Goodbye, middle class

The rich get richer, as the rest of us drown in the tub

It wasn't that long ago that Republicans talked about shrinking government down to where it could be drowned in the bathtub.

That's exactly what's happening now to the middle class. It's being shrunk by the low-wage global labor pool. If we keep going this way, the influence of the middle class as a voting bloc will, eventually, be drowned in the gold-plated bathtub of the country's monied interests.

Increasingly, American companies are shipping jobs to destitute people overseas willing to work long hours for a fraction of what American workers need to get by. The good jobs that used to pay the mortgage, grocery and doctor bills, with enough left to save for a vacation and the kids' college fund, are outsourced to places like China (where a garment worker makes 86 cents an hour) and Cambodia (where the wage is 22 cents an hour). Meanwhile, some 40 percent of employed Americans are working in service jobs, often very low paying.

This phenomenon, combined with automation and the ongoing effects of the economic meltdown, are the job killers today, much more so than government taxing and spending. In fact, it's government programs that prevent people forced into lower wage jobs from cracking their heads wide open on the pavement.

Unemployment compensation, food stamps, child care subsidies, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and health care reform measures that keep children up to age 26 on their parents' insurance policies and prevent insurance companies from excluding children with pre-existing conditions or cancelling a policy when you get sick -- all of these things mitigate the effects of global forces beyond workers' control.

But even as the middle class dwindles, it is being exhorted to vote against its own well-being by monied interests bent on maintaining or increasing their already overwhelming advantages. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is a prime example.

Using scare tactics and demagoguery (Socialism! Communism!) -- and, thanks to the Supreme Court, unlimited financing of campaign messages -- these wealthy interests are working overtime to turn middle class voters against themselves.

Add to that what we know about voting by the low-income and poor (who tend not to) and disillusionment with the Obama administration, which inherited a mess and has not improved it enough to suit many Americans, and we're heading into a midterm election where voter anger, even if it's misplaced, could carry the day.

Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. The new Forbes Magazine list of the 400 wealthiest Americans shows their total worth up 8 percent in just the past year, to $1.3 trillion. That's far above the 1 percent rise in the Standard & Poor 500. Furthermore, the magazine said, more than half of those on the list are richer than they were a year ago.

This is not to say that 400 rich people are running the county. Not entirely, anyway. But if you don't think that current tax policies, incentives and special deals have enriched the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, then take a look at these statistics.

They were released in July by Michael Snyder, editor of theeconomiccollapseblog.com. He collected 22 indicators that, he wrote, "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America." Here are some of them.

 83 percent of U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, up from 43 percent in 2007.

 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1 percent of Americans.

 43 percent have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

 24 percent of workers say they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

 Over 1.4 million people filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase over 2008.

 Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

 For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the U.S. than all individual Americans put together.

 In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

 As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7 percent of liquid financial assets. The bottom 50 percent of income earners now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth.

 Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent from 2008.

 The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as 15 years ago.

 The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

 For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects 43 million in 2011.

 Some 21 percent of children in the United States are living below the poverty line -- the highest rate in 20 years.

 Even with the financial crisis, the number of U.S. millionaires rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

This is where we are. And things will get even worse if the election brings more tax cuts for the wealthy or less regulation to "free up" big business to make even more money.

The demagogues will rail against "socialism." What the voters should really be worried about is oligarchy.

Sally Kalson is a staff writer and columnist for the Post-Gazette ( is a staff writer and columnist for the Post-Gazette ( skalson@post-gazette.com , 412 263-1610). More articles by this author

First published on September 26, 2010 at 12:00 am