While the "Yellow Vest" protest in France might not have accomplished anything tangible, it wouldn't be surprising to see angry mobs outside the White House right now with torches and pitchforks. When will the populace writ large say, "Enough is enough"? After Trump declares a National emergency on the border and declares de facto martial law? When he willfully ignores the law of the land after being indicted? All I know is I fear things are going to get MUCH worse before they get better...
66
Dems need to stay away from identity politics, the alleged pay disparity between men and women, and rights for the .0005%, i.e., transgenders.
The biggest umbrella of all, regardless of group, of pay, or sexual matters is personal economic well being. Even middle class and upper middle class aren't feeling secure.
"It's the (personal) economy, stupid." "I feel your pain." Time to go back to the future.
97
Trump's worthless campaign healthcare promises and what he is doing on absolute whim to the families whose earners work for the government ought to be where to start.
Mitch McConnell's invertebrate imitation and Paul Ryan going out to pasture with a 14% approval rating ought to be the wake-up call to the GOP that they are going to be taken down.
68
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable".
John F. Kennedy
No more socialism for the wealthy and austerity for the masses. Wake up people.
162
Humans by nature are exploitative, be it natural resources, stealing land by warfare, enslaving populations either literally or financially, or by "cultural advertising" of religions, traditions, lifestyles or products.
What's missing is parents teaching their children about being savvy, understanding consumerism, understanding how we all are interdependent.
20
And what will we do about white anxiety? Will the advancement of economic justice be stymied by perceptions of white privilege's untimely demise ? If the past and the present are reliable predictors of human behavior, the future does not look promising.
18
Smarter, better educated, more athletic, and generally more personable than I am, I am financially more successful than the friends that I have long known and treasured. Beyond occupational choices, why is this?
I attribute it to our respective definitions of “quality of life”. To them it meant being in a place they loved with familiar people always around to support them, not financially, but as friends; whereas, I was willing to move wherever and whenever a good opportunity presented itself. In total, I moved ten times, as opposed to their static situations and I can honestly say I probably prospered 10x’s as much. An employee or an entrepreneur who will move to where opportunity presents itself is simply more valuable than a similar individual who will not.
While I hope I’m always sympathetic to people in need, I don’t have much sympathy for those who defined “quality of life” more narrowly, who refused to take risks and move. With a few exceptions, especially for the infirm, that’s a choice we are still allowed to make on our own. I do believe this; it’s better to retire with sufficient means than it is to have mortgaged one's senior years for a quality of life defined when one is in their 20's and 30's. For many of these people, the reality is they have little in the way of savings and will spend the rest of their lives either working or complaining about how financially insecure they are.
Taking personal responsibility for success or failure is important.
59
In the 1950's and 1960's middle class families could afford to buy their own home, have two cars in the garage, a cottage up north and take a vacation every year. They had 100% free healthcare, pensions paid for by their employers and enough income to send their kids to college. That was my family.
My father a high school drop out worked in the local factory and my mother took care of us two kids and the house. That was my family and nearly every family I knew. Of course some of the kids lived in bigger houses and their parents drove fancier cars, they were the children of corporate executives who lived down the road from us.
That was only fifty years ago when the middle class lived well and expected their kids to do better. Then corporate greed ruined our American dream. Pretty soon there will be no one left to remember when we almost got to live the dream.
161
The 60 year old educated person who is complaining that her life is not what she expected provides no information except that she fights with her spouse about money and regrets things that they have spent on. It sounds like irresponsible spending contributed to their situation but they blame the universe as if her college degree is somehow a guarantee against hardship no matter what her spending choices were.
We have known for years now that college loans are a trap and corporations will kick you to the street and not care. But people still sign on for loans and still spend up to their earnings and complain how hard life is. People don't design their lives based on what could happen, they want all the fun, cool stuff now. They don't want to say no to their kids. They don't want to have to spend their own savings when an unexpected event occurs. It's as though we are living in a flood zone, choose not to have insurance and then blame everyone else and stick out our hand when the waters come and carry everything away.
Disgusting as it is, the bottom line is that we live in a time of greed. People need to adjust their lifestyle to current reality because no one else cares. Corporations are not going to be forced to care about, be nice to, or take care of their workers.
A heath care crisis can wipe anyone out and that should not be the case, but regarding income/spending, people need to adjust their lifestyle. Failure to do so doesn't mean one got a raw deal.
42
I came home from the hospital after crushing my leg to collectors asking for payments The slightest glance at my records would have told them that I had no income and was too stoned on painkillers to understand what they were saying. This led me to shed any guilt over my debts, and that is the answer.
The companies loaning money do not regard you as a person. The first step to freedom is to return the favor. The second step is to learn the law regarding collections, but always to keep guilt and shame out of it.
Corporations are not people, and they have no souls.
78
The problem you are going to run into is that these disaffected voters also do not think that more government is any kind of solution. Have you considered how much money 21Trillion dollars (our national debt) is? Each of them also own part of that. The cost of medicare for everyone would be so cost prohibitive that it truly can never happen. The problem is that the international megacorporations own our congress and will never allow legislation which will put more money into the hands of the actual citizens. Moreover, these citizens are constantly told that those who would prefer to perform physical labor or menial tasks for a living will not be needed anymore in a few years. The robots will be doing that. What we need is government of the people, by the people, and for the people (where have I heard that before?) not by and for the corporation, which is what we have now.....
27
One of the proposals that the newly elected congress members are discussing is the elimination of the Electoral College. That way, presidential elections will become contests between California/New York and Texas/Florida.
Simpler. Less travel for the candidates. Who needs the little fly over states?
31
Would be interesting to consider a debt jubilee in the traditional sense. The banks would fight it to the end but I suppose if you marched the 101st Airborne and 2nd MarDiv to get them to concede they would. Perhaps that’s the platform I’d run on.
9
This article and the resulting comments miss one aspect on this situation. The changes in our society are not as simple as the 1% gets more billions, and everyone else is kicked down the hill. Many ordinary people HAVE benefited from the current economy—it largely depends on what kind of work you do.
For example, most types of technology workers have done well in this economy. But other types of workers have declined in earning ability, and for others such as unskilled manufacturing workers this evolution has been a disaster. Some have called the result the "hollowing out" of the workforce, as the well-paying jobs that used to be in the middle have disappeared.
And this explains a lot of President Trump's surprising victory in 2016. Secretary Clinton largely failed to address economic issues in order to focus on the awfulness of Mr. Trump, while he appealed to the disaffected middle class with some promises of help for them. The kind of things he talked about were largely bogus (e.g., bring the steel mills back to Pittsburgh), but at least he was talking a good game. This single factor can explain his narrow election, which in the end was decided by his victories in the rust bucket states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and my own Wisconsin, which was the narrowest of his victories.
But hopefully the Democrats learned their lesson, and in 2020 they will once again stick up for the workers and the middle class, which should allow them to easily regain the White House.
21
We need "employment" agencies. Anybody that shows up at 8:30 AM ready to work should be able work for a day, week, month or year. It should be a living wage. For those unable to work, direct transfer payments including a universal basic income should be the norm. This is not a budget buster. Just do the costs/benefits factoring in what we spend now.
29
@Ylem
Agreed. I don't think UBI is "that crazy of an idea" for ALL Americans. Allow us to figure out how to use that money.
10
Where is everyone to go? Sadly, we have been in a long term collapse where many rural areas are dying and those jobs that once existed there are not coming back, ever. As these rural areas die their resources are taken to prop up larger areas that will eventually collapse, too. Currently, we borrow 1 trillion dollars a year to keep the whole system afloat. How long can that continue? New jobs now are in urban areas and are mostly service oriented, low pay, no benefit jobs.
If you want to find meaningful work to survive the future learn to fix things, mend think and grow things. Don't go to college and into debt. College graduates no longer earn more money! One job of the future is salvage. Don't take on debt. Live below your means. If you can't afford children don't have them. Wake up!
Choosing one political party over another creates the illusion of choice. Today, there to no reason to vote if you want some kind of change in the direction of this country, The only difference between Obama and Trump is that Obama was more pleasant.
There are answers to some of these problems we face, but we show no williness for sacrifice, none, which would include those that have more paying more.
17
Money never sleeps. It is always working to increase itself. It is always disseminating the story that this is good and that you too can have a pile of money if you follow the rules. It is a lie that is so big and so constant that it accepted without thought and is even believed after the inevitable collapse occurs. Then it begins again. Societal progress against this lie has taken millennium to advance, but we may not have several millennium more to kill this lie.
8
Democrats are facing the same problem from their far left that the republicans faced with their tea party. Democrats must resist the push to redicalize their platform. Americans know that nothing is ever so bad that it cannot be made worse by wrong-headed government initiatives.
There are many sensible reforms that can make things easier for the struggling non-poor. But socialism is not it. The Dems will crash and burn if they embrace the quasi-communist ideology of the far left.
14
We can start we some specific items: First is to reform the grotesque tax code that benefits mostly the rich and super rich. We should eliminate capital gains rates and let income be income with few deductions. Why should Warren Buffett pay a lower rate than his secretary? Ever?
Second, we need to reform the financial sector. Many of these banks exist only to extract fees from their customers’ bank accounts. $35 or more for a returned item? I don’t think so. Throw into this restrictions on payday lenders. The economy would be better off without them. And they have to end the absolutely reckless investment practices of banks with other people’s money.
Lastly is to reform the bankruptcy code. It should be harder for the Trumps of the world to be protected while they scam the codes while little people are destroyed.
The middle class doesn’t want a handout so much as protection from the unscrupulous practices of the wealthy of this country. That means less exploitation by insurance companies, banks, loan sharks and profiteers.
60
This is foolishness driven by partisanship. People are angry, but you're not going to win by simply repeating back their anger to them. That's Trump's game, and he's better at it than you are, no matter who you may be. The Democratic party can win by proposing and then executing actual solutions, providing hope rather than anger. Anger doesn't last forever, as Trump will discover when he tries to get the same people angry again in 2020.
.
Anger is a luxury that limousine liberals in NY can afford to indulge in. The actual working class needs solutions, and the hope that stems from those solutions. When I hear Elizabeth Warren talking about how "the system is fixed", I despair. You're not going to beat Trump with conspiracy theories and anger; you're going to beat him with good government and solutions.
28
It's easy to opine that the rich should pay more, a lot more; ditto corporations. All the available evidence shows both the rich and large corporations flourished decades ago, during times of much higher individual and corporate tax rate.
And let's not ignore the many tax loopholes which reduce effective tax rates to well below stated marginal tax rates. That is where "regulatory reform" should start, not gutting environmental, fiduciary responsibility, and medical and product liability standards.
If you want to transcend the frustration and shame that many people have over being unable to provide for themselves and their families, then let's face it squarely. Trump had a large grain of truth when he said "the system is rigged" (not that he's done much except make that worse).
Let's go beyond Trump and state, upfront, that economic outcomes are as much socially constructed as is race. For many, preparation, doing the right thing, making good choices, becoming educated, and working hard are, as the article pointed out, no longer sufficient. Not when liars and cheaters like Donald Trump and Jared Kushner become rich while others who work even harder struggle to stay afloat.
18
there is some strategic merit to public viewing of the economic side of made in america anxiety if even to shake off the ever distracting splintering identity politics wedge.
for other distractions one only has to go back to the last two election cycles with g w bush to remember "class war fare" messaging or more recently the muted rebuff against occupy wall street and obama's limp income disparity pledges that candidate clinton mostly used as a shawl to cover what she really cared about. it just drifted off the democrats fancy feast strategic plan for corporate dollars.
if identity politics messaging were not enough there's the ambient news feeds and social media that are a kind of "american carnage" to borrow from trump. but the carnage most distracting is in the comment section. it speaks for itself that some commentator opens up only to get to get a block chain of scorn. shame on you for proving it can't be done in less than 24 hours of this opinion piece coming out.
1
Frankly the appeal to the middle class and purple states won’t be coming from Biden, who’s been Washington 40 plus years, a senator from CA, a senator from NJ and mayor of a run down city, a senator from NY or MA, or a socialist from VT. Eliminate those from consideration right off the bat.
And stop sending these guys/gals back and forth to Wall St for their blessings. It looks terrible.
15
Thanks to Trump revealing the worst kept secret in the world, that Republican don't care a flip for anyone who isn't in the top 1 percent, 2020 should be as much a slam dunk for Democrats as was the case in 2018. But I fear it isn't as simple as doing homework to discover the facts about the underbelly's of both parties, it comes down to who can feed the electorate a lie they know they can't keep. At that Republicans often win the day. So long as people voting Republican crave the sweet nothings of tax cuts, as if they can keep every penny of their paychecks and not have to deal with the IRS annually, we'll always be faced with folks voting against their best interest and for selfish cravings.
18
there is some strategic merit to public viewing of the economic side of made in america anxiety if even to shake off the ever distracting splintering identity politics wedge.
for other distractions one only has to go back to the last two election cycles with g w bush to remember "class war fare" messaging or more recently the muted rebuff against occupy wall street and obama's limp income disparity pledges that candidate clinton mostly used as a shawl to cover what she really cared about. it just drifted off the democrats fancy feast strategic plan for corporate dollars.
if identity politics messaging were not enough there's the ambient news feeds and social media that are a kind of "american carnage" to borrow from trump. but the carnage most distracting is in the comment section. it speaks for itself that some commentator opens up only to get to get a block chain of scorn. shame on you for proving it can't be done in less than 24 hours of this opinion piece coming out. i hope the author does not get disappointed in finding that the savage society is as much from within this platform as outside it.
1
Basically the shrinking American middle class and rapidly expanding lower class have been successfully conned by people like Trump into thinking that it is their fault that they are struggling financially. They are the vast majority and they should demand radical changes like guaranteed medical care and access to post secondary education, and the proper funding of the IRS to go after the rich cheaters. Essentially it is time for a second "New Deal" in which the wealthy pay their fair share.
30
Trump and the rich got the mega deal, not so much for the poor and middle class. The gov lies with employment numbers.
4
Middle class shame??? What an ignorant concept, those that think they are middle class yet have no emergency fund or retirements investments yet have a lot of stuff they don't need or pay for children's college are not middle class. They are stupid.
10
Sounds like a typical politician's plan to grab power. Let's not forget that the mid western white voters who voted for Barack Obama twice voted for Trump in 2016. Some of these same voters voted for Democrats in 2018. Time will tell how they judge the Democrats in 2020.
This cow has has been milked quite a bit. Democrats are finally waking up - they need to offer a bone to these white voters, even if it is a fake one. Maybe too little too late.
3
Those terrible far left Democrats!
They want universal healthcare like all the other first world countries.
They want trade school or the first two years of college provided which would be great for the economy.
Shades of Karl Marx!
We pay around $10,000 per capita for healthcare compared to the $4,500 to $5,500 the other first world countries pay.
They get universal coverage and we have parts of the US with infant mortality rates of Botswana. Seriously, look it up.
With the savings to healthcare, we could pay for the additional two years of education.
And maybe that would decrease poverty and crime. Then we would get more people working and paying taxes instead of paying for prison and police and courts.
We have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
I can't believe how far left these new Democrats want to take us.
What would the Founding Fathers be saying today.
In the meantime, Republicans just increased the deficit.
Again.
Deficits went up under Reagan, HW Bush and W Bush. Deficits went down under Clinton and Obama.
Actually, way up under W Bush. He took the balanced budget from Clinton and gave Obama a whopping $1.4 Trillion deficit and the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Obama cut that by almost 2/3 and got 11.5 Million jobs compared to W Bush 3 Million jobs. And 20 Million people got healthcare.
And the right is smearing Nancy Pelosi just like they did for years of Hillary. Being Hillaried is now a verb like swiftboated.
55
"take to the streets, like they do in France". The taxpaying, working people of France, not self-pitying, overborrowed layabouts, have taken to the streets to protest yet more taxation and more government spending to finance a cockamamie quasi-religious climate-war instigated by the left to save the world for the very people who can't get off their duffs to earn a living and pay their own bills (and maybe also pay tax), but who instead, "want the people we elect (to) express our pain for us". The last stand of the leftist self-responsibility refusniki who want somebody else even to do their complaining for them!
9
Anger without a rational plan gives you demagogues, like Trump.
26
And to the poor suckers who took out big college loans and paid them back- too bad! Those of us who went without, took extra jobs, worked hard were just dumb.
This is moral hazard and will not stop colleges from continuing to raise tuition and fees, and for the government to continue to subsidize loans for students who, if they wait long enough, won't have to pay them back.
Oh, and after decades of going without and savings, if we now find ourselves in a place to make over a certain amount- our kids can't enjoy "free" tuition because their dumb parents worked hard.
College aside, I will support anyone who offers a viable Universal Health Care Plan.
18
I do like Bernie a whole doggone lot. The writer however neglected to mention Julian Castro who has courageously announced that he is running for President.He has been
speaking to and working toward solutions for all those problems that have hampered economic mobility for so many Americans, and contributed to the shrinking middle class. Castro does have a compelling up from the bootstraps family and personal story but also as a grandson of immigrants he is a living exemplar of why racism and xenophobia must be made obsolete in the 21st Century. Castro is young and well educated and accomplished but his roots are in the working to lower middle class. He can speak directly to those in our Nation who feel are and have been left behind because not that long ago he himself was part of that group. New blood,new ideas,examples of hope and success. That is what America and Americans hunger for today. Run Julian run.
10
The article indicates that our dysfunctional Congress is composed of a majority who are millionaires. I would be curious to know the net worth of Congress persons before being elected, and their net worth after they leave office! Folks such as one Bob Dole who was broke when first elected, but retired a very rich man . A multi- millionaire! There many more just like him too who have enriched themselves while on the government payroll.
25
So long as lawmakers pass tax bills that favor the ultra-wealthy among us, we will continue to have more income inequality. As long as labor is unable to unionize, corporations will never feel the need to raise wages. I remember when our mental health agency tried to unionize. Management was so threatened by this attempt, that meetings had to be secret, and if an employee was found out to be involved, ways were found to put their jobs in jeopardy. It shouldn't have had to be that way. People with college and advanced degrees in this field made a fraction of what other fields made. A union would have leveled the playing field, but instead, fear chased it away. If Democratic candidates aren't asking for corporate donations, I hope they encourage unions, but the kind that enhance employees lives not burden them.
15
Shame turns to anger very quickly. Trump knows this. His formula is to find someone to blame, and to stoke the fires of resentment. Those who have bought into his dark vision will not easily abandon it, even when their lives don't improve. Closing borders won't help, trade wars won't help. God knows tax cuts for the rich won't help. No matter. Righteous anger is an emotional security blanket. Therefore Trump's core supporters will not turn on him. He needs only appeal to a few more victims of the present system to prevail again.
Democrats have a more difficult task. They need to acknowledge the problem, offer solutions, and get tangible results. Sticking to the corporate middle will not work. It will only lead to the next Trump, only smarter and more ruthless. Let me repeat: keeping the same rigged system that got us to this point Will. Not. Work.
14
Caesar Chavez was adamantly for strong border security to include barrier walls! He knew that illegals would undercut his farm workers by working cheaper than they after Caesar had negotiated decent contracts for them...
11
Tying economic security to jobs was a big mistake. As we eliminate more and more jobs through automation and technology soon there will not be enough jobs to go around and we will have millions without the means to provide food, shelter, healthcare and education for their families.
In addition to that, making employers responsible for providing health care, education and retirement to our citizens makes our products and services more expensive and less competitive in the global market.
We will need to find a way to provide for economic security for more and more people that doesn't rely on taxing work. We should look at taxing other things such as pollution, corporate access to our markets and financial systems, use of our infrastructure and for the consumption and destruction of our public resources. Tax the things we want less of, not the things we want to encourage, like work.
23
In America today, socialism is only for corporations and the rich....everybody else gets austerity and "incrementalism"...both parties.
21
@Abbey Road -that is just nonsense.
2
Since Dems see the Middle Class as an endless tax source, and the Working Class as an endless burden, they have a tough row to hoe. How to fool what are considered "Red Americans" into voting Blue?
5
We are the victims of the war on people. The people were fooled by Reagan, Nixon, Bush, Clinton and the wave of pseudo conservatism that preached a false philosophy of self reliance and the myth of the meritocracy. They were taught a discipline of self flagellation that blamed them for all of their problems. The wealthy barons cried "socialism", their secret safe word, whenever the victims of fate asked for help and their cowardly servants in Congress all nodded and fell in line.
Meanwhile the empty pursuits of the wealthy, driven by the entitlement of a willful deity that confers his blessings on the "successful", worked to suck every penny it could out of the economy left no room for even the slightest missteps of fate. That is where we are now.
There is only one solution, an all out war on the wealthy. Their cries that wealth will save us is the lie of a selfish child snatching at straws to get his blankie of money to keep them safe. Everything that is wrong with our country can be traced to greed and the relentless pursuit of wealth.
Money is not happiness. Treating everything as a business has not worked. The toolbox of our social systems needs more than one means to achieve its ends. The era of the single minded one size philosophy fits all has to go. The mountain of existential problems that threaten our way of life keep mounting. Get money out of government and politics or we will only dig ourselves deeper in the conservative pit of doom.
19
Before Trump, things were going badly for many.
In the years after Trump, things will be truly awful for these same people. And in many cases, it is the same people that brought him to power.
He is not like the elites. At a New York benefit evening ... an intelligent woman like Caroline Kennedy would not talk with him for more than 4 minutes.
He packaged himself as being different than the elites, and he is. He is an arrogant fool.
19
This is a very smart article by a clear thinker. Alissa Quart is worth reading.
11
@Slideguy Yes, and her book is a good read too.
2
Every single issue noted in this article has been created or exacerbated by the Republican Party in service to its donor class.
If you can't see this, you are willfully blind.
The ONLY thing on this planet that keeps the top 250 wealthiest families from eating most of alive is the U.S. Government. Once that is neutralized there is nothing standing between you and their desire chew you up and spit you out.
21
To borrow a former (winning) Democratic presidential candidate's byword, "It's the economy, stupid."
If the Democratic Party could return to spirit of the New Deal and abandon "identity" politics, it would go a long way.
13
liberals and progressives don't get it.
Working American families are disgusted and tired of forking over their hard earned money to a permanent welfare class.
16
What working families need to realize is that the "welfare class" is the top 10% of the population. Why are "capital gains" on stock investments and rental properties taxed at 15% (max 20% over $450K)? Most wage earners in the middle class are paying about 20% on earned income. Who benefits from the gap? Not the about 50% who own no securities at all.
28
Beto O'Rourke connected in every Texas county with middle class men and women voters in the Mid-Terms. Will he be nominated (in Texas or Florida ) for V.P. of the U.S. in 2020? Workers of America, unite! You have gotten the real raw-deal -- a bum rap, the short end of the stick -- from the Republican Party and the President who should be removed and replaced forthwith. How long till you rise up against corporate America as Les Miserables rose up against the Bourbons in 1789?
3
Beto is a Conservative wolf in Democrat wolves clothing. His record speaks that.
5
@Rodrian Roadeye Might be good if you’d site some examples. Actually, here in Texas he possibly lost by being too liberal. Eliminating ICE, free college tuition , affordable healthcare- he’s definitely not a conservative.
4
If there ever was a time for 'out of the box' thinking - it is now. For too long we have chosen - without thinking - to view each other through skillfully crafted narratives designed to keep us down. Often problems are solved based on how they are defined. We, the citizenry, need to redefine the problems because it's not all us.
Regarding healthcare and the idiotic trope 'that it is not a right'. Baloney. We pay the healthcare of our elected officials yet they do everything possible to deny us affordable healthcare. Has anyone looked at hospital profits lately? Healthcare is a parasite on our economy.
Why do we allow vulture capitalists to scam us with shady and venal practices. Why does congress refuse to pass a bill that protects pensions in the companies these animals suck dry. Investors get rewarded and taxpayers get stuck covering pensions of people who did nothing wrong.
From my perspective, I don't mind paying taxes but I want my tax monies well spent. The deliberate understaffing of the IRS only hurts us. The IRS is not the problem.
And why are we the problem when it comes to 'entitlements' when lobbyists work to entitle themselves at our expense. Elected officials have forgotten for whom they work. It's time for use to remind them. And to call out the Koch vipers who would like to see the earth burn and us with it.
18
The average Trump voter doesn’t care about health care or student loans. Most of them have union jobs that come with health insurance and they didn’t go to college so they don’t have student debt. In fact, thay don’t like the idea of single payer health care because they don’t want their taxes going to pay for benefits to “other people” and they view people with student debt as a bunch of over-educated spoiled whiners who made bad choices.
I thought this piece was actually going to show Democrats how to convince Trump voters to vote against him. I was wrong. This is just the same old same old. A recipe for insuring Trump wins re-election in 2020. Until the Democrats let go of their traditional platform and truly understand middle America, they are doomed to lose the White House once again. Obama was an anomaly. He appealed mostly to idealistic young people and African Americans, both of which groups failed to support Hillary Clinton.
You can call Trump voters racist if you want to, and maybe a lot of them are. But the majority are just people who are fed up with identity politics. If the Democrats don’t learn that lesson, then we are stuck with the Idiot-in-Chief until 2024.
8
Not so much express our pain for us as prove to us that they actually listen and have their constituents needs at heart rather than pandering to a pathetic president.
2
Democrats = "We're all in this together!"
Republicans = "You're on your own!"
8
These people got into debt during the Obama years, and Obamacare didn't do anything for the middle class people who were forced to buy into it or be fined. Puerto Rico went bankrupt under Obama but the liberal news media is intent on blaming every misfortune in the nation on Trump. The disgruntled liberals physically attack people wearing a MAGA hat. What, exactly, is wrong with making America great again?
6
I was in a predicament 27 years ago at age 47. I lost my business of 20 years to a partnership implosion. I was on the the curb, not working, with a non-working wife and a child. What did we do? I started a sales job paying a lot less than I was making with my business. In the meantime, my wife went back to school, got an advanced degree and went to work as an attorney which we were able to turn into her own business with my business background. We have been more successful than we ever were before. The point of the story is when your fortune turns, you do not quit. Find a solution and follow your instincts.
15
How many of those same voters trashed the ACA?
How many of those voters have so much stuff they can't park in the garage?
How many don't take care of their health?
How many get their news from multiple sources not just the radio or tv?
How many have OHV, boats, snowmobiles and toy haulers?
Most importantly, why do they keep voting against their best interest?
The Red Party has duped them on social issues.
We have met the enemy and it is us.
9
I didn't know much about Ms. Quart prior to reading this essay. She is (unfortunately) an individual who is pandering to a population that the Democrats covet; people who are not yet dependent on government largess.
This is the kind of Socialism that the late Margaret Thatcher warned us about. All of these are wonderful ideas, the problem is that we will soon run out of other people's money to spend on these initiatives.
It is evident that Ms. Quart does not sign the fronts of checks. If she did, then she would recognize that she would now be requiring business owners (like me) "to take care of everyone else", prior to taking care of those who actually work for us.
It is the employer end of the equation that people like Ms. Quart CHOOSE NOT TO SEE. In simple English, the objective is TO INCREASE THE DEPENDENCY of more of us to the government largess du jour.
Gov. Cuomo of NYS knows that approximately two-thirds of available jobs DO NOT REQUIRE a four-year degree. These jobs do require post-high school training. What these also require is continuous training, so that as the workplace evolves, these men and women can continue to be gainfully employed.
This is the same Gov. Cuomo whose leadership has stopped fracking in parts of Upstate New York. The prospect that independent wealth could be derived is an anathema to him and his acolytes. It is this independence that concerns Democrats; since these voters CAN NO LONGER BE CONTROLLED by the programs described herein.
6
@dmanuta: Nonsense. Social democracies in Europe have very successful businesses too and they have health care for all at half the cost and with better outcomes. They have affordable public education and universities that can proudly compete with the Ivy Leagues and other top universities in the USA. You on the other hand, favor a return to the days that families went bankrupt due to medical costs and people died before their time of conditions they didn't go to the doctor for because of the cost, or because they had to cut on their medicines. You favor the abolishment of Social Security and Medicare as well, and would have everybody fend for themselves and if they can't, depend on charity and begging in the streets. That's your view of MAGA. How independent do you think the average worker without union representation and job security is? They are fully controlled by their employers, and if they protest, they are fired. What concerns Democrats is a just society in which people are fairly compensated for their labor, and in which no one is left behind to fend for themselves when they need support the most. If you are concerned about grifters who exploit the system, look no further than the Trumps, who acquired their wealth through fraud, bullying and other dubious practices.
26
Cuomo’s scholarship plan is exactly what America DOESN’T need more of.
Immediately after it was announced, were my friends in the middle class pleased?
Of course not...
One said, “I work two jobs and so does my wife so that we can make more than $125,000 and provide a good life for my kids. Now I get to pay for some other family’s kids to go to college AND pay for my own because Cuomo thinks $125000 is rich in NY City and Long Island?”
Means testing is a terrible way to administer social programs. It divides the lower
middle class, who get benefits, from the middle middle class, who get nothing AND have to pay the taxes to cover the program.
Everyone should get benefits or everyone should not. Social Security works like this which is why it has been so universally popular.
Means testing is a sure way to destroy support for a program.
15
There are no political solutions when kids are left behind without hope for a productive future.
Better primary education for all, stronger family units, and incentives to comply. This is where it all starts.
4
It's the corporate takeover of America that has doomed the middle class. Small businesses from bookstores to hardware stores and everything in between have been swallowed up by corporate interests. There is no level playing field anymore. The lax enforcement of antitrust laws has resulted in a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many as corporations work each day to improve the bottom line, often at the expense of American workers. This centralization of wealth has led to a paucity of opportunity for those in the poor and lower-middle classes. Technological advancements have led to job-cutting, but so have privatized prisons, where prisoners work for slave wages to grow "organic" vegetables that are then sold at a premium. The list of Fortune 500 companies that rely on prison labor is unsettling, to say the least. The rotten heart of laissez-faire capitalism is that it seeks profit above all else. The acquisition of money is the end game, without regard to the effect such greed for profits has on the welfare of our nation. It's hard to muster the will or the resources to "take to the streets," when the whole network of corporate wealth is aligned against you, supported blindly by members of Congress who greatly benefit from the alliances they form with corporate interests.
23
Which is why a viable third party is paramount. Forget the GOP, they always represented big business and the wealthy. A People's Progressive Party would leave the current (last 40 years) Democratic Party in the dust...quickly. Which is why the corporate Dems and their friends in MSM fight so hard to be the firewall against REAL change for working people ....they only offer lip service and incrementalism to please their wealthy donors.
7
Yes, people need to be able to talk about it, but lets not swing so hard the other way to where debt and financial problems are never one's own fault.
Personally, the vast majority of people I have known with financial problems - including myself when I had some struggles - were the result of poor choices.
I know a married couple with kids who can't afford a home and had to move in with their parents. They've been to Disneyworld at least 5 times in the last 3 years.
I know a lady who had no health care. She cleaned barns part time for a living. When told about 50K a year jobs with benefits at a local factory her words - verbatim - were "I don't like that much work." OK, then. She also had 4 kids by 3 different men.
My own debt when I was younger was from living beyond my means. I learned the hard way, got it together, and paid off 8k in credit card debt through changing my habits.
I have a friend who complains about affording health care, but whose career choice is independent yoga instructor. I'm sorry, but maybe a real job would have come with benefits?
Many of the people who were hit by the housing crisis were people who borrowed too much, didn't read the fine print on their loans, and took out equity to spend on luxuries. They engaged in the magical thinking that "it would be fine" or "it would all work out." It didn't.
Yes, there are people who have truly had things pulled out from under them. But lets not pretend we are all victims.
28
The problem is indeed that in the US, the predominantly behavioral trend in middle class is to pretend what you are, and not to talk about your shortfalls and disappointments. While this might have been an adequate social survival strategy in a mid 19th century settler society, it is not anymore today. This inadequacy is buttressed by the general ignorance for structural deficits of thia society and a lack of individual legal protection for the expression of free thoughts in any employment context (the majority of US employment agreements can be terminated at will by the employer, so even if there is in theory the right to criticize working conditions, payment structures and the like, there is in practice no discussion about all this allowed at the workplace). Add the social media pressure. The individual cost for all this is high, apart from hindering positive social change for the middle class, it invokes depression - it is not chance that the US population is the world‘s leading consumer of anti depressivants. Some of the remaining anger is channeled by secret voting for populist candidates (one of the main reasons that pollsters were so wrong with the forecast of the 2016 presidential elections and Trump’s victory was that voters did not want to admit their „politically incorrect“ choices). A better middle class life here will require, among other things, more openness on the individual level - this article is at least a good start.
4
The author wrote:
"the anxiety vote — gave us this president, and now it has also given us a Democratic House. It is a powerful force. Any Democrat who wants to win the White House in 2020 is going to need to harness the power of these voters."
Therein lies the problematic behavior by politicians that is the source of their disservice to the nation including those identified as the anxiety vote. Politicians like Trump and the majority of Democrats over the past many decades have practiced this identity politics. They craft their campaign appeals to pander to this interest group and that in effort to collect enough of those groups votes to hopefully win election. Unfortunately, that strategy has worked very often, more often than it has failed. Thus, it continues.
What America really needs are politicians who seek what serves the entire nation regarding any issue, not the special interests of the various identity groups on each issue so that they can harvest their special interest votes. Sometimes the interests of the nation will coincide with the special interests of some group, sometimes it won't.
The political leaders in our history who have come to be generally regarded as great have seldom achieved that greatness for and by playing identity politics.
5
do the math: if a larger percentage of the electorate turned out, this pandering strategy would not be so effective.
2
I sympathize with Alissa Quart's analysis. However, I fear that if candidates who follow her prescriptions do not *deliver* on their (implicit as well as explicit) promises, the result will be increased malaise, bitterness, and mistrust of all political and governmental leaders. The results will not be pretty.
Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats love to tell voters that they "fight" for ordinary Americans. Fight, fight, fight! They must show they can not merely fight: they must produce *results*. To build your credibility, tell us what beneficial *results* you've produced!
Donald Trump, in his warped way, seems to understand this dynamic. That's why he and his minions repeatedly claim that he is keeping his promises. Liberals/progressives need to — must —demonstrate a similar understanding.
5
So many of our middle-class woes may be traced to the unraveling, starting around 1980, of regulations created by our “modern forefathers” (ie post-depression and postwar) in order to protect us from our own worst impulses (greed, manipulation, power abuse by the wealthy upon the economically weakest). We need a Marshall Plan to rebuild our regulatory infrastructure just as much as we need one to repair our roads. In so doing, confidence could be regained in a government once again worthy of being by consent of the governed.
16
Well, for sure, it's not Donald Trump, who lied himself into the presidency with the campaign promise to bring American jobs back, those that had been outsourced by American multinational corporations. Outsourcing of jobs had been done primarily to keep American workers from earning a decent living wage and damage unions who no longer represented these workers.It was like killing two birds with one stone.
Multi-national corporations wanted to increase profits at the expense of middle class workers. It started with Reagan and continued on into the unregulated global economy, making the wealthy and corporatists more wealthy and bringing the middle class down. The Republicans now continue this strategy, giving large and undeserved tax breaks to the wealthy and deregulating business practices.
With the advent of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, these undeserved profits began to infiltrate our elections process to make it very unlikely that candidates could win without bowing to the interests of big business.
The economy is rigged from top to bottom. One solution would be to vote out the republicans, allowing democrats to control government and return to the days when hardworking people can make a decent living wage and provide healthcare for their families. Unlike what Reagan said, that the government is the problem rather than the solution, we must return to a government that protects the middle class and its workers and not the oligarchs who won't share profits.
12
As long as most people see their problems as individual and private and to be remedied by individual action, they will remain so oppressed by our economic system that they can see no way out and therefore can do nothing to get out except to hang in there and work harder (which works only for a few lucky or especially talented ones). We will be stuck as long as we see our stories as individual and not also as having a common essence that can only be addressed by collective action, mainly the collective action of changing the rules that block or hinder the effectiveness of our individual efforts.
7
Interesting that the author fails to mention until the penultimate paragraph the most obvious link between the poor and middle-class: not enough MONEY! At least many of the poor qualify for government-subsidize healthcare. The "middle class?" Not so much!
12
I am in the "middle class" at least I thought so, until I read I needed an income of $140,000/yr to be considered middle class. So Guess I'm not middle class, having retired a my peak salary of $80+ K. My retirement is less than half my previous salary, and from a financial standpoint, it wasn't a tough decision who to vote for. Trump came well advertised as a liar, a misogynist, a cruel hateful person, a multiple failed businessman who left others in the financial lurch, a narcissistic spoiled child; living in an alternate reality. Why anyone living on the financial edge, whether in middle America or wherever, would vote for Trump in 2016 would have to be delusional, irrational, and ignoring their better self. Stupid choice is what comes to mind but we are not stupid people.
The coal miners in West Virginia, the farmers of the midwest, others who drank the kool-ade I wonder how it's working for you? I know how it's working for you. It isn't. As you sink further behind financially, refusing to own your bad choice, and determined to stick with Trump, please realize, it's not going to get better. He never did, doesn't now, nor ever will give a whit about you. He's picked your pocket and will continue to. Just wait to see how your 2018 taxes shape up.
Next election. Read the positions of each candidate on the issues that matter to you. Don't listen to the words, read what is written and committed to.
21
Sure, LaPine, Trump was a terrible choice.
But it’s not like coal miners’ lives would have been better under Clinton.
7
Had to work hard to avoid writing anything that could possibly be construed as favorable about President Trump, didn't you? We sure wouldn't want anyone to think you aren't one of the righteous elites.
7
@JND: Hmmm, it's you who comes accross as pretty righteous to me, given the tone of your comment and biased assumptions.
7
anything positive written about President Trump would fall under the category of fiction.
8
“They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio said. Your entire life at this moment is traceable principally to your own efforts, which start with controlling your thoughts and your mind (read Napoleon Hill - Principles of Success, as well as Think and Grow Rich.) If you cannot understand this concept you are doomed to a life of waiting for the next shiny object (politician) to make it better for you. If you see your life as a struggle, it will be a struggle.
4
Globalization puts massive downward pressure on wages. It makes crazy amounts of money for people who simply have money who can leverage markets. For better or worse we need to somehow tie that leveraged market to taxation on their profits. Then directly employ people in government infrastructure, science, space, environmental jobs here. And no middle men contractors who suck the wealth away and provide little benefit but high markup.
As markets balance out the taxes would balance down with the market. Yet you would hope that would be offset to more private sector work since the markets are on a more even playing field. It's a balancing act that demands the utmost respect otherwise we end up where we are or with extremes.
9
When are the ultra-rich and corporations going to realize that squeezing the middle class only robs them of customers for their made-in-China garbage?
13
I imagine in a generation or so when the bulk of young people can’t afford basic needs, let alone all the modern electronic junk that lulls us into being modern-day lap dogs.
4
"Middle-Class Shame Will Decide Where America Is Headed"
A not-so-sneak preview at a 2020 Democratic campaign plank but Quart forgot humiliation and embarrassment. And what about guilt, too, always a big winner for the Democrats?
8
Good argument, but, you almost lost me by featuring Beto at the top of the article, who is married to a billionaire's daughter, and has a voting record that has supported the wealthy energy industry in his state. Let's not fall victim to the Trojan Horse at the gate, pretending to have sympathy for the people, and offering Hope and Change. How did that work out? More drone strikes on innocent people, accelerated deportations, and not one criminal banker in jail after the greatest financial frauds in history. Oh, and Donald Trump, of course. Fool us once........
20
"One of the first things to do is get people to admit they are struggling financially " Wow this is the kind of elitist response that caused the Dems to lose to Trump in the first place!
10
Raise taxes substantially on the rich and corporations. Re-regulate the financial industry. Raise the minimum wage. Healthcare for all...
In short, recognize that “this is a savage society we now live in” and take our country back from the supply-side/trickle-down/AynRand/corporate fascist fantasists that have steamrolled 80% of Americans for the last 40 years.
16
When the middle class figures out they got duped on the "Yuge Tax Cut", then they will react. When they figured out the GOP extended what was once called Alternative Minimum Tax to everyone, except the 1%, they will certainly figure out that Trump, and the GOP, nailed them but good. And, of course, when those oeer 65, in the middle class, see that their taxes went up, because they lost some of their exemptions, they will make it known at the ballot box. Finally, for those live in a state, which ties state income tax to federal adjusted gross income, their taxes also went up, they, like the rest, will not be happy come this tax filing season.
Of course, I do not mention the people who lost their deduction for second mortgages or live in states, where state, local, city and property taxes exceed $10,000.
And, if these people voted for Trump and/or GOP, they will be think about alternatives in future elections.
The middle class received nothing, or very little, with these supposed tax cuts. If you are single, or married filed separately, or over 65, or disabled, more income became subject to tax. If you live in a high tax state, the taxes bit is even higher.
And, of course, if one is a wage earner, and did not adjust their payroll exemptions, they will be hit double with a higher taxes, plus a possible penalty for under withholding.
With the IRS shutdown, it is going t o make a rough tax filing season; rougher.
Trump's Great America Robbery 99% of America.
11
@NickMetrosky I beg to differ Nick. Leading up to the 2016 election; I’d read in-depth articles here and in other publications that provide news analysis. Most people today don’t read; instead getting news bites from tv or now even worse—sources like facebook. Critical thinking and assigning blame where it should be directed—too much work nowadays.
4
The NYT offers a Well section providing advice on physical and mental wellbeing. It also offers a Smarter Living section, which dovetaiĺs with Well but focuses more on domestic and work matters.
As this opinion piece points out many in the US are not well or living smart and vote-seeking candidates should offer policies to address the reasons behind that.
How about the NYT, in the run-up to the 2020 election, create a section similar to Well and Smarter Living but with a national policy focus, a kind of We the People Well?
It could list the key things that many if not most Americans say they want, and which many western nations already provide, such as universal healthcare, paid parental leave, greater infrastructure investment, job-focussed immigration policy, climate change and other green-focussed policies, electoral reform etc.
The section would include reports & debate on what candidates are proposing to answer the demand for those things.
It would include the proposals from at least the third and fourth biggest parties candidates too, such as the Green party - because hey, there are more than only two parties in the US.
The reaction to the NYT pieces on 'can a woman win' and Elizabeth Warren's 'likeability' shows citizens are crying out for less horse-race and identity-bickering and much more policy-focussed coverage which informs on what candidates propose to do to address the many challenges citizens face.
A section like I propose, or something similar, would help.
6
Rethinking work may also require rethinking education.There appears to be an ingrained snobbism about workers in the trades vs. college graduates. But so many children will not qualify for college entry- nor should that alone be a goal for a productive life.
True, many industries have left the country or their products are no longer in great demand, i.e., coal, paper, cotton mills.
But carpenters, electricians, auto mechanics, plumbers, welders are still in great demand.
The education system should seriously address the return of vocational high schools so that children who are not college bound can address career choices and preparation early on.
17
There never were “vocational high schools.” There were often vo tech orograms IN high schools, where they were very often discriminatiry.
Salaries need to be higher, end of story.
5
Yet another writer missing the mark in analyzing what motivates Trump voters. They know their financial situation will continue to be much worse under Trump. But they don't care. Oh, when they're interviewed, they will say these are their concerns, but they are not. After all, they know enough to keep their bigotry to Proud Boys marches now, not in answering a reporter's questions.
So what does motivate Trump voters? Only one thing. Bigotry. Hatred of ethnic and religious minorities, the LGBTQ community. And for the first time in 150 years, they have a president who believes as they do. Trump voters will keep him in power as long as he satisfies their addiction to hatred.
Trump voters made a pact with the Devil, and the Devil has kept his end of the bargain. Trump voters wanted only one thing - to have a "president" who tells them that as white Christians, they're superior to the rest of us, and only their rights matter. And he's delivered for them.
Lack of affordable health care? Wages that don't permit saving for pensions? Lack of affordable higher education? Trump voters have gladly traded all this away.
But they need to understand that the rest of us see them for who they really are - people who are happy to turn this nation into an ignorant, racist backwater of a country, where only the very rich can live decent lives. They just want a "president" who tells them that as whites, they're the "real Americans". This is all they want. This is all they've ever wanted.
11
@Nicholas Rush
"So what does motivate Trump voters? Only one thing. Bigotry."
What exactly qualifies you to speak for 60 million? Since, according to you, they don't admit their true feelings and beliefs to pollsters, just where do you get your special insight?
I don't deny that racism and xenophobia motivates some of Trump's base. That's who Hillary Clinton was referring to when she said "half of them are a basket of deplorables", and later admitted that "half" was an exaggeration.
In "Democracy in America?", Page shows how much influence the average American voter has had over the passage of 1100 laws in the last 2 decades: zero. The odds of a law being passed were 3:10, regardless of its overall popularity. Only the sentiment of the affluent and corporate mattered.
I put it to you that the average Trump voter knows that. Not the measure, but the lived effect. They know there have been 3 tax cuts under Reagan, Bush and Trump, but the factories kept closing and their kids don't have better economic prospects than they do. They know the ever increasing cost of health care and education. They know that Democrats and Republicans alike favor "free trade", and suspect that it's hard (and unpleasant) to compete with someone making $4 an hour.
Trump promised to restore their jobs. Clinton could barely feign interest. They don't understand economics, but they figured maybe the rich guy could pull it off. If you want to win their votes, maybe listen?
8
Wow, for some reason you mention Beto and Bernie, but not Liz Warren as understanding and speaking to people's economic fears. That's her whole focus, and she has some very compelling ideas. Please edit to include her.
6
So democrats should promise even more free stuff? That’s a great strategy until the bill comes. Oops....
2
And could you remind me when Trump explained how any of his cheerful lies would get paid for? By the way...you know Thor’s a girl now, yes?
3
@Thor: No, no! Not commonsense. I especially liked the line, "They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts". Well, it is. Oh, don't say it!
2
Perhaps it's not about telling the truth.
The democrats might be wise to fool people the way that Trump and the rest of the republicans do.
"Citizens United" are anything but.
3
My pal Skip said it best at brunch today when he said now more than ever we need a decrease in taxes on capital gains. Only when we've released the vital animal spirits of America's best and brightest can we expect them to build the plants and mines that will create countless jobs for the middle class who for too long has been oppressed by government bureaucrats who are more interested in giving handouts to the urban poor. Freedom! And Jesus!!
1
The shame of the middle-class is their inability to see through the Republican con game. The Republican Party has duped working families for decades with their union-busting, tax slashing economics designed to boost corporate share prices for companies that export jobs and hide their profits overseas.
It is unfortunate that the dog-whistle underlying the Republican attraction for many white poor and middle-class workers is racsim and anti-immigrant hatred. The Republicans have successfully turned middle-class frustration into unbridled anger targeting people of color and "foreigners". It is the same ploy that rulers have used for centuries to cover their own greed and lust for power.
Until the Middle-Class awakens to the fraud of Republican corporate fascism that serves only the super-wealthy, they will continue to suffer the shame of a continuous downward economic spiral. Trump is indeed the symbol of their shame.
9
Issues will decide the 2020 elections, not personalities, demography, or gender biases. The GOP has no appeal, except to the wealthy (a group to which they are members). If they don’t primary Trump they are complicit with all that he represents. If they do primary Trump he’ll be so enraged (assuming he’s nominated) that he will evoke every racist and Xenophobic theme to desperately rally the majority white population to boost him up again. This will further destroy (or expose) the cultural fabric of this society. The Dems are clearly complicit with the wealthy (a group to which they are members). Their banner is Neoliberalism, or, ‘how to actually be a Republican while trying to fool all the people all the time.’ Their phony sympathy for the middle class is despicable. Net, net; We the People have gotten nothing from the Federal government for the past 30 years (unless you want to count wage stagnation, job outsourcing, bubbles crashing, and the wholesale deterioration of our infrastructure) except war on a “concept.” So, good luck to all the Betos, Kamalas, Gillibrands, and Warrens! The only questions one need ask is: ‘where were you when We needed you?’ And, what’s your position on Medicare for All, Bank reform, ending war, criminal justice reform, and humane foreign and immigration policy. If you don’t get straight answers then you know you’re voting choices are already compromised.
3
The headline should have been:
Middle-Class Pain Will Decode Where America is Headed.
Drop the accusatory “shame”. Enough of this blame-the-victims mentality.
5
Well written, the extremes are the squeaky wheels that get the oil in America.
The extreme right white fearing all other groups and the extreme left convinced white men are the root of all evil.
The last election was a contest between the two, ie Trump and Hillary and Trump necked her out.
I don't know much about this Beto guy but whoever can appeal to both the moderate left and right they are suffering will win otherwise we will get another politician or worse another demagogue.
2
@Paul
If you think Hillary Clinton represents the extreme left and believes white men are the root of all evil, you seriously have not been paying attention. Please note, she's married to a white man. Please note, she's never said any such thing. Are you reading her mind, or making things up?
As for "extreme left", what do you mean? 12 weeks of paid family leave? Clinton is the embodiment of the neoliberal pseudo-left: the free-trade end-of-welfare-as-we-know-it folks who, with the Republicans, have overseen the deindustrialization of the country and done nothing (except talk) about the consequent and growing wage and wealth inequality.
I have no idea what the "extreme" left is. Maybe workers owning the means of production? But the true left -- progressives -- offer the only reasonable path away from the destruction wrought be the Republicans and Republican-lite neo-liberals. Medicare for All, conversion to green energy, a much more progressive tax code, universal broadband, high-speed rail, and tuition-free college for starters.
If you think all that is too good to be true, remember it's normal in other countries. If you wonder who we'll pay for it, ask how we paid for the last two tax cuts. If we just reversed them, the budget would be in surplus again, just as it was under Clinton.
9
But how are we all supposed to “get along” when one side adamantly claims that the other is wanting to murder babies? Legalizing abortion and other social issues prevents both sides from being under the same umbrella. And often, these issues are designed and marketed intentionally by Republicans to keep us apart and from realizing we are the same.
3
Funny thing is is that people who actually made their fortune tend to be liberals. My friend's dad built a clothing company from scratch with his brother. He was a ardent leftist. His kid however, never having worked a day in his life is a ardent republican. He has no idea what it's like to sweat the rent. He is also a bore, having suffered absolutely no adversity in his life he hasn't got one good story to tell.
He also stated with a straight face once that managing his money is just like a full time job. I really wanted to smack him.
13
The problem with solutions is they are all technical. They do not deliver themselves well to political discourse .
For instance: education loans as currently constituted have left monstrous personal debt. The original premise was that universal education benefited the polity so education should be subsidized including college and graduate education. The second iteration of this of this premise stated that beneficiaries were individuals so individual loans with individual liability was just.
The third iteration was that many individuals were skipping on individual loans so individual loans should be made Inmune to bankruptcy. The fourth iteration said that private organizations can pursue these with consequence of benefit to the private organization and fairness to society. With the unintended consequences of compound interest and high market interest rates suddenly former and current students were saddled with monstrous debt.
For me, the socially responsible pathway out of this morass is to make individuals responsible for their principal and perhaps a very low fixed proportion of interest perhaps one quarter percent to 2% annually , simple , without compounding. The balance of interest to match the market rate would become a federal responsibility . Alternatively the proportion of personal interest could be adjusted to yearly income of individuals but still with significant federal subsidy of interest to the market rate rationalized by identifying the social bene
3
I'm not sure anger and shame are the right words. People are justifiably unhappy with a system that treats them poorly. What is that to be ashamed of?
11
More than shame, the anger of the middle-class will decide where this country is headed. That anger is what got Trump elected.
7
Trump's government shutdown is now going to start effecting food stamps and congregate meals for senior citizens who have worked their entire lives and now need help with their nutrition.
Raw deal by the Middle Class for sure when the richest country in the world refuses to feed it's people.
7
I am UMC (on paper) but deep in debt while living in a very expensive city (NYC). Rent, food, childcare etc. We don't go on vacations, don't buy clothes often and when we do - it's usually on sale. Rarely see a movie etc. Ok, ok... we are guilty of going out to dinner once a week.
Anyway... I am a bit left of "center left" with regards to my politics and I like BETO a lot and will likely vote for him if he runs.
I want the Dems to focus on universal healthcare for ALL, better housing for lower income people, work to bring higher education costs down, raise taxes on the rich to fund infrastructure and most importantly create new legislation that ALL businesses that employ a certain amount of people (maybe 200 or more) HAVE to give their employees yearly COL's. I work for a major, multi-billion $ Company and haven't gotten a COL in 8 years!
5
I love tales of whoa from the privileged, keep em coming. "I have a college degree, I buy too much stuff, and I might run out of money".
Oh, jee, that sounds really tough. Meanwhile entire major cities in the midwest are empty wastelands of what they once were, and half a million live on the streets. Student debt???? Most of us should be so lucky.
Betto might speak to the privileged, but unless he can speak to the working class it's 4 more years of Trump. Unless the entitled class can recognize what has happened to the working class they might well find themselves on the street also.
4
And vice versa, yes?
As long as we continue to hear that "you are poor because of bad choices you made," it will be hard to get out of this morass. Most whites believe minorities have made poor choices and deserve their station in life.
But as anyone who has been hit with a high. and unexpected medical bill knows that sometimes "stuff happens."
We have got to get the privileged to understand that.
6
One thing that has surprised me is the rising anger and resentment of many Democrats against the red-state voters. Not only are red voters called ignorant racists, I hear people say Trump voters, or rural people, or old white men, deserve every bad thing that can happen to them. I see constant complaints from people in populous states about the unfairness of every state having two senators, even though that is exactly what our founders intended. Our feelings toward each other as human beings and Americans are getting uglier and uglier. It spills over into other parts of our lives, and I believe is actually even a threat to our health. My friend broke out in hives the other day and said it was because of Trump, I kid you not. Trump is making us crazy.
As progressives, we need to get control of our rage, or at least focus it in a way that is likely to move us closer to our goal of a fair and prosperous nation. Someone once said, "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." We need to work together, stay positive, and overcome Democrats' fatal flaw of bickering and fighting amongst ourselves. Pick a candidate, get behind that candidate 100%, work like the devil, and try to stop hating our fellow citizens.
16
Our country has evolved in ways that would be unfathomable to the Founding Fathers. The House was supposed to represent sent the “people” while the Senate represented the States. The number of House representatives has not kept up with population growth.
As presently constituted, the Senate represents a roadblock against the will of the people versus the States. I believe if the FF could look at today’s Congress, they would do some serious tweaking.
5
middle, working, and underclass “shame” — and, worse, self destruction:
time to seriously scrutinize the neo-liberal myth that success —or not— in america is determined ultimately by individual virtue/vice, “personal responsibility” rather than by predominantly systemic factors.
there is no free market, no invisible hand; there are no neutral economic “laws”. the central question is how benefits and burdens are distributed, intentionally or incidentally, by the system designers — lawmakers, lobbyists, power-brokers and ultimately, despite the odds being stacked against them, citizens.
8
They haven’t got a good deal. Period. Because of government and corporate policies that corrupt our system. They may be filled with self loathing now but just wait when that anger and shame turns outward. The Elites are going to regret not doing anything to make it more fair and equitable. They are trying to stop free speech but we all know what is coming if it is not there is not real reform and the problem isn’t rectified soon. Trump is going to look like a pussycat despite all the press hysteria about him now.
People really need to read more history instead of partisan Twitter feeds.
3
"Middle-class and poor voters have more in common with one another today than they do with the economic ultra-elite." Trump voters in places like Harlan County, Kentucky, have one thing in common with the economic elite, they're white. One day every two years they can make believe they are members of the exclusive rich man's whites only club....by voting Republican.
7
I see your first and second challenges but I missed a third that may be even bigger.
If someone fears losing everything to falling sick, or has fallen behind because no union is there to fight for them and still votes for the people that attack and destroy unions, that call any attempt to create a serious health care solution socialism, they're either stupid or in denial.
Anger, I got lots. Struggle with economic issue, more than enough to spare. But I never needed to read between the lines to figure out who was creating most of the "challenges" to making things better, and more than a little unhappiness
towards people who can't figure it out even when you use small words and draw them pictures.
I suppose we need pols like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez who has the patience to hold their hands, she's a much better person than I for having it. God bless and good luck to them all.
4
I read through the OpEds this morning by Ms. Quart and Dr. Krugman. In presenting their arguments that Conservatives would let "their children starve" (a reader's comment based on the OpEds), I note that neither author elicited the comments of the three wealthiest U.S. Senators, all of whom are Democrat and regularly appear on CNN and MSNBC to bash Republican proposed policies:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/041516/who-are-americas-7richest-senators.asp
What is the view of the tax code of these three fabulously wealthy Democrats. Did they all inherit their wealth? Did they "work hard" to get it? Did they get their wealth from the "less intelligent" spouse (wife), who inherited the vast fortune of her father(as asserted by another commentator).
Should we get an 80% cut of Michelle Obama's earnings from her book?
2
@math365
Strange argument.
So instead of discussing a fairer distribution of wealth, you want to question the idea of personal wealth. Why?
And instead of doing some basic fact-checking, you just ask questions, suggesting nothing but your own prejudices about Democrats?
In real life, Obama and the Democrats increased taxes for the wealthiest 1% multiple times, remember?
One of those tax increases is included in Obamacare, a bill that saves an additional half a million American lives a decade. THAT is what "putting AMERICA first" means, in real language rather than in an "alternative facts" world.
So any comments on that?
4
As Citibank financial strategists pointed out so well in 2005, in a published study they since tried (unsuccessfully) to remove from public view:
"The World is dividing into two blocs - the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S., UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies - economies powered by the wealthy."
These authors go on to speculate that Americans tolerate "plutonomy" because the culture is rife with fantasies of "making it", and becoming privileged. Why crimp a rottensystem you soon be able to take advantage of yourself?
Without frank class-based discussion in the public square -- of the kind you won't read in this op-ed page -- nothing is likely to change.
8
People will say anything to get elected, that’s all the problem.
3
Our current U.S. capitalist society is sick, and the shame of the middle (and lower) class is a major symptom.
When we consider the amazing sacred potential and value of human life, how can we allow poverty in our society, knowing its devastating effects? How can we let children eat poor-quality food? How can public education be starved of tax funds so children are poorly educated? How can "financial service" execs "earn" millions of dollars/ year at a low tax rate while someone caring 24 hrs/day for a disabled elderly parent is paid Zero? How can oil execs keep perpetrating the crime of destroying the earth--making obscene profits in the process--long after the effects of burning fossil fuels are known?
Remove the scales from your eyes and look at the pure sadism and socio/psychopathic greed at the top.
These psychopaths hide behind the "corporate veil," pump money into (1) politics to get their tax cuts and (2) RW propaganda to persuade an entire society that the torture inflicted on the bottom 80% is somehow "normal" and appropriate.
This pathology is also expressed in compulsive sexual abuse of women and sometimes children and men-as revealed through the #metoo movement-where it is deemed also "normal" for the powerful to violate the personal/ physical boundaries of the less powerful.
This is all deeply ugly. We Americans need to shed our shame at having been abused by these monsters and join in the work to reorganize our society for the Well-Being of the People.
7
The Red tribe portrays the Blue tribe as wanting to take away their hard earned money and give it to the lazy, undeserving, differentially hued, all while howling "Socialism!" The Red tribe believes what it is told. The Blue tribe plays into their hand by practicing identity politics and advocating for de facto open borders. The gears of political progress are thereby jammed.
5
How do politicians like "Billionaire Beto O'Rourke"
justify holding on to their vast personal wealth
while espousing "spread the wealth"
socialist policies?
A bit hypocritical, No?
3
Let's assume the article is accurate. How do you campaign to reach this group. You can campaign on hard work to change political structures, adjust social services and increase taxes to help support these new and improved programs. Or you can campaign on 'it's all the fault of lazy criminal foreigners'. It would seem the people have spoken in the last presidential election. They are getting exactly what they voted for.
2
All true, but the essay is better suited for a politician craft journal then the NYT. The fact is, anyone voting Republican over the last 40 years engaged in economic masochism. No, there is no "all politicians are slimy" equivalency. Economic security is consistently better under Democrat policies, which are evidence-based, than under Republican policies, which are faith-based or baldly corrupt. Full stop. Yes, Democrat candidates must hone their message, but voters must get a clue.
4
Ah, but Trump and his ever-lovin' base have no shame. They don't know the meaning of the word.
The GOP has long been the most shameless in its lying, stealing, gerrymandering and voter suppression. When they aren't attacking democrats, off-white people, women and the poor just for being alive, barely, then they drum up a little war there, a crisis here, a threat in some far off place requiring US troops so we'll all rally round the flag boys.
Middle-class pain, maybe, but where's the shame? Where's the sanity in wild-west gun possession? Where's the rationale in having millions without medical care, whole generations unable to afford a college degree in order to climb out of poverty?
But Trump's base loves him and the base holds all the rest of us hostage. Until they wake up and turn off Rush Limbag and his ilk, and see what has happened to them and our whole country under this long siege by the GOP, then there will just be more of the same: tax cuts for the rich and corporations who stiff their employees and the cities subsidizing them, ever poorer health care, collapsing infrastructure, garbaged environment, poisoned water, ad nauseum.
I wish we could impeach and convict Trump's awful base.
3
That the 'middle class' is suffering is not in doubt anymore, particularly after the assault of the presidency by an 'outstanding' demagogue, who had the 'virtue' of finding the holes of decency and justice in American society, and filling them with empty promises (witness 'the wall' payable by Mejico)...without adding a dime to the well-being of anybody but himself and his family...and the corporate world. We are living Trumpian times of an institutionalized violence called klepto-plutocracy, supported by the millionaire republican senators...by displaying a supine ignorance of people's needs, due to their huge social distance from desperate folks trying to make a dignified living a reality again. For that to occur, the current fraudsters up there must be ousted, so to restore a true democracy again.
2
Did the author (or the NYT section editor) recognize the condescension in the phrase "attempting to redirect Americans’ anger toward fighting for the things they need, like reasonably priced education and health care?" She clearly sees ordinary Americans as incapable of setting our own priorities. "Redirect," in particular, makes it sound like she sees millions of her fellow American voters as 5th graders with ADHD.
3
Middle-class and poor voters are too often brainwashed by the Fox news / right-wing talk show propaganda, and increasingly by the activist politicization of evangelical churches many of them attend.
I have come across countless middle-class people who remain staunch Republicans even in the face of decades of evidence showing the lies, the untruths, the deceptions and the failed (fake) promises of the GOP towards the weaker members of society. They somehow believe that Democrats are part of a "debauched urban elite" bent on enforcing "socialism" on everyone else, and they seem increasingly oblivious to facts or reason.
Until the right-wing propaganda machine is neutralized or suffocated, middle-class people will keep on voting for the same people who caused their current predicament.
6
Well noted -- however, if we are using Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as an example, it serves your argument poorly. Besides the designer clothes she has been wearing, there are plenty of places in the Washington area she can live before she gets a government paycheck. It just may not be the style to which she wishes to become accustomed. I'm a liberal and I find her hypocrisy appalling.
3
Our national tragedy is that in 2016 Goldman and friends were able to hire the Congressional Black Caucus and black preachers to smear Bernie with the absurd lie that he was somehow less for civil rights than Hillary because he was from a "white" state. A large chunk of Trump's white working-class voters in the Rust Belt told exit pollsters that they would have much preferred to express their anger by voting for Bernie, rather than Trump. Had Bernie been the nominee, he would have crushed Trump both in the Rust Belt and the nation and reunited the lower classes of all races in America on a fight with their real enemy, the runaway rich. In 2020, Goldman and friends will again do their best to use "woman" and "person of color" to elect another cat's paw for the billionaires in the form of a Booker or whomever. Let's hope the Dems finally keep their eye on the ECONOMIC warfare prize this time, and go for the candidate who will give us FDR politics again, instead of using identity politics to suppress it among the Dems yet again.
1
This article could have been written 10 years ago. None of this is new. But inequality has been allowed to fester for more than a decade and here we are.
1
But these feelings of inadequacy, if so ubiquitous, should manifest into consistent action in the privacy of the voter booth. Both parties suggest their appeal is populist in the aggregate - their policies (supposedly) benefit the middle class and working poor alike. Only one party, however, filters and amplifies this anxiety into outright fear, blame, mistrust, and hatred of "the other".
To say that lacking socioeconomic success translates to individual faults and weaknesses is to align oneself with the core of current conservative ideology. It is why 45* has been successful in attracting a base with a higher median income than the average American. "Stop with the resentment of the economic elite, it's those who are worse off than you - the immigrants, the welfare recipients, the addicts struggling to get sober - they are the real reason your wages never grow". The apprehension of the middle class is pervasive, yes, but a large minority of that class doesn't vote with internalized shame, they vote with externalized disgust.
1
Advanced economies are undergoing a change that will be greater, happening more quickly, and will cause more pain than the mechanization of agriculture that happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (In the 1850's about 50% of the workforce was in agriculture... By the 1950's that share was in the single digits... But that happened over a 100 years... The changes we are facing now are happening at least 10x faster.)
And yet, none of our politicians on either end of the spectrum have even started to discuss what to do about it.
Electing Trump works as an act of political vandalism to show the world how mad you are... But expecting an ill-informed, spoiled brat of a NY billionaire to actually solve your problem is beyond foolish.
Globalization, automation, and artificial intelligence are not going away. They *will* increase productivity but they *will* also transform and destroy whole classes of employment.
The Right needs to figure out that enriching the top few % with tax cuts will not "trickle down" to solve these problems. And the folks on the Right who are wealthy or have well paying jobs need to get over the notion that they "deserve" it. You were just lucky enough to be born in the right place, in the right family, with the right amount of intelligence.
Similarly, the Left needs to figure out that we cannot solve these problems with simple entitlements. They solve nothing in the long term.
3
Oh please! All were doing here is looking for someone to blame for not being as fat as we’d like to be. Trump voters fell for the snake oil salesmen’s pitch - so who’s fault is that? All the financial wisdom anyone ever needed was penned by Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield when Mr. Micawber essentially said - live beneath your means, which of course is contrary to the American dream of more, more, more, more.
2
Many of the middle class and working class who complain about their financial situation and lack of opportunity gladly voted for an ignorant con man and a substantial majority continue to support him and his Republican enablers. Democrats have many faults and clearly have not done enough to support and enact policies that benefit the majority yet their goals are light years better for the general welfare than what Republicans have enacted. It is difficult to have empathy and concern for voters who consistently vote against their own financial best interests. Republicans and the con man have effectively promoted their politics of fear.
If the people who voted for Trump, of whatever class, have any shame, it isn't apparent to me.
3
"She said that she and her husband ... often regret the purchases they make." I think that's a big part of the problem -- overconsumption. People do buy an awful lot of silly things. Minimalism is the solution.
2
We the people are no longer citizens, but merely "consumers", whose only mission is to continue feeding the upper crust while getting nothing in return but economic disaster for working people everywhere.
3
Poppycock.
I'm way more educated than my sister. I graduated from an Ivy League school. That doesn't make me smarter than her. She got a nursing degree for a lot less money than I paid, then, when the housing market tanked in 2008, had the wisdom and wherewithal to buy rental real estate, having had the financial discipline needed to save money so she could make the down payments. She makes north of $200 an hour when she works at all, which isn't much (nurses get paid double time and a half on holidays, and she takes full advantage). She's essentially set for life at less than 60.
There are things than money in life. That said, America remains a land of opportunity. That you went to college doesn't matter jack squat, and it shouldn't: You sink or swim based on what you can either deliver or take advantage of. If there's a welfare line for folks like me who have prestigious degrees, point me to it, because, I'd love the chance. Otherwise, this is just another NYT piece of you know what.
4
Talk is cheap especially from career politicians who will say what people want to hear. Middle-Class (MC) should decide where America is headed but middle class is deception prone. Look at this century alone the borrowing and spending during the 2 terms of the Bush administration and 2 terms of the Obama administration has piled a debt of 20 Trillion. For what? Overseas wars and US troop deployment or aerial bombardment or arms supplies in at least 5 countries Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
With that kind of national debt, when can the MC expect a bigger share of the tax cuts. that will facilitate the MC having at least some pocket change in savings? Democrats run on taxing the rich as high as 70% when they do not have the white house and the senate. What happens when they have the white house. What happened to the Bush era tax cuts during the Obama years? Well they did not end but continued on while the spending just keep rising with stimulus to rich friends that did not make any dent in the debt. On the contrary the debt just became higher.
MC should be ashamed because it has been gullible to deception and false promises of career politicians from both parties. The only people who have prospered during the Bush and Obama administrations have been the politicians holding government salaries, executives of large corporations and attorneys representing them.
Universal affordable Health care is a key unresolved issue of concern to MC until govt. manages it.
3
And according to this NY Times article Beto O'Rourke is the "savior" of the working class because he pumps up the crowds with soaring rhetoric and has a "D" next to his name?
Just review his voting record thus far....more than 70% of his votes were with the GOP that favored
Trump economic policies for corporations and the wealthy.
6
"Elizabeth Warren has already started to emphasize how the middle class has been hollowed out".
Where have you been Ms. Quart? Elizabeth Warren has been saying this for the last 20 years--at least.
5
And Bernie Sanders has been saying it even longer...
Sanders / Warren 2020
2
Wall St. and Corporate America stole our jobs, our homes, and our pensions in 2008. And now, thanks to Trump and the GOP, they are well on their way to stealing our democracy.
The Voting Rights Act, dissected and destroyed by a conservative
Supreme Ct. Gerrymandering, voter suppression and outright fraud illustrated by the Congressional race in North Carolina.
A government in its third week of shutdown with the blessing of Trump and the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell. He refuses to allow a vote on the very same legislation the Senate passed only a few weeks ago.
It would appear the GOP has a death wish.
1
Good luck getting elected on a national level on this “progressive platform”. No chance. The ambiguity of the people’s stories leads to more questions than answers. We know nothing about how these people got themselves into financial trouble. The author lost me when she claimed that some of the middle class problems were caused by the lack of unions. Really? Want to know why it’s so expensive to live in New York? Look no further than the unions.
1
Really, you cite Cuomo’s “free college” as a step in the right direction? His program is demagoguery and opportunism plain and simple. No new money was allocated for this program, the onerous restrictions clearly mean that only a fraction of eligible recipients will receive it, and the conditions for it not turning into a huge loan would currently only apply to about 40% of those who receive this “grant.”
Yes let’s please speak plainly and honestly to the “lost middle class generation.” But not by throwing them phony life lines.
4
The challenge for Democrats will be to speak to this group without abandoning the poor and minorities. This struggling middle class group sees the poor as the enemy in a zero sum world. The poor get supported by "my taxes" while I struggle. We have to turn the narrative against the 1%
2
These so-called fiscal conservatives and others who love to repeat by rote Thatcher's old saw that socialism is great until you run out of other people's money (and the even stupider one, that there is no such thing as society) fail profoundly in their understanding of economics. Where does "money" come from in the first place? What entity produces "money"? The United States of America prints and mints its currency; the rest of the world uses the dollar as a trading standard. What does the dollar represent? It represents the American people, as a collective, who have established themselves as a nation and have established a system of government for themselves. We are the people of this country, and the dollar represents us. It belongs to all of us, as the product of the nation and the form of government we have chosen for ourselves. The dollar as such belongs to no one individual, but to the people of this country - all of us. As the lifeblood of our system, money is supposed to circulate freely among all strata of society. Right now, the circulatory system is not working properly. Too much of our lifeblood is pooling at the top. Repairs to the system are necessary. Money must begin to flow freely to all members of society. Otherwise, gangrene sets in. Those dwelling in the still-functional strata of society are not paying attention to the rest of the body politic. Will they be surprised when the rot they have failed to address affects them?
6
Mrs. Womack of Tennessee admits she regrets some of the purchases she and her husband have made. That is part of the problem. I know people who have spent beyond their means and are now struggling financially. They had very good paying jobs but there was a financial setback. They never saved a dime and expected others to pick up the tab. How can you feel sorry for these people.
There are people who are genuinely struggling through no fault of their own but many today spend as though there is no tomorrow. They know Uncle Sam will pick up the tab if they become desperate. Who is the recipient of this? The American taxpayer.
1
Possible team Biden/O'Rourke appealing to the need for experience and fresh ideas. After trying out an erratic lying fraudster and a dull flunky VP we have seen our country divided and our world image damaged we need a change. The economy is booming thanks to recovery efforts by Obama /Biden given a sugar rush by deregulation ,huge tax cuts for the rich and powerful however the national debt went up by two trillion under Trump. The country and the world cannot trust the TRump government as he lies constantly and seems to be under the thumb of Putin which may be revealed to be greater than we thought. We need to be brought together as a country and our long term democratic allies need to be reassured that the TRump phase of supporting the dictators of the world based on his family's personal financial interests. Why do they think Jared and Ivanka are in the White House a dedication to public service , they were part of the tax dodging criminal activities of the Trump organization and put MSB the murderer in power.
1
socialism -- share the wealth and share the risk
capitalism -- give everything to the 1%
5
Not optimistic.
Too many people vote against their own interests.
They get conned by a number of long time scams that make them fearful.
The 2020 presidential election should have begun the day after Trump lost the popular vote. We need to have a sense of urgency. I won't support Hillary or Bernie this go round. Elizabeth Warren has irreparably damaged herself with the native-American ancestry issue. This was her Howard Deanesque, self-inflicted wound (her version of the "Dean Scream" in 2004). We need fresh voices, new ideas. Beto (Robert Francis O'Rourke) for president in 2020! Trump won't debate well with an intelligent, attractive, plain-speaking Texan immune to Trump's pathetic insults. I think the economy is faltering and God only knows what horrors Robert Mueller will reveal about Trump. I am optimistic but Beto needs to move fast.
So where are the solutions? The DEM's keep hoping for a messenger -- when they need a real message.
Both college and healthcare would be fine with most in the USA if they made more money -- they could afford to buy it. There seems to be an ever growing percentage of the population that believes these can be free ... can't.
It's economic development that we must have .. A new "New Deel". I come from a manufacturing family .. we still manufacture .. but to compete we have to make things overseas. The Walmarts and the Amazons .. have been a race to the bottom. The idea that manufacturing is dead -- it's crazy. Sure automation reduces some jobs -- but hardly all like some NYT economists like to tell you.
So, I sit in NYC a wealthy man .. with products made in China? That's what's happening -- the executives are still making plenty of money .... the products still sell. The builders of that wealth just changed their passports. And the readers of the NYT -- don't care ... just read the comments.
Can we build iPhone in the USA next year ...no. Can we in five .. Yes. Will apple make less money -- yes. Will the country be better off .. yes, yes. So will the builders of the factory and roads -- Gee .. what if we built them "Green" with new low energy and impact manufacturing plants?
The DEM's need to stop playing identity politics and the unions need to stop focusing all their attention on the public workers and teachers .. they forgot the people who built them.
3
I dare anybody to propose affordable medicine and education for all without being vilified as a communist.
Why an educated and healthy population is a bad thing in the eyes of so many on the republican right simply defies logic.
As for that myth about making it with hard work....not at $7.27 minimum wage cleaning a hospital or hotel.
7
It's capitalism that we can no longer afford.
4
The Middle Class is very important for the maintenance of capitalist hegemony: they are the ones who do the "dirty work" for them.
This dirty work comprises:
1) serving as ideal models of a predetermined life style,
2) guardians of public opinion/narrative (professors, ideologues, priests etc.),
3) managerial functions and
4) maintenance of the myth of a classless society (the parameter of what is the "normal people").
No wonder, then, that the collapse or degeneration of the Western Civilization (tm) is widely associated as the collapse of the "middle class": the middle class is gone, so is the American Dream, it's that simple.
3
Nice to think democrats might actually start listening to this cohort instead of insulting them. Americans who have voiced their anger over their circumstances -- and supported Trump as a result -- have been dismissed and crudely charged with "racism", "sexism", etc.
Time for democrats to stop insulting them and actually hear their concerns.
3
Are you actually suggesting that, at this juncture in American history, our next president "re-directs American's anger" (something you can't do without fomenting our national anger further)?
For some reason, I hoped that our next president would help Americans rediscover our shared Goodness.
I guess the answer to that one is-- "No we can't.
1
All this skirts finding solutions to the the looming irrevocable collapse of the natural world's plant and animal habitats, our increasingly befouled and dried-up water sources, oceans converting to burning vats of acid, swollen populations jostling for living room, etc. etc. The candidates who vow tackling reparation of of air, earth, water, wildlife, oceans have my vote.
4
why not skip your 'stand up and confess economic distress' bit and instead just unpack and re-enact FDR New Deal policies -- responsible government regulation, progressive taxation, unemployment insurance, infrastructure and public education, and various social safety nets -- to once again 'restore prosperity' and build another Great Rise of The American Middle Class (as from 1948 to 1968 -- arguably, 1947 to 1980) before replacement by 'New Conservatism' and The Return to The Gilded Age of plutocracy? ok, throw in national health care this time around to supplement social security, Glass-Steagall (which Clinton revoked), unemployment insurance, fair employee bargaining rights, etc. -- and how's about 'bring back the draft' to ensure every citizen is at risk to do his (or her) duty?
btw, look back at top marginal tax rates under Truman and Eisenhower when WWII (and Depression) federal deficit paid off and the economy (and middle class) prospered; look back at FDR's 'eckonomic 'Bill of Rights' in 1944: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights#Significance
ask yourself whatinhell we've been doing since 1980 when we began creating anew generation of wealthy nabobs as our Overlords of finance, economics and politics?
throw incumbent political rascals out -- 'conservatives', 'neoliberals', et al -- and start fresh with a new crop of 'New Dealers' and 'Fair Dealers' to return to an earlier (more prosperous and hopeful) time.
4
The problem is most Americans who aren't living high on the hog as Trump-like zillionaires are getting the short end of the stick in America, which is why the working-poor and what's left of the middle-class can't claim to be the only ones who are the worst-off.
With a combination of stagnant working wages for decades, industrialization, globalization, modern technology and corporate greed -- this country has slid into third-world standards when it comes to supplying the basics like, food, housing and health-care for its citizens.
On top of that this isn't even a meritocracy anymore, where a good education and hard work will get you anywhere.
It's no small wonder that so many are feeling like they're getting left behind...because in actuality, they are.
4
Herman B Wells was not just a great President of Indiana University. His influence on integration nationwide, on post-war Greece (which was initially controlled by Communist militias) rejoining the Western Democracies, and on other areas was great. When he came to IU, Indiana's governor and the vast majority of the legislature were members of the Ku Klux Klan and some of them were pretty rabid. He passed on this word of advice for dealing with people like Trump. Trying to defeat them with facts will fail - they will lie shamelessly and effectively. You have to use SHAME - in particular make them look ridiculous. That seems counter-intuitive because people like Trump and McConnell and his other minions have no shame. But the voters will eventually feel shame for supporting these ridiculous villains. Then things change fast.
2
The author treats a student loan as a badge of shame. That's insane. For any student who can graduate in a reasonable period from a state university a student loan will likely be a good investment. Some students borrowers will end up as losers but that's a risk that goes with any investment.
1
Go Beto. A look at the photo shows that he has the mind and the empathy needed to rally the middle class, and the Democrats, to victory in 2020. I think he could win in a landslide, capture all but the most crazy Republicans, and finally help usher in the 21st century to the U.S. building on the start made by Barack Obama. It would be very nice to think that this can happen.
Alissa Quart doesn't have a clue! Middle-class shame? Really? How about middle class anger? For almost 30 years the former American middle class, that once prosperous and iconic model of American democracy, the central part of our economic, political and military might, has been taken apart, industry by industry, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city and family by family. We gone gone beyond decimation to utter destruction. I would use the terms obliteration and dissolution.
There is no longer an American Middle-Class.There is no one left to feel shame. What exists is torn and tattered lives that have no voice, no hope and certainly no shame. There is populist anger and Mr. Trump has shown us how that anger lives on, not just below the surface but boiling over across our nation.
The events that have torn us apart and made us weak internationally (including Obama's withdrawal of the last American heavy tank brigades from Europe) have destroyed our industrial and technological engines of creation. China eats American jobs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mexico eats at the same table. Obama destroyed our pride. Democrats destroyed our industries, factories, jobs and access to education. Rich got richer and richer. Political elites ruled.
There is no middle-class shame. Only anger and resentment. We built America. Elites took it from us giving us the "New Raw Deal".
We want jobs, affordable housing, access to education, health care and a future. No shame in that.
4
These middle class voters are struggling financially. They have significant medical costs. They have significant college debt. They have no union representation. They have significant credit card debt. And so, recognizing these needs, they voted for...Republicans??? Republicans who vowed to end Obamacare, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid and cut Social Security. Republicans who pass anti-union “right to work” laws in state after state. Republicans who refuse to establish a livable minimum wage. Republicans who oppose increases to college aid and oppose making community college tuition free. Republicans who are doing everything they can to gut consumer protections in the banking and credit card industry. Republicans who pass tax cuts only for the wealthy.
What can we do to help people who so adamantly refuse to help themselves?
3
Ms Quart knows nothing. It was not some group of people who might have voted for Mrs Clinton-but, because they feared the future, voted instead for Trump. In fact, the people who allowed his election were over ten million-almost 20 million Democrats who-moved by the questionable statistics presented by the News Media-including the NYTimes claiming that Mrs CLinton could not be beaten by Trump, or would have to try hard to lose to him. Combined with various odds-makers in Britain whose US election predictions-(until 2016)-had never been wrong, and who predicted the triumph of Mrs Clinton so even Trump was sure he would lose the elction, and told his wife,(who didn't want to live in D.C.), not to worry "I'm not going to win this election."
The combination of so many powerful and widely read media outlets and oddsmakers, convinced these Democrats, who were angry at Mrs Clinton for actually meeting with and breaking bread with Goldman Sachs, the Wall St Bankers- enemy of all good and liberal minded voters. They claimed they voted Communist, Green or for Sanders to "teach Hillary a lesson".
So when she was settling in to the WHite House-she would see they had given their votes to other candidates. Instead. Because they voted for others-she lost the election. Democrats thus gave the election away, out of excessive pride and extreme political positions.
2
“They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts”
Right, it's always somebody else's fault. Your economic status is imposed on you by evil forces.
In an era with the highest living standards in world history, with record low unemployment, with essentially free computing and access to every form of free education imaginable, people are whining about how unfair the economy is. Go figure.
3
Your emphasis on "shame", even just using the word, and on a sort of confessional self examination would destroy any chance of electoral success.
A very large portion of our fellow Americans would see this as just plain old humiliating, very distasteful and not at all productive. We need to find new words, new phrases, to make ourselves heard and understood. Let's be honest, we need everyone's help if we're ever going to move this nation forward.
1
Whether food, heroin, gambling, violence, or fossil fuels, shame is the most powerful psychological engine on an addiction cycle.
Still operating everyday, right in front of our faces, we have the instruments of our decline at work: Fox News, right-wing radio, and their champions Donald Trump and his GOP. The lies perpetrated and sustained should seem so obvious and accountable, but they are not because the voting population in so many regions has determined that false information can somehow lead to good policies.
As long as such a large proportion of the shrinking middle class continues to vote against their own interests over and over again, they will continue to suffer from downward economic mobility - and they will take us all down. We must refuse to live in this weird rabbit hole of propaganda and deception that is so dishonestly called "Make America Great Again".
2
One can make a very decent income and after taxes and paying for kids tuition, it is all gone. Too many immigrants, most here illegally, are draining the system. Weird, when my father came here from the Ukraine in 1928, he learned the language and played by the rules. Not any more, just grab an emotional support pet who understands Spanish and rush the gates.
3
@one percenter
If Republicans like Trump would stop hiring the illegal Mexicans, they would stop coming.
4
The shame is in the endemic systemic issues that cause people, despite how much they work and how much education they have, not to be able to make ends meet. Fix your ailing health and education systems so that they are accessible and affordable for all. This would alleviate much of the financial burdens people carry just to be able to have what is a right (not a privilege).
The individual shame people carry is actually a displaced shame. Examine your system and note the 1% who want to keep it this way. I encourage those who have been silent for too long to rise up and shout out that this unfair system is keeping you downtrodden. SHAME NO MORE!
2
Economic inequality is real and at historic proportions in our county. Capital and labor combine to create wealth. Politics determines how we divide that wealth.
Unfortunately, nearly half our country thinks the root problem of our economic inequality lies with liberal immigration policies. That this makes no logical sense is beside the point. Perception is reality. Our government is currently shut down over this 'disagreement.'
So, until large swaths of the middle class start to 'follow the money' instead of following their fears and until cynical and opportunistic politicians stop demonizing immigrants and people of color to cover their own corruption and until the news media starts calling out all of these lies, this won't change.
JFK said a rising tide lifts all boats but if the little boats are dragging an anchor ... money doesn't "trickle down." In the years since St. Ronnie, the middle class keeps losing ground.
2
Far too many of these people who blame themselves for their situation are devoted Fox "news" watchers and Rush Limbaugh listeners -- and they have been told over and over that if they are not doing well, it is because they are lazy or irresponsible or both. We can also thank St. Reagan and the church of "government is the problem" for a lot of this. How many of these folks have bought into the idea that the estate tax (a/k/a the "death" tax) is unfair? Or that the super wealthy should not have to pay more taxes, even though many of them have inherited wealth (ie, the Waltons come to mind). Why are corporate CEO's paid 300 times what their average employee makes? Why are so many Republicans still Trump lovers when most of what he is and has done is destructive to those of them in the middle class?
3
Republicans basically give tax cuts to the rich.
And they put the resulting deficits and debt on our Federal credit card to be paid for by us and our children.
Why anyone other than the rich would vote Republican is beyond me.
4
“They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio said."
As others have shown below, the main theme in 2016 was racism and immigrants, not economic anxiety.
Studies also show that a majority of voters earning more than $100k voted for Trump, whereas a majority of those earning less voted for Hillary.
Why?
It's precisely because the GOP cultivates this shame and guilt culture that conservatives in this country become so easily victims of racist rhetoric and start to believe it.
On the one hand, they imagine that if they belong to the middle class, it must be because they're all "self-made men".
On the other hand, immigrants fleeing violence and/or poverty are now BLAMED for their own poverty or dire situation, so why should we "help them"?
They forget that 20th century America (= when the US became the wealthiest country on earth) was BUILT on and thanks to immigrants fleeing poverty and violence, and precisely by providing much more opportunity to develop your talents and thrive than most other countries.
The GOP has been destroying those opportunities one after one, for decades now. It has created an anxious middle class, afraid to loose what they managed to grab, and blaming those who did loose everything rather than seeing the bigger picture and understanding that the GOP and Trump are MASSIVELY betraying them.
Sad.
The Democratic Party abandon the middle and working class beginning in the 70’s but particularly in the 90’s under Clinton. Obama followed the same policies, speaking populist rhetoric to win, practicing corporatist cronyism. There is an enormous amount of people in America these days who are trying to find a political party that will actually speak for them.
The Democrats are only interested in their Wall Street Bankers and ilk while pretending to be holier than thou with their cultural talk. All the while, using the middle class to pay for their social experiments.
My suspicion is unless another party comes about under someone like Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican Party will be taken over eventually by the middle class as all the rich people will have migrated over except a few holdouts. However, there is always the possibility that the military will get involved with their disgust of how it is going in civilian life. Maybe that would be better then having Silicon Valley deciding about whether we are “allowed” free speech?
3
Middle class is the sedan of our economy.
This is all very interesting, but still essentially vague generalities with no statistical underpinning -- just as is the coverage we are getting from the New York Times in the matter of Trump's Wall.
I am still looking for some statistics about how many voters we are talking about and how they voted with regard to President Trump in 2016 and with regard to Congress in 2018 and how they feel now.
Failing that (and if it is becoming impossible to conduct opinion surveys in 2019 by phone in the era of robocalls) I would at least appreciate an honest attempt on the part of some reporters or Op-Ed pundits to talk to as many voters as is necessary to get a real feel of which way the electorate is trending....
1
While most are scrambling to make sense, to find solutions, the villains, yes, villains, are right at the top in front of us - elected officials, mostly Republicans, in transferring wealth to the already rich while plying voters with a story of hard work, make your own future. Rigged.
2
I have questioned a "consumer based economy" since I was a kid. Isn't that a dead end policy?
3
All working Americans should realize that Trump lied to them.
He can grift better than most...telling us that the Mexican government would pay for "the wall". Now, he punishes working Americans and is holding their employment hostage for the same wall.
Any Democratic candidate (or Independent) with any sense will explain that there is no shame in claiming what is theirs.
Now would be a good time to see Trump's tax returns.
3
Read Darwin. Not everyone gets equal talent. Level the playing field, yes. But let’s not guarantee everything to everybody. If I wanted to live in this kind of country I would. While I sat in the library and had no life for years, many of these people spent their weekends pursuing their pleasure. Don’t pin that on my back. And somehow I was able to pay back all of my student loans. The most productive people in our society will leave and go where they can live free of the redistribution monkey. Believe it. Europe is the best example of moribund economies. That model should never guide our path here.
2
The article ends with these words:
"Then again, maybe the people we elect can express our pain for us instead, so we wouldn’t have to".
That's an impossible wish. We always will have to express our pain. No one will ever take care of anyone else who doesn't first take care of himself or herself.
No substitute exists for one's own initiative and action, because no paid professional politician will ever have our best interest in mind to the same extent than we ourselves have our own best interest in mind. Period.
Representative democracy has obvious limits, and at the present time it's definitely NOT working for Americans. Just look at our neutered Congress! They happily represent themselves as their pay raises keep coming in.
Do you think your "representatives" care about you?
First day in office Trump approved legislation that makes it easier for certifiable mentally-disturbed people to buy guns. A coup for the NRA, and a black eye for the rest of us.
Where were our representatives in all this? 90%-plus Americans clamored for background checks. We're still waiting.
The article made good sense until it got to that last wish, which is a non sequitur and a total non-starter
oz.
1
More than anything else, the Trump presidency proves you can fake sincerity and you can fake empathy.
That may be good news! Because the amount of money required for a presidential run takes you out of the middle class, if you were ever there to begin with. The one thing money can't buy, is poverty.
Taxing those who can easily afford to pay is at best only part of the solution. By itself, higher taxes are tacit acknowledgment that there won't be enough decent jobs to keep people occupied, but as a wealthy country we can at least reduce the stress levels of those who are idle.
So, middle class anger? Sure. Healthcare as a right and a common good? Absolutely. But some politician needs to acknowledge there will not be enough meaningful work and that computers and low wage countries will destroy many more jobs than they create. No matter how much is collected in taxes, a dole funded by the wealthy just won't cut it.
>> “They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio said.
And yet the piece starts off with Shalynn Womack stating what is obvious for so many struggling Americans, that her group “didn’t get the life we thought being well-educated would provide." As a country, we've expected that we'd be provided for, all whilst embracing trickle down, deregulation, supply side, "greed is good," "small government," a limited safety net, the market on steroids, wealth inequality, shift of the tax burden to the middle class, and the rest of the Reagan Revolution (and Clinton years).
What indeed did people expect? The outcome has been perfectly predictable.
6
An excellent article that addresses the concerns of middle class voters. If the Democrats listen, they can win easily in 2020.
Too much passive voice. People have choices. Hard work still pays off. Yes, there is bad luck. This is one reason why voters must compel elected officials to provide a strong safety net. But I am not a child and government is not my mother.
3
I suggest the perfect Democratic team for the 2020 presidential election would be Elizabeth Warren and Beto O'rourke.
Why? Because Elizabeth has the knowledge, skills, and determination to deal effectively with the big money special interests. The corporations and billionaires that are running our government today are making a mess of it for those not in the top 10% of the income bracket. I believe Elizabeth would be able to use the bully pulpit effectively to rally the public and fix those problems.
Beto has wide appeal to younger voters and would be a strong candidate for president in 2024 when, I believe, Elizabeth might then be too old for the job.
Both have wide appeal to women voters (51% of Americans) and both have great ability to raise considerable amounts of money from small donors with no need to go hat- in-hand to billionaires and corporations.
4
My husband lost his job 2 and half years ago due to corporate down sizing. The company had been bought by another company and then its assets sold off and its workers laid off. He is 50 and hasn't been able to find another full time job in his area, mechanical engineering, so I am the only breadwinner in the family. I work as a professor, so as the article attest, my husband and I are both well educated and from the middle class. We had no idea the financial hit we would take when he lost his job, but we were a bit prepared since I had gone through this before with my own parents, my father losing his job when I was a teen and my family having to be helped by my mother's parents. I never wanted to live beyond our means and we don't but I never thought a well educated person would not be able to find a full time job with benefits today. I do worry that if I get sick what will happen? We have medical insurance but it is 8000 thousand a year and that doesn't mean we will have access to care if one of us gets sick. I would like more of a safety net and universal health care would me and the thousand of others who worry about losing every thing if illness occurs in the family.
One more thing: people live into their 80s now and we need to have decent paying jobs for those in their 50s to 80s. If Nancy Pelosi at 78 can be Speaker of the House, why can't the average middle age to elderly aged person find decent work in this country that pays a living wage?
14
Excellent article! The focus on helping the wealthy must stop now. The middle class has been gutted. We are turning into if not already a third world country from crumbling infrastructure, $100-$200K for college tuition, prescription drug and hospital prices that force folks to enter bankruptcy or decide to stop taking drugs and die, whole species of animals being slaughtered. How did this and so much more like it ever become ‘acceptable’ and ‘normal’ in this country? Why are the management teams and BODs of pharmaceutical companies not in jail for ripping off we the people — and also causing a opioid overdose epidemic that’s killing more of us than the Vietnam war? Why are they are others like them not in jail already? Why is greed at the expense of the majority encouraged? We’re not, imho, that far away from a version of the French Revolution (1789). The rich destroying the rest of us might not suffer the fate of Louis XVI. But 320 million of us not part of the 1% or 10% aren’t going to sit around and take this for too much longer. Maybe another four years? But if things don’t change after that, well, I really don’t want to be here for what I think is going happen.
3
I think it is good to point out that for politician on the left should do more to acknowledge the fact that a lot of the people are feeling pinched economically. Not just at the bottom but also in the middle.
Acknowledging that economic inequality is a result of policies promoting winner take all outcomes would also be good.
Now, that sounds pretty hollow if this does not come with some policy to remedy this sad state of affairs. That's where liberal can demonstrate that people wellbeing is their priority and not the chase of economic power for a selected few.
Progressive taxation with higher marginal rates and a broader capture of "passive" revenues would be a good place to start. CEOs and execs are getting a lot of their pay in equity grants or options. I am sure they would never have that taxed at 70%...
Creating permanent tax incentives for hiring people instead of investing in software and robots would also send the message that may be business could be creative in how to grow by combining people and technology.
Strengthening safety nets would also be good, while people on the right are saying entrepreneurship is the key to grow the economic fabric of this country, the lack of affordable healthcare is a huge road block for people to start a business or take more risk with their professional development. It is also a big competitive disadvantage from a cost of doing business.
Finally sustainability investment is a great opportunity for people & the planet.
1
It is difficult to analyze why middle class families are so indebted. One explanation is that there is very little notion of saving for unforeseen emergencies, or even for predictable annual bills.
Certainly, large emergency medical expenses can be difficult, but many of these bills are not out of line with large purchases like SUVs and big vacations.
I hate to be the lecturing curmudgeon, but budgeting would help many of these families by building up a few months living expenses to fall back on. It would help immensely for them to avoid paying any credit card finance charges by paying off their bills in full every month.
I don’t propose that these measures will work for every situation, but I know enough people who manage to do this and they have a wide range of incomes. They do it by adjusting their discretionary purchases to match what is left after all necessary bills are paid.
Beyond that, if citizens are unhappy with the economic system, they can vote for those who will change it. However, complaining about not making ends meet, but not controlling spending and voting for fat cat politicians who promise to make capitalism work for non-capitalists is a failed strategy. If you want capitalism to work for you, you had better learn to be a capitalist yourself and collect your share.
4
Hallelujah! For years the Times's reporters and columnists have identified "populism" solely with rightwing bigots, xenophobes, and ignoramuses. So I can't tell you how refreshing to read Alissa Quart's words:
"And politicians should not turn their backs on populism. Although now it may be seen as the province of the xenophobic right, it was, in previous eras (the 1890s!), a crucial progressive inspiration within our country."
3
Human society must be designed to meet the needs of human beings.
Not massive centralised corporations manufacturing in far away places.
Not avaricious Amazon’s destroying Main Street businesses.
Not artificially intelligent entities that do not eat anything but the potential for real people to achieve their aspirations.
Not robots.
Not just the One Percent.
The narrow confines of corporate accounting standards do not see the costs of unsustainable environmental degradation; the impending disaster of human-induced climate change; the loss of dignity and aspiration of people whose lives are smashed downwards by globalisation and consolidation of manufacturing; the long term implications for humanity of the loss of economic power of free democratic countries.
The blinkers of a political system staffed by politicians who are pawns of the One Percent will never see the real world.
It is time to reassert rational representative democracy by getting big money out of the political system.
3
This is meaningless, unless you discuss JOBS -- good paying jobs with benefits -- which is what supported our American working class for generations.
The left gave away out jobs under the concept of their adored "globalization" -- so those good paying manufacturing jobs are now in China, India and Mexico. Ask the workers at CARRIER or REXNORD who lost $44K jobs to Mexican workers who earn $3 an hour.
The lefties here don't see this has happened to us again and again, and when we cry out to Democratic candidates, we get "THE JOBS ARE NEVER EVER COMING BACK" and "We're going to do away with your jobs! (but give you retraining as a $9 an hour home health aide)" or "you're a deplorable, so who cares?"
Ms. Quart here does not see how many jobs still IN the US are also lost to massive illegal immigration. The ENTIRE meatpacking industry turned over in less than 20 years from UNION AMERICAN WORKERS at good wages and with pensions to....100% illegal aliens, recruited openly by corrupt big companies and paid peanuts and no union. And the LEFT APPLAUDS THIS! because "the poor brown people deserve the jobs of mean old white people!"
The NEW lefty Democrats want open borders, abolish ICE, DACA and taking jobs from Americans and giving them to illegals. And Trump or not....Dems are not quavering from their hatred of the American working class.
8
@Concerned Citizen
"The left gave away out jobs under the concept of their adored 'globalization'"
Actually, both parties share the blame for the trade deals that decimated the middle class. Hence the success of populist appeals against "elites."
4
America's economy has changed significantly in the last generation and the types of jobs available to middle class Americans.
An article that shares 'job retraining' and other programs that help Americans obtain jobs that pay a living wage would be quite helpful.
The 'right jobs' is the heart of the problem and this should be solved rather than just focus on government benefits as Ms. Quart has done here. What are growing industries that have competitive advantages and pay higher wages would be a great question to start with? What industries are venture capitalists backing for the next 20 years would be another great question to answer and steer Americans to these industries?
3
It seems to before you can get the electorate to unify behind the very issues that plague them the most (affordable healthcare, affordable education, a living wage, etc.) there needs to be a clear articulation of the issues to help the majority of Americans truly understand what they're up against. For example, Elizabeth Rosenthal's book "An American Sickness, demonstrates affordable healthcare is not as much about insurance as it is runaway capitalism brought on by several profit driven forces that include but are not limited to big pharma, hospital conglomerates, lobbyists, insurers, and Congress. Likewise, much can be learned by delving deeply into present day capitalism and truly understanding how the system is undeniably rigged against the lower and middle classes. As such, the electorate will continue down it's death spiral until the necessary knowledge is gained in order to effectively unite.
4
I wish democrats would stop with the tendency to carve out a group of people who should have subsidies. Public college should be available tuition free for all, period! Healthcare subsidies should not only be for people making less than $65000 and so on. I think this is a massive mistake. In other western democracies, service isn't just for some. Every Danish citizen has access to services regardless of income, rich or poor. We need to start treating these issues as universal rights available to all.
Otherwise we just continue to perpetuate the us and them mentality, as supposed to foster an attitude of we are all in this together.
10
The applicable term here is "class consciousness." Wikipedia has a good definition:
"In political theory and particularly Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests."
Many people in this country who consider themselves middle class are not. They are working poor or near-poor, near-proletarians, people whose only significant source of income is their labor. They think they're middle class with iPhones and the wherewithal to buy gasoline and meat, but they lack the most important thing, which is economic security.
Marx was good at diagnosing and horrible at prescribing, so I'm not advocating socialism but rather a mixed economy with most production staying private. The US is very productive and excessive public ownership would threaten that. It is the distribution of resources rather than their means of production that has to get back into better balance.
Universal health insurance would help, as would stronger unions. More wage increases and less focus on stock gains would help regular people. Taxing high earners more would be a good idea.
I have no idea how to get from here to there given American politics. Citizens United, anyone?
13
"Let's keep our corporate taxes low to stimulate the private sector, but ask a bit more from the individual rich."
I think its been proven over and over that low corporate taxes only help the Corporations, not the citizens.
8
In his business transactions our president has had no scruples about using other people’s money to get out from under a debt burden. One wonders whether much of the money came from Russian oligarchs through the Bank of Cypress, but that’s another issue. The president is shameless in touting his wealth but he is no example for people stricken with serious debt. He hasn’t proposed any useful legislation to help them. Instead, he continues to stir anxiety among them with his claims of an “invasion” on our southern border. His party has also not done anything to help the vast majority of Americans facing serious financial burdens due to health, education, loss of employment, and other unexpected events. Nor have most members of Congress. They enjoy great personal wealth, premium health care coverage through the government’s health insurance program, retirement accounts, and access to other government programs that help them save money. How are they representative of the voters that sent them to Washington?
While our elected representatives and their families enjoy extensive retirement and health care benefits, many of them turn up their noses at proposals for universal health care for all Americans. Why should they have access to the best of care and deny any avenue to millions of Americans that have hardly any or even no access to basic health care?
8
There are no longer any comments about Social Security. It is so low and there are so many who are completely dependent on that meager income to survive. It appears to have been tinkered with as if they lowered the amount each year so it barely increases. I compare it to the amount and the increases I got when I was first on SS and it was far more back then. How are these people surviving. It's impossible. Or maybe they don't survive and no one notices when they die. After all they are OLD. Many forego decent food, visits to their doctors. certainly can't buy new clothes. A couple of years there was no increase at all but when I check the years inflation numbers there is always inflation they just tell us there was none or some crazy excuse that no one understands because it is not understandable.
I never dreamed I would spend my last year worrying all the time. It doesn't matter since no one notices except poor elderly people.
10
Red states with sparse populations have assured that the Senate will confirm additional conservative Supreme Court Justices. Republican supporters who want to see rulings against abortion and gay marriage will also see rulings that favor big business and big money over working-class and middle-class interests. They will see further reductions in workers' rights, in healthcare reform, and even voting rights. Go ahead and be angry, but the middle-class voters who put on red hats and elected Trump might as well have slit their own throats. Next time, vote your true economic interests.
6
I'm 'puzzled' why 'conservatives' are losing it over a proposed marginal 70% income tax rate. I thought conservatives were in favor of paying for benefits received? Isn't single payer healthcare supposed to be theft? In 2016 the top 1% held 39% of total American wealth and the top 10%, 77%. Even from that simplistic perspective how is it unfair that those holding 77% of the wealth should pay a 70% marginal rate to support the country that provided them that wealth? But it's much fairer than that. In 2015 total federal revenue was derived 47% from income tax, 34% payroll taxes (paid almost entirely paid by working middle class because of the cap). So for the 1% to be paying their share of the strictly economic benefits they've received from America (as defined by wealth they hold) they'd need to paying income tax at an effective rate (not a marginal rate) of 83% - 39% of the wealth / 47% of revenue that comes from income tax (because only 47% of revenue comes from income tax, and effectively the entire revenue contribution of the 1% is from income tax). Of course this completely ignores all the other benefits that disproportionately flow to wealthy Americans and corporations - unfair access to and preferential treatment in the courts, preferential access for their children to education and employment opportunities, preferential treatment by law enforcement, preferential access to mass media to publicize their worldview, etc.
5
There is a reason for the overwhelming emergence of change within our dysfunctional form of governance as the innocents enter the political arena to try and reclaim the voice of Americans in deciding what ‘they’ want from their representatives in government. Unfortunately, when meaningful legislation can be brought about in an atmosphere of divisiveness and hidden agenda’s behind some lawmakers purpose for entering into office, any change benefiting the American people directly is only incremental.
We have so many critical issues before us as a nation that time is no longer on the side of a culture in deep moral decline with long term sustainability as a race for that matter with the planet decaying around us, to continue to debating all that is wrong in America while adding no solutions how to begin mitigating the damage already done.
I don’t understand how people who are living day to day with no hope for meaningful changes in their own lives because those who have the capacity to focus on the health of the nation and well being of all Americans first and foremost but choose not to, don’t unite to demand change in government when it becomes ineffective to the means in which it was established to represent the needs of the all the people. The founders demanded of all citizens to demand change in government if it ever reached the dysfunctional state it is in today.
Once we unite as ‘one nation’ and demand change, the American people will prevail. call-lawmakers-out.com
4
I really appreciated this piece. In recent years, it seems like race/gender/identity issues have been at the forefront....with some very good outcomes. But what has fallen to the wayside is CLASS. And I think that's a major oversight.
Whether you're white, black, gay, straight, Midwestern, coastal, etc, etc, everyone basically needs the same things.......jobs, homes, food, health, education, safety. THAT is what unifies the middle class, and that is what the Democrats need to focus on.
There truly are many Americans teetering on the edge right now, including many who "did everything right." That needs to be acknowledged, with some creative solutions to match.
Personally, I'd love to see a WPA-style program that puts people to work improving our national infrastructure. Perhaps college is no longer the magic bullet and more resources need to be devoted to fostering the skilled tradesman of tomorrow?
The 1% may control most of the wealth but even THEY need functional toilets and a skilled plumber to make that happen.
8
In the 2016 election, The Con Don said that he would bring back good jobs. Bring back good coal jobs and manufacturing jobs. We could go back to the 1950's when people (mostly men) with high school educations could make good money in the coal mines, steel mills, auto plants, etc. Of course, anyone who knows what is going on knows that this is not happening. You can't go back. If we have a problem we have to deal with it going forward in to the future starting today.
Fast forward to the article today.
Beto O"Rourke "seems to understand the power of talking to people who think they've gotten a raw deal."
It says Beto understands that he needs to talk about their raw deal. It doesn't say that he knows how to help them.
The Con Don really does not know how to help the left behind and displaced and neither do other politicians.
A basic problem is that the economy is changing because of technology and the ease of communications and shipping. It is said that in the 1990's manufacturing jobs moved to Mexico; in the 2000's they moved to China. In recent years, the loss in manufacturing jobs has largely been due to automation/robots. And it is going to continue. Imagine what will happen when driverless trucks make their appearance.
What the government should do is:
1. Pursue policies which encourage everyone to get a good education and as much special training as they can.
2. Have programs to "tide" people over who are laid off.
4
@Aubrey Continued from above:
2. People are laided off and out of work need more help to get them back on their feet.
3. Pursue an infrastructure program because it is sorely needed and would help with some of the unemployed people in construction.
4. Construct a rational health care system. Why can't the richest country on earth have a rational, reasonably price health care system. A leading cause of bankruptcy for middle class families is medical bills.
5. Make the tax system fairer. Use increased revenues to support the items (1-4) mentioned above.
But there is not an easy solution to the effects of the changing economy. Many people with good jobs live basically pay check to pay check. Politicians of both parties will promise solutions but I am not sure that there are any which will solve all problems.
The republicans will still use the old tried and true playbook of racial/cultural/religious antagonism to distract and divide. That has been used for a hundred years or more in the South and is still effective. The Con Don has taken it nation wide.
1
Funny how conservatives yearn for the good old days (1950's) yet the policies back then that enabled the good life for most involved taxing the rich and big corporations. Now despite all the show casing by the master showman, he gives tax breaks to the rich, corporations, aggressively dismantles regulations that benefit most people and figures the little people can fend for themselves. These are cynical policies and yet those most affected by them don't see that and blame themselves? Blame yourself only if you voted for candidates who do not have your best interests at heart and you are unwilling to make changes to your life because doing so would be uncomfortable and inconvenient.
6
Interesting, and sad, that people blame them selves for their financial woes. I’m sure there are examples where this is true, that they have been irresponsible or whatever.
But let’s face it, the last tax cut overwhelmingly favored business and the already wealthy. A LOT of middle and lower class Americans are going to discover that reality when they file their tax returns for 2018. And I should know, I’m one of them. We moved across country this year to retire and our moving expenses were around $19k. That would have been deductible last year. No more.
I think Beto O’Rourke is currently the candidate best positioned to take this message to the people. Elizabeth Warren comes across as aloof and elite and Bernie, God bless him, is simply too old.
We need a youthful face back in the WH, similar to the youthful faces in the new House, similar to JFK in 1960. This freshman class of representatives won by focusing on the pain their middle and lower class constituents feel. Affordable healthcare was the top priority, by a significant margin over border security and immigration.
As long as Trump continues to sow baseless and unimportant immigration fear, rather than issues that citizens feel viscerally, the Dems have a very clear path to success in 2020.
How they deliver in this Congress will be key. A lot of people in pain are watching.
8
Fascinating how little is being reported in Western media about the Gilets Jaune protests in Europe and how even with Macron cracking down, they have come back having just used a forklift to crack into some governmental offices. Could the Elites be a bit worried in America that it will begin here?
8
Too many politicians loot government at every opportunity which means much of the country's wealth never benefits the populace. From town councils who authorize land rezonings increasing density w/o offsetting fees to pay for infrastructure and schools, to defense contractors who cycle in and out of gov and know how to "play the system". Looting is America's plague.
Of course, the most egregious and wasteful recent examples come from Trump. His frequent golf trips cost $3.3 mill for the use of Air Force One.
When I-10 was laid out 30 years ago, developers bought land near the intersections in advance because they controlled the politicians who laid out the route. Their profits were guaranteed and the states overpaid for every square mile of highway construction.
The most important change America needs is an independent agency that oversees applicants for gov decision making jobs, publishes their background & tax returns, demands qualifications & experience, and roots out the looters.
7
I enjoyed reading these comments, all of them heartfelt , and some painful. It seems like a Democratic candidate reading them has a well thought-out agenda for a campaign.
8
Paid parental leave is supported by 80% of Americans according to another piece in the NYT.
Perhaps that could be added to the list of a vote-seeking candidate's proposals, along with a plan on how to achieve it, of course (look to the many nations which offer such leave, including here in New Zealand, for ideas).
3
I was born in socialized housing in Scotland. My neighbors eventually bought their houses from the local council. Scotland still has public housing with a path to ownership . There is one public housing building in my neighborhood and dozens of homeless people on our sidewalks. I ill back a 2020 candidate who commits to safe affordable housing for all.
11
An old business adage: Advertising doesn't cost. It pays.
The corollary for America is: Investing in the education and health of our fellow countrymen doesn't cost; it pays.
There is no clearer example than the benefits America reaped from the GI Bill following WWII. GI's going to school received a stipend that paid for, in those days, tuition and books with enough left over to cover rent and food for a family. In my father's case that included Mom, myself and a baby sister, who became afflicted with polio while Dad was still in school. Sis came through it with no visible disablement, and Dad graduated with a degree in agricultural engineering...and no debt.
19
I grew up during the 60's and 70's with middle class parents who took vacations and had lots of disposable income on only my Dad's salary. However, I somehow decided to have a frugal life and save money and not buy things I didn't absolutely need. My siblings got into buying real estate and cars and went on luxury vacations but somehow I was different. Funny thing is that in the end, I'm the one who feels most secure financially because I've always lived with little. Nothing has changed for me. My siblings all have anxiety and insecurity. Oh well, I'm glad I don't have those problems at the end of my life.
11
I hope you budgeted for the medical help you will need to reconstruct that arm that has been so vigorously patting yourself on the back.
4
I am a 60 year old woman with a master's degree and was laid off by a large corporation--soon after I achieved success in creating order out of chaos in the division where I worked and building exactly the systems and processes they needed. Now, the company and its male and younger female employees are using what I built and I've been put out to pasture. No promotion for me.
Unemployment and rainy-day savings have run out, Cobra health insurance is too expensive, so I will have to go on Medicaid soon. I get almost no job interviews. I can see that recruiters are looking at my profile. I can only surmise they are passing me by because of my age, since my experience and track record are exactly what are called for in the job descriptions.
My daughter is chronically ill, so all college money saved will go to treatment. When it runs out, she'd better be cured or she won't have a way to make a living and I won't be able to support her unless I have a job. She's not likely to be able to help me financially in my old age.
I live in a tiny house and could move to a rural area of CT or to the Midwest, to a place where I know no one.
At this point, I'd rather be dead than journey into old age.
Thank you, New York Times, for reporting on this. Let's hear others' personal stories.
Maybe this is a "Me Too" moment for the middle class.
#MeTooMiddle
27
@Irene
I moved from West Coast to Midwest. My husband is NYC native. We have not a single relative in Midwest. We find people in the Midwest very welcoming. And there is plenty of culture if you plan the move. Cost of living very, very reasonable!
Become a volunteer at a local museum and for the local symphony, and you will soon have plenty of new friends who are culturally involved.
This probably is true for smaller, less expensive communities in Connecticut, too. If you are a member of a religious congregation, that also will link you to your new community. And schools always need good tutors.
Involvement in you new community will keep you young, too!
7
Frankly, wage-earners have gotten a raw deal with all Republican policies for decades. Trump even tapped some of that. However, the lack of understanding of how the raw deal happens, and the failure to realize the unlikelihood that any Republican, let alone Trump, would actually fix it is at the root of the significant irony represented by Trump's belligerent (non-wealthy) base. Trump's policies have hurt that base even more than long-term policies, and with direct, obvious impact... for example the results on trade wars on farmers. But there is more than that. Republican policies advantage the class that has money-making-money. Those policies have never been about the wage earner. The tacit policy to privatize profit while socializing risk is the most insidious, with only the variations of "trickle down" as a near competitor.
9
“...privatize profit and socialize risk...”. Wow. Very well said.
What puzzles me is why people keep voting for a GOP that makes these conditions reality.
Change comes slowly, but change is coming. I’m encouraged by the recent blue wave - now those elected officials have to get to work for us.
4
I'm one of the "well off" Americans, and yet I feel concern about money, wondering when I can retire and how my old age will go.
I earned a PhD in engineering, have worked continuously all the years since for a good salary, and am beyond normal retirement age now. Yet I haven't retired and don't feel secure about old age. The reasons for this are
1. Getting a PhD took away a lot of years of early earning.
2. a defined-contribution (rather than real pension) retirement
3. an unfortunate divorce
4. I paid my kid's way through college
I think most Americans would see me as fortunate, and I know that this is objectively so ... but a life of highly-skilled work and prudence is leaving me to retire later, and with less, than most guys working any unionized factory job got until the middle class was destroyed.
I'm sure that at least 80% of Americans are less well off than I am, and for most of them it's not just unease or worry; it's somewhere between quiet desperation and disaster.
What I cannot understand I why so many of them vote to make the rich richer.
38
They vote to make the rich richer because the other party cares too much about Those People.
3
I am also plagued by the guilt that I and my husband made bad decisions along the way to Social Security dependence. And we did. We decided to put our children's care. mental, emotional and physical development and education first. We did not want strangers in daycare centers raising them. We did not want them coming home after school to an empty house and locking themselves in. We wanted to know where they were and who they were with when they were teenagers. I wanted to be available to transport them to enriching after-school activities. My sporadic, work-for-pay for about 20 years was low-wage and mostly part-time or temp with no benefits of any kind, which means my Social Security check now is pitiful. My child-rearing work didn't count. Along the way, our son got Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes, my husband had a heart attack and lost his job at age 62. the stock market crash of 2008 decimated our retirement investments, and what we have left in the bank pays less than 1% interest. My husband works four days a week at age 73 at a stressful job he hates and we are lucky to have it. But how can I blame "the system" when most of our friends did everything "right"? They stayed on two-earner career tracks, worked extra hours, advanced, never got laid off, never had heart attacks or seriously ill children, now live comfortably on pensions and savings and their kids turned out as fine as ours did. "The system" works if you work it right -- and get lucky.
18
@abigail49 - As a single mom, I had to rely on "strangers in day care" to help me in the pre-kindergarten years and after school. Those "strangers" became good friends who really cared about the children. They were trained and experienced early childhood educators who knew how to make learning and fun co-exist happily. I realize I was fortunate and lucky to get my kid a spot.
Day care has been unfairly demonized. In countries like France it is an expected experience like grade school. A country has to realize that it's a good thing before it becomes part of being a citizen - like universal health care.
Studies show that if you take time out of the work force to raise kids, you never make it up in pension, experience or promotions. Studies also show that when done properly, day care kids are more self-confident and self reliant.
Because I divorced, I didn't have a choice about day care for my son. In retrospect, although at the time I secretly envied my friends who did stay home with their young children, in the long run, it worked out better for both me and my kid.
7
@abigail49 Yes, the system works if you're lucky. But I think people have to acknowledge the luck factor. We need to get over the view that anyone who is poor is lazy or undeserving somehow -- that is a view espoused endlessly by Republicans for decades now.
5
Part of the problem with the so-called middle class shows up really only in the comments - the notion that a college education provides a middle class lifestyle. It seems everyone has been sold this bill of goods.
This also seems to devalue the trades - which if the decline of shop classes in high schools is any indication this is really true. This is crazy talk to me as I see that the plumber has the nicest house on the street and the waitlist for the mason was worse than the dermatologist!
Where is the support for our skilled tradesmen and women?
One reason college diplomas are less valuable today is that everyone and their brother has one... employers have responded by requiring a bachelor's for work that only required a high school diploma in the past.
This notion that college attendance is the only path upward has got to go - it isn't true, not everyone is cut out for it, college has a high cost and opportunity cost, and the trades deserve more respect.
28
@S
Yep, and it will only get worse as white-collar middle-management jobs get replaced by AI. All these displaced managers will be competing with each other for jobs that on paper, they are "overqualified." Yet they can't really perform these jobs because they've never actually done anything, they've only managed those who do.
4
@ S
Yes, I'm with you, and apparently the brainwashing began long ago--the plight of the 60 year old Ms. Womack this article starts with attests to that.
It peeves me when pundits ask, well, don't you want a college education for your kids? Then why would you deny other families the same?
The only reason we want a college education for them is because we've swallowed the fearmongering hype about the necessity of a college education. The reality is that there are so many college degrees out there that you can't get a barista job without one, and don't forget that history of entrepreneurship that should be on your resume!
We're desperately hoping our kids won't end up like that, paying off student loans with low-paying jobs. Sure, many do well, but many struggle as well.
Trades absolutely deserve more respect. High schools are too strapped to fund shop classes so they are the first to go with our manic attention on academics. I'd like to see state-funded community colleges that focus on trades. Along with providing some useful courses, it will give everyone some breathing room to figure out if four years of college really is a good choice.
Finally, we need workers' coops or unions or something to represent our working class. Educated or not, too many end up with incomes too low to live on. We need to restore dignity to blue collar work.
6
Say so white? Yes, its true that structural economic hierarchies bar entry to most Americans, a fact that leads to real economic anxiety within a certain class of people. That is half the problem. The other half is the notion of people like this author, who in the name of economic equality and dispensing with the shame of faultless economic failure, seek to obscure salient facts by ignoring them. Exhibit A: This age has only just "now" become a "savage society". If there was ever a whooping call from the tower of racist-complicit white myopia, here it is. For this author and her interviewees, this age is indeed a new savage society - because it is new to them. The concept of a middle class eaten out by the top is only salient now because it is salient to them. Never mind that in the past, the same exact people were completely comfortable with economic degradation for everyone else. Never mind that they felt jolted to rage when degradation came for them. Never mind that they feel an absolute right to rage and the political destruction their rage is causing. Never mind that when push came to shove, that raging white middle class elected, by unquestionable majority, to push minorities further into economic disaster (not anxiety of disaster but actual disaster). What's important to people like this isn't the redress of wrongs perpetrated against economic equality: it's the protection of their privileges.
7
This situation provides an opportunity for the Democratic Party, but not for the Republicans. Democrats actually were at one point the "party of the people", until the party was hijacked by the likes of the Clintons and Barack Obama. With the current crop of freshmen to the House, the Democrats can possibly return to their roots.
To do so, however, the party must absolutely get rid of its corporate-centrist wing. Centrism led the party to its current situation. It's time to remember that the country has been pulled so far to the right in the last forty years that ideas that now seem radically far left were once in the center. When Rep. Ocasio-Cortez calls for a 70% tax on the wealthiest among us, that's still less than they were taxed during the Eisenhower years.
I'm looking for Democrats who embrace labor and stand up for unions, who embrace public education and oppose unregulated corporate charters, and who unashamedly promote government as a power for good in people's lives. They will get my money, my time, and my vote.
9
Bingo! Agree fully. One quibble, though: although Democrats need to re-embrace labor and unions, why do so many union men and women vote republican??? As corporate and as centrist as the Democrats have become, why do union men and women believe that the republican party is the answer to all their problems? Could it be that racism and bigotry in general plays and substantial role in their choice at the ballot box?
4
@JMN
I think you are, unfortunately, on to something, and that racism and bigotry are more powerful than I realized.
Honestly, JMN, at this point I don't understand how anyone - especially a woman - could vote Republican.
1
If the Democrats start to focus more on Americans than foreign nationals trying to illegally migrate to the US, maybe they will win in 2020. Americans want both affordable health care and border security, i.e., which includes a wall and other barriers to stop mass illegal immigration.
The Democrats have a tremendous blind regarding immigration. It reduces wages for Americans because of the simple law of supply and demand. Illegal immigration reduces wages for low wage jobs and even legal immigration e.g.H1B visas reduces wages for white collar work.
As the 3rd most populous country in the world, with a population of 327 M people, the US does not need more people.
The Democrats should follow the advice of Barbara Jordan, who perfectly understood this, and dropped their opposition to Trump's wall. If so, they will probably get back in power and then when they could fight again for affordable health care.
11
Facts just continue to get in the way of these wall fanciers. Most illegal immigrants are here because they overstay visas, not because they slipped over-the border during the night.
As an aside, I’d bet dollars to donuts, in the event a wall does get funded, trump cronies will reap an orgy of grotesquely inflated contacts to build it.
2
@Philly Democrats also want legal immigration. We are against the harsh rhetoric and wanton cruelty of the current administration. This country can find effective and less punitive ways to manage immigration if we decide we wish to do so.
@Philly
Agree completely. And, they should drop the nonsense that being a white male, especially older than 50, means being an enemy, one who is supposed to shut up and accept as penance whatever drivel the left hurls at him. We're not yet claiming "victim" status, but we are fighting back.
Stop positing that being a female, gay, POC or transgender supplies some special moral gravitas and you'd be surprised how many white men will join you. After all, white men were the backbone of the New Deal.
4
I think it's bit unfair to suggest that Bernie Sanders or Beto O'Rourke or Elizabeth Warren or any candidate proposing Medicare for all should adjust, or has adjusted, their message just to get votes from the pundit-defined "middle class." Can't some candidates actually think in terms of what is best for the country, not just how to get votes? The latest polls show substantial majorities for Medicare for all. If all of those millions of people, who lack the motive of running for office, make this assessment, we can at least give actual candidates credit for seeing the clear benefits of Medicare for all rather than assume they just want votes.
6
The only thing I want to say to some of these comments, is the proposed 70% tax is after the first $10,000,000. I don't think it is too much to ask for someone making well over $10M a year to pay back to the country that has allowed them to become rich, sometimes by paying tax lawyers to circumvent taxes.
23
Good point.
Ms. Quart, there are plenty of places to live around DC where Ms. Ocasio-Cortez could live before her paycheck. It's a question of expectation.
1
How do you know whether or not she could afford to do that? In NYC, where I am from (as is she) you have to put down 3 months to move in anywhere: why do that when you are going to have to move again once Congress is in session, assuming you have had to pick a first apartment further away for financial reasons. That would be a flagrant waste of time and money. I have moved many times and know whereof I speak.
5
Don't forget high grocery prices. My wife - who was a single mother of four - tells me that $100 won't buy you much at Walmart and other supermarkets anymore. For instance, she said that the cost of eggs has doubled or tripled during the last six months. (Curiously, the NYT and other publications really haven't covered this issue.) I don't know what the answer is - I remember that Nixon proposed wage-and-price controls when I was little - but I hope that the Democratic candidates running for President will address this issue in the primaries.
3
Wage and price controls lead to the disastrous inflation of the 1970’s that was only resolved by the ultra high interest rates of the early 1980’s. We are on enough of an economic roller coaster without having to re-enact those very stressful times.
This is a well argued and useful piece. I have only one serious criticism to make:
"...what the electorate doesn’t need to hear are Horatio Alger stories of how candidates worked their way up from humble origins, with the implied moral that anyone can make it in America with enough hard work."
This is wrong!
The argument to make is that success requires both hard work AND structural characteristics of the society and economy conducive to upward mobility. The message that should be conveyed is: "I made it through HARD WORK in a society in which affordable education, housing, and healthcare, and availability of well paying jobs with benefits, protected by an effective union. What's missing today is NOT the hard work but the societal characteristics in which this work can pay off. Let's change that!"
12
Ms Quart is right on the money. In every sense of the phrase. Excellent piece.
3
Sounds very much like a playbook for how to coopt progressive issues with the main intention of getting votes while not really planning to do anything about the issues.
7
Religion can also amplify the feeling of inadequacy. Many Christian religions emphasize “hell and damnation,” which means that people must sort of despise themselves. I’ve seen this in evangelical religious services. Not surprising that Trump appeals to evangelicals despite his personal sinfulness. He offers them salvation in a hostile world because they have so little faith in themselves. He’s got the sway of a minister.
3
Maybe, just maybe, our problems are a combination of special interest crony capitilism, the tech tevolution, and our lower productivity in the world. Maybe the american worker needs a level playing field, cheap and available health care and education as well as the realization that we need to work betterand harder. Other cultures don't have the "entitlement" victim thing worked into their cultural fabric as deeply as we do. So,a combination of a level playing field and more self effort would get us where we need to go and maybe it won't be "richer" than what we have but then again all of the "stuff" we have hasn't exactly made us happier.
7
Thirty years ago CEO of the company made 30 times what a line worker makes. Today, a CEO makes 300 times that or more, and a massive Trump tax cut ensures they are not repaying society for the services that they were surrounded with as they were accumulating and hoarding their wealth.
Another commenter made a wise recommendation: explain to the wealthy what they receive by providing a pathway to middle and upper middle class earnings, and policies to protect that thriving middle class. A few things come to mind, in no particular order, and I freely mix selfish with selfless motivations:
- in a restaurant, grocery store or coffee house, do you want the person helping you to have a communicable illness that they can't afford to see a doctor for?
- middle income people spend far more of their disposable income, pumping money into the economy for real GDP growth, instead of hoarding deficit-exploding tax cuts in offshore accounts and inflating the economy like a giant poppable bubble
- an educated populace contributes to future sustainable economic growth, while an uneducated populace drives up crime (and social service expenses), creating a dangerous, unpleasant living environment. GOP gutting of public schools is fiscally shortsighted and ignorant
The long and short of it is that the wealthy, and the politicians they buy, need to see themselves as stewards, not masters, of the universe.
11
There is so much here that is refreshing to read. I just want to add a little bit more on the subject of an urban/rural issue.
DEMs have become a party of the big cities and the GOP represents the countryside. This is very evident when you look at maps showing voting by county or precinct.
DEMs strength is growing in urban areas because they have successful strategies for cities. They have succeeded in growing the wealth as our economy gradually divests itself of agriculture and mineral extraction.
The GOP has had most success in attracting the disaffected middle class in rural areas and small towns. This is due to an essential failing on the part of DEMs.
DEMs must find ways to spread the wealth from the cities into the countryside. They must search for policies that enable this growth to help those in small towns and rural areas. If they can solve this issue in states like California, Oregon and Washington, where they effectively total control and very successful urban areas, if they can find ways to use the wealth of Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, to help the small towns and the countryside, they can consolidate their gains and provide an example to DEMs in other parts of the country.
5
A tactic that emphasize inherent solutions that government reforms will supply can persuade the "precariat" to vote their interest without igniting the shame/anxiety inherent in their situation.
Country wide portability of health insurance opens many possibilities by moving where jobs are, where family can help and other support systems exist. Currently many people are stuck in a venue and holding on to a-problematic job because of insurance. The same consideration operates for retirement plans. The non-portability of retirement benefits prevents people from moving to a more ideal location as waits to be vested or later contribution/benefits are substantially more.
Licensing requirements by a state to practice a profession are often varied without reciprocity that prevent moving around. Many of these impediments have nothing to do with competency and only limit competition by restricting entry to "The Guild".
People in the higher socio-economic scale can navigate a change in venue better without taking a hit. Universal health care, retirement portability and job eligibility can serve as a positive dog whistle" for a large slice of the population just as Nixon/ Lee Atwater used it pejoratively to change the South to the GOP in 1968.
The Precariat need to see the silver lining of the Progressive agenda.
5
One conclusion that could be drawn from this article is that Democrats talking about “white privilege” is going to be a losing strategy with these voters. Telling someone barely getting by that what little they have achieved is because of the color of their skin is not likely to resonate well. This may sound logical to minority voters and rich progressives, but it is hard to see a successful coalition made up this voting group. Non-Hispanic white people still make up around 60 percent of Democratic voters and many of them are struggling. I suspect this approach to white voters is one of the reasons that Hillary lost so many white middle class and working class voters that twice supported Obama (it didn’t go over well when she insisted that they recognize their white privilege).
12
For sure, these people have gotten a raw deal, but you know, let's also take some responsibility. If you voted for a con man because he pushed your xenophobic buttons, well then, a little introspection is in order.
AOC is on the right track. (See Krugman's latest). Soaking the rich to pay for health care and expanded education opportunities is the correct policy. That's what will restore dignity to the millions who have been stripped of it. Just remember: the last time we had a budget surplus was in the 90's when the disastrous Reagan tax cuts were partly rolled back. The states that went full-bore supply side are flirting with bankruptcy. The facts of the matter are clear. Will the shamed white middle class move beyond their prejudices to accept the truth? Our democracy depends on it.
7
There are several issues here to consider.
Did they receive degrees and skills that command a decent salary in the job market?
Did they live within their means?
Did they think long term?
Did they support Unions that could offer some job security and worker rights?
Did they vote their real economic interests or did they vote for some other reason that served the upper 1% of society?
Too many of us lack a financial education before it is too late.
8
When I read this I became angry. The Republican Party is totally responsible for the plight of the middle class, aided and abbeted by Fox News and an uninformed electorate who keep voting against their own self interest. Why put people in office who are bent on erasing your heath care, Cutting your Social Security, destroying your unions, and killing programs that boost opportunities for a reasonably-priced education? Isn’t it time that those in the South and Mid-West acknowledge that they have been mislead by a party that continues to project themselves as the last bastion against all those who are not “like Us”?
10
That people's lives are manipulated beyond their knowledge or control goes back well more than 50, 100, or even 1,000 years.
Some might remember the novels they read in school by Charles Dickens that spoke to the living conditions of the time where people's lives are manipulated by others.
Even going back to the early gods that controlled and held the fates of man demonstrated the people were held by greater powers.
Of course giving up to the fates means feeling helpless and that work or change are worthless. But that idea that forces aren't working against you is not being paranoid.
There are too many of who remember a time when the wages received for work was enough to maintain a middle class life style. And it took only one wage to do so.
12
Let's be straight most voters are just stupid when it comes to economics. That's why these hurt middle class vote republican. They believe that democrats will raise their taxes and the programs democrats propose are too costly. So vote republican and give them a taxes cut and the rich will give them a job or a raise. They done ever know there on Obama Care when they get expanded Medicaid or a supplement. Really they don't.
5
The Middle Class never got a “raw deal.” They simply never took the boom years seriously and prepared for a lean future. Like the fable the Ant and the Grasshopper, it’s such a basic concept. But the “poorly educated” that Trump so “loves” just never apply themselves academically. They don’t read, and certainly don’t learn from history. No raw deal, just childish spending like fools. Like the grasshopper, we are simply reaping what we’ve sown.
8
@Victor
One thing you will never, ever hear from a democrats' mouth is that they are personally responsible. Their plight will be blamed on everything from identity to climate change. Never themselves.
1
One factor not mentioned is the residue of Calvinism, also called the Protestant Work Ethic, which continues to haunt the US - the idea that wealth is an outward sign of God's favor, and that being poor means you are not part of God's elect and deserve your poverty. Its current-day descendant is the Propserity Gospel, a perversion that allows its practitioners to refuse to help people escape poverty because "that would be against the will of God."
14
My wife and I scrimped and saved. Didn't buy new cars. Ate at home. Almost never bought new clothes. We watched movies we could get from the public library and did have cable TV. All so we could send our daughter to a state college and not have her saddle with debt when she graduated.
Now we are the fools?
We should have spent our way into debt on every eager impulse. Had my daughter borrow the whole nut to go to college because that debt would be "forgiven."
Now we are the fools.
8
@Smoke'em If U Got'em
Student debt is only rarely, very rarely, forgiven.
1
@Smoke'em If U Got'em You were wise. But it's not a zero sum game. The poverty of others does nothing to benefit you personally. For example, are you planning on selling your house one day, perhaps to a millennial? Wouldn't you want to promote policies that makes that possible?
2
No wise nation cannibalizes it’s own middle class.
15
The first step toward analysis and solution is to stop referring to middle-income people as “middle-class.” I would resent you referring to our new “lower-income” status as “lower-class.”
The term “middle-income” was created by economists to allow the extreme wealth of the "one-percenters" to be considered as “outliers.” To include their income in the curve would make the rest of us all “lower-class.”
Our only measurable “shame” is that some of us former middle-income people didn’t get a real shot at being “middle-class.”
3
Americans are addicted to guns, opioids, and clearly anger, frustration, and resentment. And the politicians are feeding their addictions.
9
There is so much today about this topic. And yes, these are the folks that voted for the disaster in the White House! And what did they gain?! Their healthcare through the ACA was cut, their portion of the national debt has .....tripled, so the wealthiest Americans can have their tax breaks! The GOP-Tax-Scam did not “trickle down” to Middle nor Working class Americans who have not seen wage increases in years. Check out the difference between what CEOs earn today compared to what they earned in 1960! It will shock you!
We are retired Baby Boomers, upper-middle-Class, we didn’t take fancy vacations. Nor go out to eat frequently, our four children did attend eight years of Catholic education and state college for all. We learned NOT to live with DEBT! This is a huge problem that was not address in the article. Yes, there are disasters that happen in life but majority of Baby Boomers did not know how to manage their finances!
Please stop creating victims! Majority of Trump voters bought his lies, voted against their own best interests and....many bought the lie that a “successful” businessman could lead! Don’t forget the racists who embraced his racism!
7
"Middle-class and poor voters have more in common with one another than they do with the economic ultra-elite."
Purloined from the fictional Jay Bulworth put it more bluntly, if less artfully, when he said "White people got more in common with colored people than with rich people."
And until poor and working class white people get it, ain't nothin' gonna change.
3
" . . . what I have called the “middle precariat” vote — or what could be called the anxiety vote — gave us this president, and now it has also given us a Democratic House."
You must not have gotten the memo saying it was primarily racism that gave us this president.
3
On the evening of April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was looking forward to dinner from the balcony outside of his room. The single gunshot that ended his life doomed the Poor People's Campaign in Washington. D.C. planned for that summer.
Dr. King's last "dream" was to unite the black and white working and middle-class along common socioeconomic educational class lines instead of dividing them across color aka race aka ethnicity aka national origin caste lines.
7
Both parties choose a narrative of aggrievement. Trump's white lower middle class supports target redistribution of wealth and access to minorities and immigrants, Progressives target being white, being successful, being male as the reasons for black and (partially) Latino and union lower middle class white aggrievement. Asians are ignored because they dont fit the narrative and within a decade neither will a majority of Latinos. Progressives blame high rates of crime committed by Blacks on white social injustice. Trumpites blame Latinos criminals despite all the evidence to the contrary. Asians are absolved since their crime rate is 1/3 that of whites. The truth is that opportunity and success can't be outsourced. Identity politics of aggrievement from both sides ignores personal responsibility and places all blame on others. Though not in fashion anymore, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and even Bush shared a far more centrist, lead through inspiration, lead through fair government programs, balance the portfolio across whites, blacks, hispanics,etc. Tax fairly but dont blame people who are successful for their success. Encourage entrepreneurship not socialism, and Business is a force of good but punish those that do evil.
3
Middle class America will trash the party of the super rich and the treasonous Russian-elected president Donald J. Trump's Republican party and Trump himself.
1
I hope The NY Times will make it a series feature to cover the plight of actual middle class families suffering during the economic shutdown, and also struggling even after that with healthcare costs, education costs, and housing insecurity.
I did wince that this story several times called such families “ Self loathing”. Is that actually accurate as a label? Or are they instead feeling guilt, shame, anxiety?
We don’t consider people who have “survivors guilt” to be “self loathing”. So why in the world pin this type of generalization on these over stressed families?
5
Yes. And yes. My silence will not protect me. Entitlement-schmtitlement. Either we admit this "get educated, work hard" is a myth - and yes, I gulp hard and still don't believe it - or do something. Like what? Well, Denis, has an interesting idea. Cui bono?
1
Ignorance and racism is destroying America from within. I just returned from the supermarket where my cashier told me the shut down was the democrats fault because they hate Trump and don’t want him to be successful. I told her the wall won’t stop people from claiming asylum, won’t stop tractor trailers filled with migrants and won’t stop our president from hiring a dozens of undocumented persons from working at his golf clubs. She didn’t care about any of that because she truly believes it is the democrats fault as she slammed all of my groceries around.
8
What I find striking about this article (and many others like it) is that fact that the concrete proposals and programs that would actually help these people almost always come from the Democrats.
What's this article mention? Free college tuition (from Dem Gov Cuomo), and Medicare for All (i.e. universal healthcare, a liberal rallying cry).
Why is it that most of the time, people in articles like these mostly come from from Red states, and mostly vote for Republicans? (The NYTimes has recently run at least three similar articles about Harland KY, and a town in OH, lack of clinics in rural Midwest, etc.).
Why do these people keep voting against their own self-interest?
Is it that they care more about carrying a gun, about controlling other people's access to abortion, about preventing GLBT people from marrying, etc., than they care about their economic security?
Is it that they're brainwashed by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the erst of the Rightwing Media Cabal?
Is it because they're not critical thinkers, and will accept easy snake-oil solutions rather than actual solutions (which require higher taxes)?
Is it because they're unconsciously xenophobic and prejudiced against all the people of color and Jews who live in coastal Blue states?
I'll never figure out these people.
However, one thing's for sure: Our two-party system of offering them only Dems vs Reps isn't working! We need a viable three or four party system, to break the logjam.
2
"... gotten a raw deal..." by whom? Who...
.......... shipped jobs overseas for greater profit?
.......... stopped/flattened salaries for the last two decades?
.......... turned careers with benefits into part-time low pay widgets?
........... never held the perpetrators of the "great recession" accountable?
.......... continue to give away tax breaks & corporation welfare funded by debt that the middle class & poor will continue to pay for generations?
I don't see any poor or immigrants in those board or Senate seats.
5
The white women voters love him. He reminds them of the hopes and dreams they had for their husbands and boyfriends.
2
@Johnny dangerous
Trump's critics just keep getting it wrong.
1
Those voters who are uneducated, racist, ignorant, and too lazy to think for themselves elect the politicians who work with and for only the one-percent, will remain on their treadmills, where the rich need them to be.
1
If the injustices of the middle class are to be rectified, one immediately eliminates the Republican Party from the equation whom, ultimately, have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, they are only interested in lining the pockets of their wealthy associates and corporate donors while emptying the treasury in the process. Also, providing TRILLION AND A HALF DOLLAR tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy who mainly just buy back their own shares along with their gradual evisceration of healthcare and the environment which will create even more sickness, just confirms the point even further.
The democratic party must get back to their roots much like FDR did during the depression when, even being an elite, he realized that ignoring the destruction of the middle class during that period would ultimately be a disaster for the country and economy and it was quite clear private industry was not willing to rectify the problem, hence government had to assume a greater role.
For starters, the priorities should almost immediately begin with reversing of the tax cut, greatly improving healthcare, implementing training programs for displaced workers, commence infrastructure programs which will provide many new jobs and stop spending trillions every year on never ending wars around the world which altogether has created the largest deficit in America's history.
I think it is quite clear the vast majority of Americans are tired of corporate welfare done always at their expense.
5
The subhead asks, "Who can appeal to the people who feel the most like they’ve gotten a raw deal?"
One thing is for sure: It's unlikely to be the GOP after the Trump recession hits and as the travesty of the GOP "welfare for the rich" tax cut becomes clearer.
1
Yet another article that tries to gloss over the importance of personal responsibility one's state of affairs.
Millions of Americans are in a precarious state because they had been sold a bill of goods by politicians of all stripes. Buying into this was, and still is, a personal decision.
These types of foundational changes in societies have been going on for, literally, centuries. In a way it's history repeating itself. As the saying SOSDD.
Each time these painful personal lesson's are re-learned they then get lost in just a generation or two. In the interim the electorate looks to vote themselves the lifestyle they want, not what they can afford.
In spite of what politicians say they cannot fix anything.
2
@Mark
Did anyone tell the young man joining the union at the steel mill or auto factory in 1980 that national policy would make his skills obsolete in 30 years?
Did anyone tell the young man joining a bank in 1980 that national policy would lead to the financialization of the economy, or that the Internet would deliver dividends to his career choice beyond his imagination? Did he know there would be an Internet?
Millions of Americans are in a precarious financial state not because they were sold a bill of goods, but because 1) they could not predict the future and 2) no one was looking out for them. The country hasn't passed major social legislation on the scale of Medicare since, well, since Medicare, in 1968.
Politicians can do something about it. They do, in other countries. They used to in this country. They could again, once people realize that the fight is on between organized people and organized money. Money had a head start, and never loses interest in the fight. But voters don't have to listen, and can make politicians listen.
6
@Mark
No? Tell that to those out of work employees during the depression(and 2008) caused by a greedy private sector whom even after they created the problem, chose to not take responsibility for it, ultimately, requiring FDR and his government to actually do something about it.
If you start electing politicians whom are unencumbered by the burden of having to answer primarily to their corporate masters, they can actually fix a great deal.
3
tRump's nostalgia for the good old days, the 1950s, had a top tax rate of 90% on the rich. Seems like a way to pay for medicare for all and free tuition.
2
Excellent piece up until the last sentence: "...maybe the people we elect can express our pain for us instead, so we wouldn’t have to."
While it might be helpful for representatives to express your pain, as soon as you stop expressing your pain, they will forget all about it.
We the People have the right and he RESPONSIBILITY to hold our representatives accountable, regularly, not just every two or for years.
Everyone working on as issue that means something to them a free hours every week would make government.and everything else, work much better.
1
Well duh. Its not even that Bernie or Warren are the best progressive picks, its that progressives speak to this and the centrist dems come off as wall street hacks.
As for the only solutions to student loans in this article being making bankruptcy easier or debt forgiveness, really? There are so many better ideas such as Warren's to let students consolidate to 1% rates and locking all student loans at that rate since the government shouldn't profit from them. But given the inflated mortgage size loans all millennial suffer of, true loan forgiveness in some fashion would be the largest stimulus to our economy I could possible think of. Want home's to sell like hotcakes? Want the retail market to explode with growth? Its not that crazy of an idea, and less morally corrupt than bailing out wall street every recession.
5
So for those that think Trump’s trade wars will solve the problem of income inequality think again. Bringing manufacturing jobs back just provides more jobs for Americans. It has nothing to to do with improving incomes at home.
3
This article says:
"Mr. Trump, no doubt, will continue to mine this territory in a re-election campaign, despite his role in fueling our neglect to begin with."
Maybe it should be reworded:
"Mr. Trump, if he should be renominated by his party for the 2020 election -- an increasingly doubtful proposition -- would continue to mine this territory."
1
It is time for American citizens to reject the Republican theory of "trickle down" economics. The jobs created by billionaires do not match the jobs created by a healthy middle class. It is time for an "anti-Grover Norquist" to step forward and lay out a sensible tax plan that the American citizens will buy into. Although we have low unemployment now, what is the quality of that employment? The angst people are feeling is due to wage retrogression because the top 1% is keeping all the profits for themselves. If we tax that away from them to provide healthcare for all that will be a start.
8
The question really is, what created the middle class in the first place, and where did it go? To begin with, it was unions that threatened management that lead to higher wages and benefits and it was treating your employees as assets that contributed the the rise of the middle class. However The war against unionization has taken away the right to protest wage stagnation for the middle class, and outsourcing and automation has made it possible to ignore employee demands for a higher standard of living. So instead of rewarding employees with higher wages corporations rewarded themselves with obscene bonuses and financial benefits to stock holders.
6
Historically, populism has meant for the 'common good'. It has not been associated with right-wing, libertarian, authoritarian policies which benefit the few at the top and sc-w everyone else. That is what we have now. I place my hope in a growing coalition of millennials, struggling middle class and assorted progressives to turn our heartless libertarian nightmare into a more egalitarian, more just...America.
2
These people should only blame themselves for not flourishing if they voted for Republicans since Reagan. The Republican party has promoted deregulation, union-busting, tax cuts for the wealthy and trickle-down economics that overwhelmingly favour the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class. It's incredible that people that voted for the Republican party will then complain about the outcome of their vote.
6
@Fresh If someone voted for the person running against Reagan they were still subject to the same effects as everyone else.
Hmm...but there are folks who have good incomes, more than their parents did, still because of their spending wind up financially insecure. They complain that they are victims of some outside force, raw deal, tax burden etc. They enjoy a standard of living beyond the comprehension of most of the world, and still they complain. They live in a fantasy world created by entertainment and advertising, and they aspire to a lifestyle that is not "middle class", it is "rich and famous". Cultural messages everywhere: live in a huge house, with extra rooms for toys, drive new cars, wear new clothes, have vacations at "luxury" resorts. House hunting and remodeling realty TV, a modest home into a mini mansion. TV shows where a character magically earns enough to afford a large urban apartment- though they never go to work. Etc etc. So when "middle class" people, who let themselves be manipulated into thinking they deserve "the good life" who admire a man like Donald Trump, because he is "rich", who spend $10000 a year on cell phone plans and cable TV instead of saving for college or retirement, who sign a predatory mortgage because the lending agent told then they could "afford" it, come out the other side of their mistakes, and blame immigrants, unions, taxes,or really blame anyone but themselves for the situation, what can we tell them? When they walked away from their defaulted home they tanked the savings of reasonable people too. And they would vote against 70% tax, too.
8
@Marika H
Or perhaps instead of luxury resorts what they want is 0$ education debt and solid health insurance.
Luxury resorts are probably significantly less expensive than either of those two things.
1
Instead of punishing the 1% for their success, we should think about incentivizing them to spend their money in a manner that benefits the rest of us.
1
@ed I think that would be amazing...encourage those with a lot to share with those who less...we have incentivized that...it is done thru tax deductions for charitable giving (but most of that for the uber wealthy now happens between "foundations" and doesn't actually get to where it is needed ...tRump foundation is one that comes to mind) Statistically, extremely wealthy give less by percentage than middle income people to the poor. What is your idea to incentivize the wealthy to help benefit others?
1
Most of the 1 percent got their wealth through inheritance. So should they be rewarded for that? Why is their paying a reasonable percentage in taxes mutually exclusive of them spending their inherited monies in ways that benefit society as a whole?
3
The 1% have personally financed, designed, built, grown, made, and delivered as well as secured and managed everything that their wealth represents and was created from. It’s all theirs, society played no part in what they have or enjoy. That’s the basis of your argument. See the movie, “Jeremiah Johnson”, and that way of life is the paradigm for that point of view. When most of the new wealth belongs to a small group they control the majority of the materials resources which all have available, and they call the shots. Without access to resources people are constrained from improving themselves. No society can endure as a free one under such conditions.
1
The US has become a predatory society. Individualism has replaced the common welfare or common good that are foundations of our society. Of course, these conservative attitudes have been stoked by decades of conservative misinformation.
There is no such thing as the compassionate conservative. What drives the modern conservative is greed and selfishness. They don't mind subsidies and entitlements as long as they are the recipients and not those they consider inferior or not worthy.
Corporations are hoarding cash while demanding lower taxes and incentives for the privilege of bringing their presence to your community. All of this while shedding older workers and actively discriminating against whoever they want to. Of course many of these corporations are managed by conservatives who bring their own predatory philosophies to how they hire and treat employees and their communities.
Our infrastructure is crumbling. Other industrialized countries are moving forward without us. China has a rapidly expanding middle-class. Europe's mass-transit system is world-class. Ours is almost non-existent, geographical expanse notwithstanding. Healthcare is a human right in other countries.
There is no political willpower to do great things. Remember rural electrification, interstate highway building, moonshots? All great history, but our government can't move on anything other than more ways to funnel money to those who already have too much.
14
@JR Very well said. What's tragic to me is that all the ingredients are already here to solve these problems: smart people, hard working people, people who care, the science to deal with climate change, models that work for healthcare, antitrust, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. Yet we do nothing.
Someone needs to create an actionable template that includes all these solutions and role it out as a movement. Not as a 3rd political party but as a unifying American Solutions movement that will then push into and influence each of the two walking dead parties we already have, and rejuvenate them.
There are common goals most Americans want, that can be implemented in either a Republican or Democratic way. A new guide needs to be written.
5
Thank you, I agree. But addressing the root causes of anxiety and falling living standards of middle-class and poor Americans are numerous and fundamental: these include basic changes in how we promote health, education and the public welfare.
Republicans have convinced a large segment of voters that government should have no role here!
Also, powerful and multiple corporate interests will rigorously fight implementation of universal health care (for instance). Just providing universal health care would alleviate one great source of anxiety and, in many cases, poverty and debt. Better health outcomes and early intervention would increase productivity, tax receipts, well being and overall corporate profits. The data is pretty clear.
At this point, we would likely need a supermajority in the Senate and many Democrats with the courage to face the subsequent onslaught. Moderate Republicans could help too but they have been mostly disappointing.
Let’s also face it, Democrats have failed many of the constituents who voted for Trump. (It’s not a monolithic group and includes those who voted for Obama). The political establishment became isolated, increasingly very wealthy, and unaware of great changes occurring throughout the country.
What I fear is that some sort of collapse will have to occur before the opportunity arises to fundamentally change direction, as happened with FDR following the Great Depression.
What a tragedy that would be. We have to win this fight.
3
After decades of voting for politicians who actively undermined unions, failed to require corporations to fund their pensions, and voted repeatedly for ballot initiatives that reduced the funding for public education, the middle class is now reaping the consequences of their short-sighted behavior. Their parents became financially better off by the very government programs they eschewed. When they stop blaming those who are economically more vulnerable and stop believing those who are economically more powerful, they will find themselves better off.
4
Since Reagan in 1980, this situation is pretty much exactly what so many of these people voted for, and probably will continue to vote for, or not at all, in their firm belief that there is no difference between parties anyhow. That there is a recognizable difference is where all their other efforts foundered.
9
Life is expensive and wages don't keep up with the costs for health care, education, and other general living expenses, this is a great challenge for many.
It would be good to have candidates like Beto O'Rourke who have the intelligence and empathy to understand the problems at a deep level of the financial distress and insecurity faced by so many. O'Rourke was a great listener on the campaign trail, cares deeply about these fundamental issues, and seemed willing to go after real solutions to help those living with economic uncertainty.
Both health care costs and borrowing (or paying) for college education have steadily risen in cost, and are bringing many to living close to the financial edge. Being blindsided by bills, digging out of credit card debt, and percentages of paychecks paying for student loans are very challenging when wages are not keeping pace with these costs.
3
I have been working as a licensed psychotherapist for 40 years. During this time the majority of my patients have used Blue Cross or Blue Shield to pay for my services. In 1980 these two companies paid me $72 and $60 per 50 minute session, respectively. Forty years later, this rate remains unchanged.
Because my income flatlined long ago, I learned to live on the cheap. I have saved a little money and with social security I will likely retire in one more year, when I am 74.
Living frugally was not easy, especially when raising two children.
I do believe that the stress of limited finances played a role in my ability to create a good relationship with my son. I wasn't always patient. And yet I know others who suffered financial hardships and did a great job of parenting.
I do have some shame around not having made more money. I have had to learn not to blame myself or anyone else for this.
I will continue to support politicians who, to me, seem to have their hearts in the right place.
15
@TJH You certainly should not blame yourself! Insurance companies have paid psychotherapists considerably less as the years have gone on. I've been practicing 30 years and have the same experience as you. Insurance companies are all about profit - - just think of the words used now - - "providers" and "consumers." Healthcare has been decimated by greed and the profit motive.
4
@TJH I agree that having to spend limited resources carefully, foregoing eating out and luxuries, can be an excellent way to live.
We lived that way always, since we chose to be educators.
But by careful shopping, by going without living room furniture, in fact most furniture, for years, living without a dryer or a dish washer, owning only one used car, we could make ends meet.
However, this article is about people who, for reasons beyond their control, cannot manage to live AT ALL within their means. Their means have dropped below the 'middle-income' level. Now they are ashamed that they no longer can maintain the life they used to have, that their parents had.
And it isn't their fault. These aren't people who own McMansions, drive new cars, take fancy vacation. These are people who already shopped at Walmart. There never was any 'slack' in their income.
And now they are hurting terribly.
You are smart, well informed, and have made good decisions, and continue to do so.
Many people are not smart and well informed. This is why they are often prey to charlatans.
I believe we have a responsibility even to those people.
I know I'm in the minority. We want to punish the ignorant and foolish.
That is a mistake, since it is their children who are our future.
We need healthy, productive citizens to make our country strong.
Punishing the weak only harms us all.
2
Dear NYT:
There is much danger in stoking class hatred without providing hope and and a new approach that looks to the future of work, not its failures.
Meaningful work provides us human dignity. It is not just about paying the rent.
Partisans are hopelessly stuck. Progressives such as AOC want a 70% federal tax rate, single payer heath coverage, and a guaranteed income. Adoption of this program would send the US economy into a tailspin.
Conservatives want low taxes, private health insurance and a continuing regulatory rollback. This boosts output short term, but leaves too many in poverty and despair.
We need a new approach: the radical middle.
Let's provide sufficient direct aid to folks who need it, including a great education, counseling and medical care, coupled with a meaningful work or school requirement.
Let's keep our corporate taxes low to stimulate the private sector, but ask a bit more from the individual rich.
And long term, we need to align our government programs to a new reality: A tech transformation is underway, similar to the industrial revolution. Huge servers are sucking up all of human knowledge, including our own social graphs. Hundreds of millions of jobs are disappearing -- professional careers, factory assembly work, design, sales -- replaced by robots and AI. More and more, we ourselves are the "product" we sell to one another, except we are not compensated and have little control over the packaging.
It is time to rethink work.
389
@Jorge excellent comment. You should cut and paste to every comment board on every media story about this issue. Rethink work indeed. AI is coming and a lot of the cultural and economic issues we face are going to change drastically.
30
Taking the rules of life alone in the wild where everything that results from people’s efforts is due themselves or luck and applying them to life in any community is a form of deception offered in the service of base selfishness since the dawn of man. When we living in groups we must sacrifice our personal preferences and share what we have to benefit from the advantages of cooperative relations with others. Belonging to the group is the entitlement to a fair share of the group’s productivity. Reactionaries always have felt entitled to keep as much for themselves as they could even when it meant others starved.
92
@Jorge
'Partisans are hopelessly stuck. Progressives such as AOC want a 70% federal tax rate, single payer heath coverage, and a guaranteed income. Adoption of this program would send the US economy into a tailspin.' Disagree! It can ALL occur: Medicare for All and student debt relief if we have the will to tax the 1% and have budget that supports Endless War (budgeting) less and supports the needs of ordinary Americans with much more investment! Let's bring back American economy of the 50s and 60s where the rich paid their fair share and there was massive investment in the infrastructure of the country, much less wealth disparity and the economy was humming.
245
I heard recently that 80% of Americans are living with debt. 80%! That and 3 bucks maybe will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Most us are running on financial fumes today.
It will implode shortly in a matter of time. And this time it'll put us ALL into the poorhouse, except for the top 10% or so.
5
@MV
I always wonder what is included in that “ living with debt” figure.
Mortgage? Or what about those of us who use credit card instead of cash, but pay balance fully each month?
This seems like as good a place as any for an unpopular opinion on the topic - we may be sending far too many people to four year colleges.
There is tremendous value to our society to having an educated public. But training full time for four years - at a cost of lost income and tuition - to hope to get 40 years of a career out of it is a very risky proposition for many people, and will likely only get riskier as automation threatens more jobs and "public" sources of knowledge and training improve. This is a recipe for resentment and anti-social behavior.
There is a good chance that all involved would be far better off if more people started with an associates degree with a mix of general and career-prep courses, then reassessed their options. If we do not want a rigidly stratified society, doing more to blur the lines between bachelor's degree vs. non-bachelor's degree is a good place to start.
4
Imagine if you were in a community where there were limited resources. There are two general choices, work together to make the most of those resources or work against each other for individuals to take as much as they can for themselves.
The former is communism, and is like every family that cares for one another, the latter is like capitalism where every individual cares for itself. Within our families and churches we're communists and ironically, within our greater community we're capitalists.
The American Dream lies in the feel-good communal structure of building a family, a home, a career all set in an ethical space consisting of liberty, freedom, justice and equality. But to pursue the American Dream requires the dog-eat-dog rapacity of capitalism, also espousing those same ethical mores: freedom from rules and regulations, liberty to make as much money as possible by whatever means, justice that upholds the individual over the group defended by the Orwellian notion one is equal to the many.
This is our society today, and there is no way to resolve the tension between the communism-capitalism yin-yang without utter and total disruption, the likes of which would be so hurtful that it would not be unlike burning down the village to save it.
Find a way you can get those with wealth to willingly spread it out so others can live with less pain and suffering. To say they do give it away through charitable giving is to ignore the extreme inequality we have today worldwide.
5
re: take to the streets, that's right.
Two words: GENERAL STRIKE.
Its a concept which, is properly implemented, works really well.
9
@Jake It worked in 1968 here and in France, but the wealthy-in-charge would have none of it. You see it today from the shutdown. Laid off workers do not have enough savings to get through two weeks. The middle class has been impoverished, along with students who are burdened with debt before they reach the work-a-day world. We don't have the funds to survive a general strike, the thing they fear most.
2
@Jake
If this government shutdown which is adversely affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans continues without hope of an end in sight, a GENERAL STRIKE will be the next result.
2
@Jake Hear, hear!
How about offering infrastructure jobs ? Out-of-work coal miners could be removing utility poles in WV, PA, and elsewhere and replacing them with underground utility and cable lines, making the landscape attractive to B&Bs, or even startups. Our bridges and roads need work. And maintenance. Half of life is maintenance. I'd like to hear a solid solution from the candidate.
6
I have posted several times on this article today. Going back to read more of the comments, I am struck by the thread that runs through the comments from those who lament the loss of a stable middle class existence. The reality is our fully integrated global economy. The internet and supply chain management have changed our once insular economy forever. How can our engineers compete against the foreign engineers who can charge much lower rates and do their work overnight while we sleep ? How do we compete in manufacturing when Vietnam and Bangladesh pay peanuts to their employees? We can’t. We need to focus on those areas where we can effectively compete and offer value. Then, let’s put our useless Dept of Education to work to devise and implement programs to train our citizens accordingly. The retail sales figures for 2018 holiday spending appear to be very robust. That is good. Let’s try to get those folks who are missing opportunity the chance to catch fish every day, not just eat for one.
3
@Unhappy JD
Easier to blame republicans, which is what most here resort to. The fact is that Americans have to compete globally. The good news is those who took to the sidelines during the Obama economy are starting to work again in Trump's.
Too many ideologues spoil the broth.
How come all of a sudden the Dems only seem to care about the middle class? A bit too late doncha think?
These political 'talking points' or strategies are researched and well thought and drawn out. It's a last gasp attempt of the Dems to say 'we care'. They don't. For if they really did, the middle class would not have become so hollowed out to begin with. And for the most part, the proletariat class is seeing right through them too.
5
Medical debt. America really needs to get universal healthcare figured out. Such a rich country. I simply don't understand.
8
It is not just the debt that angers middle class people, it is the feeling that they are being ripped off. The deck is stacked so that money that used to go to middle class people for a hard day's work now goes instead to the very wealthiest individuals. Income inequality is the real problem. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right when she says that we should tax the wealthiest individuals at much higher rates and use those funds to improve the lives of the middle class and poor. We should also encourage stronger unions and make sure everyone above the age of 18 can vote. The midterm elections were encouraging. We only need to look at the difference between the mostly white men in business suits on the right side of the isle and the wonderful diversity on the left.
12
People going to the streets and protesting the high inequality in the US should not really follow the path of the "Gillets Jaune" in France - although I consider their cause as legitimate. Yet that protest caused far too much damage by both the protestors and some law enforcement.
Yes, we should indeed follow the examples set by France, Germany and other European nations for a very long time, not only universal healthcare - and that at much lower price per capita and better health outcomes to boot - but also free higher education, plus solid safety nets for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Far too often when American born citizens told me that I should be oh-so-proud living in the "greatest country in the world" and I - a naturalized citizen - dare criticizing the education, healthcare system, extreme inequality, the out of control gun-culture, they tell me that "We are America", and in some cases told me verbatim: " If you don't like it here, why don't you go back to where you came from".
Under the present administration, this country looks more akin one in the 1930s than in the 21rst century, thanks to their base of angry white people blaming everything that ails this nation on "the Others".
5
Many larger forces have taken economic stability away from the middle class, as noted by the article sand many commenters here.
One change that could make an enormous difference in everyone’s lives but seems to be a “third rail” topic:
Stop spending over 50 cents of every tax dollar on the military.
We won’t talk about it, much less change. But our priorities need deep examination.
5
I can only fully sympathize with people who are in debt.
But Ms. Quart's suggestion of declaring bankruptcy as a way out of debt is outright irresponsible.
People get unfortunately into debt because of false expectations, financial miscalculations, and a general lack of farsightedness. The difference between a legal rate of interst on a loan and the rate charged by a loan shark threatening to break the late-paying debtor's legs is only X dollars per month. Students may have no other choice than educational loans, but all others should think twice before contracting a loan on an item of questionable necessity.
1
@Tuvw Xyz
While this appears to be a "fiscally responsible" answer, it ignores the absurdity of the facts : it should simply be illegal for an undergraduate degree to cost up to 200,000$ when the minimum wage is somewhere between 7 and 15 dollars/hour.
3
@Tuvw Xyz
The master in chief getting getting out of millions upon millions of debt by declaring bankruptcy of his failed casinos, aka President Bone Spurs, while still walking away with millions, is the poster child of all cheaters. At the same time he bankrupted numerous companies and mom-and-pop ones having worked as sub-contractors for him.
Any person who has to declare bankruptcy due to not being able to pay their huge bill when suffering from a long illness, should not be punished even more.
3
This piece reminds me of what was kept in the typical household bedroom closet or garage of the 1950s-1960s, and what fills most of those much larger spaces today. At most income levels we are simply buried in stuff, and knowingly or not, many have chosen those material goods over long-term financial security.
If parents won't do it, why aren't the schools teaching advanced personal finance to today's students? At a minimum, it would be good for young people to become familiar with the principle known as "Pay yourself first."
3
@BayArea101
The thing is, in America, "stuff" is much more affordable than the basics : health insurance, education, nursing homes, pre-K, auto-insurance, fresh vegetables...
6
The entire problem begins with a truthful discussion of income and wealth, before you can even get to expenses. If families are not able to survive on their income, then by definition that can never be 'middle-class' but is in reality poverty. That means there is no middle class anymore. All there is a poverty class and a wealthy class. The problem is that most folks do not want to acknowledge their own poverty, because we have amoral public standards that blame poor people for their own poverty. For this reason, we can never really tackle the astronomic inequality in our nation, the true income and wealth concentration as it really is, because we continue to muddy the rhetorical waters with 'middle-class' to obscure the true picture.
5
These people need to understand how they’re being robbed. America was great when the rich got their tax breaks by creating jobs for Americans. Since the Reagan Revolution, the rich got their tax breaks with “no strings attached”. So they used that money to off-shore jobs, pull financial shenanigans like stock buy backs, and fund super-PAC’s. Our tax system should work for all Americans, not just some Americans. This is something a Trump voter might appreciate, if they can only be reached.
6
And it's not just the middle class. It's the working poor, too. That someone is expected to work three jobs to cover the basics is unconscionable. That universities refuse to staff their classes with full-time professors instead of adjuncts with Masters' degrees or better should be illegal. That public school teachers should be forced to commute upwards of two hours per day because they can't afford to live in the communities in which they teach is crazy.
If automation and outsourcing to low-wage countries is now the norm, and if employers insist on hiring part-timers instead of full time workers, then I propose several things:
1. Universal basic income. This needs no explanation.
2. Rescinding "right to work" laws that are essentially a license for employers to favor part-time and contract workers over full-time workers with benefits
3. The reinstatement of unions for salaried workers at private companies and universities for collective bargaining, even for white collar jobs. Employees need to take a page from the Google employee handbook. They collectively staged a walk-out when a serial sexual harasser was handed a giant golden parachute, and it forced Google management to address the situation. See also: try companies in the social media courts so they are forced to go into PR containment mode to address systemic problems.
4. Regulate the top payouts to C-level management to be no more than X times the salary of the company's average worker.
6
It seems bizarre to me that O’Rourke and Sanders, who both lost their campaigns, are mentioned as those who gets it, when Sherrod Brown, who won his red state Ohio by 6, isn’t. Perhaps looking beyond the headline grabbers towards politicians with real policy chops (coupled with a commitment to the middle class), with track records of winning elections, on top of all that, perhaps that’s the winning ticket.
8
@Henry
Progressives are always the last to know. Their advice should be taken with a huge dollop of salt.
1
Possibly one of the most important articles the NYT has published in the last 12 months.
Yes, not exact policies outlined on how to address these complex issues. However, it's extremely important for news outlets to bring these discussions to the collective conscience and allow others to continue the dialogue and shape policy who are in the position to do so.
It's up to the people to speak loudly and firmly about the horrible inequalities in our society that are crippling many, especially in retirement.
As a business owner, I feel a tremendous weight for providing healthcare for our twenty employees. I'm aware that as ObamaCare crumbles due to this administration, employees who are let go or transition out may not have any healthcare protection. Due to my own health history, I think I worry about their exposure more than they do.
I'm also responsible for helping manage my aging parents dwindling resources, deeply concerned about the holes in Medicare around in-home assistance provisions (there are none).
One colleague from Brussels recently said to me, "America is a great place if you want to invent something. It's a horrible place if you have one thing go wrong."
Things need to change, from student loans and college education to tax structures to healthcare reform. There is much to do and it won't get done if we aren't active and demand our politicians address these issues.
5
Please do not romanticize the latest wave of protests in France. The "gilets jaunes" that have been taking to the streets of France in recent months have some points re: their decline of purchasing power, but they are mostly a pretty homogenous group of white people, certainly not the worst off or living in misery, who already get much support from the government (family allocations, paid education, healthcare, etc.). Theirs is more of an exercise in ex-urban isolation, which is unrolling more like a smash-and-grab violent video game or flash mob, rather than any coherent movement with call for realistic changes. There are coalitions, and there is wilding. Please do not conflate the two.
4
Here is something to consider - while economics is certainly a factor in how people vote, in many areas it is subordinate to cultural issues. I live in a very GOP dominated fairly rural area. My GOP Congressman just sent out a newsletter as a new Congress takes place. What were his top issues highlighted that he will "fight" for? A Constitutional Amendment to prohibit flag burning, concealed carry reciprocity, no federal funding for abortions. The 4th item was abolishing the "death tax" so the wealthy farmers in the area are shielded from paying any inheritance tax. Do you see anything that targets the economic status of the lower and middle classes? NO - this is what he thinks his constituents are most focused on - and he is happy to keep it that way. The GOP is very skillful in keeping people focused on social and cultural issues because people often will sacrifice their economic interests in favor of cultural hot button issues like the ones listed above.
8
"....this is a savage society we now live in."
Yes, - I'd never thought of it in that way, but it's true.
Our winner-takes-all economy is savagely harsh. Even as many goods have become cheaper, those that are at the core of middle-class life, a nice home, a good education, good healthcare, a well-funded retirement, have become hideously expensive.
Even those goods which have become cheaper don't help that much because we require so many more of them to feel middle-class. Think of all the new types of electronics that you must have and must supply to your children to feel you are really middle-class.
Cheap and easily-available credit has disguised how impossible meeting these needs has become for so many people, but credit has a nasty way of turning on you, and when it does its effects are savage.
Fear of sliding down the socio-economic scale, relative to once-despised groups and absolutely in relation to your own group, has been the leading driver of barbaric behavior by otherwise decent people in societies worldwide.
We have to watch this with great care and act in a united way to prevent it from happening here - again.
5
@Max Davies
Amen Max, all one has to do is look at the savage at the top.
1
If Democrats want to win big in 2020, they can undertake the following: five-year moratorium on repaying student loans after college or graduate/professional school; student loan forgiveness programs based on age, income, and public service; underwrite malpractice insurance and provide no-interest loans and/or set-up funds for ob/gyn, family medicine, and general internal medicine doctors; medical student loan forgiveness for doctors working in underserved areas; limit of 5% interest rates for so-called financial services companies, including retailer banks set up in places like South Dakota and for pay-day loan companies; nationalization of banks and investment companies for violations of banking and securities regulations; no federal student loans to for-profit schools; corporate income taxes on financial, consulting, accounting, and legal services firms; 70% tax on incomes over $1 million; institute laws against perpetuity for family foundations and dynasty trusts; 5-year limit on tax shelters called Donor Advised Funds at companies such as Fidelity. It would be a start.
7
I think the term middle class is no longer applicable. Perhaps we should ditch that term and talk about working class, poverty class, and ultra rich. Working class lost most of their protections when unions were busted.
3
"I talked to many people who had college degrees, were convinced they were on the right path, yet were shaken by their endless debt — from the cost of their graduate degrees, caring for an elderly parent or paying for a child’s medication."
No engineering/computer science degree is without a job--liberal arts--there's always Starbucks.
So it's the government's job to save them from themselves and correct their missteps in life? Shame on them.
5
@Alice's Restaurant
"Missteps in life" ??
Should we all become engineers then?
I hear you need teachers to teach engineering (and perhaps English too, since clearly you were taught enough to write this comment).
1
What we need as a actual candidate who MEANS what they say when they adopt populist rhetoric saying they will help the middle and lower classes instead of just using it to get elected and then hobnobbing with the rich and powerful.
5
"Health care and education cost far more than they once did ... " Kant said it is immoral to use another person merely as a means to an end and that people must be treated as ends in themselves. Too many CEO's see people as mere purchasers of products, leading to corporate profits and bonuses. E.g. Big Pharma executives who raise drug prices an order of magnitude or more. "Pharma CEO jacks drug price 400%, citing 'moral requirement to make money' He raised price of essential antibiotic from $475 to $2,392, then defended Shkreli." MBA's extorting our society using our health care system.
5
Hidden money contaminating elections must dry up by required public financing of campaigns, with spending limits.
5
I am a progressive and would like to see better governance in this country, but the idea that there is a segment of society that is losing out today, is more ideological than realistic. Don't get me wrong, poverty in the US remains a problem but it has always been the case. The change is expectations. There is absolute agreement that the height of American "wealth and perceived well-being" was in the 1960s and early 1970s prior to the OPEC gas crisis. Nevertheless, the much publicized middle class of the 1960s was one where you felt wealthy because after 10 years of saving up you finally bought a washer or a television. You took the bus to work for a decade before your first car and ate out twice a year. Most importantly, they were full of nostalgia for the "good old days" that included the depression, as people's selective memories are never good judgments of economic well-being.
6
Read some history.
American government has most always favored property owners over other citizens. Senators originally were appointed by state legislators (who most often represent the wealthy), not direct vote, to provide electoral protection against the emotions of the larger population. The House can be replaced every two years, the president every four years, but only 1/3 of the senate is up for election each two years. Who approves Supreme Court, Cabinet, and other high level executive branch nominees? Who approves treaties? Where do bills go to die? The senate was able to prevent advancement in civil rights legislation for 75 years.
We’re now seeing an erosion of voting rights. The world continues to become more complex; successful politicians boil issues down to snappy phrases (often unfounded) that resonate with their base. The quality of education isn’t keeping pace, the cost of education is becoming out of reach for many.
MAGA? Great for whom?
Can a politician explain issues: health care, immigration, education, the economy, social programs, in a way that most can understand, provide and defend their policy recommendations? Does the public have the interest and capacity to listen and evaluate?
4
Most people were illiterate in the late eighteenth century. The usual arrangement socially we’re all based upon family groups where all family members and servants or employees were subservient to a single dominant male head who controlled the lives of all of them. Until all people were free to choose for themselves and were literate, a workable democracy seemed to be more ideal than practical. Thus our founders set limits upon whose decisions would guide society. But all British colonists saw how impotent they were under a ruling class in Great Britain that refused to let them participate in the government which governed them. They aspired to liberal democracy as a result. The conditional enfranchisement is based upon property was because of an ambivalent attitude towards democracy. Today, it represents nothing but second class minds incapable of accepting a reality in which they must cope with equals with who the disagree.
4
One area candidates could also explore are the effects of the Republican erroneously called "tax cuts" on the middle class. Anyone who has done an estimate of their taxes for 2018 will be painfully aware of their tax increase particularly in states with high taxes.
3
The problem is how absurdly capitalist we have become.
All jobs are valued solely by how much capital they create, no matter the profession.
Doctors don't earn a pay check because they cure patients, but because patients pay for expensive technology and expensive medication.
For those whose professions don't magically create dividends (teachers, for example), they are held hostage by the corporations (universities, for example) who will profit off how little they can pay them, all the while enriching themselves by making their students pay absurd tuition for the excellent education they will receive from their underpaid instructors. It is a cycle that inevitably perpetuates itself. Why? No laws to limit the aggressiveness of this business model and few, if any, unions.
Meanwhile, in neighborhoods like Silicon Valley, where the price of everything from real-estate to food is determined by the richest, how are the teachers or waitresses who serve these people supposed to live alongside them?
It is high time we acknowledge that those who are successful achieve that success through a matter of luck and the relative "monetary" value of their chosen profession. Anyone who wants to do a hard day's worth of work and be paid honestly for it is out of luck.
10
Perhaps we should limit immigration to this country until we've found a solution to the problems of the middle class who were born and bred here. The combination gives rise to social instability.
5
@Neil
Immigration has nothing to do with this. Your poor neighbor isn't the one threatening your livelihood. He takes home the same middling wage that you do. Not having him around won't mean your boss will suddenly become charitable and increase your wages. Writing laws that hold corporations accountable will.
1
@Neil
Way too much partisanship influencing the immigration issue. We are incapable at this point of having a rational discussion about it.
1
The changes over the last several decades that have resulted in the fruits of American labor to be shifted to the upperclass, resulting in less for the middle class, is what Elizabeth Warren has been talking/writing about and fighting for since the early 2000s. She’s has concrete ideas for policies to fixes. While Bernie is a populist, his policies are simplistic. And Beto, really?
Why Bernie and Beto and not Elizabeth? Hmmmm... the media needs to do better.
5
If people voted for smaller government, cutting taxes, and ever thought that the wealthy are job creators and government spending detracts from economic expansion, they can blame their financial woes and political impotence upon themselves. Frankly, they are the cause of their own misery. When this all started back when Nixon was President, most of these people bought into a lot of right wing anti-democratic messaging which has led to most of the new wealth and political power slipping from their grasp and concentrating into the hands of a few. They have produced a world where law and government are weaker in respect to private wealth and political power than they were in 1970. The people who voted for Reagan in 1980 mindlessly voted against themselves and have never appreciated what they have done.
6
There are people who spend beyond their means and then complain that they are having a difficult time making ends meet. They spend lavishly on restaurants, travel and luxuries instead of saving for a rainy day. They are trying to keep up with the Joneses and then fell behind economically. They do not believe in saving but expect the government to pick up the tab. Who is the one paying for all these free things? The taxpayer. The day of reckoning is here and the taxpayer will eventually revolt.
3
I'm almost all in, but I can't help thinking that maybe what we are seeing with all this long-term debt is a change in society in general, where having multiple carbon-footprint-children is no longer a good idea.
Harsh. I realize. And I'm no fan of Malthus and his welfare-hating stance. But I can't help but wonder if a little pressure to make less people might be a good thing in the long term. All these stick-figure families driving around in luxury school busses is nothing but conspicuous consumption justified on some sort of procreational exemption from reason. A third child used to bring up the curse of Peter Brady, now it is a status symbol.
1
I'm not seeing any restraints in the banking industry.
I can remember when regular savings accounts had competitive interest rates of 5% and the interest rate on lending was not outrageous. Not to mention the costs of maintaining retirement savings.
What is available now? Nothing close.
Getting a grip on the runaway costs of having money or savings and owing money would be a step in the right direction.
6
Quart misses entirely how Trump won . While the Republicans have long used dog whistles to appeal to voters, Trump came out and directly blamed minorities and immigrants and foreigners for the struggles of anyone below the economic top. Look at the cheers he got from his base (and still gets) when he chants "Build the Wall." Group therapy sessions the way Quart suggests, with everyone admitting their struggles, is a non-starter. Blaming someone else worked for Trump in 2016 and will probably work again.
5
@Mike T.
And, the Democrats have no dog whistles ?
2
@Mike T.
This is a gross distortion of Trump's appeal. It is also why he continues to prevail. His critics have created a caricature of him that supports all their animus towards everyone and everything on the right and snapped them all on to confirm their biases.
Trump is like a Rorschach test of the disdain for political opponents.
Four of the greatest social programs to benefit "the people" were all instituted by Democratic Administrations. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
That's who you vote for, the party that delivers for its citizens.
18
@cherrylog754
The problem is democrats rarely consider the consequences of their policies. The Affordable Care Act made health care unaffordable to everyone who earned too much to be receive Medicaid and subsidies. Welfare is another example of a program that had serious consequences, especially for minority families.
Consequences always exist. They cannot be ignored.
1
@AACNY
You forgot the consequences of letting the insurance industry be predatory about healthcare.
4
I've never understood the attraction between many of these voters and the Republican party, who has never cared about workers.
8
There are people who want the government to take care of them and expect them to pay for everything. They expect free college education, free health care, a guaranteed wage for all. Who pays for all of these things. The taxpayers who go without so those who spend freely can reap the benefits.
America is a generous nation up to a point. Most of us do not want our hard-earned money going to those who are not willing to sacrifice for the cost of living. Why should we pay for those who are not willing to work for it.
2
@WPLMMT
"Most of us do not want our hard-earned money going to those who are not willing to sacrifice for the cost of living. Why should we pay for those who are not willing to work for it."
Which curiously enough both describes and should apply to this president and his entire administration.
10
Yes, people realize that equality is necessary for liberal democracy to work. Without fairness and equality, anyone’s freedom depends upon their private wealth and ability to defeat all challengers, and law yields to relative wealth and power.
4
@WPLMMT: Typical "Everybody for themselves and God for us all" thinking. A society has an elightened interest in a well educated and healthy citizenry. Obviously, what you want is a medieval society in which the majority of the people were serfs under the foot of robber barons.
I'm a baby boomer. My parents, in their 80's, could easily buy a home, (or two) send their kids to college, afford vacations and any health plan. And have savings leftover to invest in the stock market or real estate.
Now, those middle-aged, middle income persons of my boomer generation or younger can barely afford a home without help from their parents, typically have or have had large student debt, and find health care barely affordable.
Those of us who do have homes and struggle to continue to be able to afford them, are often viewed as "the rich" or even, "the stinking, greedy rich", simply because we own a house, by those who are further removed from the possibility of home ownership.
Yet, be careful --- do not say that ALL poor and working class are eager to work or are doing all they can. That isn't true either. The right wing derives great benefit from the fact that the left whitewashes or denies truths about the enormous growth of those dependent on government handouts, over the last 5 decades, and the problem of cultures of criminality in inner city neighborhoods. The more the left conspires to hide or deny inconvenient facts about the antisocial trends and serious level of violent crime among many of "the poor" , as well as the out of control disruptive behavior of some "poor" schoolkids, the more power they give to the right, who will weaponize whatever they hide as they bring these suppressed truths to light.
The best approach is TRUTH.
11
@Oakbranch And the same pattern of criminality, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and chronic unemployment exists in poor neighborhoods in rural communities, small towns, and on the margins of the nation's suburbs. There are higher percentages of individuals and families dependent on transfer payments in some northern Michigan counties than in often-derided Wayne County/Detroit.
1
Well, this is me. And I have to say that I am downright angry that student load debt wasn’t wiped out instead of the tax break. Imagine how different our economy could have been if, I would imagine, over 60% of the population automatically had an extra $500 a month. Why do I still have my student loans? As a X-gen, I graduated into a recession and couldn’t find a job that paid more than $5/hr and since, my professional period has lived through two more recessions. Instead of shame and bitterness or questioning if you’ve simply make all the wrong decisions, consider that something is broken when a majority of the tax paying population struggles to have the means for an emergency or even questions buying health insurance when you can’t afford the deductible. It’s more of us than you realize.
11
@HS Really, wiping out student loan debt will only encourage it's causes to continue. The better option would be to establish some limits on administrative pay in institutions of higher learning, limits on luxury items included in student costs (including exorbitant sports venues and student housing). Then, address remediation of existing student loans to take out of the account the costs associated with the non-educational money charged by the schools. If each student had to continue to pay for what is realistically needed for an education instead of non-essentials it would be a lot fairer.
1
The story here described as the "Horatio Alger" story, which - applied negatively - tells that if a person hasn't succeeded its their own fault, and that they're probably not working hard enough - is one of the great lies and grand heresies extant in America, thanks in no small part to the twisted societal and cultural principles that many Americans thoughtlessly follow and espouse (often handed down by their fathers and mothers, who inherit these lies, and rivet them upon the hearts of the children so as to perpetuate the misery which they themselves experienced and make it a true generational affair), often in no small part thanks to the pernicious influence of religion in America.
For, is it not just too easy? To make all these problems the fault of the individual - to lay them upon the shoulders of the individual - and thus excuse culture, society, religion, and government?
It is. How anyone could actually believe this nonsense is beyond me, but then again, as the song goes, perhaps I just was not carefully enough taught.
The old saw, closely related to this, that hard work never killed anybody is also a great lie - as many have died because of hard work, and the sorrow and shame of self-indictment because, by ways and means as I have identified, have bought into this LIE of WORK, and the concomitant lie that if you fail, you only have yourself to blame.
Its good, therefore, to hear that this is becoming an issue.
What becomes of it, of course, remains to be seen
9
We need single-payer healthcare and help with college debt, and there should also be a prong of personal responsibility for those of us who can still manage to find a decent paying job (not easy, I know). Save money, live below your means, pay off your mortgage or don’t get one, walk a lot to save gas and for your health, and unless you’re lucky enough to get into an Ivy League university, which has a certain payoff via networking, go to a state school. My husband and I are frugal, with a capital F, and don’t have kids. I don’t EVER want to be reliant on the government because it can’t be trusted.
1
A social democratic agenda would solve many of these problems and alleviate others.
Medicare for all is NOT single payer.
Medicare with no deductibles, no co-pays, no donuts, and no EXTRA BILLING.
Your only medical bill ever should be for watching the TV in your hospital room.
4
@Ed Weissman
I’m curious why Vermont tried but failed to pass its version of single payer?
@liberty
Governor Shumlin chickened out. He never introduced it and campaigned for it and then wimped out.
At the time, I was in touch with Kiefer Sutherland's people to get his support if the plan were adopted. His grandfather, the great Tommy Douglas, created Canada's health care system when he was Premier of Saskatchewan. It went into effect in 1962. It was later adopted by the federal government.
1
I have conflicting feelings about the middle class.
It is true that they are suffering, but it is also true that a lot of it is self-inflicted and has to do with their embrace of trickle-down economics.
A large dose of consumerism doesn't help either. When gas prices go down, we don't save the extra money - we just go and buy bigger cars. Amazon prime, which caters to instant buying gratification, is booming, even though the middle class is hurting. One could go on and on.
My point is: while the middle class is certainly hurting, it doesn't seem to have tamped down their level of consumerism or their belief in the kind of economics that makes rich people richer. Rather, what they are increasingly doing is to divert their rage on to immigrants...
6
I think the way to get the middle-class vote is to explain to them/us, that if you are receiving any government subsidies you are not middle-class. Face that reality and see how big the working-class is and harness that energy. Working-class Heroes every one of us. Just get out and vote.
6
I will probably vote Republican in the next several elections because I believe that Democrats have gone too far in pushing the Me Too movement. It's not that some of the accused are not guilty, it's that accusation alone is used to destroy men's lives with no actual trial. In fact, trials are replaced with public shaming, a practice that might have made sense in the time of Henry VIII when the objective was to obtain a conviction at any cost, but a practice which makes of constitutional protections.
But the main issue for the essay of Quart is why education and health care costs so much. I got degrees from UC Berkeley in 65 and 69 when the tuition was free and scholarships were abundant.
Then illegal immigration hit. The result was a shifting of state funding from universities to K12 to fund education for the exploding number of children. Every year tuition at UC was raised just a little. But now it costs a small fortune to attend UC and students graduate with massive debt, if they don't drop out.
Since 1986 when the US passed its last immigration reform bill US population has increased by 86 million, or 36%.
Somehow liberals have gotten the twisted notion that every problem is caused by racism, and seem to regard even the DISCUSSION of population growth as motivated by race.
When the Titanic went down, a certain number of people were doomed to die. And the problem there were too few lifeboats. The race of the passengers had no impact on that.
5
@Jake Wagner: Nonsense. Population growth has been global overall, and in the USA it helps the age distribution toward younger productive tax paying workers. Look at Japan with is stagnating population growth and extremely strict immigration policies. They are losing out economically. It's been proven over and over again that automatization and shipping jobs oversees, plus the undermining of strong unions by Republicans, caused the huge income gap we see now between the 99% on the one hand and the 1% on the other. Add to that the tax giveaways to the rich under Reagan, Bush and Trump, plus the trillions for an unnecessary war in Iraq and the refusal to curb medical costs and drug prices by Republicans, and there you have the true causes of why education and health care cost so much.
3
Me Too is the basis of your voting? You are stuck on race and gender, and immigration. A perfect target for Trump and his ilk.
I really hope you are among the 40% who support this nastiness.
And that the 60% of our population will vote to change our government's agenda.
There is no denying that the United States is mired in problems. From gross economic inequality to vast voter suppression, Americans are now living in a pre-fascist nation.
The disaffected white-middle class needs to get real and realize they have more in common with black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Muslim Americans than they have with Billionaire Americans.
We're all expendable to the 1%. They play us against each other, dividing and conquering their way into power. It's easy to con people with a VIP card, leveraging votes for the myth of white supremacy.
White people need to wake up to the okee doke. They use shame to control us. The reason people--all of us--are struggling is because the policies put in place by the ruling class are designed to make us struggle. It's not your fault. Give yourself a break. The deck is stacked against you. It's not fair and it's never been fair.
When you accept the truth of America...that we are ALL in this together....well at least 90% of us...then you'll vote for the party that looks like America!
14
Racism gave us this president, not financial anxiety.
11
"One of the first challenges is getting people to admit they are struggling financially, and to talk publicly about it."
Or: getting people to deflect their fear and anxiety toward the usual suspects, people of color, immigrants, liberals, media, academics, and kneeling football players. Send it through the Osterizer till it whips into a nice blend of rage, blame, hate, and victimization.
Add a dash of fentanyl and marinate.
5
@Victor - Well said. Like another commentator said, "Racism gave us this president, not financial anxiety."
These privileged white people are like children who have grown up to middle age ...realize they didn’t accomplish their personal expectations ...and are now looking around for someone to blame. Health and education costs, sick parents and other unforeseen expenses affect everyone...it’s called “life.”
6
Who can appeal to the people who feel the most like they’ve gotten a raw deal?
What a dumb question. The millionaires and billionaires, of course!
2
I think the author has missed a big motivating factor for the middle and lower middle class: Rage. Their jobs, sometimes entire industry has been wiped out, they have had to tap their retirement just to get by, and are now looking at poverty in their old age. They have been left to swing in the wind while banks, brokerages, major companies and all their management, got bail out packages. What they got was maybe 20 hours a week saying "Welcome to Walmart, or Would you like fries with that?" This is the rage that Trump tapped. Hillary was clueless and got thumped.
It is now becoming obvious that Trump has played his supporters for suckers. If the Democrats are going to succeed they need a plan to lift up those left behind. They need to lift these people up in their communities. Do not expect a Midwest factory worker to move to the coast and train as a nurse's aid, it ain't gonna happen. These folks don't care about Washington games, make my life better in Toledo, Lafayette, Wimberly, Grand Forks, Idaho Falls, Walla Walla. Do that and then you will have my support. To repeat an old phrase that people seem to have forgotten: "It's the Economy, Stupid!" But its the economy in my town, Stupid.
7
Freudian theory shows that some people are in love with their chains
2
Yes, getting people to express their feelings, and empathizing with them, is the key. And as an extra bonus, maybe they'll take to the streets! Classic liberal mush.
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The sad thing is that the Democratic Party will assure they avoid winning the presidency by devoting its attention to allowing more illegal aliens into the country; demonizing white men; and more bathrooms for folks who believe gender is a daily choice.
We’ll end up with Trump and/or Pence in 2020 because illegal aliens and identity politics are sure losers.
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@Jeremy You are stuck on race and gender, and immigration. A perfect target for Trump and his ilk.
I really hope you are among the 40% who support this nastiness.
And that the 60% of our population will vote to change our government's agenda.
Here and there, this piece sounds like advice to Blue Dogs on how to run to the Left merely to gain office. The'Beto O Rourke' name dropping and her advice to 'just having a 'Medicare for All plan is enough' lend credence to that interpretation. Bet O is a stealth Blue Dog candidate and he will do another 'Obama' on us if he wins. Recent articles in the Times and elsewhere have indicated how right wing a lot of his voting record has been. Another stealth Blue Dog is Tulsi Gabbard. She is in the Progressive Caucus but is cheek by jowl with the Right Wing VHP/BJP party in India. The Corporate Blue Dogs in the Dem party (Pelosi, Hoyer et al) have long waxed wealthy, fat and happy sucking up corporate cash. They regularly deliver the middle class to the guillotine through various ingenious ways thought up by the several Think Tanks funded by corporate and billionaire cash. Consider Hillary Clinton's answer when asked about the $640,000 speech to Goldman Sachs - 'that is what they offered'. These Blue Dogs are looking to slip some of their own who are little known into the 2020 race. Obama was one such creation. He came out of the Chicago political machine, he was always sponsored by big money (Penny Pritzker, Robert Rubin) but few knew about his past. Remember Howard Dean? The man was a card carrying neoliberal who almost pulled off an Obama. The Blue Dogs are planning to do it again. It is important to be wary and to vet and read about each candidate thoroughly.
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Another pro populist article un the NYT. Yes, amother. It’s getting old.
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Perhaps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be a better choice for the DNC Politburo--1959 Cuba coming to America?
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But according to Senators Harris and Booker it is all about skin color and according to Senator Gillibrand it is all about sex. Any white men (who by definition are hugely privileged) who haven’t been wildly successful should accept 150% responsibility for their pathetic failure.
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@Frank
It would help if you'd actually read the article. And tone down the white man resentment a little.
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@Frank You are stuck on race and gender, and you only missed listing immigration. A perfect target for Trump and his ilk.
I really hope you are among the 40% who support this nastiness.
And that the 60% of our population will vote to change our government's agenda.
Not to narrowly focus on one part of this piece but... I can empathize completely but I feel one way to address the issue of student loan debt is not incur so much debt. The issue is the result of a number of factors... thinking that a 4 year degree is necessary for success, thinking a graduate degree will open doors, predatory for profit universities like the University of Phoenix and for profit technical schools like Heald and ITT that take advantage of student loan and VA education benefit programs and their recipients who may have limited knowledge of alternate programs. We need to rethink education in this country and where we spend our education dollars. We have a remarkable public university and community college system in this country and we should encourage students to look to these programs, even if they take a year or two longer and not incur a $30k debt for a $9 an hour job (cosmetologist or medical assistant), or expensive bachelor or graduate degrees that offer no career benefit, at for profit schools. I feel we also need to address the predatory practices of these universities. Some have student loan default rates higher than their graduation rates. We should deny these schools the ability to use VA or student loan programs.
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@Joseph Sensible. A good start would be an audit of the education industry with attention paid to tax benefits granted and C-level and administration pay and costs.
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if the author really understood the frustrations of the middle class, particularly millennials, she wouldn't bring up Medicare for All. Medicare for all would transfer the entire burden of healthcare costs (which would be in the trillions) to taxpayers whereas many in the middle class get at least some portion of their coverage paid for by employers.
And just like Trump's tax cuts didn't cause corporations to raise wages (instead they issued dividends and stock buybacks), so too they aren't going to turn around and give ordinary workers that money. So Medicare for all is just a giant shakedown of the middle class.
This is why we're angry. The government is just another bill collector. I'm fortunate to only have about $15k in debt. But even though I make a decent salary on paper, I largely live paycheck to paycheck because I live in New York City. In a given year, I pay about 40K in income taxes and who knows how much in various sales taxes and surcharges on things like taxis and Uber. What has all of this gotten me from the government? Endless wars overseas? A Social Security system that will be insolvent long before I retire? Now why in the world would I want to pay an extra 20K in taxes (and how am I to afford it) to get worse healthcare coverage than I already have? Truth be told my healthcare coverage is one of the few things I have going for me.
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@JPWhen you lose your job what will happen to your wonderful employer sponsored health insurance? Medicare for all is what this country desperately needs.
People should have the OPTION to buy into Medicare. Modest tax increases will also help fund it. It really is a no brainer. When you are 50 years old you will understand.
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@Marc A You realize that Medicare for all is not an "option" to buy in but a mandatory, compulsory program, right? The only way to implement Medicare for all is to fully eliminate private insurance.
As for "modest tax increase," you realize that the cost is pegged at 32.6 Trillion over 10 eyars. That's with a T. To put it in perspective, that's 6,000 of Trump's border walls. Or to give you another figure, if AOC's plan to tax income over $10 million at 70% went through, it would raise $72 billion over over 10 years or about 1/500th of the cost or about 0.2 percent of the cost. Get the picture?
So IF I lose my job, I'd rather have the money to pay my rent and feed myself... and given that even middle income taxpayers like myself would have to literally pay tens of thousands in additional taxes to float Medicare for All, that's a tradeoff I'd take.
Maybe if I give you another 50 years you'll finally understand that you should research some actually Medicare for All proposals before commenting...
@JP - You won't have healthcare going for you in a few years, because as you get older, your premiums are going up, way up. Just pretend you are 60 years old and go get quote. The plan you are on now will probably cost you $1000 a month. Married with a wife the same age? $2000 a month. Take out some big deductibles and you can cut the healthcare bill to $600 a month if you are single, $1200 a month if you are married. Of course, don't get sick or quit your job.
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For my daughter and me and many of her friends, the ideal combo of running mates would be Elizabeth Warren and Beto. She has experience with economics though some would smear her as "old." Beto has youth and charm. Both understand the fix many Americans (though not I personally) are in. I am lucky in that both my late husband and I were only children of middle class "savers" who had lived through the Great Depression; Daddy also weathered the drouth of the 1950's as a small time "shirt tail" rancher. That means that I (though nowhere near the top 1%) am comfortable. It also means that I (unlike DJT and his cadre) share experiences with those who are not.
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Why anyone believes that the aristocratic 1% will help anyone except their 1% is a mystery. Within the current system the only answer is to vote, which too few bother to do, believing the message "your vote makes no difference". Otherwise, where is Trotsky when you need them?
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Most of the comments appear to be from those of us near or past our earning years. My husband and I are financially secure in a middle class way - if we aren’t wiped out by nursing home/medical costs further on. But our kids in their late 30’s and dealing with huge mortgages for modest houses, child care costs take much of what one of them makes, careers where their company is either bought out and broken up or outsourced or changed to tenuous contract work. Even commuting to work into Seattle went from free bridge & parking to costing $20/day! For their retirement to be secure, they will need to inherit it. That’s right - my husband and I need to die with our assets intact as our kids’ “pension.” That source of a “pension” isn’t an option for most young families. The future looks particularly grim for next generations.
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The middle class always gets the raw deal. The rich can afford to buy their way out of a jam.. the poor have no money ..
The middle class is forced to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and all the cradle to grave entitlements for the poor .. And now in California, the middle class is paying for the needs of +6.5 million "undocumented immigrant workers."
When is enough enough?
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@Aaron
Get the facts ....in CA 147,000 top earners are keeping the state afloat. These folks are the ones you need to keep. The middle class pays heavy sales and property taxes but your rich folks fund your state income, not the middle class.
I agree with the diagnosis, and with the premise that Dems need to develop a real plan to address this. But we are way too quick to give a pass to the universities and medical community writ large... our policies need to reflect the reality that we have abetted their absurdly inflated prices with our policies of the last 40 years. Throwing more money at colleges in particular is an invitation to accelerate the trend.
The same BA I earned in 1978, at a cost of $16k, would cost $160K today. And there is no increase in inherent value - perhaps even a decrease. Medical...need I even go there?
Full, and lucrative employment on a large scale is the common sense answer that Dems need to address urgently. Nothing starts without that.
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Americans who are around the 50 year mark are sinking deeper in debt as they have added their children's college loans to their other series of personal loans (home, auto, student) and are now too young for Medicare but at that sweet spot for the medical industry to gouge them with barrages of tests to find out if they're healthy or not.
Just the first round of mammograms will set women back $1,000 minimum. And rejecting the thousands more in follow-up mammograms, ultrasounds and biopsies is to put money above the cost of your own life.
But more and more people are going to take that risk instead of incurring more and more debt.
The GOP has only gotten in the way of real, necessary healthcare reform.
And for their final act, they'll strip our futures of Medicare and Social Security if we let them.
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And you Liberals think the idiots in the middle will go Left? Good luck with that. History has proven time and again that those type of people demand dictators. Ignorant and poor people.
These guys in your article had college degrees and were poor? It does not compute. I call laziness to all americans because few go into STEM and fewer still have the motivation that it takes to be successful in STEM fields. It is what I did in the early 1980's, study hard on a hard (STEM) major and now I write my story. Which is why Indians and Chinese are coming here to get high paying jobs - Americans are too lazy and too ignorant to do them.
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Medicare. For. All.
Health costs are the single issue that unites everyone.
I know die hard conservatives who live in fear of getting sick.
I know lefty liberals who live in fear of getting sick.
Both complain about the cost of their insurance.
Both complain about the cost of prescriptions.
Both complain about the cost of health care.
It's health care, stupid.
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In "democracies" where leadership is decided by citizens' votes, the people get exactly what they voted for. Or, more to the point, what they DIDN'T. Close to HALF of eligible voters sat out the 2018 election. I bet my pension they are numerous among those who most vigorously complain about how bad they've got it. this is not about "partisanship" in Washington. It is about GOP in Washington. And they didn't get there on their own.
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Good stuff BUT as long as we talk and write about the problem without also discussing solutions we will remain on a treadmill. The basic problem we must deal with is jobs and that means the re-industrialization of the country. No, we can’t bring back the jobs that left because they are an inevitable part of commoditization. But we can innovate, that’s where good jobs come from. Innovation around renewable energy and carbon abatement hold the possibility of employing millions. We also need to rethink the food industry which has become too centralized. Decentralizing food can employ millions more. Finally, we need to innovate around transportation big time. Driverless cars can’t operate on roadless wilderness or pockmarked highways that were once the pride of our nation. Ditto for mass transit in and around our cities.
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@Denis
No disagreement but none of that can happen without first improving the educational system; the first steps in that effort being fully funding schools, relieving or eliminating student debt, and increasing access to education to all socioeconomic classes. There will be no innovation without better education.
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Decentralizing food can employ millions more, eh? So, how much more expensive do you want food to become? Who is going to pay the salaries of all those millions?
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@Denis
But we can innovate, that’s where good jobs come from.
There will always be a movement to roboticize and remove man from the industrial equation as said by Denis of Boston above. I know techies who have been chewed up by the computer mind robbers and canned as last years ideal worker once drained of his ideas.
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I didn’t see anywhere in this piece an actual, achievable policy position a candidate should promote. It seemed to mainly be advice for how to “harness the middle-class vote”. Get people at rallies to acknowledge their student loan debt? Use the language of financial anxiety? Use “Medicare for all” as a talking point even though you know it can’t be passed? People, voters, tire quickly of spin and empty promises. It’s no longer enough to say “I feel your pain”. If a candidate wants to actually propose something, it has to start with undoing the highly regressive tax policies and campaign finance regulations that keep us under corporate thumbs.
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@Greg
I agree.
The good news that that's exactly where the Democrats want to start this year (see their HR1, for instance).
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@Greg
Why can't Medicare for all work? Would it be easy to get through Congress? No. Not now. What needs to change are minds. Minds of those in the damaged middle class who may have voted for Trump, but find themselves offended by racii right and still behind the right ball economically.
I still need to do the arithmetic, but I'd bet that taking the income cap off payroll taxes would go a long way. Right now they are inherently regressive.
Reversing the recent tax giveaway to wealth and, substantially raising taxes on the top five percent, and modestly raising taxes on the rest of the top 20 percent would open numerous policy possibilities.
The important thing is that people believe we, as a people, are getting something for that money and this is the most important thing, MAKING GOOD ON THE PROMISE.
Not easy, but I think, doable. Can Trump's 30-35% be saved? Perhaps not. But the 65-70% can. The Republicans have been conspiring for 50 years to destroy people's faith in government. It will take a while to rebuild, particularly in the face of the continued pressure from the right. The consequences of not doing so will be unpleasant.
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@Greg
"Medicare for All" can't be passed? You know this, how? Perhaps it is time to revisit this issue. It would be better, of course, to educate the public as to how much money this would save our country because corporations will insist this will plunge the country into a socialist quagmire, despite the fact that there is real world evidence that it goes 180 degrees the other way. And we all know Conservatives will believe anything corporations tell them, including why they should be happy with an annual cost of living wage increase.
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This is a surprisingly good essay for the NY Times. Many Americans in the middle feel squeezed because of increases in the costs of higher education and health care that liberals seem to argue don't exist.
Part of the problem is not recognizing the limitations of our own knowledge and listening too much to the advice of experts, who may axes to grind.
One aspect of this self-delusion is believing too much in macroeconomics. Yes there are basic principles of macroeconomics that are on firm foundations, like the reasoning that goes into Fed policy. But economists themselves admit that the models of macroeconomics have limited predictive value. Nobel prize winner Paul Romer makes this point in an essay, "the Problem with Macroeconomics" which you can find on the web.
Some of the limitations of macro are easy to see. The statistics regarding inflation and GDP are flawed. Inflation was adjusted by the Boskin to give readings abouut 1% lower than before in 1996 for political reasons. And GDP does NOT measure quality of life. It goes up when two people get a divorce, even both participants may be worse off.
Moreover, macro simply ignores long term variables like population growth, partly because it is hard enough to make short term prediction.
But population growth ultimately destroys living standards. And that's why many people oppose illegal immigration. It has nothing to do with race.
Los Angeles is too crowded no matter what race the inhabitants.
2
When Americans are no longer able to watch 7 hours and 50 minutes of t.v. *per day* I'll start feeling sorry for them.
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can you provide a source for that number?
security is only for the very rich or families that save most of their top 5% salaries
No one has pensions, which means unless you or your company fund 401k and the stock market cooperates with both your investing timetable and the rate at which you need to withdraw money, you can easily run out of money.
50+ workers have difficulty finding work .. and without pensions to consider, many companies will just hire younger workers and let the older ones go when times are slow .. long wait to 65 or 67 to get social security or 65 for medicare.
Stockholders have displaced the trinity of stakeholders (employees, customers, stockholders), short-term financial statements took over long term planning, companies stopped thinking of high skilled, trained and achieving employees as an asset and rather put them into the expense category to be optimized through replacement with lower cost labor (younger, oversees, contractors, etc).
Unions did help in the 60s-70s-80s since collective bargaining agreements usually covered non-union salaried employees as well, from pensions to retiree health benefits to vacations and sick leave to health insurance premiums and deductibles ... gone.
We need progressives to work on establishing a safety net and retirement off ramp for the 95% .. and to adapt to today's world of automation and steep foreign competition.
Also immigrants of high education are great for companies but maybe not as competition with 50+ and in debt students.
3
The feeling that if your struggling it must be your fault is a message the corporate state has been marketing for years.It keeps individuals isolated and alone which allows the destruction of unions and a work force that is at the mercy of their employers. While social services are deemed to expensive the military -industrial complex marches on.When enough middle class become poor we might have our Louis xiv moment.
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@robert conger
Absolutely agree-- supported in large part by a corporate-captured media. Clearly so much Trump, Fox and right-wing rhetoric is focused on 'divide and conquer.' Stories are incredibly powerful-- having a hostage narrative furthers this dis-empowering political and economic environment.
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@robert conger
Yes. And Citizens United has sped up the time when the Louis xiv moment will occur.
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@robert conger
It’s also part of the religious teachings of those Christian religions that are based on Calvinism. It’s also part of the new religious trend of prosperity Christianity.
40
Middle class values that lead people to believe they can pull themselves up economically without cooperation with others no longer fit the reality of our system. Through capitalism, a few people have gained excessive power. Middle class people have to join together cooperatively--not an easy prospect. It is easier to fight over resources than cooperate with others to share them, easier to believe that Trump will solve your problems than to go through the changes in outlook and action that can bring you what you need. I see one fault in this piece. The college-educated have a better chance than the less educated of understanding what they have to do--perhaps, though, not a better chance of doing it.
2
I am one of the people about whom this article was written. Grew up in the 1970’s, one of six kids whose parents were relatively high achievers. Raised to believe that with education and hard work, I could achieve anything, indeed that it was a given that I and my siblings would live even more comfortably than our parents. But that’s not how it turned out. Husband and I both have degrees from private universities, no health issues, have worked hard all our lives. Yet, our lifestyle has slowly declined during the past ten years. One day, you’re taking vacations, buying new cars every three years, dining out 2-3 times a week, belong to a private club, and the next you’re cutting expenses any way you can, all while never breathing a word of it to your friends. Yes, we in the middle to upper middle classes still pretend everything is fine while we head toward old age with no expectation of retirement. We all have to start speaking out, for ourselves and our fellow Americans even further behind. The stiff upper lip is just allowing the powerful to run roughshod over the majority.
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@L. O’Neill Lifestyle and expectations are central. You mentioned four items that have never (and I mean that literally) been a part of my life: vacations, new cars, dining out frequently (when my kids were young, it was once per month) and a private club. It reminds me of the old saying, 'You can't lose what you never had.' L, I hope you have a nice day!
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@L. O’Neill
If one starts at the high level of private club, dining out 2-3 times a week, new cars every 3 years, then one is not in the middle class that I know about. We all have to start saving money for retirement from the very start. Speaking out is not a solution unless it also is accompanied by personal action. Without personal action, then speaking out is just whining.
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@L. O’Neill New cars every 2-3 years, and dining out 2-3 times a week? That kinda explains why you don't have enough saved for retirement.
When I was a kid my family went on vacations to cool places, and we'd go out to dinner for a special occasion or to go to our favorite sushi place once a month or so, but what you describe seems really excessive. How often could you possibly need a brand-new car?
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Look around you.
Just as middle management jobs began going extinct in the 1960 and on because computers could provide management with information faster, more accurately and more cheaply.
Next-step up the ladder jobs were disappearing faster than Kavanaugh's pants at a party. Pathways to more secure, more highly paid positions are being eliminated.
The robots are coming today and they will replace a lot of workers.
We must see things and accept them for what they are. Government, if inclined can help some.
For our selves, we must educate, re-educate, learn the game, adapt.
Yes, much is out of our control no matter how hard we work but much remains up to us.
And then there's sheer luck, some you make, some you get.
@AWENSHOK: Any high school grad, not from a filthy rich family, who goes to college to get a liberal arts degree is stupid. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. The smartest kids go to tech high schools, tech colleges, get advanced tech degrees. Poor kids who go to tech high schools & show up at new automated factories to get hired, do. Those who either dropped out, or showed up with a regular high school diploma, don’t. It’s the same way in college. If you want a BA, then either an MD, or Law degree, be ready to soon have a million dollars in debt at graduation with 10 more years of slave labor, before your shingle can go out as a doctor or lawyer. So, even more debt as you need to eat during those years. Medicine is no longer THE way to riches. For no one can pay those fees & when Medicare for all shows up, will be worse. But, your debt won’t go down. The rich will get richer, the middle class will either go tech, or move down into the poor, & unemployed. Not a fun idea, just the way this world we go, unless we stop the rich. Was done once before. The income tax started out as for the rich only, at 85-95%, the rest didn’t even have to file, as nothing was taken out of their pay. Oh, the rich did not get poor under this, just thought it wasn’t fair. So they started spending 100X more to change it. They’d be wealthier, if they’d just kept on, money doesn’t make you smart.
It's still mystifying to me, a member of the middle class, how people in this economic position can vote for Republicans. The GOP is unequivocal about blaming people for their own economic misfortune, and is more than willing to punish people for it. Even now, they're supporting a president whose knickers are in a twist over something irrelevant to their economic improvement. In fact, they may suffer harm by not getting their tax refunds. You don't have to dig very deep to know that Republican legislators are unrepentant social Darwinists who have contempt for the middle class. While people vote for them on economic issues, apparently unthinkingly, the other reasons they choose Republicans are for social wedge issues having to do with religion, immigration, and gender. Just because you're struggling, and I've been there, doesn't mean you get a pass on bitterness and small-mindedness.
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@BKB I agree with your bewilderment regarding middle class GOP voters. Election results in New Jersey show that bewilderment leads to action. Middle class voters in New Jersey were punished by the trump tax cut. We are proud of our educational achievements, our competent judiciary and forward thinking ideas...such as bail reform. We want clean air, water and an environment that endures for our grandchildren. These middle class values are nowhere to be found on the GOP side.
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@BKB
You summed up my feelings on this nicely.
Americans have been taught to believe that Capitalism means 'every man for himself.' So, if a constituent complains they're working two jobs and the American Dream is nowhere in sight, what do Republicans answer? Immigrants are the problem. If that doesn't work they shift to diversion tactics like God, guns, sex, and bathrooms.
What's happening at our southern border is the twisted, demented result of decades of misdirection about how our middle class became a shell of its former self.
The definition of Capitalism is not 'every man for himself.' Capitalism means privately owned industry instead of state owned industry. How the profits from a nation's economic output are used to benefit that nation is secondary. Sweden, often panned as a Socialist country, is actually a Capitalist country. The difference between us and them is that they make the financial dignity of their citizens a priority. We do not.
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@BKB Don't underestimate the importance of guns, abortion, and hatred for (largely brown) immigrants in motivating these people. The emotional appeal of these issues causes a good number of people to vote against their own self interest.
77
If more citizens focus first on thinking followed by of how they feel, good things will happen. Most people have an intuitive model of cooperative behavior that stems from two linked fears, one of being taken advantage of and another of under producing for lack of opportunities. Creating a way, a path, for us to work with citizens and government in a format that eliminates these ingrained fears by understanding both supply and demand is the primary goal. On the demand side, the commons situation encourages a race to the bottom by overuse—what economists call a congested–public-good problem. On the supply side, the commons rewards free-rider behavior—removing or diminishing incentives for individual actors to invest in developing more output. The tragedy of the commons predicts only three possible outcomes. One is the sea of mud many think we have today. Another is for some actor with coercive power to enforce an allocation policy on behalf of the village (the socialist/communist solution). The third is for the commons to break up as village members, fence-off bits they can defend and manage sustainably. Once we're able to identify our bias seeking patterns, we can change the only thing we have 100% control of, ourselves.
An insidious side effect of the Horatio Alger-type stories is that they reinforce one of the worst Middle American myths, the idea that poor people are just lazy, stupid, and immoral, and if they'd just work harder, go to school, and get married, they wouldn't be poor anymore.
These kinds of myths undermine support for exactly the types of programs and laws that can make life tolerable for low-income people and give them a boost out of poverty.
If only more Middle Americans knew how many people who did everything right end up with insupportable student loans or medical debt, have lost a home to foreclosure or been evicted because their landlord wants more affluent tenants, have had to declare bankruptcy, have put off medical or dental procedures that they can't afford, even with insurance; have had their pensions or health coverage terminated after a corporate merger, are working more than 40 hours per week and still struggling, or have been dumped out of the job market at age 50, they would be angry rather than ashamed.
The right wing dreads the thought of white, black, brown, yellow, and red Americans with low and middle incomes realizing that they have more in common with one another than with any of the talking heads on Fox News or the editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal.
That's why the right-wing noise machine insists on demonizing the poor, especially poor people of color.
945
"Middle-class and poor voters have more in common with one another today than they do with the economic ultra-elite. And if they can continue to organize into coalitions, they could be truly powerful forces. Maybe they’d take to the streets most weeks and shut down our cities on a more regular basis, like they do in France."
In France, those who took to the streets were not all the poor or all those struggling, but only for the most part those effected by gas prices. Rural not urban. It was not a country-wide phenomenon.
Money problems would seemingly unite those struggling, but identity politics usually trump this.
Even the empathy of liberals and progressives tends to be limited to those struggling in their constituencies.
After a while in Washington, even liberals and progressives also understand where the money comes from that will get them re-elected.
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@Joshua Schwartz: however, I think the rebellion of the Yellow Jackets is going to spread to the urban working class as well….France with its very socialist system of government and very big hoaxes, is ripe for a revolution.
1
@Joshua Schwartz
What makes you believe that "the empathy of liberals and progressives tends to be limited to shoes struggling in their constituencies" ... ?
The GOP is trying to destroy Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which only still stand tall thanks to the Democrats' unified and relentless (and highly competent, fact-based) efforts in DC.
And who benefits most from these policies? As study after study shows: red states.
16
@Joshua Schwartz
You really hit a good point.
"Even the empathy of liberals and progressives tends to be limited to those struggling in their constituencies."
It shows and it not unheard in these areas. The phrase " ugh die already" is a common one uttered in more aspirational circles in regards to the opioid crisis, coal miners, etc. You see it in comment sections or op eds. This is spread around like wildfire by a bad faith right wing who probably feel just as cruel and vicious (if not much more so) but at least pretend to connect with them culturally.
However I believe that identity politics or "cultural grievance" politics has never fully won a real battle with class politics and solidarity. It hasn't been tried since the early 70's.
Just read all those articles about the 1970 mid terms where various hard hats complained how much they hated the hippies, but at the end of the day, they knew that voting Dems meant more $ in their pocket. Resentment voting was a luxury most couldn't afford.
When the right wing DLC took over the Democratic party in 1992 they threw the working class base out, told them they had nowhere else to go and that they better learn to code or else it's your own fault if you died in the street like a dog.
7
Paul Fussell once wrote an enlightening and very funny essay called “Notes on Class”, which he later expanded into a book.
Part of the problem with the United States is that most people who work for others are very unwilling to identify themselves as workers. The pretence has spread to the point where workers with college degrees now call themselves “middle class”, so they can look down on workers without college degrees as “working class”. Fussell was also rather hard on second-rate institutions dressing themselves up as “colleges”, but that’s a whole other problem.
It’s common to accuse Trump supporters of being low-information voters that unwittingly vote against their own interests, but Americans on the other end of the political spectrum can also be held captive by their illusions, one of these being that they’re middle class, and entitled to something as a result.
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@Global Charm Thanks for the Paul Fussell shout out. It's true that many Americans cringe at being viewed as working class rather than middle class. The concurrent economic collapse of both working and middle classes is making this a distinction without a difference. Appeals to economic, rather than class, issues might bring a crucial percentage of these voters to stop voting against their own economic self interests. Is it too much to hope that a block of these voters will realize that trump's racist fear mongering hides his total devotion to ripping off everyone to benefit the one percent; that it is harming not helping their economic bottom line? It's up to Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and other Dems to make a convincing argument that these voters will hear. We're all listening.
37
@Global Charm
This calls to mind the possible apocryphal quote from Upton Sinclair that there will never be a socialist revolution in America because workers regard themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires rather than as a dispossessed proletariat -- or something like that.
48
@Global Charm
I have a college degree and I phrase things differently.
I use professional class and working class.
And there are plumbers and other trades who are middle class.
And there are English majors working at Starbucks who are not middle class. (And those are the lucky ones because they get above minimum wage and health insurance.)
24
I can't help be struck by the irony that when it comes to retail products, there has never been more transparency. When I grew up, it was impolite to ask how much an item cost. But now, news of any purchase inevitably leads to a round of questions on "on how much did you pay?" followed by "you should have ordered it from [company]." But when it comes to essentials like mortgages and student loans, we do prefer silence.
1
@Paul
Mortgages, student loans and...medical costs. No way to compare price or value till it’s too late.
I see myself in your column too. I have an advanced degree but my profession has become squeezed by corporate moves to a contingent workforce here in the US and offshoring work to the highly educated in India and China. (I get paid only about 1/2 of what I was paid in 2000 for the same work). No health insurance, no retirement, working out of my home for wealthy corporations and a mortgage still yet to pay. As a first generation college student back in the 70s that relied on debt for my tuition and board I assumed I would help my own children avoid going into debt for college. But I couldn't and now the cycle is repeating itself only much worse. I fear for my own and my children's futures in ways that I never thought possible. My working class friends in high school thought we would rise above our less-educated parents with our college degrees but we haven't. Why?
641
@DJMCC, because the robber barons are back. We forgot them in the days of their restraint by regulation. But they didn't forget us, and now they're here, exploiting workers as ever, all kinds, and will do so until they are required to stop.
130
@DJMCC
Why? Good question.
It appears to be because the gains in national income that have resulted from technology/productivity increases (eg computers, improved intl transpo, robots, bigger scale) are mainly going to the top 1%. Literally the top 1%.
There have been gains for those in the top 10 (ten)%, but they are far far less.
For the remainder of us--the 90%--real incomes have been dropping, as the 1% take the gains.
Costs of college, health care, housing, childcare have far outstripped income.
91
@jb
"Let the workers have just enough so they are neither alive, nor dead"
40
There's a big difference between the anxiety voters and the entitlement voters.
Perhaps the Democrats can sway the anxiety voters by showing that they have their best interests in mind. But the Democrats will never sway the entitlement voters, who think that others (women, people of color, immigrants) are getting ahead over them. The entitlement voters are inherently insecure because they know deep down that it is their own fault - not the fault of others - why they are not brighter and richer. But they are too hypocritical to acknowledge this flaw in themselves, much as they see it in others.
As an inherently insecure person, Trump intuitively understands the entitlement voters and plays to their insecurities.
195
@HN
Your comment is very insightful. The concept that some fervently believe that they are being left behind because people of color or women are given advantages they cannot get must also be accompanied by a belief that they are more capable than people of color or women. My guess is that they can’t objectively see themselves or they are right that the advantages once given to white men are being shifted to those who have been historically discriminated against.
12
@Nb
It is not that people of color or women are given more advantages, but rather the same advantages.
25
@HN How can it be your own fault that you are not "brighter?" Intelligence is a largely inherited part of who we are. It's in our DNA. "Richer" is a product of intelligence, temperament (willingness to delay gratification, plan for the future, see the world realistically), luck, and most significantly, the wealth of your parents, whom you did not choose, anymore than you chose your IQ. Add in another factor you cannot choose: how you were raised as a child. Give a child a mother who does not love him, an absent father, physical or verbal abuse, racial or cultural discrimination, narcissistic parents, an atmosphere of theistic tyranny, attempts to control by guilt and manipulation----and the resulting anxiety can be extremely hard to overcome.
26
A sizable and sustained middle class is an historical aberration. That we had one in the post war years doesn’t change that fact. The Greatest Generation EARNED the GI Bill by stopping fascism and through sacrifice and that’s what led to the period of growth and the American dream. Subsequent generations, including my fellow boomers, have not come close to such an achievement.
66
@From Where I Sit Your definition of "earn" must be a moral one, not a fiscal one. There's no reason why the same thing can't be done now, even without WW3.
The WW2 generation shouldn't have had to put their lives on the line in order to be assured funding through college. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing, if the political will is there.
66
@From Where I Sit -- A middle class is an urban phenomenon. It is therefore new.
We didn't have it when life on the farm or small farming towns was the norm for the population. But now that is only about 2% of our population.
Hence, we do have a large middle class, and it is very much the norm -- for the pattern of life we lead.
22
@From Where I Sit
The post WWII situation was greatly helped by the decades before WWII. The rise of unions, starting from around the turn of the century gave workers a power they never had, and do not have now. The Great Depression showed millions of Americans that Corporations are not going to self regulate and would rather put money in their own pockets than give their workers a raise, hence did not vote GOP. Today, many Americans believe unions are evil and corporations have the best interests of their workers at heart. And they vote that way.
American workers have ALWAYS EARNED their way. It is just that business rather not pay them.
70
"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics".
Plutarch
Along with the imbalance, our priorities are wrong, in that we spend so vast a part of our budget on the military. Consider how these resources might be spent domestically, productively, in ways that wouldn't bring destabilization, harm, and death.
5
I believe Ms Quart is missing a critical factor in her analysis. The conservative half of the middle and working classes are focused on their relative status, not their actual status. Relative status requires a down group while actual status does not.
The deal with the rich and powerful is to provide narratives and means to allow the conservative half of the population to have higher relative status than the target, carefully chosen, weak or powerless down groups in spite of not having done anything to earn it. In fact, the strongest indication of relative status is that you are not held responsible, and there are no consequences, for bad behavior WRT the selected down groups.
History is very clear that conservatives will let their children starve, literally and figuratively, in order to feel "up".
This is NOT an argument against trying to fix the real problems that exist. Just do not assume that attacking actual problems will motivate any significant portion of the conservative half of the working and middle classes. What you are trying to do is attract the approximately 3-5% of the conservative half of the population that care enough about their families that they are willing to sacrifice some relative status in order to gain some actual status.
623
@DanH " Relative status requires a down group while actual status does not."
This is not true in countries where income inequality isn't an issue. People don't fret as much about relative status in places where people are mostly equal.
41
@DanH. You may have a point about real solutions perhaps not attracting the conservative working and middle classes, but I think the midterms showed that the winning strategy is to offer those solutions nonetheless. If you can motivate infrequent voters who agree with you and believe you are trying to help them, you increase turnout. Subsequently, if you keep on message with specific proposals, then those conservatives who would benefit from them might be less inclined to turn out, or more inclined to split their tickets. But your point shows that Democrats need to endorse this strategy wholeheartedly; otherwise we get conservative voters in Kentucky under Obama, who praised KentuckyCare as being way better than Obamacare, when they were actually the same thing.
58
@DanH
Thank you. This has given me such clarity. In fact the entire education system in the west is geared towards churning out discrete caste systems and maintaining them painstakingly for the advantage of the rich and powerful. It is only a few lucky folks who can dare to break out of their tier. The rest unknowingly are trapped for generations. Relative status becomes their coat of arms.
52
I think some points not mentioned in Ms. Quart's piece. First and foremost more families are led by single family households and this has put enormous financial strain on both men and women who been living to paycheck to paycheck, even if they make six figures, for years. You can't make up those losses no matter how frugal your are.
Another is the fact that is the paradigm of materialism and consumerism that has created this situation in which people are not saving even an extra $100 month. Cell phones alone can cost a family of three or four more than $4,000 a year.
15 years ago that was not the case and let not forget the middle class is still paying the price for the Great Recession as this disintegrated wealth from lost earnings, retirement funds and the values of homes, if you were even able to hold on have also contributed to being set back for years.
Neoliberalism over the last forty years has created this crisis and just because folks like Sander, Warren and Cumo are finally " waking" up we are going to see millions of retirees run out of savings in their golden years, if they even had them in the first place, and sadly this will put even more financial strains of families, as we will see a necessary mass migration of seniors back to their kids to just survive.
For the Boomers who brought this on...you have become so much worse than your parents. What a painful irony for the children of the 1960's as you did change the world it was just for the worse.
@shiningstars122
Please quit bashing the Boomers. Neither I nor the Boomers I know "brought this on." Also, I don't know anyone who lives paycheck to paycheck on six figures a year, nor anyone who spends $4000 a year on cell phones.
Our elites did trade deals beginning with NAFTA that encouraged companies to shift factories, work and jobs to other nations. The largest beneficiary was China.
With those shifts, more than 6 million industrial jobs were exported. The loss is more than just the factory workers. We lost the jobs in transport, insurance, finance that go directly with manufacturing. As communities collapsed across the Midwest and South, the personal service industries were squeezed and millions of those jobs devalued and made into minimum wage traps. Education and health care were made unaffordable.
The Op-Ed is right. Our Middle Class has been systematically whittled down. People have lost their savings with the housing scam of the last decade and the rescue plan that reduced returns on savings to 1 or 2 percent annually.
Trump expressed in understandable language a ray of hope. He was and is false, but the Democratic Party was lost in their bi-coastal bliss and dependency on Wall Street and ignored the obvious.
Hopefully, a resurgent Democratic Party and a national Democratic Party freed of the Clinton Political Machine control can once again understand and speak to the vast number of Americans who are in distress because of no fault of their own. And we need a President who can lead and will not use the Office for his own personal gain.
I am hopeful with the start of this new Congress that the Democrats can lead a resurgence in the 2020 election and afterwards in 2021.
6
If our health care expenses were in line with the rest of the world we could afford "Medicare for all." Maybe a new political party is the answer.
2
It appears that in the 1980's the rules began to change in a way so subtle that people were unable to plan their personal finances to conform to the new rules. In this new reality--that most money goes to the top few-- belt tightening for the average person comes a bit late. I now live on Social Security and a pension but, due to living in poverty as a young adult, I have never stopped pinching pennies. I have never felt ashamed of the way I live as I intuitively realized early on how hard won a reasonable standard of living is. I have fortunately been preserved from feeling guilty that I couldn't do more with my life. I feel angry for myself and for those who blame themselves. The most we can do now is vote. But I am very hesitant about Beto because he is a multi-millionaire and his record shows that he votes with Republicans much of the time. The other thing people can do is stop shopping.
1
Kudos for attention to the health care and education squeeze, but you forget the 800-pound gorilla n the room: The ridiculous and rising cost of housing in most urban areas, especially those that appear to promise opportunity to the very group you are highlighting. This is less due to scarcity than to speculation, including tech companies, profiteer real estate dealers like the Trump clan, money laundering LLCs, and foreigners like weslthy Chinese with no real interest in the well being of American communities.
This plague is obvious in places like San Francisco and New York, but is spreading to college towns with limited housing and commercial stock and promising, affordable metropolitan areas across the country like Atlanta.
There are solutions, but the problem is getting to the point that the cure might well kill the patient, especially when Federal programs and oversight are laid waste by long years of Republican rule.
I think back to growing up in a suburb of a large city with a working upper Blue Color union Dad, stay-at-home Mom, five kids (two of whom had serious medical issues), owned their own home, new car every three years, three kids to college (who worked and paid for most of it themselves via Defense Student Loan Act), leaving a nice well-managed nest egg to the heirs (who didn’t care because we had been able to make our own lives.) My kids have struggled to get half as far.
7
The poor and middle class outnumber the millionaires and billionaires whose donations to campaigns, PACs and SuperPACs buy the legislation that overwhelmingly benefits them.
There is no shame in being poor or middle class when business and federal and state elected officials, the people in charge, look us in the face and tell the poor you are going to stay poor and good luck on staying middle class because we must be sacrificed on the alter of corporate profits.
3
Please count me in also. By the numbers, our family is upper-middle class, bottom of the top quintile, a fact that I find astonishing. Is our position the same as that of the poor?--no. But do we feel, spend, live, think, like rich people?--also no. Not by a long shot. But, and this is a big but, in today's America being where my family is income-wise just makes us bigger targets for the wealth extraction of the super-wealthy and their political agents. For any real progress to be made that sliver of the population that is taking and hoarding the wealth in this country need to be forced to stop doing what they are doing.
6
We should not be surprised the middle class and lower class interests are not well served by policy, since the middle class is poorly and the lower working class barely at all represented in legislature around the country and at the head of agencies. The last time the US had a labor representative as Secretary of Labor was under President Ford, whose term ended January 1977. Compare this to all the Goldman Sachs executives and all the other business leaders who have gone in and out of government. It will take more than a few new representatives to change this state of affairs.
8
Any victim of assault may blame themselves - as if they could have had control. But didn’t.
That’s what this Op-Ed is getting at. That middle class people, who have been victims of systemic inequality and injustice feel that falling down the socio-economic ladder is a personal failing - instead of society and economic forces outside their control assaulting them, leading to a sense of personal failure.
These folks need a type of societal therapy.
Therapy is based on trust, on a sense of connection. And whoever can establish that trusting bond with voters, particularly with the voters who have been most abused economically, socially, politically, that leader may be able to help them see their victimhood as due to forces outside themselves (not inner failure) - and help them turn that victimhood into power: the Power of the Vote!
People Power.
Empowerment through understanding. And through voting.
11
Another concern of the middle class is the expectation that they (or their kids) ought to be ready to pack up and move to some booming urban center where the jobs are. Many people really don't want to live in New York (or Cleveland), and are quite happy in the smaller cities and towns where their roots and families are.
But until some way is found to make more places viable (and I don't know a surefire way to do that), the middle class of much of America will still be faced with an uneasy future.
9
@Jim S., well yes,, and if we all moved to New York or Cleveland, how long would those places work out? How long before the newcomers were despised and hated due to their numbers and desperation? Ask an "okie" and you'll hear. We've seen it in our nation before, in terms of occupations, too. The blanket prescription is soon another dead end. But in a country where college teachers, architects, lawyers, not to mention whole fields like clerical or retail work--are part-timed or temped for rich men's gain, there's no answer but to demand they stop exploiting and gouging us into poverty.
4
People who have a philosophy (and voted as such) that hard work, lower taxes and fewer regulations was all that was needed to succeed have to admit they were wrong. How would you like to admit that, after 45 years, you were wrong? So they keep thinking and voting the same way, expecting a different outcome. A definition of insanity.
To get people to change lifelong habits, there needs to be a shock to the system.
We missed an opportunity when the banks crashed and we could have gone over the edge. The banking and finance industries were scared for first time in a century. We could have broken up the banks and made structural changes to the system. But those making the decisions were industry insiders and our president was inexperienced and weak.
Do I need to mention his name?
12
@JB
The reason why even Paul Krugman opposed breaking up the big banks right after the 2008 Great Recession is because economists across the political spectrum agreed that IF you start attacking the banking sector when GDP is at -8% and the economy is shedding 700,000 jobs a month, then in the current capitalist system you'll only create more chaos and panic on international markets, and loose many more jobs.
Sometimes being strong means taking decisions that may not be the easiest to understand from a common sense, inexperienced point of view, but nevertheless the only good ones ...
6
No, we know it’s Trump.
2
@Ana Luisa Though he is right on most issues, he was wrong. There were many who believed it the right thing to do. Short of break-ups, there were actions that could have been taken- more than just Dodd-Frank.
We are right back to where we were pre-crash and the middle and working classes are even more alienated.
I think it was the 1992 campaign season when frustrated Republican Newt Gingrich quipped that the simplest, most effective theme for Democrats would be "Had enough?" That could be far more potent today.
12
I live in Manhattan, where some people make unfathomable wealth year after year and have endless opportunity and others will never be able to get ahead, no matter how hard they try.
That, and not the endless discourse on identity politics, is what will drive the next election in the U.S.
I do believe Beto has an uncommon touch to connect with the hard-working people of America who feel left behind and forgotten.
I will work hard for whoever the democratic nominee is. But I am hoping it will be him.
11
@Sparky
Look closely at Beto's record before throwing in for him. Charisma isn't everything.
2
"Middle-class and poor voters have more in common with one another today than they do with the economic ultra-elite". No more is this true than on the issue of healthcare. Medicare for all is a basic right of every citizen in this country and yet many cannot afford it. Everyone acknowledges it would be expensive.
On this one issue, we can learn from Trump. He proved that a single issue can, if presented correctly can congeal support around it. With a good or bad idea. He had "the wall" with Mexico tagged to pay for it . It was as if he was saying since they are causing the problem they should pay for it.
So, how do we pay for it? By looking to the wealthy in our country who could very easily afford to pay hire taxes. We mobilize the poor and middle class "against" the rich. This group easily outnumbers the rich in this country by 90%. No one, not even the rich, would bat an eye if they had to pay more taxes to fund Medicare for all.
15
It's not as if Trump invented campaigning, you know ... ;-)
Obama ran on healthcare and won.
The Democrats ran on HC in 2018 and won.
The difference between Democrats and Trump isn't that Trump is such a good campaigner (after all, he lost to Hillary by 3 million votes ...), it's that Trump promises things he's not interested in himself at all, and then leans on Fox News's fake news to make his voter base believe that we really need those things.
As we're seeing now, once you manage to win the electoral college on the basis of such hollow campaign slogans, NOTHING will happen at all, on those issues.
That's why during the only two years that Trump had the political capital to get his wall built, and his own party controlling DC, he didn't even START to engage in real negotiations for the wall - let alone start building the first inch - whereas by this time in the Obama presidency, the ACA was effectively negotiated and signed into law (and has now already saved an additional half a million American lives).
Finally, it's absurd to believe that "the rich" are the problem. They are NOT. All of the Democrats' wealthy donors and politicians support higher taxes for themselves for years already, AND continue to do so even after Obama increased taxes for himself and the wealthiest 1% multiple times.
The corrupt GOP, who totally lost its moral compass, THAT is the only real problem here.
And Medicare for All is actually CHEAPER than a for-profit system, remember?
8
@Harley Leiber the cost of Medicare for all is estimated at $32 TRILLION over 10 years i.e $3 trillion a year. Confiscating all the income of “the rich” will barely make a dent in the bill. I guarantee everyone in the top 10% of the income distribution will bat their eyelids non stop
It amazes me that almost every article on economic struggles includes student debt. How is it that supposedly intelligent people, the students themselves and their parents, were not able to see that accumulating that kind of debt for an education was not going to payoff. I would think that a reality check would lead most people to realize that they were not going to be making upper six figure salaries no matter how "great" their education is.
It seems that these articles and other news about student debt are actually part of a lobbying campaign to have taxpayers bear the burden of these debts, which should never happen. The students and families who are struggling with student debt should be lobbying or suing to have the universities that they attended assume the responsibility for their debt.
1
Excellent opinion piece that rightly captures the fear, anxiety and anger so many Americans are dealing with as our economy has stopped working for so many of us.
Yet, the following was particularly troubling:
"One example of this is the scholarship program that Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York put in place: 940,000 middle-class families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year will qualify to attend tuition-free at colleges in the New York State and New York City public university systems. Though not perfect, it’s a step in the right direction."
We have got to stop using a college degree as a prerequisite to success. Too many HS graduates are ill-prepared for college. They then must settle colleges that don't properly train them. So, they come out with lesser skills and excessive debt. Cuomo's 'solution' just addresses the debt burden, which is just part of the problem.
There are so many jobs in our economy that should be 'vocationalize' in nature - that is, basic 3R's along with technical skills learned in high school that then lead to apprenticeships. Many healthcare, computer, mechanical and craft skills fall in to these categories. Why do we need a bookkeeper that has to have a degree in accounting? Also, periods of periods of practical experience working for a professional should at least equal to higher education.
The education-industrial complex is self-serving an elite. It needs radical reform to better serve the people and the country.
19
It appears to me over the decades of my life we all drank the lower taxes and regulation will foster a strong economy cool-aid. There should be different tax rates for those who are already doing incredibly well. I have my own profitable small business that still needs alot of cash flow to expand. We are not publicly traded. When I hire it is at personal risk to my personal bank account. Small start ups like mine are the engine of new economic growth and should be taxed at a lower rate so we may continue to expand. Small businesses are the tiny seed that may grow into tall oaks and should be cared for. Highly profitable mature conglomerates should be taxes at a higher rate as they tend to crush their competition or gobble them up through purchase. I've always hated the term "human resources". The idea that people in your business are of equal importance as your toner cartridge makes my skin crawl. Small businesses tend to be more like family. If I have to fired someone or see and employee struggle I have to deal with that emotionally and look these people in the eye. Small business grow by caring for people, their customers and workers. Most of us who own small businesses in America love that not only can we do well for ourselves but we can help those around us. This is the authentic beauty of free market economics. That being said I have also had my share of hiring people who were either lazy or mentally unstable. Eventually people have to earn their keep.
9
Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers by Ellen E. Schultz is an excellent, if densely-written (which it sort of has to be, considering the topic) analysis of what happened to the American dream over the last thirty years.
10
Many lower and middle income Americans are indeed getting a raw deal. And many of these people actually voted for it. Over and over again. Or didn't bother to vote at all.
25
I agree. We need to mine the same anger and resentment, but at a system that has left them behind and actually works against them. Many struggle daily only to see what appears to be immigrants getting something for free followed by an explanation on how a "wall" will solve all their problems. What should be pointed out while the opportunity exists is, how the "explainer" is the un-apologetic embodiment of what type of creature can emerge from the ooze of privilege and unfettered capitalism at their expense while, according to people and their party it's a zero sum game.
13
Essentially America has taken a wrong turn in comparison to all other Western democracies. America is now unique for all the wrong reasons, essentially all of its problems have already been solved in other countries. The media needs to spend more time demolishing the myths of American Exceptionalism and the American Dream, both now simply get in the way of pragmatic solutions.
49
Yes! But in order to get broad general support, you need to provide broad general benefit. Anyone can benefit from more equitable income, improved public education, good road, infrastructure. Only after people feel ok about their own survival will you get support for the redress of historical skewing (paid for by descendants of arguable beneficiaries to the benefit of descendants of arguable sufferers.)
8
The wealthy benefit from having enough spare capital to invest, the gains from which are taxed at a lower capital gains rate. I do not agree with the rationale of these lower rates - why should the work of a person be taxed harder than the work of an invested dollar? I think all income should at least be taxed evenly.
If we did, the top 1% would pay an extra 10% ( 37% at ordinary rates vs. the average 27% at cap gains as calculated by the taxfoundation.org) and the top 5% would pay 11% more (35% vs 24%). Since these wealthy taxpayers pay roughly 60% of individual taxes (taxfoundation.org), taxing their income at the rate paid by day labor would bring revenue up by 114 billion (1.688 trillion x 0.6 x 0.11). My point is that the top 5% are forgiven paying an amount only slightly less than is paid by the bottom 75% of taxpayers (1.688 x 0.1338 x 0.75) - an amount they could afford and should reasonably be expected to pay in fairness - an amount not so easily afforded by the bottom 75%.
24
And the rural poor and middle class have more in common the metro area poor and middle class than they do with Republican policies.
16
Once again both-siderism rules the day. As if both sides are somehow equally unappealing to these people. The GOP has no policies to help these people. In fact they want to take away one of the only things that has helped the ACA. And the ACA functions poorly in many places because of GOP sabotage. Meanwhile democrats actually have policy proposals to help the middle class. But as always the media pretends as if politics is a horse race or a game rather than covering what is actually going on.
31
I believe what America is to become will ultimately be determined by insurance companies, and the people who can't afford insurance.
9
The public policies that are hurting so many citizens have been “voted in” by voters who choose candidates not on the basis of thoughtful, fact based reflection on issues, but on what “team” they belong to.
This defective voting is the basic problem that has and is degrading our democracy.
I believe people will only “cast the scales off their eyes” when there is so much suffering for so many that they are forced to reject thoughtless politics and “unvarnished” capitalism.
I don’t know how bad it will need to be; depends how easily peoples’ critical faculties can be awakened.
15
@Stephen Rinsler
The worse they are off, the less educated they'll be (both when it comes to IQ or "knowledge" education, and EQ or moral education), so the easier they'll be or remain a victim of the massive GOP/Fox News fake news and propaganda and "putting the wealthiest 1% first" policies.
So we can't just wait and sit this out.
In a democracy, you only have a government for the people if it's a government by the people. That means that in order to stop the current disaster, we have to:
1. vote!
2. engage as much as possible in real, respectful debates with those who disagree.
Those are the two constitutional powers citizens in any democracy have to fight back against the destruction brought about by a minority of wealthy financial "elites".
We either use them to empower ourselves, and then "we the people" win and America will be put first, or we don't, and then corrupt minorities will continue to wreak havoc for decades and decades to come.
The 'American Dream' Mythology insists that economic failure is personal failure; that if you work, try hard, play by the rules, you WILL succeed.
This allows those who succeed financially to dismiss those who do not succeed as failures undeserving of sympathy and help.
Of course, most Americans believe the American Dream Mythology. To understand how our economy really works, how we are subject to economic forces beyond our control, requires both mental effort and rejection of this basic tenet of The American Dream mythology.
This is actually The American Tragedy.
35
Elizabeth Warren has been writing about these issues of the middle class squeeze for years and years! She explains it fully in her books.
25
@Ellen
AND so many other Democrats!
And it's not just writing/talking about these things, if you look at what they do once "we the people" give them full control of Congress, it's obvious that they've done there homework, and have all the fact-based policy proposals needed to AND the willingness and competence to get them through Congress and signed into law, in order for "we the people" to obtain/achieve serious progress.
Our worst enemy here is ignorance and cynicism.
THAT is what makes us believe that we can just wait until "the people we elect can express our pain for us instead, so we wouldn't have to".
Being a politician means writing bills that achieve what WE tell them we want, and then knowing how to compromise (as is always necessary in a democracy - except when presidents start to shut down the government and tak the entire country hostage, of course) in order to move the law one more step closer to full accomplishment of our ideals.
We have to stop expecting that our politicians be our "saviors", having "charisma", being our therapists, our "ideal me" (as Michelle Obama clearly is), etc.
That's NOT their job.
Their job in a democracy is to change the law, and our job as citizens is to inform ourselves about their campaign platforms and who does what in DC, and then VOTE, and vote for the campaign platform that is both realistic and comes closest to our own ideals.
THAT is when things will change.
4
Conservative Governors' like Wisconsin 3-term Scott Walker (defeated in 2018) successfully ran on a divide and conquer platform blaming public employees and minorities for white middle class private sector financial struggles. As a result, everyone blames everyone else for their predicament instead of looking at the real issues plaguing the middle class. Unless and until this changes, Wisconsin and a lot of other places like it will continue to slide further down.
26
@Tom That's how Republicans get elected. They campaign for guns and against gays. When they get elected, they become prostitutes for the 1%, giving them huge tax breaks and getting rid of or not enforcing laws and regulations on the environment, banks, health and safety and civil rights in return for campaign contributions
2
For many, financial success is God's personal approval of them blended with the belief of responsibility for their own actions. Of course, shame is felt if God is not blessing you and you have not taken responsibility for your life. Who wouldn't be ashamed? Those feelings are being manipulated to control vulnerable and uneducated people. People need to make themselves aware of the factors where the system fails them and sets them up for failure. Personally, I feel burdened by the failure of the vulnerable and uneducated to see what is so obvious because their actions are destroying our democracy which I do value. As this editorial suggests, we can change the details but for me fundamentally redefining successful from material accumulation to emotionally healthy and long term sustainable moral goals is required.
17
'You could have a better life if you paid your gardener more.' Absurd, right? We all know that you pay the least for resources you get, and charge the most for what you sell. If your gardener could get more from somebody else he should leave. Capitalism will sort it all out. It's the magic of the market that makes America great.
But is that really true? Could any nation survive with better-paid gardeners? Actually, yes. An economy is a circulation, a tangle of intersecting loops: what goes around, comes around. Your better-paid gardener will participate more fully in the economy, and in a diffuse untraceable way, some of that comes back to you. The circulation occurs on a higher plane.
Scandinavian social democracies work this way, and citizens who live there are much happier than those who live in a winner-take-all, free market society, composed of only winners and losers, like ours.
We still have residual social democratic institutions like Social Security from our earlier progressive era, but those are now under attack. Obama "put Social Security on the table" but Republicans didn't take it because they wanted even more. O'Connell and Ryan recently said that Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have to be reduced to pay for their "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act". Is this the best way to go?
25
@Herman Tiege I hope everyone knows the distinction between Social Security and so-called "entitlements" like Medicaid and Medicare. Social Security is NOT a government funded payout. It is COMPLETELY made up of money pulled from workers wages, invested, and returned at a conditional time (generally after age 65). If the federal government were to eliminate SS they would be guilty of fraud--if not theft--no different from Bernie Madoff. Social Security funds are wholly owned by the taxpayers who were obligated by law to invest in the program. It could only be eliminated after all the existing funds were distributed to the investors.
4
@Michael Brown your description of social security is wrong. Social security payments collected from working Americans are not invested. Instead, it is paid to retirees. I’m in favor of social security, so please forgive me when I describe it as a Ponzi structure (no pejorative intended; I just want to highlight that collections from current workers are used to pay benefits to current retirees)
1
Though certainly the continual lack of support for the middle class in this country is obvious, studies have suggested that the "anxiety vote" by Trump supporters was less motivated by economics and more by advancing cultural/racial changes. The strongest message that Trump delivered was not economic. It was his racial, xenophobic rants and, best of all, the idea of a wall, which is the symbolic keeper of the gate that seemed to keep his base interested. He identified an adversary early on for the "middle class" to focus on, the Mexican rapist, and still continues with that idea. Hopefully, there will be a candidate who will grasp, empathize and address the economic, educational and healthcare changes that the middle class so desperately needs, but let's not confuse the two issues.
25
Ever since Bill Clinton's Presidency with its political strategy of "triangulation" on economic policies, the Democratic Party has basically supported Republican goals such as reducing taxes (especially for the wealthy), deregulating the financial system (allowing banks to make risky loans and trades), and promoting the idea that corporations are people too (Citizens United).
To distinguish themselves, Dems campaigned on social issues that have been largely successful, such as LGBTQA rights. This pathway led to Identity Politics, and to the rather predominant view in Democratic leadership that "diversity" is the one and only goal. In parallel, people such as Bernie Sanders (who campaigned on the very issues highlighted in this Op-Ed) have been derided as "old white men" which seems to be a disqualification. Men have been lumped together for criticism as the Patriarchy, and whites (no matter their poverty, heroin addiction, etc.) have been painted with "white privilege," an indelible type of original sin. People sneaking across the border are afforded higher status.
If Dems want to recapture the Middle Class, they need to turn the ship of policy towards fair economic policies (don't dare call it "redistribution" which is a total misnomer), and stop alienating men and whites.
23
@Unconventional Liberal
I would disagree - and expect that your age lead you to your conclusions - Clinton is probably the first president you can remember well? Identity politics did not start with Clinton at all... Identity politics started much earlier. You are not incorrect that the parties used to cleave mainly on fiscal policy lines, but it ended for good far further back. It started slowly changing in the 1940's, gathered steam in the 1960's when the last of the Dixicrats, unhappy with the gathering support for civil rights within the northern wing of the Democratic Party, finally switched over to the Republican Party, and was driven home for well and good when Ronald Regan made opposition to abortion a solely Republican trait, pulling economically disadvantaged, but religious people into the party on that single issue. That is what sealed the divide and it's been that way ever since.
5
There are plenty of people who support Trump who are not poor and overlooked, especially here in the inter-mountain West. There is still somewhat of a wild west, frontier attitude with a "leave me alone" mentality.
Religion may be part of it. I have no idea how a Democrat could win here in red Idaho. Interesting to note, however, that Boise voted for Hillary, and in our neighboring state of Utah, Salt Lake City has a mayor that is a Democrat, and even more surprising is a lesbian and married!
But away from the cities - very, very red!
15
@Pat Boice
For 24 years, one of the powerful Democratic US Senators was Frank Church from Idaho. He especially was a leader in wilderness protection, and in Investigations of our intelligence communities.
Idaho was even more conservative back then.
So don’t assume Democrats should write off Idaho.
8
@Pat Boice
Over recent decades Fox News and right wing TV/radio personalities has been wildly successful in brainwashing receptive conservatives into thinking that government is their enemy. It's a false choice -- "leave me alone," vs. "overbearing interventions in your that are sure to fail." The fact that government also has a "police" function that protects the public from predatory or irresponsible banks, unsafe products, companies that pollute, etc. is basically ignored. Of course they choose "leave me alone."
@Pat Boice Yes, there ARE Trump supporters who are financially secure and selfish and insensitive to the reality of those less fortunate.
They will never respond to anything except self interest. They will always vote Republican.
This article tries to explain ways that politicians can help voters who ARE struggling financially to understand that it is actually in their financial self interest to vote for Democrats.
Liked everything about this article except for the last sentence. Demonstrations are exhilarating.
5
"Humans use what they know to meet their most urgent needs –even if the result is ruin. History is not made in the struggle for self-preservation, as Hobbes imagined or wished to believe. In their everyday lives humans struggle to reckon profit and loss. When times are desperate they act to protect their offspring, to revenge themselves on enemies, or simply to give vent to their feelings."
John N. Gray
5
Great article. Just one problem. No solution offered. Hope is not a strategy. The history of this country bares out one simple fact. Takin' it to the streets is the only method that has ever worked. Only then may the ballot box start to work. Just ask MLK, RFK, unions, woman's suffrage, etc. People don't give up power unilaterally. Dick Cheney is laughing at us right now.
9
This column shows what's so neglected on our 24/7 TV cable news shaping voters' views. Does it sound too 'unfashionably liberal' to deal with such serious problems?
The media should stop spending 24/7 yacking on the constant speculations on Trump, his hostile tweets, his irrational actions, his crime family-- and psbl impeachment, day after day.
US news media is not fulfilling its duty in a democracy to inform voters on the issues crucial to their lives.
Are our reporters, pundits and columnists afraid of a warped definition of 'populism'? Define it and deal with it. Make news relevant to voters' lives.
Student debt is total exploitation, unknown in past generations. Grads have the equivalent of a mortgage around their necks leaving college. They aren't able to get married, start families and buy homes like they did in the past.
There are stories of parents still paying off college debt, who can't afford to help their teen children, who will be borrowing soon for college.
Older people, laid off, borrowed to return to school, paying off debt from their social security. Maybe gig work.
The abandonment by many employers of guaranteed pensions affects whole families who once would have been more secure, now on a downward spiral. Then a high cost illness can knock them out, even if insured.
Will the Dems grapple with the basic needs of our democracy? If not, a new Trump creature will swim up from the swamp.
16
Trump only accidentally ‘tapped into’’ the anxiety of middle class voters and their anger about their financial struggles. What he intentionally did was run a Fox News/Roger Ailes mirroring campaign, stoking as much fear as possible in anyone, about anything, and “riling up the crazies” as one Fox News producer put it about the Fox New strategy, every chance he could. It of course helped that he was on message with the actual Fox News and Russia.
9
I wish people would stop talking about Medicare for all because Medicare is just as much a prize pig for insurance companies as regular health insurance coverage is. By itself it does not cover even 80% of costs because of medical coding schemes and without high deductible additional insurance one is still left with high bills.
Besides it is saddled with enormous federal contracts which are consuming many dollars that should go for actual medical care and not administrative costs. Many of these contractors sub contract the work to companies who useH1B workers so these taxpayers monies do not benefit citizens at all.
Don't be fooled.
7
@Franklin
Agreed on the *system* of Medicare for all - it's far from the ideal solution - but as a *slogan*, a marketing strategy, perhaps it's the right approach. Americans seem scared of other healthcare options (such as those most developed countries have), no doubt largely because those systems have long been labelled by the GOP and right-wing pundits as 'socialized' medicine (equating socialized to socialist to bad). Their audiences have internalized the negative connotation, so perhaps pitching the more positively connoted Medicare (the known and liked, rather than the unknown and feared) is the best option to help get people over the ideological hurdles to accepting a single payer or public healthcare system eventually. Maybe?
3
@Franklin The use of offshored or foreign workers under so-called skilled worker visas for projects paid with any tax dollars or incentives should be outlawed.
We talk in symbols. "I feel your pain" Bill Clinton once said.
Because no one really has a believable solution to what globalization and automation have wrought.
Including the author of this article: who proposes none.
4
"Ms. Womack, who lives in Tennessee, is still plagued by “the sense that I must have done something terribly wrong somewhere along the way.”"
Seriously? Tennessee is a Republican state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump and the GOP and people still wonder why their lives are so insecure while continuing to vote for a party that repeals attempts to provide healthcare, cuts taxes that leads to reduced funding for schools, social services, safety nets and other services.
I'm sorry but if people want to poke themselves in the eyes and then wonder why they cannot see, its hard to prevent that from happening.
At least they can buy as many guns as they want and hurl racist slurs at people of color or immigrants. That is what makes them happy and in their view Makes America Great Again.
11
Middle-class Americans don't want to talk about money, and they shouldn't have to. It's private. What they want is a government that is doing something to protect their jobs and their way of life. These people don't want a handout. They want a hand up.
3
@Mark
A hand up, not a hand out is such a tired GOP slogan. What does it even mean? How does government protect people's jobs in a late capitalist society where corporations demand government handouts to stay in a place and then leave or shut down (see GM) a few years later? What to do when unions have essentially been stripped of their powers because multinationals won the battle and gained the upper hand over labor? When people have no job security and getting sick can mean a lifetime of crushing debt? In capitalist societies governments really have few options to deal with the changing face of employment and corporate hiring.
The only real solution is to have a healthy tax system where the wealthy pay more and governments provide a decent social safety net so workers with job insecurity will be able to rely on some public funding to help them make ends meet. This might mean public health care, help with education expenses, help with childcare so mothers can work, etc. Most other Western democracies figured out the need for public funds to help the middle and lower classes decades ago. You can call it a hand up or a hand out but I call it common sense.
10
I am not so sure “middle-class Shem” will be determinative.
In his latest book. The Great Alignment, Race, Party Transformation and the Rise of Donald Trump, Alan Abramowitz (one of the top political scientists in the country) concludes that no factor was more significant in the 2016 election or in the polarization of American politcs more generally than the “centrality of race and ethnicity.” Certainly the financial concerns created for many by dramatic changes in the economy over the last thirty years were significant as well. But after exhaustive analysis, Abramowitz concludes that far and away the greater issue was just “whom [voters] blamed” for those economic woes.
If anything, in the two years since the election Donald Trump has beefed up his claims that “those people” are responsibible for the loss of good-paying middle-class jobs, and he has given no indication he will back off. He has continued to assert that Mexicans and Central Americans, rather microchips and other technology are “taking your jobs.” And he counties to claim whites are losing other jobs and places in colleges and universities because of affirmative action programs and “political correctness.”
So long as Trump continues to keep the loss of white privilege front and central in voters’ minds, whether middle-class voters acknowledge their financial woes or not will likely be irrelevant.
4
I breathlessly wait to learn what democrats aim to do. Because, their deeds are likely to promote personal irresponsibility, and a corrupted sense of entitlement. I.e., "your economic situation is not your fault, it is the fault of (fill in the blank)."
Republicans are ahead. Their blank is filled with demographic descriptors (ethnic religious), and it makes half of America erupt in joy, head to the polling booth, with the singular desire to elect someone who promises to lynch the said demographic segments. Willy Horten. Not just MAGA hat set, but also suburban whites.
What will the democrats fill their blanks with? If my economic situation is not my fault, then who is at fault? The ineptitude of democrats can produce "regulate everything to the extent that nothing is possible, and soak the rich."
I like some of the approaches. Warren wants to protect the consumers, and prevent businesses from socializing their losses while privatizing profits. Bernie wants a livable wage and basic healthcare.
Are we intelligent enough, and are democrats intelligent enough to distinguish between the causes of my economic woes? I.e., those that I caused myself (by shunning pain, failing to invest, not thinking, laziness), and not caused by me (corrupted justice, predatory businesses, inadequate infrastructure, lousy education).
Dems have a poor record in this regard. Hence I worry, and hope for Warren to prevail.
3
@Kalidan
In real life, Democrats turned Bush's -8% GDP and an economy that was shedding 700,000 votes a month into a decade-long solidly growing economy and the longest uninterrupted job creation period in decades.
When you pass laws that allow big banks to adopt corrupt behavior without being punished, ordinary hard-working citizens will sooner or later end up massively losing their jobs through no fault of their own.
The Dodd-Frank regulation or Warren's CFPB are perfect examples of how Democrats adopt "smart regulation" within a capitalist system.
The idea that they have or would regulate us to death is a horrible myth invented precisely by corrupt politicians financed by those same big banks.
8
And yet, the most powerful, manipulative tool the GOP masterfully uses to keep the struggling classes under control and viciously against Democrats is the word 'socialism.' More's the pity.
9
Republicans have skillfully channelled middle class frustration away from the exploitation they have suffered from plutocrats who own our government to "Those People" anyone with dark skin who is "stealing tax dollars" to avoid work, or behave irresponsibly, or churn out welfare babies, or buy drugs. Of course "illegal immigrants" are the easiest to blame.
The greatest political lie is that social services go to the undeserving--the majority of whom are black or brown--factually and morally incorrect. Republicans have sold this utter lie to voters since Nixon. It needs to be exploded. Since vast numbers of white voters in Red States are the recipients of government programs, we need to de-shame. them, and show that all Americans need support at some time in their lives. Government is not a zero-sum game where if your neighbor gets something, you are diminished. When all are helped, all of us prosper.
That is the core message of all faith communities, if we could just remember it.
8
This would make sense......if human beings were rational creatures.
But they aren't. Mountains of scientific research has shown this.
Instead, they are herd animals. And those emotional/unconscious/innate forces inside us guide our decision making, not objective analyses of costs and benefits.
Many people are not doing well financially. But many voters are, in fact, doing well along this more important dimension---they have a "herd," a group, an identity. Republicans have always known this--Democrats still think people are rational, including themselves. That's why year after year Republicans can take peoples' money and still get elected.
Republicans get it about what people are all about--and Trump is a master of it. People want to feel group solidarity. So Evangelical Christians behave in amazingly non-Christian ways in order to keep their herd. And low income whites vote Republican because Republicans give them a "herd."
It won't work to focus on the economic issues. That information will be filtered through a much stronger part of human functioning--our need to "belong."
Democrats have made no attempts to be inclusive to the millions of Trump voters, yet this is the only way to create change. In fact, many Democrats and liberals do the opposite--they trash Trump voters. And then wonder why "people voter against their own interests."
Well, Democrats/liberals, they don't.
3
@Dan
It is true that we are herd animals. With so many diverse "herds" with racial and cultural identifying characteristics, can the United States ever become one "herd"? We did, during the world wars. But short of existential threats, can we unite? Inequality thrives because we are so divided.
1
Nowhere in the article or the comments is there an suggestion that "the problem" might be blamed on "border security", Mexicans or whatever. Someone has to persuade the 38% "base" that their problems lie with the .01%, not immigrants.
8
The French actually like their public-private healthcare system while we Americans overwhelmingly dislike ours. The French pay less and get more. So then, a proven, time-tested system is there for the taking, while we mess about with unproven complexity. Some night, while they sleep, let’s just steal their system and make it ours.
The French system or our current system - pick one. Dems, if the Repubs are dumb enough to go all ideological, this issue will win votes across party lines.
7
After pushing hard for NAFTA and ignoring the economic plight of the working middle class for 25 years, yet relying on the diminishing ranks of union members for votes, it is quite fitting for the Democratic Party to reach out to gun-toting, whiskey-drinking, and God-loving folks that put El Trumpo in power.
4
@dudley thompson This is a Trump lie. NAFTA was Reagan's dream; the final agreement was signed by George Bush Sr. in 1991. Congress passed the agreement in 1992. Even a cursory glance at the historical record reveals that it was the Republicans who pushed for free trade on a global scale. Why wouldn't they? NAFTA was a great deal for corporate America: allowing it to exploit cheap labor in Mexico, providing new markets for American agricultural goods, not to mention greater access to Canada's natural resources. Those of us who pointed out at the time that it was not such a great deal for US labor were labeled as beholden to unions, socialists, and unpatriotic. Sound familiar?
2
@dudley thompson I agree that the Democrats ignored working/middle class people for years, but the types of jobs you're referencing were bleeding--bleeding--from my hometown, Cleveland, long before NAFTA.
@JoAnn Even so, the promised investment in American worker retraining was dropped by the Clinton administration. And the expansion of the so-called skilled worker visas started at that same time. Not a worker-friendly situation.
2
I grew up very upper class. I have an MBA. I have always worked hard, with excellence. I was let go from two very successful careers with each pregnancy. (1980s). Judge Clarence Thomas’ EEOC ruled no discrimination from employer. Divorced after 25 years of marriage as trailing spouse of a very successful man. (My alimony was only for 4 years, two children in college ...) Couldn’t get a job earning more than $15 an hour as a 50 year old woman. Had to caretake aging father after mother’s death. 2008-10 His needs cost me two jobs and my home, along with a great amount of savings. Remarried, kept working, got cancer. Completely wiped our our savings. My last employer closed his business. I am currently unemployed and without health insurance. My husband’s on Medicare so no benefits through his work.
I am that person.Highly educated, hard worker and capable, someone who is always on the hustle trying to earn a living, financially destroyed by pregnancy (career ending), a man who needed a new model, care taking parents and cancer. Now at 61, no job (have been sending out several resumes daily for four months) and no health insurance. One paycheck away (husband) from losing it all. No retirement.
This is the new America. Thank you conservatives for creating this economic model. We need a new vision for The USA. I wont give up trying to earn a living - I don’t sit around eating bonbons. If I can’t make it though, with my tenacity, there is little hope for the country
30
A book to read is the updated edition of Stuart Vyse's Going Broke: why Americans (still) can't hold on to their money. He lays it all out for anybody to see.
4
My daughter likes the analogy that there are 100 cookies, the 1% hoard 99 cookies and then loudly warn the 99% that terrorists, immigrants and people they label as "not us" are going to grab that last cookie.
13
the middle class represents the pig in the python; at least in advanced societies. With the rich getting richer and the middle getting economically being pushed further backwards democracies are seeing the rise of a backlash toward right wing authoritative rule. Don't expect empathy from the right wingers; expect more of the same rich being protected by wealth and the poor suffering from poverty. Vote republican to quicken your demise.
6
I've been investigating expatriating to Mexico because I could regain my spot in the middle class. The one I lost after a lifetime of work and bad investments. Thank god for food stamps.
4
No one forces another into debt and I don't want my tax dollars to bail out folk who just made bad financial decisions. That is not fair.
2
@jaco Yes, it's not fair. But consider: Your tax dollars just bailed out a whole lot of soybean farmers to the tune of billions because of an unnecessary trade war. Taxpayers bail out corporations that make bad financial decisions all the time, and that doesn't count the latest round of tax breaks that subsidize big business and the wealthy (who in turn use that money to recapitalize, buy back stocks, etc.) By the way, just how many bankruptcies did Trump file?
@jaco
What about the case of medical debt?
It speaks volumes about the locus of power in our country that the middle class cannot shed crippling student loan debts via bankruptcy, but a trip through the same bankruptcy court allows billionaire venture capitalists, after looting companies' assets for years, to discharge their pension obligations to thousands of workers (see: Sears).
45
@Joel Thank the Republicans for that!!!
This is a "me too labor" moment for the middle class. The middle class has been abused by conservative leaning policies for too long. Toxic Republican candy slogans feed the electorate in the wrong direction. Start with the poison candy apple "government is the problem" slogan fed to the electorate decades ago. Even Dems like Clinton took a bite. Dems capitulated to the already wealthy at the expense of the middle class because of their inability to control the media. A partisan SCOTUS went right along, too, eviscerating labor rights. Middle class Americans must start by demanding simple labor protections at the local and state level. The most important is the "hired at will" provision most live with. This is anti-labor and anti-middle class. We must also immediately stand in solidarity with Federal workers who are now without paychecks. This is the opportunity for a "me too labor" like movement to energize the struggling middle class. Federal workers are being abused, aren't they? Where are the unions that are left, and why aren't they marching in solidarity to the offices of Republican Senators who covertly oppose being paid for work? The "wall" is probably a well disguised attack on labor. So is "tax reform". Middle class tax reform must reward employers when they expand the workforce or provide benefits. Real tax reform must penalize employers for laying off workers to "make a profit."
23
@et.al.nyc I couldn't agree more. Since Reagan, Americans have accepted the the conservative idea that the wealthy should not have to pay their fair share of taxes. Mitt Romney makes over $30 million a year and pays about 15% in taxes, more than half of what the average middle class worker pays. The wealthy believe they are not part of this society and therefore do not have to pay into the system, yet they benefit from a strong middle class through a strong economy, less crime, and lower health care costs. They refuse to see that, and the middle class have, for some reason, supported them in chipping away at their taxes while we take on more of the burden. Now we're all in crisis while many people mistakenly blame immigrants. It needs to change. We don't need a tiny percentage of mega billionaires at the expense of the middle class.
7
@et.al.nyc
It’s immigrants who have always been the source of
America’s greatest works.
What people forget is we all are immigrants!
Profit should not be a part of the medical delivery system or the educational system. Although Medicare for all is a step in the right direction it is not enough. I have Medicare and pay for an advantage plan and I still worry about medical expenses because they are significant for an older person. Once affordable state colleges have gone off the rails by building fancy dorms and sports facilities often times to attract out of state students who pay higher tuition and stop hiring so many administrators. And people in Tennessee stop voting for Republicans. NC, where I live, did not expand Medicaid, but people in rural WNC who are not wealthy voted in my gerrymandered district for Mark Meadows, he of the Freedom Caucus, with 59% of the vote. Think hard voters name one thing he has ever done that has benefited you. NC as a whole went Trump. Does that wall really matter or does constantly giving tax cuts to the wealthy and not the middle class matter more to you in real time. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee that Republicans keep brewing up for you, it just does not have a beautiful aroma and we don't need a beautiful concrete wall.
13
@amp In the Atlanta paper today there is a report that the large not-for-profit hospital "systems" in Georgia are paying huge amounts to their C-Level. One Atlanta area CEO is being paid $3 million annually. These not-for-profit hospitals are claiming exemption from laws requiring full disclosure on pay and spending on charity care while receiving public money.
At the same time there are rural hospitals in Georgia closing for lack of funds.
The entire healthcare industry is operating as if it is in the business of making money. This notion needs to be quashed.
1
Many people in our country feel abandoned by the leadership
that wanted jobs, coal and industrial strength to return.
What’s happened, is many of those beliefs have been shaddered
by the reality of blunders in economic,political and social
decisions by this administration.
2
Maybe simple solution?
Everyone struggling in Red State areas can call/mail/email their Congressperson and let them know they will need to find a new job after the next election-- unless GOP Congress stops wasting time/money by shutting down the people's government and even considering wasting tax dollars on some sort of contractor's concrete dream project.
5
@Rebecca
Or maybe those Red State'rs can write thank-you letters to all the Blue State residents whose taxes go to them in large amounts to keep them from slipping further down the hole...? Huh? Maybe they should thank us for funding their backwoods lives...!
And since they so revile the smaller number of immigrants on the dole, they can send their dole money back! I'll gladly take mine back!
1
@Rebecca
If only that would work. Unfortunately in many of these states, the GOP seems able to count on an easily manipulated populace and an apparently bottomless pit of wilful ignorance to keep them in power no matter how many thinking constituents write to them. All they have to do is say, "Dems are coming to take your guns" (or bibles or unborn babies....) I have lived in one of these places for too long and, believe me bigly, Hillary underestimated how many deplorables are in Trump's basket.
@Rebecca
If only that would work. Unfortunately in many of these states, the GOP seems able to count on an easily manipulated populace and an apparently bottomless pit of wilful ignorance to keep them in power no matter how many thinking constituents write to them. All they have to do is say, "Dems are coming to take your guns" (or bibles or unborn babies....) I have lived in one of these places for too long and, believe me bigly, Hillary underestimated how many deplorables are in Trump's basket.
Well, what about the political class? What can they say for themselves? Elizabeth Warren, making $400K a year teaching one course at Harvard Law School? Hillary Clinton, living in a $5 million house in Westchester? Barrack Obama, jetting around the country giving speeches to billionaires?
Now let's look at why these people don't have money. Globalisation, high technology, immigration, automation - trends that the ruling classes say are unstoppable and beneficial. Who made colleges and medical care unaffordable, who raised property tax sky-high to pay for education and health care?
Since the existing ruling class is deeply implicated in these problems, it is not easy to see how one of them can turn around and say 'vote for me, I'll fix everything".
5
What is your solution?
@yulia My solution is campaign finance reform (including mandatory annual audit and reporting to constituents), the Citizens United ruling overturned with iron-clad legislation and term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court.
1
@yulia - I would tend to agree with the ruling classes that it is very difficult to stop many of these trends. The income of the upper-middle and upper classes has gone up not just in the US, but in every developed country. You can't really put the technological genie back in the bottle.
Here in the US, we need to break up monopolies in education and medical care. That would be very difficult to do, because those who run these systems know how to defend their interests and keep out competitors.
Democrats or others should focus on income inequality with a plan to upend the tax policies now in place. make the first $50,000 in earnings from wages tax free including payroll taxes. Increase the taxes including payroll taxes on the last $50,000 earned above a certain amount say $250,000 to replace this government income. In addition, a transition jobs program for areas dependent on fossil fuel extraction should be highlighted. The burden of progress shouldn't be borne only by those who live in such areas but shared by all as we all benefit from renewable energy and clean air and water. Quit focus grouping and start leading as in business where often "inappropriate" and "crazy" ideas become innovations and new products. Stop "driving" this culture by looking in the rear view mirror and start educating and challenging folks with a new "visit to the moon" project!
1
Before the ACA, the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States was related to medical bills. Although it is no longer #1, it is sill a major reason, especially impacting the "middle class". Just addressing this one issue will not just help the middle class, but everyone. We need a single payer system and we need it now...and Democrats need to explain- fully to the public what this means and why everyone should be demanding it.
16
The problem is that most people who call themselves middle class are actually rich. Think about it. The classic middle class lifestyle that came from the 50's and 60's was a single income providing a white picket fence single family home that is owned, two cars, good healthcare for the family, college for two kids, an annual vacation, and a comfortable retirement. How much income does it take to provide this wonderful life today? Even in more rural areas, at least $150,000/year. In urban areas? That's more like $300,000 and higher in some places. Who are the actual middle class? The national median household income is about $62,000/year, much lower in rural areas. People making that are literally the middle class. In most parts of the country, that income gives you a lifestyle that we equate to low income or even poverty. That's the problem that we haven't quite grasped. People who are literally middle class are actually poor. Once we accept that fact, we can start having a real discussion.
27
@James Osborn
So true! James in La Jolla, here in Ventura County California, the median wage is $98,000.00 second highest
in the state next to Marin County.
We once had a president who inspired these words:
In a despondent world which appeared divided between wicked and fatally efficient fanatics, he had all the character and energy and skill of the dictators, and he was on our side. He was, in his opinions and public action, every inch a democrat. His moral authority has no parallel. He was the most benevolent as well as the greatest master of his craft in modern times. He really did desire a better life for mankind. The great majorities which he obtained in the elections in the United States were ultimately due to an obscure feeling on the part of the majority of the citizens of the United States that he was on their side, and that he wished them well, and that he would do something for them. He became a legendary hero to the indigent and the oppressed, far beyond the confines of the English-speaking world. He was the greatest leader of democracy, the greatest champion of social progress in the twentieth century. His greatest service to mankind consists in the fact that he showed that it is possible to be politically effective and yet benevolent and human.
--- Isiah Berlin about Franklin Roosevelt.
It’s heartening to remember that such a person could actually become the President of the United States – given the current occupant of the White House. But we had such a person once, and we can again.
8
I see your point about Americans who are not yet homeless, but fear being so or feeling so needing to stop worrying about saving face and acknowledge their anxiety. However, I think solid plans to solve middle class problems like a path to universal health care or reducing individual educational debt would go a long way. Americans can and have lowered their expectations, but if they massively stop buying, what would actually happen to the economy? As for asking the wealthy to pay a 70-90% tax, ask away; it's a Trumpian all or nothing ask, largely symbolic like a wall that Mexico won't pay for. Real change doesn't happen all at once, unless, sadly, it's climate change. In sum, middle class folks, mostly are mistrustful and rightfully full of anxiety as they see their country sliding into second-class and second-rate status. What can you do with my tax dollars that will help me, my children, and my country preserve what has been built through such hard work and improve our lives moving forward into a new century?
7
@Dr. Conde: let's start with the BASICS.
Let's collect all the taxes that the richie riches actually OWE -- clawback the monies they hide in Ireland the Cayman Islands and TAX IT.
It is not necessary to have a 70% martial tax rate to do THAT.
Are we really supposed to feel bad for people like this? "Sometimes their professions had contracted, resulting in a loss of jobs. Sometimes it was because their work had become irregular and they had no union to negotiate for them. Health care and education cost far more than they once did and wages were barely inching up. As a result, they had personal pain — and ire — that many politicians didn’t take seriously enough."
The southern states insist on still supporting "republicans" - the party that has become the Robber Barons greed vehicle. Mississippi just elected a "republican" woman to OUR U.S. Senate who thinks lynching "black people" is just dandy.
They get no sympathy from me. THEY are the problem.
Wake up, Good People of the South and stop aiding and abetting people like The Con Don and Minister Pence. They are robbing you - and US - blind and trying to start WW3.
If you remember war didn't work out too well for you - except for the 0.01% you allow to run things.
14
@njglea What makes you think that the middle class exists only in Southern states that support Trump? We are all over this country, and we all see and experience the dire effects described here.
10
@njglea
1. They are not the problem. They are only a small minority, and if 80% instead of 50% of the American people would vote, the GOP would never be able to win elections in the first place.
2. The only way to become a more perfect union is to urgently INCREASE the cultivation of empathy and compassion, certainly not by refusing to feel the pain of our fellow citizens as soon as they vote against their own interests.
GOP voters are being massively betrayed by their own politicians today, and became vulnerable to fake news and lies at the highest level only because of a combination of lack of solid education and 24/7 Fox News "alternative facts" fabrication.
The only way to get them out of that bubble and back in touch with reality again is to do what any good teacher does:
- to take them seriously and never confound their ignorance with some kind of fatal flaw inside themselves
- to engage in real, respectful debates, where "real" means accepting that we too can be wrong, even when we strongly believe we're right - in other words always accepting to fact-check together no matter what claim made by no matter whom - whereas "respectful" means to never ever attack the messenger, and always only the message (even when they don't respect this basic rule themselves, as FN made them believe that each person who disagrees must be a "bad guy", or as Trump just tweeted, a "criminal").
The only way to build a thriving society is to always remember our common humanity first.
7
I have had some of the same problems discussed in this article. I finally figured out it started with the installation of Ronald Reagan in OUR white house by the 0.01% financial elite Robber Barons and democracy-destroyers.
The "south" has prospered through their representatives in OUR United States government getting them welfare of many kinds. Now it's all being destroyed by The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren.
People all over America must wake up and get them all out of governments at every level is OUR America is to survive.
1
"One of the first challenges is getting people to admit they are struggling financially, and to talk publicly about it. This can be hard for members of the middle class, a group that has a real sense of stigma about financial floundering."
Translation: They have decided to all hang separately.
3
“Regret the purchases they make”. They were sold, and they still believe, three lies: material goods define you, trickle down economics work, and the government is the the problem.
34
Although I fully agree with the notion that we live in a society that tells you that setbacks and financial hardship cannot but prove that there's something deeply wrong with you, that you don't put enough effort into your life etc. (a shame- guilt culture), what Alissa is advising politicians to do here is clearly what Democrats have been doing for years already - both when it comes to campaign rhetoric and what they do once elected.
The problem is that people don't hear them, or don't believe them, or get distracted:
1. DON'T HEAR
How many people know that Obama increased taxes on the wealthiest 1% multiple times, and cut them for the middle class? And that Hillary campaigned on maintaining these policies and increasing them?
Not a lot, I presume, as MSM were focused on Trump's controversial tweets instead.
2. DON'T BELIEVE
How many people know that in a democracy, ALL real, radical, lasting, non-violent democratic change is step by step change? That means that campaigns are about ideals as much as they are about the next step to take to get there, and that no ideal will be signed into law overnight, so we'll have to stay focused and keep at it election after election, improvement after improvement, rather than imagining that a politician is not that "into us", as the HP wrote about Obama, if he doesn't achieve everything overnight, and then getting discouraged.
3. DISTRACTED
How many people look at "charisma" as top priority in a candidate, rather than agenda?
92
The big drain on the middle class is earning a wage, year after year, that supports a "middle-class" lifestyle. That once was far easier than it is today. For the last 40 years our government has adopted trade, taxation, labor, civil rights and antitrust policies that have turned back the clock one hundred years. We live in a New Gilded Age. Wages are stagnant or declining for many, if not most, of our citizens. That is not an unintended consequence. The beneficiaries are the wealthy donors who bankroll the Republican candidates and have bought government.
The Democrats in the House have introduced legislation intended to reduce the role of the wealthy donors in our politics and in shaping government policy. That is the first step. Eliminate the corrupt campaign finance system. Until we take back our politics and our government, the wealthy donors will own the best government money can buy.
59
We cannot go forward without apologies from the established order. The national Congress who failed to protect us, the corporations who endangered our children's and our health, local bureaucracies who hold power over our neighborhoods, the city's boards, the state's agents, local police, even schools, they all need to recognized their failure in their use of power over us. Public apologies are required to go forward. Former public officials like Bernie who urge us to 'fight, fight, fight' are useless, even dangerous. Elected officials need to hold their office as a sacred duty to protect the public. Propagandizing the 'need to fight' is another abuse. This is the true meaning of the RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. The public needs this to confront INSTITUTIONALIZED LAWLESSNESS as R Nader suggests.
I have to believe that a single king, a good king preferably, is the best choice for fairness. Recall that voting in Ancient Greece was for free men and then only for what office the unchangeable Senators would hold. If voting mattered, they wouldn't let us do it. Recall we have just had an election cycle where both houses were controlled by one party; to now be confronted with a divided gov that continues the bickering as a show is despicable.
@katesisco
The reason why voting in Ancient Greece was for free men was that they were supposed to be the only ones who had the possibility to be well-informed and as a consequence vote for the wisest solutions.
Today, all Americans can vote, but many of us don't take the time to truly inform ourselves about who's doing what in DC.
So we vote for politicians who have actually already proven to be liars, or we get discouraged and don't vote anymore as soon as the radical change that was promised doesn't happen overnight - ignoring the fact that in a democracy, everything take time and multiple elections before it's fully written into law.
The only reason why we had a government that merely represents a minority in this country for two years know, is because on the one hand conservatives allowed themselves to be massively lied to by Fox News and the GOP and Trump, whereas on the other hand, a whopping half of the American people stayed home rather than go voting.
As soon as 80% of the American people would vote, the voice of the majority WOULD be heard in DC too.
In the meanwhile, it's absurd to imagine that:
1. you can give the GOP control over a congressional house or the White House and obtain real government rather than endless bickering (they vitally need that bickering, because it's what gives their voters the feeling that they are fighting for them ...)
2. elected officials should apologize, when WE THE PEOPLE are the ones who elected them in the first place ...
2
This is an interesting and worthwhile article. But personalizing the process and focussing on individual "shame" and status loss, veils responsibility for larger trends. Elizabeth Warren is currently explaining things very clearly, and a number of commenters in this thread provide astute analysis and useful facts. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about came to pass. Reagan and his administration threw the government to the libertarian capitalists and right-wingers, and subsequent Republicans have strengthen those connections while reducing government's oversight powers. More recently, the Roberts court made it even easier for monied interests to buy political influence and power. We know it's not an accident of fate that American's middle class is being hollowed out and its poorer citizens deprived of opportunities; politicians we've elected to represent us made choices against the interests of those who voted for them. As the new electoral season looms, it's worth remembering that the rise of the American middle class after WWII was also the result of political choices. It's possible to have a better future if we vote for it.
46
It seems to me that for the past 20 years or so, both parties have pitched themselves at the ends of the voter spectrum: the dems trying to show how they could help the poor and gay, and the GOP crowing how they could help the rich get richer. That left most of Americans without representation. Its no wonder they felt left out seeing welfare folks getting better medical treatment than they, for free no less, while seeing the Lexus dealer expand its showroom. And our silly primary procedure magnifies that approach because it is mostly the fringes that vote in the spring. And certainly, the middle folks have felt let down after 8 years of Obama and little in the hope and change coffer.
But it is Congress after all, that sets all of the legislation, the White House notwithstanding, and as long as we lack campaign finance reform, term limits and a breakup of gerrymandered districts, there will be no relief to the misery in the middle.
This country could be swept off its feet if a someone, anyone, would simply stand up and strive to build a government that once again was of, by, and importantly, FOR the people.
14
@david g sutliff We have term limits. It's called voting. Mandatory term limits will do nothing more than turn the candidates into figureheads, with the real power devolving to entrenched bureaucrats. Either that or each new winner brings in his or her own staff, and all institutional memory and expertise goes down the drain.
I agree with you about campaign finance reform and redistricting, but imposing mandatory term limits is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.
3
People need to think deeply about what the purpose of government is and what it means to live in a civilized society. Is the purpose of government to improve citizens’ lives through policy by addressing issues like education, health care, and the environment? Can we accept that this kind of change is incremental, involves inevitable missteps and corrections? The alternative is the default position we have all participated in and allowed; an individualistic Darwinian existence, where corporations are handed free rein( with the help of the complicit, corrupt political ruling class), to manipulate the social system for maximum profit. Until this debate is had, as this article suggests in public and thoughtfully, nothing will change.
26
@P. Bannon
You are referring to a public acknowledgement of wrong doing. There needs to be no debate or struggle or fight; we have done that. Stand back. Withdraw.
@P. Bannon
Agree that the debates need to be had in public, and thoughtfully.
One thing Thomas Piketty said comes to mind: " The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education."
2
It often seems that our country's conversation is only about money - the getting of, the having of, or the not having of, money. And rightfully so. Capitalism is our animating spirit now, so much so that we equate any other values, including our nation's own founding principles, with hated "socialism". That's why, when capitalism fails one of us, we blame the individual. We are an outlier among western democracies in this respect.
Capitalism is a cruel master for all except those at the very top. It is an efficient machine for the creation of wealth and for passing wealth on to the very tippy-top and making sure it stays there, for generations.
During the New Deal we installed bypasses to take some accumulated wealth from the top and recycle it through "social" (there's that hated word again) programs. Under that hybrid design our nation was never healthier.
But, beginning in the middle of the last century, we severed many of those social bypasses in the name of "free markets". Thank you Milton Friedman. So now here we are. And it is beginning to dawn on us that unbridled capitalism has a downside for most of us.
59
This is exactly where the Trump message fissles---the struggling middle class are looking for concrete proposals that directly help them---yes, the "wall" works for Trump's base---but, the voter described in this article sees no direct connection between a wall and health care, or paying tuition, or....This is where Senator Warren has a real head start on other candidates--she has concrete policy proposals--some already in the books---that a middle class voter could see direct benefits for their household--and, which she can offer evidence that the Republicans have attempted to gut---including our pseudo-populists in the Oval Office.
15
Living in France I cannot imagine facing burdensome medical or student debt. We may not have the latest iPhones or TVs but we have peace of mind which is priceless. The gilets jaunes have some valid complaints about keeping up with the cost of living and giving up vacations to keep food on the table. But we still have good health care and education, which so many Americans have lost.
58
Even if candidates have learned to address, acknowledge, and sympathize, what are remedies?
You can get the votes by "I feel your pain," but do you have plans for mending the faults of an economy that crushes so many?
We need a profound overhaul of our system: the funding of candidates for office, the rising requirements for more and more education and the scarcity of jobs even with more education, the debts incurred to achieve what is supposedly qualification, and on and on and on.
A prevailing obstacle to real change is that our representatives are bought and necessarily so; they didn't invent the need for big money to run for office and stay in office, but that's the system that is in place.
11
@geebee
Again, over and over, I see your position in these posts.
We public need to have prostration and atonement from our economic owners; we need public apologies for the failures of our trust in them. There can be no forward until we have true RESTORATIVE JUSTICE and a new start, exposing INSTITUTIONALIZED LAWLESSNESS as R Nader states.
2
In WaPo article on how big box stores are avoiding property taxes to increase profit which forces local homeowners and small businesses to foot the bill. Now this article. We as a society have to come to the realization that we can't allow people to work full-time jobs yet not earn a livable wage. If those jobs weren't necessary to our society they wouldn't exist. Diminishing marginal utility makes clear that a redistribution of income will not significantly impact those at the top end while significantly improving the life of those at the bottom. A just society and a rigged system cannot mutually co-exist.
39
@famj
I agree with premise that if the big box stores, which drove out the local stores, are unwilling to pay property taxes, then small localities are going to be in even worse shape.
Is the root cause just straight up greed and short term profit all we have become?
If corporations are people can’t we have expectations of them being decent citizens?
23
We have Free Markets without Free people (China) and so we cannot compete in making things.
We allow the top 10% to pay less and less in taxes and believe in the myth that somehow that will lead to economic growth.
We have allowed the heads of companies to go from about $10 for the CEO to $1 for the worker to go to $200 to $1.
If you want to actually turn around America then we need to do the following:
1. Scrap all taxes and go to a 3 tier VAT. The poor pay the Lowest tier for bread and milk. The Middle tier is for middle class usual purchases. The Highest Tier is for all Luxury things. This system would apply to all things and labor. No such thing as tax exempt or wholesale exempt.
2. Set a floor of behavior to trade with us. Meet it or we have nothing to do with you. Environmental, Freedom of Speech and Press, Right to Organize and the like.
3. Do away with anything like private equity groups. Any company with more than 10 owners of equity has to be public.
4. All public companies have to have their stock structured such that all mangers from the middle up to the top cannot own any stock in the company. Their position has a silo of stock and they get the dividends on that stock. No preferred type stocks. If the little old lady gets a dividend so does the CEO, otherwise the CEO gets nothing but salary at 10 to 1 max.
People need to get over their shame and try something different like the above. You can be poor, just don't think poor.
8
@JD - What will you do about misers who earn millions of dollars, and spend nearly nothing?
1
@Jonathan You have to get rid of the high medical costs so they don't have to have so much stashed to survive the cancer treatment financially. Cancer is becoming number one cause of death; as a chronic disease, those millions will get used, especially when stage 4 arrives. Get the research done and get the genetic causes fixed.
We Americans are so spoiled. We have so much, yet are never satisfied. We are in debt mainly because we don't have the patience to save for that new car and all the fancy frills that come with it; so we take out a seven year loan to pay for it. We obviously get enough to eat as the obesity rate keeps rising. We feel we must have that new expensive cell phone even though most of us are old enough to remember that a land phone was quite sufficient. If we all truly lived within our means much of our economic uncertainty would cease.
14
@Aaron Adams
Live within our means? Does that say that we have to do without health care? Does that mean transportation to jobs in areas that are not served ? Does that mean we should deprive ourselves from proper nutrition.? Obesity means we are eating less healthy food. Because we can't afford fresh fruits and vegetables. The 1% are keeping and reaping rich rewards that they did not have to earn. Their children's schooling is paid for but the middle class can't afford to educate their children. We are going to sink like the Roman Empirebut the rich will be able to save themselves because of laws the people didn't vote for, by the lies of politicians who are elected and owe their election to the the 1%. All we want is an even playing field so we can still participate in the American dream.
16
@Aaron Adams
Having watched the decline and impoverishment of the middle class since the 70's-- I am highly skeptical of promoting better 'bootstraps'--which makes good rhetoric but bad argument or policy. (Behavioral economists point out that one does not measure oneself economically compared to third-world countries --but to one's neighbor)
Give examples of how this would apply to the mass of struggling people in the article-- the numbers are all out there-- for average income, home ownership, college costs and savings. (Most economists crunch the numbers and they do not add up for leveraging oneself upward or one's children).
Otherwise this is only shaming behavior which cannot help but demoralize-- shame only goes so far in parenting or national economic policy.
6
Fresh fruits and vegetables are much cheaper to buy and prepare at home than the massive meals people order on their "smart" phones and have delivered to their homes. Potatoes are 50 cents a pound; spinach 90 cents a bunch; tomatoes are higher since it's winter, but still. With the right portions, a single serving meal should cost less than $3.00.
People who whine that they can't "afford" fresh fruits and vegetables but *can* afford $25 for take out meals --or even $10 at McDs... Puh-lease.
4
This essay causes us to look at the problem of electability in today's politics. The stereotypical candidate is the person who "made it". This is the myth of the great success story of the American way. Well, most of us never "made it".
I have run my small business for 23 years now. I never "made it". But I have a nice modest size house, a few buck in the bank, am healthy, and through the way I structured my business, I have been afforded the time to exercise regularly, get the sleep I need and to pursue activities I desire like building things, doing projects, and writing these comments. This is the new 'made it" because making it isn't going to show up on a bank statement. It's not about the money, it's the life.
We need candidates who have a life, instead of a big bank account. That's what is so appealing about this new group of women who just got elected.
The ethos of the conservative "made it" requires stepping on everything and everyone one on your path to the climb to the top. On the journey to riches, one almost always has to leave a path of destruction in their wake. They don't call them vulture capitalists for nothing. It's world where my success depends upon your failure.
Government isn't a business. It is not a zero sum gain for only the winners. It's about life.
Trump, therefore, is the antithesis of an ideal politician. He doesn't care about life, just profits. Life is fighting back.
281
@Bruce Rozenblit
A terrific assessment. I was thinking about my parents as I read the article. Children of the depression, they accepted that they had to have a mortgage, had to figure out how to pay for the life they wanted. Escaping that life wasn't an option. "Making it" was a home, healthy children, decent transportation, a job that paid the bills and promised later security, time to take vacations, though not world cruises until later, when the mortgage was paid off. I remember once as a teenager asking my dad why he didn't just pay off the remaining few house payments. He said,"You don't pay off a 1.25% mortgage." That was a short lesson in actual living in a middle-class world and finding it okay. The idea that only by somehow rising above everyone else can we ever "make it" is pernicious. It's the American pyschosis. Thanks for some common sense.
54
@Bruce Rozenblit, your posts are always thoughtful and provide a perspective that more Americans should examine. Too much of the Media coverage about capitalism and business focuses on the mega-corporations and their leadership. It's a constant diet of bigger-is-better, "the American Dream," 50,000 square foot houses and flying in private jets. The reality is, very few Americans will own their own businesses and become rich. It's this belief that fuels a lot of ill-conceived business ventures and misconceptions about what success is all about. It also fuels the enormous consumer debt that most Americans live with today. And there's always the grim reality of the U.S. health care system, which indentures the workforce and complicates everything we do.
39
@Bruce Rozenblit
Wonderful comment! You have defined “quality of life” and the wisdom of appreciating it.
What has greed done for the Trump family for example,
much less for those who support his dystopian use of the power he has been allowed to assume. It seems we are in one of those periods when we are on the verge of epiphany. The new members are Congress are inspiring, and they represent the wonderful panorama of American life.
The 2020 election cycle is here and now there is an actual record to use to illustrate how bad this president is for the country.
39
College debt and medical expenses are the two prime examples of the big drain on the middle class. Only a very few can afford to pay for medical costs resulting from common problems. Anything major is not possible. The bankruptcy laws may have to be changed to accommodate proper relief. Medicare works nicely if you are of age.
College debt presents a thorny problem. How to get through ones studies without a huge monthly payment taken out of your pay. The ramifications are wide spread, late marriage, postponment of buying a house, living in the parents' cellar.
9
Very astute article, and thoughtful comments. Part of the problem is the way things are spoken about, the terms used by politicians and pundits. Everything that comes out of a candidate's mouth sounds so programmed -because it is.
Everyone is familiar with "talking points", and that is the problem. What may start out as an insight into how a given problem might be effectively addressed gets routinized and parroted across the media spectrum, and becomes "campaign rhetoric", becomes ignorable.
This is the operating standard. People are desperate for authenticity, to have that visceral feeling that this person understands my struggle, my hopes, my anxiety for the future. Even when they have ample reason to suspect that their vote will be betrayed, what, really are the options?
Trump isn't the problem, or a symptom; he is a warning.
17
Look at Scandinavian countries.
They all have better quality of life for their lower and middle class people than we do. (And their rich aren't doing so badly either.)
We can do exactly what they do. It's not rocket science.
We have the money.
The only thing stopping us is the simple fact that our politicians are outright bought and paid for by corporations and the very wealthy.
829
@Victor Lazaron, MD
"The only thing stopping us is the simple fact that our politicians are outright bought and paid for by corporations and the very wealthy."
And the fact that Americans are averse to paying tax.
Even low and middle income Northern Europeans pay taxes at which most Americans would balk. Of course, you get a ton of services which are free or minimal cost at the point of delivery for your taxes there, but I doubt any politician could sell the US public on such high tax rates.
50
@Dengpao
Part of the reason it is hard to sell is:
1. The rich aren't paying their fair share. First start by getting them to cough it up.
2. The Republicans have sold Americans a bill of goods on taxes, eg. that they are overtaxed and taxes should constantly come down. Yet every tax reduction has benefited the rich more than the middle class, and at the same time, Americans want more from government. The narrative has to change: Honesty.
121
@Victor Lazaron, MD
The Scandinavian countries have been able to thrive, in addition, by not having such a big chunk of their budget going for an outsized military, as is the case here.
119
Median wages have remained flat since 1968 while America has created more wealth than any nation on earth. Where did all of that money go? It all went to the 1%. The 1% are the cause of the decline of the middle class. They stole our future.
Of course the 1% wants the middle class to blame poor people who get food stamps and medicare, blaming them for taking all their money; but, government benefits don't effect wages; only how much taxes are paid on those wages.
Like Bob Dylan said, you don't have to be a Weatherman to know which way the winds are blowing. Look around the world, there is not one country with low taxes on the rich that has a prosperous middle class, not one. In America there are 50 states with fifty different approaches to taxing the rich, without exception the states with the highest taxes on the rich have the highest median incomes.
Time for people to wake up and see which way the winds have been blowing for the past 50 years.
393
@Ronny with the advent of tremendous change in technology, automation and AI, now occurring monthly, we are not even prepared to discuss what kind of tax policy will continue what America has become.
The value on human capital has been diminished to almost to the point of not even being important, and our tax policy of the last four decades has only enabled that fact.
We are now entering the era of the AI war and with "visionaries" like Bezos and Zuck they believe that government is outdated and inefficient and needs to be dismantled along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the masses.
It is looking more and more like Ayn Rand has won.
7
The National Debt proves that Americans don't want to pay for what they want. We've elected the same corporate lobbied politicians for years. We're saddled with gridlock yet again because we've lazy and let ourselves be manipulated through social media/media. The Middle Class has been pounded because we decide/convinced/were tricked into thinking that exporting almost every decent job overseas was a good idea & that the "service economy" was going to be the "the way".
A funny thing happened. The jobs went overseas & companies realized they could pay their workers much less especially in countries where there are no labor laws & their governments can force people when to work & in the worst conditions that no american worker would ever put up with. So now those unemployed workers traded jobs that could support a family & a decent life for one where their pay is much less, most don't or lost their pensions, or are working more than one job just to stay about water. The final insult was our own governments driven quest to ensure every american regardless of income, credit, health, could own a home with little or no money down. This enabled Wall Street to turn the economy into its own slot machine, with our own governments help in maintaining and/or propping up, while millions of americans refinanced again and again to finance a live style couldn't maintain. All of this being supported & encouraged by those same corporate lobbied politicians.
It's time for real Leadership.
17
@Dean the only thing I would disagree with in your summation is the idea that Americans want things they can't pay for because that's what they voted for. The republican controlled congress of the past few years it seems was not fairly voted in. Gerrymandering, foreign influence working, minority voter repression, and it seems in some places, outright ballot hijacking and fraud got them their majority. With enough palpable and motivated outrage, it can be overcome, as 2018 showed. The scary thing thing though is that voters were motivated less by a sense of outrage at their congress persons failure to preserve democracy and the nations purse and more by their failure to constrain the tantrums of the two year old imbecile in the Whitehouse. One can only wonder how things might have gone had republicans put a mature, hard working high energy experienced, thinking oligarchic conservative in the Presidency instead of the lazy, humourless Buffon and international embarrassment they did.
Terrific article. The only "weak" moment - and this is not petty - is the reference near the end to the middle class (maybe) working together with the poor at some point.
YES, that would make an enormous difference ... and is long overdue. I wish the author had pointed out that for too long those 2 groups have been pitted against one another by politicians, ... and not just Trump and similar.
The author points to the Cuomo "scholarship" initiative, and while she admits it's imperfect, it's actually - no surprise, given things like voting rates and Mr. Cuomo's ambitions - VERY MUCH a middle-class benefit. Similarly, NYC's Mayor has targeted "affordable housing" in a way that leaves most poor people out - almost totally out. Added to what "public housing" has turned into - shameful, criminally neglected - plus the Amazon move here, one could make a long list of how the middle class has been courted by LIBERAL pols at the expense of others even more needy.
The author has almost everything right - obviously, most Times readers probably share her pol. orientation - but while she gives some good advice to Dem candidates, one quickly realizes that Hillary Clinton was incendiary to struggling middle class voters. Just as Clinton I (92-2000) DID benefit the middle class and led to over-incarceration for the poor, Ms. Clinton was often (unfairly ?) more odious than Trump.
2020 - will the struggling middle class get scared (Fox & Trump will try!) at any Dem clearly left of center?
8
Let's see some data. Over 50% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills (Kaiser foundation) Real wages for middle class americans stagnated in the early 1980's and never recovered. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ College tuition has risen 2 to 3 times faster than inflation. http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml Health care costs are rising faster than inflation https://www.thebalance.com/causes-of-rising-healthcare-costs-4064878. Your probability of moving downward out of the middle class are twice the probability of remaining in or moving up from the middle class. The question is who is at fault. Trump and Republicans would have you believe it is the "others" (known as democrats, LGBTQ any non christian or any minority, globalization, etc) when the facts are the opposite. The real issue is there is no longer equal opportunity to succeed in America regardless of the circumstances of your birth.
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It’s not the presidents responsibility to create a life and success for these families.
We live in a capitalist society, every man for themself.
Let's hope you're never in need. No one is asking for help for specific individuals.
It is, however, the president's responsibility to understand the "state of the Union" and pursue policies that improve opportunities for all Americans.
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@There, I agree it is not a president's responsibility but all politicians get elected to "represent" their constituents. DJT promised to MAGA but have he and the Republicans in congress done this in two years? I worked hard my entire career and was extremely successful but does the economic system in the US allow most citizens to work hard and prosper? I think data show that the average citizen's economic standing has decreased over the past 40 years. What we have is politicians who blame the other side for any shortcoming while taking money from rich patrons and companies to give these groups economic advantages. And like others have commented, there are too many citizens who believe they should be paid handsomely with little skills or expertise and that every generation should be better off than their parents. To me this is suggesting that everyone is "above average."
6
@There, we used to live in a community, then the Chicago School took over, now we live in a miserable dystopia. I'm glad you're happy with that; most of us aren't.
4
"One of the first challenges is getting people to admit they are struggling financially, and to talk publicly about it. "
To be middle class is to deny one's reality and substitute it for the Idealized-image. It is always painful to live short of the kind of life we are imagine we're entitled to. It's their fantasy that is costing them their happiness, not their reality.
The Trump supporters I know in Brooklyn and Queens own their own homes, send the kids to parochial schools, and work for the city and are paid by us, the taxpayer. "We work so hard," they whine, "and worry, all the time, about money." They pay Guatemalan immigrants to clean and manicure their lawns, two car families, and attend religious services weekly.
The French, as one would expect, have an expression for this, "péter plus haut que son cul." It means, to live above one's means because one imagines one should be financially better than one really is. Jacques Brel said, it's hard to play at being rich when you haven't got the dough. There's no way, without causing a serious chafe, to wrestle the fake and idealized image away from the economic/social class that sustains itself on delusions of grandeur. It's not the lack of money that depresses them. Its the shortage of authenticity and the ability to be honest, and talk about it publicly. Even though everybody is experiencing it, they see it as a private problem to be solved with anger.
12
To their mind, the rich have tolerated middle-class successes long enough. Trump symbolizes this change.
13
Ms. Quart and a few other commenters have hinted at this, but it needs to be said outright (again)--much of this attitude of shame on the part of the precariat comes from internalization of the Calvinist/Social Darwinist/libertarian ethos that was guiding philosophy of many of our founders and continues to be a driving force for many of our oligarchs, even if they've forgotten its religious underpinnings.
Calvinism, you may recall, is that delightful offshoot of the Protestant reformation that posits one shows one's worthiness to enter heaven and evidence of God's favor--be a member of the elect--by accumulation of wealth in this world. If one does not accumulate wealth, one is obviously not favored by God, and one should not be charitably helped, as one does not deserve that help, and that only drains resources from those that do deserve them.
One see this attitude in our oligarchs who think they should accumulate any and all, and believe the poor are poor through their own lack of effort and intelligence ("if you're so smart why aren't you rich"). The idea that there are structural reasons for poverty--reasons that their control of political systems through wealth highly contribute to--never seems to occur to them.
Obviously, we need systemic reform to allow for inequality reduction--but we also those who "imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts" to stop imbibing it, and stop voting against their own interests.
16
"Any Democrat who wants to win the White House in 2020 is going to need to harness the power of these voters."
Any politician of either party who wants to win must first convince these voters that s/he is "not guilty" of pushing them down, and would not just continue to push them down.
8
The economics are quite simple. The majority of Americans can no longer afford to maintain the .01%'s lifestyle. We are running out of money and credit to keep buying things.
The .01% do not care about the 98% because we are unseen plebes.
At the current rate of wage discrepancies, the American economic machine will cease in a decade or two. Too many people will not have the resources to keep the consumption of goods and services flowing.
The market tried to correct itself in 2007 but 'the banks were too big to fail.' So we saved them; or more accurately we saved their CEO's bonuses.
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A well written and thoughtful article.
However, as with all of these articles, the author avoids the difficult conversation about American expectations.
The rest of the world has not been bombed out since 1970. They can and do make stuff, and, make it well now.
Heck, when the Republicans start a war with China we will have to buy Hummers from them.
Americans cannot expect to have low skill and high pay. No place else on earth has that.
We did for a very short time in American history. In the 20 years following WW II when the entire rest of the industrialized world was temporarily bombed out.
But, those days are gone, and, I hope they are not repeated.
Let's start writing about expectations. And what is realistic to achieve with low skill.
Lastly, if I go to Harvard and get a history degree, that is, broadly speaking, still low skill.
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@Michael, your points are well made. Americans buy products manufactured overseas because they deliver higher levels of satisfaction! We can argue that China has unfair advantages, but compare foreign made cars to those produced in the US. Our latest appliance is Korean because our Maytag had too many design problems! IMHO too many US firms are in business to make high profits, like BofA and Wells Fargo, NOT to deliver satisfaction to the consumer.
You are correct that US expectations are unrealistic. My son had an illiterate guy who did his yard work who complained to a contractor about needing work. The contractor offered him work at $15 an hour and the young man replied that he wouldn't work for $15 as he deserved more!
The US economy is a major part of the global economy. This means that a company takes advantage of the lowest cost manufacturing to produce the needed product. Hence, it is economically infeasible to pay workers with minimal skills high wages when the product can and is made in another country. Firms simply do a cost-benefit analysis and outsource. May not be "fair" to US workers but again, we live in a global economy!
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@Michael You're not talking about high skill vs low skill. You're talking about earning potential, which is not the same thing.
If getting a history degree from Harvard is "low skill" then what is "high skill"? Considering the fact that about 90% of Americans would miserably fail even a basic history class at Harvard, I don't really see what you mean. Yes, a person with a history degree doesn't have a high learning potential because the options that degree creates are either in research or in academia, neither of which pay well. But that doesn't mean that the knowledge isn't valuable. This society would actually be a lot better off, if the vast majority of our population wasn't historically illiterate.
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One of the ongoing problems is that it's not just the middle class blaming themselves.
How many times have I read a comment that says, "those jobs aren't coming back. People need to adjust."
Those comments generally come from liberals criticizing Trump voters over what they see as a pie in the sky fantasy about lost manufacturing jobs returning.
It's a kick you when you're down version of the bootstrap story. And the "inspiration" generally comes from someone whose job and industry weren't sent overseas.
We need to acknowledge the cruelty cheaper labor imposes. The Disney computer workers required to train their cheap imported replacements or lose their severance. The computer worker in his 50s who's unemployable in his field, despite competence and experience.
And both parties were responsible for these changes. Trump gets that and uses it. Until Democrats own at least some of the pain that was caused, in addition to the pain that was felt, "I feel for you" won't be enough.
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@Talbot The cruelty that cheap labor imposes is not just to American workers whose jobs have been outsourced. The working conditions in the overseas factories are dire: the fires and building collapses in Bangladesh are just one example. it would cut into profits too much to provide workers with safe and humane working conditions. We don't think about this, because we don't see it. The next time you take a tag off an item you purchased, think about who made it and the conditions under which it was created.
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@ Talbot Exactly! Your comment should be a NYT pick.
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@Talbot
Thank you for this comment. I agree with the reply above: it should be an NYT Pick. And, as you note, both parties are complicit in policies that have done great harm to working people. I have been stunned and disheartened by the indifference of some so-called liberals to the loss of jobs, livelihoods, and communities.
4
And perhaps when the range of scientists who have been furloughed from their Federal roles and mandates, in partnerships with many types of artists and other creative people,will be able to successfully transmute the power and energy of justified outrage to seed experienced shame amongst the all too many unaccountable policymakers causing and being associated with the unnecessary harms inflicted on so many, daily, in a United States, together in label only!
5
Marx once said something like the purpose of philosophy was not to understand, but to change the world. For anyone who is running in 2020, what is needed is people who will listen, and if elected, actually do something. The Democratic party has been captured by neoliberalism, one of the ultimate failings of both Obama and Clinton. Hopefully the new House class will model Marx's mantra.
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I am not an American. For me, a non-American, this article is truly weird. The US has one of the highest standards of living in the world. The US is a very rich country ... and yet people are complaining ... complaining because they must pay (for example) for the best health facilities in the world, or the best education system in the world. You want high standards? Well, Americans must pay for them.
It is weird that people are complaining about these things.
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@Paul McCawill You don't understand. I'm one of the 1% and even I can see that I don't work 10 times as hard as someone making povery level wages. The thing is that America could easily be a better country for everyone, and it has been here and there. Republican administrations in general seem to be making it worse for the average person. I don't think much of any politician but government is the way we can solve the issue of the lack of correlation between the productivity increases and quality of life for the average person. Google some of these graphs to get an idea of where this dissatisfaction comes from: rich people have gotten way more richer while those who do the work have been at a standstill or be satisfied with crumbs. It is inequality (that has risen unfairly, perhaps deliberately engineered in part) that is causing this dissatisfaction.
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@Paul McCawill While I'm not in the one percent, I'm affluent but the point for many people in America is that profound economic insecurity is just one paycheck away and that the benefits of education and healthcare are.so profoundly unequally distributed. We're look to build a fairer society.
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“dissatisfaction,” experienced and expressed can be paralyzing; worsening an all ready bad situation. Whoever and whatever initiated and enabled it to continue even as realities change. IT can also be experienced and expressed as outrage transmuted into sources of energy targeting selected objectives, systems and people, to plan, carry out and assess needed changes which make a sustainable difference for achieving equitable wellbeing for ALL, sensitive to the realities of the limitations of human and nonhuman resources.”Their shamelessness” is not likely to be lessened by our sharing of experienced shame.The “unaccountables” have to be made to BE accountable, daily, for their harmings as well as for their not doing, and saying, what they were elected/selected to do for the sustainable wellbeing of ALL of us!
1
I was struck by the term “savage society” to describe the situation in which many middle class Americans find themselves.
Everyone benefits when the pie grows and the growth is shared. Quite simply, there has been little sharing over the past 20-25 years. The rich have gotten richer due to access to capital and favorable tax laws and the benefits of the tech revolution. In particular, the ability to invest in data gathering, analysis and manipulation tools has resulted in not only tech companies like Facebook and Google being the big winners, but also hedge funds, private equity groups and other highly sophisticated global investors who have been able to benefit in ways that the average person simply cannot.
So the wealthy, who have taken advantage of change, have also taken virtually all of the growth in the pie, as well as more of the existing pie.
I get that we are a capitalist system. But not only have the wealthy beneficiaries of change done nothing to help those who are hurting and suffering from it, but they have made it worse by actively working to cut their own taxes, weaken labor protections, cut governmental safety net programs and fan societal divisions.
Once you have $100 million, $1 billion or $10 billion in net worth, why are you so greedy and mean-spirited that you then have to actually TAKE from those who have not shared your abilities or good fortune?
The problem is less about economics and more about sociology, psychology, greed and selfishness.
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@Jack Sonville -- "Quite simply, there has been little sharing over the past 20-25 years."
40 years. Since the election of Reagan.
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@Jack Sonville Good points, all. Capitalism has always concentrated wealth. The role of government in a capitalist society is to ameliorate the natural concentration of wealth and power, and pass laws to ensure a more equitable distribution. Many of the countries of western Europe address this natural inequality admirably, balancing strong economies with tax structures and social welfare policies that ensure everyone has a decent life and a strong safety net. The US used to do this reasonably well, but the steady push by the wealthy for an ever increasing share of the pie has led craven politicians to pass tax cuts for the wealthy, weaken business regulations, and enable cuts in worker support like unions, pensions and medical insurance. What we see today is the result of unrestrained capitalism and crippled political intervention.
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@Jack Sonville
The more money these people have at their disposal the more they use it to corrupt our democracy to further enrich themselves. A vicious cycle.
"We can have huge sums of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few; or, we can have democracy. We can't have both." Judge Brandeis.
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If Americans would just be able to consider that maybe, just maybe, we don't have the greatest system in history. That maybe other countries have it figured out, and we might make some progress by learning from them. But "rugged individualism" and libertarianism prevail as characteristics of the American character. Anxiety about education and healthcare -- and bankruptcy -- is not nearly as great in many other western democracies. We are primitives by comparison.
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@☆1\£~€°V `i8/n£/77nyAS9 it u`!65{h 7aa•••|_°_!I o°#□0!su °♡NJ 17!☆°7■,▪4%
: OK,we don't have a perfect system.
But we must contend with a HUGE vast population of 330 million -- no other countries with socialized benefits have this huge a population.
The left keeps wanting us to have a system "just like Scandinavia" while ignoring the fact that those are teeny tiny nations and are all white, with no diversity (and never had any poverty to begin with) and secure borders and NO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
There is simply NO WAY to continue to have 25+ million illegals (yes, that many according to a new reputable Yale study) AND all their millions of anchor babies on welfare AND have a Swedish-style socialist state with all kinds of "freebie benefits".
The left got us into this mess, and can't figure out why nothing works anymore.
2
When I worked in Europe, all the Europeans I knew just complained about the unfair taxes all the time (and tried to get paid under the table to evade them). And they lived in countries where I saw only homogeneous populations, with long-standing traditions to keep foreigners out or marginalized to low paying jobs. And the Scandinavians in particular seemed bright but quite lazy.
So America is far from perfect. But don't think for a second that Europeans have it figured it out either. Far from it. For "advanced economies" it seems to me that the bar of human progress still has plenty of room to move northwards in all cases.
1
One problem, I think in America, is that some truly difficult work is not paid work, therefore it's not considered important and does not pay into Social Security or Medicare. That is the hard work of taking care of elderly parents, especially parents who are both physically fragile and suffering from dementia. It's a 24 hour a day job with no pay.
I thought I'd miss a summer of work. It turned into eight years with a mom with Lewy Body dementia and a dad with rotting legs that had to be debrided every day. After eight years, nobody much wanted to hire me. Employers said I was a hero, they said my reward would be in heaven, but heroism and the hereafter doesn't buy groceries today.
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@Linda My partner is writing a book about "the Double X Economy." She is a professor emeritus from Oxford University in the UK. Her point is that much of the work that women do (and it definitely falls to the women, as in raising children, caring for elderly parents (and not just their own, but probably their partner's as well)) is unnoticed and unpaid. She explains how all of us would benefit from looking at the effect of the women's economy and how it is important to support it for the sake of all, men and women. And she explains how, if one looks at the history of women's exclusion from the economy (women in the U.S. could not have their own credit cards or bank accounts until the 1970s), it is not surprising that women are still struggling to catch up with men for equal pay and rights.
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@Linda
My son’s fiancé is in the same boat. For the past 5 years she was taking care of her dad, using her savings to support herself. He died recently, but left a holy mess of financial problems, which she’s now trying to solve, hoping to salvage a bit of an inheritance for herself and her brother.
Yet now, her mother is not doing well!
My son is doing ok, but his work is very labor intensive. And both he and she are feeling that their generation somehow missed the boat, that there is a ceiling they simply can’t break beyond. That wages are stagnating and opportunities are growing smaller - especially as both of them are just entering their 50’s, a time when employment becomes more difficult, new opportunities fewer and so on.
Young people are feeling that they simply have few ways to get ahead - that whole groups of them have been sidelined and left with slim pickings. Especially due to a wasteland when it comes to social safety nets.
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@Linda I retired early in order to move back to the farm and care for my mother - it's been 6.5 years and no end in sight. While I have a comfortable retirement, it is less than it would have been had I continued to work a few more years. The mental and physical stress of care-giving is significant. Studies have shown without the unpaid work provided by care-givers (more often than not women) the nation's care for the elderly would be in crises. Most people simply cannot afford to pay for the care needed one ages, and if all these people just spent what they had an went on Medicaid in a skilled nursing facility, the entire system would collapse.
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Perhaps the Middle Class has been defined to make people feel better about their situation. I don't think many people like to be called Poor or grouped with the Poor. Yet the article describes folks who really are Poor. In contrast, many of the wealthy like to be called Middle Class even though they are not.
27
@Jim: Decades ago, when I was in high school, our senior social studies class, which included sociology, economics, and political science, read a chapter about social class.
The teacher asked us to write down on a slip of paper what social class we thought we were and hand it in anonymously. Every single student wrote "middle class," and yet, I knew that many of my classmates were nothing of the sort. There were the affluent, who lived in large houses in park-like settings, and the poor, who lived in literal shacks in a kind of enclave set apart from the rest of the town.
But they all saw themselves as "middle class," as I did, of course.
42
@Pdxtran -- "But they all saw themselves as "middle class,"
Exactly. Me too, and my high school.
That was a national myth that formed our politics.
Today, the myth is a bit different. It is more, "I was or should be middle class, but I've been robbed."
8
@Jim: THANK YOU.
Nobody wishes to talk about this, do they? just all kinds of political platitudes, which in the end come out to "TRUMP BAD! must destroy TRUMP!"
Like you, I have a degree and technical skills (computers, etc.) and yet I have ended my career earning LESS than I did in 1999-2000. I've been laid off 3 times and my husband has been laid off FIVE times -- both of us degreed tech workers, supposed the "golden class" of worker.
We are not disgruntled factory workers! or those with a high school degree, thinking we could work on an assembly line and make $70K a year!
Our income has fallen to about 60% LESS than in the late 90s and solely due to off shoring, layoffs, outsourcing, contraction in our entire industries -- and YES, to H1Bs and the massive influx of illegal aliens.
Health insurance went, along with anything resembling a pension or even a 401K plan. My husband's current job -- no way he can stay long enough to vest in the very modest 401K plan. He is 65.
Thank god our kids are well past the college stage, because today…we could give them nothing but a kindly pat on the back and wish them well.
Meanwhile the left keeps pumping for TPP and NAFTA and globalization, because "those brown skinned foreigners are so much harder working than evil old white American workers, and therefore, THEY DESERVE OUR JOBS!"
2
I see myself in your column. I am lucky enough to be still working two jobs and I am going to ride those to the bitter end, because I am not seeing much of a retirement. My own political activism is driven by what I've witnessed and by what I've experienced. My life may not be much, but I am interested in seeing that my children's lives are better than mine.
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@Mark -- Me too, except that I don't see yet how that could happen. We need big changes, or I lose.
8
Free college or more accurately, tax payer funded college, in the era of robots and autonomous vehicles, doesn't sound like a winner. But, you have to entertain the masses somehow.
Free college would only exist if teachers worked for free, text books were free and facilities did not seem to grow like kudzu. Free college, does exist. It's called life.
10
Make college affordable. In an America of 40 years ago, before Trickle Down Economics, Students could work summer and PT jobs and pay for college. But that was when state tax payers paid about 60% of the operating $budgets of major state universities. (Taxes now pay for 15% of those operating budgets) Those were the days when companies and the Top 1% of earners paid a fair tax rate. Tax policy was changed.
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@Mike There was free college 120 years ago, which led to generations of the children of immigrants becoming respected & well paid professionals. I see that as a positive outcome.
25
@Mike When my dad went to Rice Institute, now Rice University, one of the finest engineering schools in America, tuition was free. That was in the 1940s. They turned out some fine engineers and the professors didn't work for free.
76
It's easier to blame "the other" than to actually take action and do something, even if it's out of our comfort zone.
I believe we must both "organize into coalitions" and elect those who understand that the middle class is "slipping down the economic gradient" and can "redirect Americans’ anger toward fighting for the things they need, like reasonably priced education and health care." This is especially true in flyover country, the Gulf States and the Great Lakes region.
We've elected both a grade B actor and a reality TV star as our president; maybe this time we will do a better job?
17
@vacciniumovatum -- That depends on who the political class runs for office. It was the political class, not the voters, who made the initial bad choices that dumped us all into this.
It is the blunt refusal of the political class to own its utter and complete failure which most concerns me. They are set to do it again, if they possibly can.
"Centrist" means they are setting up to fail. This paper and too much of our political elite are set on that, denigrating their only real hope to win for fear that win would harm donor interests.
2
We can have an America that believes in a social contract or a society that blames the individual for not working hard enough to be a Trump or a Kardashian. Life isn’t free but it doesn’t need to be this hard to survive in the “greatest country on Earth” - lack of affordable housing, healthcare, pension plans, safe schools, clean environment, good paying jobs and the list goes on.
288
Trump cheats and steals, and the Kardashians do no work. So they are role models?
11
Nobody in the Democratic party have lost sight of the populist goals of affordable health care, college and a living wage. Hillary had many options and clear plans for addressing those anxieties. She lost not because of economic fear or anxiety, but rather, because Trump added hate to those two legitimate motivating factors and that third political tool appealed to a large number of the deplorables including the one major news organ that fanned the flames of hatred against any Democratic candidate. I thought research and exit polling showed that economic anxiety was not the motivating factor for even the last election which turned out to be a referendum on Trump. It was hatred of immigrants that motivated most Republicans this time out. Trump hasn't addressed any of the economic concerns of the middle class because he hasn't any empathy for people of that status. Our messaging can't compete with his without dragging hate into the equation, so it will have to be up to those not in the basket to become aware that their financial situation cannot be alleviated through hatred of others. We have to work together for change, it can't come by demonizing 800,000, middle class, federal workers as being unworthy because they're Democrats (Cue the spooky organ music).
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@Rick Gage
Agreed, it has taken me quite a while to understand that many who are voting against their own economic interest are doing so because they believe it will nevertheless preserve their own racial or ethnic advantages.
7
@Rick Gage -- That is just not true. If it was true, Democrats would have won.
Make it true. Don't just go into denial, and then do it again.
7
@Rick Gage Clinton lost, partly because of Trump's demonization of the other, & partly because she, herself, is horrific.
5
"“They have imbibed this idea that your economic well-being is traceable principally to your own efforts,” Ms. Shenker-Osorio said."
That's rich, when you consider that economic well being in this country is principally due to being already wealthy to begin with.
I applaud the author for mentioning how Donald Trump would again campaign as an economic populist even though it's very much his policies that have accelerated even greater declines of the middle class under his administration.
All you have to do is look at the Great Tax Heist, which produced the greatest upward transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes in the nation's history.
I think when talking to the struggling middle candidates have to show some bona fides about economic history. Here is where Warren (and Bernie) shine--they know when this all started and how it's gotten worse over the past few decades.
It stands to reason that Donald Trump would feel more comfortable with those he emulates than the people at his rallies. His aspirations are to be accepted by high-money peers, not to commiserate with the struggling. After all, they can't do anything for him, while the wealthy can confer social acceptance.
In fact, I suspect that he would scorn the company of supporters outside the arena once he's fed off their energy. The man with no empathy certainly has none for those he hopes will bite once again at his promises and lies.
246
The cooperation of the GOP with the wealthy of this country, and the propaganda of both, have led to the ruin of middle class self-defense and identity. The wave of distributed wealth and contribution to the success of this country between WW I and post-Korea was exceptional, and only rivaled by what is now happening in China. However, the conservative party and its sponsors/owners have not been happy with an egalitarian society and long ago set out to vilify employee unions, social support programs, progressive taxes, and human equality.
Those propaganda efforts have finally managed to get most people to equate the very ideals that would make a better society, help people stay above water or much more easily rise financially, with "communism". Coming out of the 1st and 2nd World Wars, we moved ahead together, the labor strife of the early 20th century behind us, we worked on racial and gender equality, having jobs that provided a working living, and getting our children good and even great educations. But the propaganda machine tore into those accomplishments. "Unions are bad. Corporations have personal rights. Social support weakens the recipients."
As we continued to move ahead and elected, then re-elected a clean smart, effective non-white President the propaganda machine swung into full force and convinced people to vote against themselves because they "saw" the end times of the middle class. With their vote they wrote the coda, but the story was long over.
31
@Pete The Democratic party of the past 25 years is as corporatist as the Republican party. The difference is that the Democrats are social liberals, which is nice, but not much help if you're hungry or homeless or have reason to fear becoming hungry or homeless.
23
@Pete -- "The cooperation of the GOP with the wealthy of this country, and the propaganda of both"
Yes. So why does the Democratic "center" do the same thing? Why do Democrats protesting this then push more of it as their own "centrist" position?
Why is that they believe the propaganda, that the only way to win is by surrender. Either that, or they just sold out for the campaign money.
5
@Jenifer Wolf
I don't disagree with you that the Democratic Party has its flaws as a change agent. But social liberalism is something more than "nice". As a woman, I'll take the weaknesses with the good, stick with the Democrats and support their efforts at progress.
1
The question I ask myself repeatedly is "why was this hollowing out of the middle class, the large middle class that was the foundation of America's greatness, allowed to go on so long"?
It took trump and his shrewd opportunism to bring this economic desperation/disparity of so many to the forefront. He was able to masterfully manipulate a certain segment of voters, to sway them with an artful, albeit crude con.
I hope that the vast gap between rich and poor can be narrowed. The dismantling of the Middle Class began in ernest with Reagan. So again, I ask, what took the Democrats so long?
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@Mary Ann Donahue
Unfortunately, the Democrats - from Carter on - haven't been that much different in terms of the end result - money flowing to corporations and the 1 %. Taking corporate and 1% campaign contributions does skew a politician's perspective, no matter which party he/she is supposed to represent. One small example - no Democrats (Bernie Sanders, as an independent, doesn't count), voted against the recent increase to an already bloated military budget.
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@Ellen ~
"One small example - no Democrats .... voted against the recent increase to an already bloated military budget."
Thank you for this discouraging but needed info. It's worse than I thought.
37
@Ellen, but the military budget is a jobs program. Many people get trained in the military and certainly the military needs equipment, technology, logistics, and a whole host of goods and services. The military also provides single-payer healthcare to an enormous number of citizens. It may even be better than the free college touted around here because not everyone is college material and free college may just be another way to create a larger separation between the wealthy and the rest of the population.
21
Two things:
1. About my generation's "long-held obsession with privacy": I think you're thinking about my grandparents' generation. My generation, or at least this exemplar of it, didn't get obsessed about privacy until the Web, Google, and Facebook. Even the famously privacy-unaware millenials are starting to get it, since Cambridge Analytica. The word "privacy" today is a technical term having nothing to do with not wanting people to know how little money you make.
2. About "Medicare for All": This is certainly resonating as a slogan, but when it comes time to write an actual bill in Congress, bear in mind that Medicare isn't such a great insurance policy. It pays 80% of most costs, but the remaining 20% is still enough to bankrupt almost anyone who becomes a hospital inpatient. I am lucky enough to have an employer-sponsored Medigap plan that pays 80% of the 20%; if you work out the math, I have to pay only 4%, which is much more reasonable. What we should really make universally available is the medical plan that covers members of Congress.
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@Brian Harvey
On 2) Medicare for all - she didn't mean that literally as an extension of this exact system, but that candidates should support a system of universal medical coverage operating like Medicare, that would mean freedom from fear of being financially destroyed by medical costs - or fear of being unable to access needed care. Of course when it comes time to pass a bill, there will be unavoidable compromises.
As to Privacy - I don;t know your age, but when it comes to revealing family finances, people tend to be extremely reticent. A few do not want others to know how much they have, but many do not want others to know how little. Because, as she indicated, they feel ashamed that they aren't doing as well as they assume others around them are doing. Because this feeds into the idea that they are losers in a society which values material success, and even because they fear this will damage their families socially, and even economically, if they are shut out of important networks . FB sharing is sometimes entirely phoney, just another way of keeping secrets.
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@Brian Harvey Medicare is much more expensive than it should be because it generally must pay near going rates. The successful programs which all other advanced countries have control costs by direct government action- or by government bargaining for consumers - rather than allowing the "free market" to do it based on the principle of maximization of profits. Only when there is a unified program will it be possible to get costs down to reasonable levels.
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@Brian Harvey, no single plan covers members of Congress, they purchase their plans through the same web portal as every other Federal employee, including your mail carrier. What they did with ACA, however, was grant themselves a much larger subsidy than other Americans who have similar incomes. They should fix that.
Then, yes, if they got rid of all the State sites and opened the Federal site to all Americans, we'd all be better off.
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Democratic politicians must not ignore the half-million or more homeless, the 5 million Native Americans, the unknown number of lower and below "middle class." Rural America with its serious problems of community survival needs immediate, thoughtful attention. To focus primarily on whatever it means to be "middle class" suggests those below some imaginary line are not worth political time and capital. "Attention must be paid." Where there is pain, seek remedies.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
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@Doug Giebel
Sadly though, politics is about getting elected, and those below middle class that do vote don't make a significant enough difference in an election. The middle class, however, does, and that's why political campaigns need to address their concerns.
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@Kelly Logan
Then extra effort must be made to address their needs and get out the vote. In the recent House election, a few votes -- even one -- made a difference. If politics means getting elected, then the politicians should not ignore millions because they might not vote, because in the end they really don't matter. They matter.
dg
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@Doug Giebel -- "the politicians should not ignore millions because they might not vote"
They don't vote because they've been ignored, and they don't have skin in the game, nor outreach to mobilize.
It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps by prophets who are quite happy for things to be that way, since it leaves government to them.
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What Democrats need to drive home is the message that it is precisely Republican policies, particularly when it comes to healthcare, tax rates, corporate responsibilities and workers' rights, which hinder the 'American dream.' The GOP agenda is designed by the elite to keep themselves where they are. We don't have a level playing field - but what Democrats must harness is that individuals like Trump are benefiting from it, and his financially struggling supporters can't get a foothold with his platform.
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The gut question or fact is economic security for the many relies on affordable health care. Trump fails to see that, as does the GOP. Harnessing anger, exploiting fear and frustration works for him.
Providing solutions to problems for the many requires understanding the determinants of inequality. Redistribution is a tough sell. Tax equity, affordable health care and reasonable higher education are middle class needs. Stronger collective bargaining rights, increased corporate responsibility, higher wages benefit the middle class. Campaign finance reform designed to ratchet down corporate influence another method that helps. Redistribution may not be necessary if the game is unrigged.
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None of things you’re suggesting can be achieved without an element of redistribution, the price of which is higher taxation.
Curiously enough, the French, who have long enjoyed excellent, affordable healthcare, free higher education, a high degree of job security, short work weeks, comfortable retirements, etc., are apparently unhappier than ever, angry about regional inequality and — what do you know? — high taxes
and the feeling that they can’t get ahead or make ends meet.
You can practically wrap people in cotton and they’ll still set your car on fire and break your windows — and vote against their own interests. Envy is hard to root out.
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@texsun This is exactly what Elizabeth Warren is advocating, see: Elizabeth Warren Wants to Stop Inequality Before It Starts https://nyti.ms/2RtH8Mx I hope her message gets through to the middle class.
@texsun - "Redistribution is a tough sell"? While I agree w/ your other policy suggestions, nearly 4 decades of redistribution have played a huge factor in our current wealth inequality.
(R)egressives have been redistributing our national wealth upwards to the 1% and corporations since 1980. (R)eagan, Chickenhawk George and Cadet I-1 all managed "trickle-up" voodoo tax "reform" to the apparent satisfaction of (R) voters, since they've continued to vote against their own economic self-interest, apparently motivated by the racist, homophobic and xenophobic dog whistles of the (R)epublicans.
Corporations now contribute a significantly smaller %age of federal income tax receipts than they did pre-(R)eagan. Most of citizen wealth generated since 1980 flowed to the 1%. (R)edistrubution has worked for the (R)s.
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