New survey data shows perilous state of US economy and suffering of a majority underclass

New economic data obtained and analyzed by the Associated Press appears to show that when billionaire financier Warren Buffett says, “There’s class warfare, all right.. and we’re winning," he knows what he's talking about.

According to the report by AP, four out of every five American adults will "struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives" revealing the strained fabric of a national economy which once saw the meteoric rise of the middle class returned to a state where increasing inequality is the norm and class tensions—though often muted for popular discussion—is undermining the prospects for tens of millions.

"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position."

The resulting analysis of the numbers by AP points to an "increasingly globalized U.S. economy"—in which companies search the globe for low wages, minimized regulation, and corporate-friendly tax rates—as the main driver of the "widening gap between rich and poor" and the destruction of the manufacturing base that historians and economists credit for previous and more widely shared prosperity.

Responding to the survey, William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty, told AP: "It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position."

The report shows the economic hardships faced by low-income and middle class workers across age and race demographics and shows that though divisions of social mobility and economic gains shift differently along racial and geographic lines, the overall trend is one inherently built on economic class.

"Poverty is no longer an issue of 'them', it's an issue of 'us'," said Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who calculated the numbers for AP. "Only when poverty is thought of as a mainstream event, rather than a fringe experience that just affects blacks and Hispanics, can we really begin to build broader support for programs that lift people in need."

Among some of the survey's specific findings: