PM]

Phaedrus
Jun. 6, 2009 at 01:20:54 PM

Great graph Postie. Imagine how many more job losses we'd have w/o the stimulus! I mean, that money is going out to "shovel ready" projects. And everyone of those heavy eqipment operators would also be outta work w/o that stimulus...

View this Comment

Unemployement 9.4% Romer said it wouldn't go over 8%

Caterpillar laying off workers. Odumbass said they would hire them back if his stimulas passed

"Don't mess with Joe" admits to waste of the stimulas money.

How many more lies are you sheeple gonna lap up?

Report Abuse

ObamaInCharge

Jun. 6, 2009 at 09:03:52 PM

View Profile

[This is a reply to comment by postman on Jun. 6, 2009 at 08:07:04 PM]

postman
Jun. 6, 2009 at 08:07:04 PM

Unemployement 9.4% Romer said it wouldn't go over 8%
Caterpillar laying off workers. Odumbass said they would hire them back if his stimulas passed
"Don't mess with Joe" admits to waste of the stimulas money.
How many more lies are...

View this Comment

Ewe should look in the mirror, grass-eater.

Report Abuse

Phaedrus

Jun. 7, 2009 at 09:19:33 AM

View Profile

Caterpillar laying off workers.

? question: w/o the stimulus spending, how many more workers would get laid off? With less demand, wouldn't there be less need for CAT to keep workers?

Report Abuse

Phaedrus

Jun. 7, 2009 at 09:32:57 AM

View Profile

And from the WSJ,

June 5, 2009, 5:00 AM ET

Republicans Launch Misleading Attacks on Obama Job Numbers

By Phil Izzo

There is no way to see what the job market would have looked like without the stimulus and compare that to the current state of the economy. Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist and former chairman of the CEA under President George W. Bush, puts it this way: “It is like asking a doctor, ‘How much sicker would this particular patient have been if you had not given him treatment up to now?’ You can get, as an answer, the doctor’s subjective professional judgment, but you cannot expect objective measurement.”

So, the GOP is running nonsense about the #'s, and they're taking total #s and extrapolating out monthly goals that Obama never promised, and then trying to hold him to it. The final fact is, w/o the spending on these projects, more jobs would be lost, and there'd be more foreclosures. Also, the tax cuts for families and small businesses have helped the market too.

Report Abuse

indie616

Jun. 7, 2009 at 10:06:25 AM

View Profile

How about Bush's stimulus in 2008? The one where folks got $600 checks.

On the day Bush signed the bill (Feb 13) he said:

"The bill I'm signing today is large enough to have an impact, amounting to more than $152 billion this year, or about 1 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product)," and the government (his administration) hoped the measure, which sent most Americans tax rebate checks by May, would either prevent a recession or make one relatively brief.

Opps.

Bush praised the quick work of the House and Senate and urged Americans not to "overreact" to the current economic troubles.

Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary for Bush said the Bush stimulus would lift US employment by 500,000.

Report Abuse

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next »

Directory

Is the Middle Class Dead?

Comments:

By Phil Izzo