Posted on 01/19/2017 6:00:52 AM PST by expat_panama
The American middle class is disappearing. We hear it from everybody. Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) focused throughout his campaign on what he termed the “disappearing middle class” — disappearing, Sanders said, thanks to income inequality. Sanders explained, “If you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, you know what, we’ve got to transfer that back if we’re going to have a vibrant middle class.” From the other side, Donald Trump has echoed the same message: “The American worker is being crushed. . . . The great American middle class is disappearing.”
No matter the messenger, the message is the same: Those in the middle of the income spectrum have been squeezed out, and the beneficiaries have been those at the top...
...demagogues on all sides of the political aisle insist that Americans are living worse than they did years ago, or that they’ve stagnated in their progress. Never mind that they have nicer things, that they live longer, that their lives are easier, that they even live in bigger houses — the median size of a new home in the United States is 2,467 feet as of 2016, a 61 percent increase over the past 40 years.
No, Americans must be having it rough.
Part of this perception is the tendency to romanticize the past... ...and that only government can fix that problem. Government can’t fix that problem, because that problem doesn’t really exist.
Government can only exacerbate that problem by destroying free markets that make better products more cheaply available, inhibiting the free movement of labor, and insisting that artificial redistribution of income can substitute for the free exchange of goods and services.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
10. Everyone knows it's true.
9. We're hearing that this is a myth from the National Review and those clowns are always wrong.
8. Trump says the Middle Class is dead.
7. It's what Rush says too.
6. Statistics are damn lies.
5. Just open your eyes and look around.
4. Anyone who says it's a myth is a Traitor.
3. Yeah.
OK, that's ten.
NATIONAL REVIEW SUCKS.
Fake News
Separating the government from the economy, a free market capitalist system, is what creates class mobility. It allows the poor to work themselves up gradually instead of being stuck in pre-defined roles.
Under socialist systems, the only way to improve is to go into government or come up w/something “big” in the private sector, like a Bill Gates.
If you like separation of church and state, you should favor separation of economy and state.
tx. It’s so nice to focus on issues —and when we do the answers become obvious.
Yeah!
NATIONAL REVIEW SUCKS.
You tell 'em!
Good post.
The typical "middle class" American 50 years ago worked for a major U.S. company -- maybe even in a union job.
The typical "middle class" American today works for the government.
I don't think this bodes well for the U.S. economy at all.
From where I sit, it looks like the middle class may not be dead, but it has taken a heck of a beating over the past two decades.
Don't pee down my back and tell me it's raining.
Ben Shapiro is a light weight. Does he mention how many people work contract/temporary jobs? As a conservative, I also think it’s lame that he’s writing this as Obama’s presidency is about to end.
The types of statistics he cites are no meaningful....look at the number of single income households over the years. Those wonderful numbers he claims are from two income households . Many folks work multiple part time jobs to earn enough to live on.
A house today costs way more than a house in years gone by.
Again tell me the numbers on single income households. That has always been a better indicator. That and the number of people working
The free traitors are cranking up, explaining to us that nothing is wrong. This of course, will mean that nothing needs to be done about open borders and the so called free trade treaties. Very transparent.
Data is data.
Oh my. That is some Board at EPI..
All government drones
Ben Shapiro should get out in the real world.
These ivory tower “conservatives” would also like us to believe that we need to have our country overrun with fraudulently documented foreigners.
That abandoning the rule of law is the only way to solve the problem of illegal aliens, which isn’t really a problem, except for those complaining about it.
But I'm sure none of those folks know what's REALLY going on w/ the middle class. Those whiners never had it so good.
No, I'll listen to the pencil dicks at NR that recommend we just pick up and leave our home towns and go where the work is, you know like to DC; it looks nice there.
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