What Happened to the Middle Class?
Restaurants like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are struggling, while high end dining is flourishing. At GE, demand for high-end dishwashers is racing ahead of sales growth for mass-market models. This leaves the question, what happened to the middle class?
Generally the Middle-Class is thought of as making <$100,000 a year
But middle-income distribution isn’t close to that.[4]
Many of our middle class skilled workers are being sought in emerging markets.
The global middle class for emerging markets starts at $10 a day.
The growth “sweet spot”
Sweet spot =
Middle class is large enough –> To Accelerate growth–> To grow the middle class more–>
(This is a Virtuous Circle)
America’s highly skilled workers at the upper end of middle class, and into the upper class have exploded.
As well as the wealth of those with capital or many assets.
Household net worth:
Top 1%: $6,816,200
Top 5%: $1,863,800
Top 10%: $952,200
Top 20%: $415,700
And the rest of us:
Median wealth of families by race:
White: $113,149
Asian: $89,339
Latino: $6,325
Black: $5,677
Over the last 25 years, the wealth gap between white and black families:
1984-$85,000
2009-$236,500
(Nearly tripling!)
From Key factors:
Because of years of homeownership (27% of difference)
Household income (20% of difference)
Unemployment disparity (9% of difference)
College education (5% of difference)
Inheritance/family preexisting wealth (5% of difference)
But that doesn’t help a majority of families that traditionally built a strong middle class.
The increased wealth of highly skilled workers, the insane wealth of those with capital, and the outsourcing of lower skilled jobs have left us all asking, “what happened to the middle class?”
Source: BestMSWPrograms.com
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4closureFraud.org
What happened to the tyrannosaurus rex is the real question?
I’ve been seeing this happen over the last 15 years. Even now with the tight regulations of the financial industry I have to do twice the work to earn what I did a year ago. This was a result of the requirements to put limits on my income as a self employed person but only through the ignorance of those misled to think that independent loan officers working for mortgage brokers were the ’cause’ of the financial crisis. It is becoming more and more clear to those who want to open their eyes to the real truth that it is NOT those at the bottom of the ladder who are causing or caused the financial disaster. It was just a means by which those who were really the culprits to satisfy the hunger of the ignorant for justice. If justice is what the people want, they need to start recognizing the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Amen !!! Bobbi