Disappearing Middle Class

One of the questions that we should consider is whether the American situation we think of as normal can continue. From the very early days of this country, the immigrants were able to aspire to a standard of living that was significantly better than they could have achieved in the world they left behind. This concept, often referred to as the American Dream, while certainly not true in all cases did permeate the society.

Does the dream survive? For most of history and to some extent even in America, the natural progression of things is that wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands while the vast majority of people struggle. In America, the formula was different, we had our rich people but because of the great wealth available we developed a large Middle Class.

This Middle Class was in many ways the defining characteristic of our society. Especially in the middle of the 20^th century following World War 2, whether fully accurate or not, most Americans considered themselves as Middle Class. This definition had certain characteristics that defined that status, home ownership, one or more cars, annual vacations, health care, etc. etc. If you had these things you felt that you "belonged". Of course we had rebels and members of the counter culture who rejected these tokens, but mostly when you scratched the surface they were in fact fully entrenched in the Middle Class ideology and most, after a rebellious period returned to the fold.

The question facing America today is whether this model of America can survive. As we see more and more of the national wealth consolidated in fewer and fewer hands or sent overseas, the middle class is shrinking. We have more poor and richer rich. Jobs that used to enable workers to maintain a middle class lifestyle are going overseas and being replaced partially by jobs that simply will not support that standard of living.

This trend is clear and if it continues we will see the end of the American Dream of a country inhabited by Middle Class citizens. Unfortunately I seldom hear our policy makers addressing this problem.