Posted on 11/15/2010 7:10:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Meanwhile, the single mother who never even tried to get a job to support her daughter continues to draw welfare benefits.
Two major political movements are going to happen over the next ten years. One is a growing backlash against the out of control public sector. The second will be either a complete devolution into a European welfare state (what Obama wants), with the new underclass demanding bailouts, or the unemployed are going to revolt against the multi-generational welfare system when they realize they can work for decades and get no help when they are in a lurch. I hope on this second point it becomes the latter rather than the former.
“The median income is the US is now $50,000 a year, 5% less than it was just 10 years ago. We are on average, getting poorer.”
Don’t confuse the median with the mean.
It may sound trivial, but the influx of low pay / no (legal) pay aliens skew the median quite a bit.
While there's no question that a lot of people are suffering these days, I think it's worthwhile to step back and put a few things into perspective. I have long felt that one of the major factors behind the "declining middle class" in this country is the constantly changing definition of what exactly constitutes a "middle class" standard of living.
Some items in this article, for example, leave me scratching my head and wondering if there's more to this story than meets the eye. I never thought of Manhattan's Upper East Side as a place where middle class people can afford to live, though the woman's $1,000 monthly rent makes me wonder if there is some kind of rent control regulation in place on that apartment. $1,000/month in Manhattan is unheard-of for most people.
And she's sending her daughter to a private school! What the heck is that all about?
GE has recently announced that it is moving it’s appliance manufacturing back in to the US over the next 4 years at a cost of 1 billion dollars.
“65 Large = Middle class?????”
Well, she does live in NYC.
Even as a yute of 15 on a trip to Disneyworld, it didn’t take me more than 10 seconds to wonder what’s going to happen to those folks who were replaced by automation and computers in the 21st century. That was some 35 years ago or so.
What’s scary is that now half of people in the US make less than the median income.
One more thing. She should get the hell out of Manhattan. She should move to Oklahoma or Texas.
She actually has a good skill set, sales, where experience is valued, and which is hard to outsource.
Ad sales are difficult right now because companies are cutting ad budgets. But there are places where the economy is still in decent shape.
Once we got an EPA, jobs were doomed.
Yogi, is that you?
Exactly. WHy don’t they close underperforming stores and move merch and staff to just one store? There are four Sears stores within 10 miles of me. Why? Sometime during the 90s, it was decided that there must be an anchor store and strip mall in every neighborhood.
Well, that's only because half of the people in the US are dumber than the median.
The South has enough Yankee transplants already. Thanks, but no thanks. Yankees come here and vote like Communists.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
A. Einstein
And its pretty obvious for various reasons our society is no longer equipped to ride out the rough patches as before.
Interesting times comin.
RE: I never thought of Manhattan’s Upper East Side as a place where middle class people can afford to live, though the woman’s $1,000 monthly rent makes me wonder if there is some kind of rent control regulation in place on that apartment. $1,000/month in Manhattan is unheard-of for most people.
New York City definitely has rent controlled apartments. However to meet the requirements of a rent controlled apartment, the tenant must have been living there continuously since before July 1, 1971. When a rent controlled apartment becomes vacant, it either becomes rent stabilized or is removed from regulation.
Rent-stabilized units in New York City are those apartments in buildings of six or more units built between February 1, 1947 and January 1, 1974. Tenants are entitled to receive required services, to have their leases renewed, and may not be evicted except on grounds allowed by law.
Unless there is some dramatic recovery from this recession that no one is predicting, these issues will and should become the dominant issues is US politics in the very near future.
This is a joke...right? If so, it is kind of funny.
How is that scary? That's always true, by definition of the median.
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