The Large Middle Class Isn't So Middle

The media seems to be all abuzz with reports that the U.S. government wants to uphold the middle class, and promises more tax cuts, and/or benefits to those who own a business or makes around $250,000 a year or less. A lot of the communication of economic policy coming from the Fed is very, very fuzzy, and only provides the American people with a monetary comfort via tax manipulation. Now, with the U.S. job market decreasing, and job cuts occurring in lumps, the middle class, that earns this so called below-$250,000, will be and maybe is deteriorating, and won't represent any part of the center of the economic class spectrum. The middle class in this country has been redefined by politicians, as word play to add support to those financially squeezed by a faulty economy, who have in fact become the lower class.

In an NPR radio story, titled The Vanishing Middle Class, Part I 'What Is Middle Class?', several of the people interviewed, held notions that things had changed financially for their families, for in their "childhood in the 1960's..." they "considered themselves middle class", and that these families "never wanted for anything...don't remember being without anything, or hearing their parents talking about bills". That is a powerful statement when reflected upon what middle class families face in our current economic status. Plenty of families are now struggling to pay many kinds of bills, whether they are mortgages, utilities, credit, and all things included in the status quo. The main reason why the middle class struggles a lot more in comparison to the middle class of the 1960's is not only because of inflation, but also because there is a lot more to be responsible for financially and the overwhelming weight of debt. Families have fallen into a wage bracket that "[hasn't] kept up with the cost of living -- which is what economists call 'real income'". The middle class' real income is false, and this is evident through the tremendous virtual necessity to supplement it's cost of living with personal credit. The middle class can only be termed as "middle class" because of a system of economy that is based on debt and not hard assets, and therefore its real income is actually representative of a lower class.

The politicians get around this, so as to avoid the public seeing themselves as lower class, by not stating what the lower end income is of the middle class bracket. Thus, the current middle class really cannot effectively define itself as either lower or middle. In other words by saying that anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year is a member of the middle class is in all senses misleading. Marketplace reported in an article, What is the middle class?, the Congressional Research Service issued a report in 2007, that placed the middle class' income somewhere between $19,000 and $91,000 a year. Based on this report the middle class has definitely been mislabeled, and really doesn't show that it is truly somewhere between upper and lower class. The margins are excessively skewed, and it seems that the middle class by political definition is tipping the scale towards lower class. Consider that in a Newsweek article, Sorry Pal, You're Rich: Can You Be Middle Class and Earn $250,000?, "the business pundit class has been griping that people who make $250,000 a year aren't really wealthy", and even though the author claims that they are in fact rich, by some unknown standard, to make that much money is creating a crisis among those who fall into this income zone. Some say that this amount of income is an ample amount to claim wealth, whereas many who in fact earn that much, are unable to live a "wealthy" lifestyle. In the same article, the author states median income (what may be considered the "true" middle) in various parts of the U.S. hits between $35,000 and $83,000 a year, nowhere near even $100,000 incomes. So there's is this large margin between the true middle class and whatever the class termed as making six digit incomes is called, and on the flip side a smaller margin between lower end of the middle, and the mysterious lower class.

These margins, lumped together, could be a buffer for politicians to use in manipulating economic policies to keep the non-wealthy classes out of financial arms reach of the upper class income. It is much easier to apply tax benefits, and interest rates to a class of earners who are unsure of their economic stature simply because the data is skewed, and would allow policy makers to classify incomes on their own terms, in order to promise benefits to all, but in actuality give benefits to a small few. The few that exist between the margins.

The middle class is so easy to define politically because it blankets several different classifications, but in very small amounts. Most of the public is convinced that they belong to this class. This is misleading in that if one was to look at the actual structure of the classes, the middle seems to lean and be lumped closer to the lower, and in all reality, because credit is not income, but rather the reverse, the middle places itself with one foot in the lower, and one in the middle, with the great chance that the middle, in an economy that heavily restricts credit, will spill wholly over into the lower in one broad sweep. This behavior of the middle class means that it is technically disappearing, by the fact that "high-income groups are becoming even wealthier, while average family income is stagnating and declining". There is no pull from the lower class because those who claim to be middle class may or may not be middle, so bad economy halts income growth, and misconception turns those in the middle into actual lower class individuals, because "many who are reported as saying they are middle class or aspiring to it are falling behind" (Behind the Number: Class Dismissed?). So, that leaves the upper class untouched by any form of fallout, and that should lead most Americans to believe that the upper is strongly sustaining itself, and absorbing all of the wealth. In a sense, devouring the middle. The author of the previous article, Ellen Miller, states that there is a "realistic view of income classes in the U.S.", and it offers up a "poverty line which is pegged at too low a level". The middle class cannot be defined, and is becoming poorer not richer, because "even if not officially defined as poor, people between the poverty line and 80 percent of the median income derive most of their income from work...are definitely not able to reach middle-class levels of living".

The middle class may be experiencing income growth, allowing those who claim that type of class status to do so, but due to "18 percent increase in inflation over the past 30 years", household and individual spending has also increased while inflation does likewise, more and more of that middle class income is becoming hollow. This occurs because if you consider this trend, it demands an explanation of to where does the money flow, if income is not growing or being gained by the middle class. It goes up! Research proved that the largest income increases occurred at the "top end of the income distribution". So the money is evaporating to the smaller upper class, and not being redistributed into the markets, and that would cause a middle class or any other class not included in the upper to become economically stalled. You cannot define a class if it has no stake in the economy.

The Forgotten Class

An interesting interview just given by Bill Moyers on PBS discusses what both presidential candidates fail to recognize: the lower class. McCain hasn't even acknowledged any classes in his campaign, and Obama is sternly focused on the middle class. But what about the lower class, the poor, those who are struggling to provide adequate food, housing, and a decent standard of living for themselves, because gas prices are so high, food prices are rising, credit is untouchable, and housing and rent costs are through the roof? It is blatantly obvious that no political member in the United States knows how, or should it be said wants to recognize a huge amount of people who have no influence on America's rudderless leadership, other than the fact that they are just ever-present.

How does such a lower level economic mass begin to effectively be a player in the political realm of government? In the past, revolutions seemed to have been the only means for poorer classes to force recognition upon their leaders, or in fact turn over the ruling institution, and grab hold with their own structures of economy and rule. The one thing the United States is missing since its inception is a revolution of sorts, one in which has completely turned the governing structure on its heels, and replacing it with what is necessary to make the populace feel secure in the way they can effectively, and efficiently get through life under a governance.

The United States, is in a sense revolution-proof. A large part of the lower class in America is partially informed, but not what most would call educated about how they're governed. Entertainment has replaced informative news at this level, because it is not only simpler to digest, but also quicker, and much more pleasing to absorb. How many people, lower class or not, actually spend the time to watch a Congressional hearing on C-Span, or actually read longer articles in a newspaper about current affairs (other than sports and entertainment related articles), or the economy? For one, they are complicated to understand, and often time overwhelm the reader with verbiage that is written by intellectually elite journalists, who are reluctant to inform at the level of a high school graduate. Granted there are some really great Internet resources available that scale this information down, but they still don't get the message across, because it's simply not interesting. Look at shows like John Stewart and the Colbert report, that do in fact give the average intellect an informed perspective of politics, government, or economy, but yet because it is satire, it leaves out all the questions, or the arguments of political perspective. So, for the most part, information in this country, and the ability to make an informed decision about your quality of life is basically removed via pulp entertainment.

Even the news in some cases is pulp entertainment. All major networks pretty much cover the same issues with slightly varying points of view. So the headlines are packaged into quick and easy relatable stories, without substance. Take for instance, the economic bail out of $700 billion being granted to financial corporations. Yes, it gets the people worked up, but because there is no points or counterpoints provided by the news networks, people won't despise or protest what they are hearing about, because they don't fully understand the reasoning behind it. They simply cannot understand, once they revolted, the arguments for changing it. In the same interview, as mentioned above, Moyers asks, Michael Zweig, that you can have a journalist relate this news to people, and have a professional economist advocate for them, why is there no unions, or other representative institution in place to provide a movement for these people to gather muscle to get the government to listen to them, and Zweig's response is, that they do in fact exist, but the problem is they are, if not weak, simply not active, and if after the presidential election they don't come to muscling up, there is a need for organization to "come from below". He even has tried to go to these organizations and have them gather their members, in an effort to educate them on how to get a better footing in the current economic struggle. Informing the masses simply isn't happening in the news, and these folks are not getting the information they need from anywhere else.