Comments on: Death of the middle class? Think again

By: russellwhitely

russellwhitely — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:29:33 +0000

This extremely shallow and misleading article ignores a wealth of easily available information.
Between 1947 and 1973, actual incomes rose at the same rate for everyone. But from 1973 to 1993, it was only the highest quintile, the rich, that enjoyed a significant increase in wealth. The top 1 percent of the nation saw its income level grow 78 percent between 1977 and 1989, and Federal Reserve Board figures from 1989 reveal that this elite group owned 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. By 1995, the figure had risen to 47 percent — more than $4 trillion in assets — while the upper quintile owned 93 percent. The result is that America is no longer a middle-class society. The two lowest quintiles (bottom 40 percent) experienced a decline in income during the period from 1973 to 1993, whereas the top quintile saw a transfer of $275 billion per year from the middle class to the rich. In 1973, the typical CEO of a large company earned about forty times what a typical worker did; today, he earns from 190 to 419 times as much. We have seen an unprecedented redistribution of income toward the rich. In terms of wealth disparity, the United States leads all other major industrial nations.

By: Bejack

Bejack — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 20:25:18 +0000

Re: Gorio, the only way i would agree to term limits is if lobbyists were the first to abide by them.
The rich, and i wish i were one of them, have steadfastly increased their share of the American wealth. A journalist on Fox stated that only the wealthy create jobs. If the wealthy create jobs it is because of the handling in America of their imported luxury cars their Italian marble and suits, their French kitchens and the booking of their foreign holidays.

By: mheld45

mheld45 — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:19:14 +0000

Like another reader suggested: check out a flat tax. Here’s the entire tax code:
1. Deduction = $20,000 (no one pays any tax on the first $20K)
2. Flat rate on anything above $20K: 20%.
And the Fed. gov’t takes in the same in personal inc tax as it does now.
Benefits: The real rate paid by those near poverty is 0%, the real rate paid someone earing $40K is about 10%. You don’t max out at the nominal rate until you hit about $250K in income.
Finally: the rich can’t avoid paying taxes because THERE ARE NO LOOPHOLES!
Disadvantages: CPAs are suddenly out of work (but as ingenious Americans they will find new ways to create (real) value))

By: drewbie

drewbie — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:18:58 +0000

The median income for the US may have been stagnant, but how has the distribution around that median changed? How has the standard deviation changed? How has the percentage of Americans within a standard deviation changed?

By: jaazophyl

jaazophyl — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:09:19 +0000

Amazing, beyond intellectually dishonest in so many ways, by redefining some terms, using accurate, but misleading statistics to measure certain things(as another reviewer said, using household income: yes, if the mother and father worked and all children grew up and lived at home and worked, there would be more middle class people?), and totally ignoring what people mean about a middle class standard of living and/or quality of life, not just pre or post tax income or consumption, etc. Yes, we have cable TV and cures for more diseases and safer cars and cheaper airfares to Europe. We also have virtually no good public schools, safe bridges, drivable streets in cities, moderately priced housing in low crime areas, more lives put on hold by frivilous lawsuits, a fortune for insurance of every kind, not just medical, etc. The costs for duplicating the quality of life of the 1960s for the average citizen has outstripped inflation by 3X or more. As one of a thousand examples, think tuition at a UC or Cal State school. The fact that his distortions of what is really meant by people using the “middle class” terminology are embraced by the MSM, which knows better, is suspicious at this time, especially.

By: Gorio

Gorio — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:10:50 +0000

The only way out of this quagmire is to reduce government influence and regulation. The EPA has had a stranglehold on manufacturing ability for over 2 decades. The reason for off shore business was because the EPA and Unions made it entirely too expensive to perform manufacturing in the US. Now we have outsourcing and contracted jobs to Americans at H1B/L1 worker wages. Of course this will happen, businesses can not afford to pay top dollar wages to more educated, professional people who are required to manage or supervise union employees who make more than they do. The outsourced imports will do that work because they have different cultural standards that work in today’s business operations. While we coddle workers, they whip and berate them knowing they will not get the axe because they are working on the cheap no matter how many times one goes to complain to HR. Lastly, Our own politicians are as guilty of class warfare as the rest of the millionaires/billionaires. They have been making huge sums off of impending laws, lobbyists and under the table donations for decades. Time for term limits NOW.

It’s also time for the Fair tax or flat tax initiative across the board.

By: thfcts

thfcts — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 20:07:47 +0000

Mr. Easterbrook neglected to mention that it now takes
two people in a household to make that average wage. And that one of the reasons for the massive debt in this country was a result of people using credit to retain their living standards as their jobs were shipped over seas and the top two percent sucked up more and more of the counties wealth.I guess life is getting better for people like him.

By: Snowyb

Snowyb — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:04:31 +0000

Brain-dead is more like it; caving in to pressure and giving away their hard-earned privileges by listening to the Pied Piper of economic opportunism (at the expense of others), especially the disadvantaged, being the willing slaves of corporate interests in a pathetic attempt to preserve their privileges, neglecting their children for consumerist addictions, the list of indictments is endless. Watching them fly about grubbing for their next deal reminds one of vultures in the deserts. Just like cowardly economic migrants leaving their homelands rather than pursue reform, this parasitic class genuflects willingly to tyranny, hates unions, and encourages exploitation of resources that dooms species and robs further generations of their birthright. Good riddance to them…

By: adsprung

adsprung — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 22:17:18 +0000

Stephen J. Rose does offer an important corrective to “the middle class is dying” lament, but his analysis has some limitations: 1) it emphasizes gains over the last 30 years at the expense of stagnation over the last ten); 2) it emphasizes education gains over 30-40 years without really grappling with the fact that those gains have stalled — not entirely, but the U.S. now lags many other wealthy countries in providing educational opportunity; and 3) though Rose claims credit for discovering rising income inequality in the US in the eighties, he really doesn’t grapple with the extent to which it’s metastasized over the past 10-20 years.
Also, while you take a swipe at Timothy Noah, you don’t engage Noah’s estimates of the causes of rising inequality, in which “trade” accounts for only 10% of the rising gap, education failures for 30%, runaway Wall St. and corporate pay for 30%, and the (perhaps inevitable) decline of labor for 20%.
Ten years of economic stagnation, during which the gains of the top 1% and the top 1/10 of one percent swallowed a wildly disproportionate share of GDP growth, should not be airily dismissed as a nonproblem. The middle class may not be disappearing, but prosperity isn’t increasing, and rising income inequality threatens the health of our democracy and commonwealth.

By: MM1711

MM1711 — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:49:17 +0000

“only pre-tax numbers are used, because they’re the only numbers that are disturbing.” Really? I find the distribution of income numbers really disturbing and they are disturbing whether you are looking at pre- or after-tax income. Why? Because the top marginal rate is at historically low levels. That change in median income you cite? Why not compare that to change in the average income for the top fifth of Americans so we can see how the incomes of 20% of our population have risen exponentially while middle incomes have put-putted along during the past 20 years.