Thread: The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional 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 United States 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% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.

What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.

But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.

Not one single thing you wrote even defines "middle class" Heck as i read those numbers the middle class is everybody between the poor and rich. Just because more ppl are on food stamps doesnt mean that much.

or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

The govt in a power grab, lets be realistic it is about getting votes, has taken ALL THE SHAME out of food stamps. This can be good or bad. There are also more people in the usa and hell they are even advertising to get more people on food stamps ... and raising how much you get. The USDA might even be piranha members with a **** news letter blasting more and more people to get new food stamp sign ups. So what ... if they lower the requirements to join and pay more ... more people will sign up. /// if they paid a million a month on food stamps ... would you join? i would ... raise the amount they get more and more people will sign up ... its just how the world works /////

Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

Yeah the middle class is disappearing alright, if anything this proves that the middle class is disappearing because they are getting rich !!! ... millionaires .... even. Unless you think these are poor people that got rich without .. without ... going thru middle class first?

First off, there are serious problems with this country. I will agree with that. The shift to a world market necessitated shifting labor costs over seas ... or other countries would just ship there shirts over here and American companies wouldn't be able to compete with them on price anyways. Political favored tariffs dont usually work. Ever??

Secondly as Steve said above, some people just wont ever live more than pay check to paycheck. No matter what the economy. We blame the banks for the recession but really a lot of people borrowed money on the hopes that they wouldn't have to pay it back because of ever increasing housing prices paying off the over borrowing.

Third im a sum***** to argue with so dont take any offence. Lets define middle class first then we can throw some numbers around. During this recession im sure the middle class shrank but it wayyyyy also grew during the boom times. In America people are always moving from the poor to middle and rich to middle and rich to poor and poor to rich.

If you want to free the middle class .. get a **** load of people employed in the usa ... lower taxes on everybody ... vote for the fairtax. Read about it ... i think its the only way to control washington and put this country back to where corporations WANT to be here. Im just giddy over the fact that we could finally tax drug dealers ....

Originally Posted by e9er

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.

The truth is we are living in the most prosperous country on the planet. The truth is the whole world has been hit by an economic downturn, which has happened sporadically and periodically in a capitalistic system for the last three hundred years. All over the world hundreds of millions of people are being lifted out of crushing poverty. I think this is a good thing. Stores like Wal-Mart, The Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren, buy their goods overseas and we help the world with our purchases. Just be glad you live here and can create your own destiny.

All I can say is Thanks to the brilliant politicians we voted into office for making decisions based on special intrest groups.

Pretty complicated subject

1. Most dont know but our biggest import is Capital not cheap toys or tvs. It is money if you have a mortgage a good chance foreigners lent you the money, credit card debt, school bonds, Treasury debt, and not only have they lent us alot of money but very very cheaply and we are now addicted. When someone lends you money that cheaply they want something in return, our market. Give and take

2. Ruling Class- been a long time since we have had a president whoever had a job in his life. Congress is just as bad, Nancy Pelosi has she ever held a job in her useless life? never
These people have no clue because they have never done anything


You can still become anybody you want to be

The Real Problem

The relationship between
Labor-Capital- Government

Is completely broken right now, their are no incentives to invest in people.
Number 1# after investing thousands of dollars in training an employee that employee can just walk right out the door and you have to start all over again.

Number # 2 - The government in their quest to fullfil their liberal fantasies have made it a complete pain in the butt to manage employees.The alphabet soup of agencies and the list of rules is endless .Obamacare is not making this any easier, now small business needs to work through 3000 page bill and make sure we are compliant and with the hiring of 30,000 IRS agents Mr. Obama is making darn sure we are

Tax policy

top tax rate for income starting next year
39% plus in NYS 9%
Capital Gains- 20%

Right now if you had $1 million to invest
would you invest it in a small business and have 50 headaches to deal with everyday

Or would you buy an apartment building or give it to a broker and go play golf

Well Capital votes too and what they are saying is we want nothing to do with labor

[QUOTE=e9er;121088]The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional 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 United States 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% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.

What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.

But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.[/QUOTE]

Not True!

I guess my overall problem with this "data" is same problem i have with the Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is easy to manipulate data by the starting and ending points. If you go back to the founding of the country, the beginning, i think it is pretty safe to say middle class is far better off then back then.

Raise your hand if you want to go back to 1950,1960 the glory years. or 1850/1860 or 1780
See when you change the start date the numbers will be far different

Just like global warming if you push back clock to millions,100's of millions, billions way before humanity. The numbers are completely different.
That is were the old saying about lies,****ed lies,statistics comes from