25
Signs That Middle Class Families Have Been Targeted For Extinction
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/25signsmiddleclasstargetedforextinction.htm
The middle class in
There are three key factors that are
constantly chipping away at the middle class....
-Globalization
-Inflation
-Taxes
Labor has become a global commodity, and American workers are often 10 to 20 times as
expensive as workers on the other side of the world are. Middle class
jobs (such as manufacturing, etc.) have been leaving this country at an
astounding pace. Competition for the jobs that remain has become
extremely fierce, and this has driven wages down. The following is from a
recent article in the New York Times....
But
in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists
say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly
among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are
disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or
as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities
for reaching the middle class.
As paychecks have stagnated, the cost
of living has continued to escalate. Middle class families are finding
that their paychecks simply do not go nearly as far as they did before.
This is creating a tremendous amount of financial stress in households all over
Meanwhile, our politicians are taxing
the middle class like crazy. Most people only focus on federal and state
income taxes, but that is only a small part of the story. As I detailed
the other day, our politicians are taxing us in literally dozens of different ways and it is almost
always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.
If
If current trends continue,
eventually there will not be much of a middle class left.
The following are 25 signs that
middle class families have been targeted for extinction....
#1 Over the past
several decades, millions upon millions of middle class Americans have been
systematically turned into government dependents. Back in 1960, social
welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and
wages. In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21
percent of all salaries and wages. Today, social welfare benefits
make up approximately 35
percent of all salaries and wages.
#2 Unemployment is at epidemic levels and the
vast majority of the new jobs that have been "created" in recent
years have been low paying jobs. Of those Americans that do have a job at
this point, one out of every four works a
job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#3 The "working
poor" is a group that is rapidly growing in this country. If you can
believe it, the
#4 Over the past
several decades, the percentage of low income jobs has steadily
increased. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the
#5 The way that our
economic system is structured today, almost all of the economic rewards go to
the very top of the food chain. The following is how income gains in the
-37 percent of all income gains went
to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners
-56 percent of all income gains went
to the rest of the top 1 percent
-7 percent of all income gains went
to the bottom 99 percent
#6 Several decades
ago, there was a much more even distribution of income in this country.
Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners brought in about 8 percent of all
income. Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.
#7 As the middle
class shrinks, the number of "low income" and "poor"
Americans is rapidly rising. Today, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are
currently either considered to be "low income" or are living in
poverty.
#8 Manufacturing jobs once enabled huge
numbers of Americans to enjoy a middle class lifestyle. Unfortunately,
those jobs are leaving this country at a breathtaking pace. Back in 1940,
23.4% of all American workers had
manufacturing jobs. Today, only 10.4% of all American workers have
manufacturing jobs.
#9 In the old days,
any man that was willing to work hard and wanted a job could get one.
Today, there are millions of American men sitting on their couches at home
wondering why nobody will hire them. Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the
#10 The middle class
is shrinking at the same time that
#11 Every year now,
we see millions of Americans fall out of the middle class. In 2010, 2.6
million more Americans descended into poverty.
That was the largest increase that we have seen
since the
#12 The shrinking
middle class is having a disproportionate impact on children. At this
point, approximately 22 percent of all American children are
living in poverty.
#13 In the old days,
most Americans grew up in middle class neighborhoods. Sadly, this is no
longer true. In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in
"middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in
"middle class neighborhoods".
#14 The concentration
of wealth at the very top of the food chain is astounding. Right now,
over 50 percent of all stocks and bonds are owned by just 1 percent of the
#15 When you
concentrate too much power in the hands of the federal government and the big
corporations, it is inevitable that massive amounts of wealth will become
concentrated in just a few hands. In the
#16 There is nothing
wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with a game where
individuals and small businesses cannot compete fairly. According to
Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150
million Americans combined.
#17 When the number
of poor people rapidly expands in a society, that is a recipe for social
unrest. At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans
collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the
#18 The hidden tax of inflation is absolutely devastating middle
class families all over
#19 American workers that try to play by the
rules find that they are constantly fighting a losing battle. According
to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men
between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for
inflation.
#20 In recent years,
many middle class families have seen their paychecks get smaller. Median
household income in the
#21 In recent years,
many middle class families have seen many of their basic expenses absolutely
soar. For example, health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama
became president.
#22 Just turning on
the lights and heating their homes has become a major burden for many middle class
families. Electricity bills in the
#23 Just putting gas
in the car has become a major financial ordeal for millions of hard working
Americans. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the
#24 Sadly, government dependence is now at an all-time
high, and that is the way that many among the elite like it. When Barack
Obama took office, there were 32 million Americans on food stamps. Now,
there are more than 46 million Americans on
food stamps. In particular, an astounding number of children are on food
stamps right now. At this point, approximately one-fourth of all American children are
enrolled in the food stamp program.
#25 Many middle class
families will not be in the middle class for too much longer. According
to a shocking new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, 200,000
Unless major changes are made on a
national level, the middle class is going to continue to disappear.
If you are playing the game the way
that the system tells you to play it and you expect to live a middle class
lifestyle for many years to come there is a good chance that you will be deeply
disappointed at some point.
Millions upon millions of Americans
have done everything that the system told them to do and the system has still
failed them. They got good grades all the way through school, they went
to college, they worked really hard, they stayed out of trouble and they gave
everything they could to their employers. In spite of all that, millions
of hard working families have still lost their jobs and
their homes in recent years.
Do not trust that the system will
take care of you, and you should not trust that the government will take care
of you either.
We don't need the federal government
to hand out more money to everyone. Government handouts are already at
record levels and the government is not even coming close to paying for all of
this reckless spending.
More government spending is not going
to solve any of our problems.
Instead, what we need is an
environment where the size and power of the federal government is limited and
the size and the power of the big corporations is limited. We need an
environment where individuals and small businesses can thrive and compete
fairly.
Unfortunately, neither major
political party is going to move us in that direction, so
there is not much hope for solutions on the national level any time
soon.
On an individual level, we can all
learn how to prepare for the very difficult years that are
coming. It is imperative that we all work to become more independent of the system,
because the system could fail at any time.
If you have blind faith that your job
will always be there and that the federal government will rescue you if the
economy crashes then you are likely to be bitterly disappointed at some point.
The truth is that our economy
is slowly dying and the great American middle class is being systematically
wiped out.
Many of the things that worked in the
past are not going to work any longer.
You can choose to adapt or you can
suffer the consequences.
Our world is rapidly changing, and we
all need to prepare for what is coming.
