How the middle class has fragmented under Obama

[Votto]

I'm personally tired of the same old crap. You have Dims saying they want to help the middle class, while just passing Obamacare which was the greatest tax burden on the middle class in US history, and proposing more and more redistribution to "fix" it all again.

Meanwhile, the GOP is the scapegoat every single time as they are held to be the ones that are at the source of all these troubles.

The funny thing is, there seems to always be just enough to perpetuate the demise of the middle class, that is, unless you count the first two years of the Obama administration when Dims had complete control over every aspect of the government. Of course, that did not go so well for them, did it?

I have a theory that Dims secretly want just enough in the GOP to be in office to blame for the continued demise of the middle class, as they preach more and more redistribution.

It is kinda of funny, in a sad way, how democrats talk like they know exactly what is wrong and exactly what to do about it, yet they never seemed to get around to doing it.

Instead they take over 1/6th of the economy. Welcome with open arms millions who apply downward pressure on wages and then they have the gall to blame the party that was not in the majority. That is why the democrats got their ass handed to them in 2016 and will in 2018 except they have allowed a whole host of illegal voters into the country.

They not only have all the answers, those answers are so wonderful they should be compulsory for all.

 

[Freewill]

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

the middle class is getting crushed by rightwing policies and the do-nothing congress' continuous efforts to create a low cost job market to further enrich the top 1%

Could you specifically name those policies that the party in the minority passed which is crushing anyone? Please? Do you mean like how Obamacare is enriching the insurance companies?

 

[Votto]

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

the middle class is getting crushed by rightwing policies and the do-nothing congress' continuous efforts to create a low cost job market to further enrich the top 1%

I propose that both parties wish to destroy the middle class.

Looking at human history, the middle class is a relatively new phenomenon. World history dictates that you have a small elite ruling class and the rest of them slaves.

This appears to be the natural state of man.

your proposal would be incorrect given the policies fostered by both parties. you know, like the constant rightwing fight against a living wage, against, health care, against collective bargaining. you ignore all of the pro-wealth positions of the right. interesting.

the middle class only exists because of the protection of government policy. the natural result of capitalism is a low-paid, miserable working class a la dickensian england and feudal societies.

The reason I'm ignoring the GOP is that the change proposed is to just elect Hillary.

I'm convinced she will win. She has been appointed by the ruling elite in both parties as our next "Messiah"

that's irrational...

Really? It will either be Jebediah or Hillary. That is where all the big money is.

Between the two, I'm not really sure it matters who wins to be honest, but I'm guess it would be swell to have a different genitalia for President for the first time in US history.

That is usually how voters respond.

 

[Votto]

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

the middle class is getting crushed by rightwing policies and the do-nothing congress' continuous efforts to create a low cost job market to further enrich the top 1%

Could you specifically name those policies that the party in the minority passed which is crushing anyone? Please? Do you mean like how Obamacare is enriching the insurance companies?

Kucinich Is famous for saying that Obamacare would enrich the insurance companies. In fact, he voted against it twice. The interesting part is, when Obama needed his vote he had a private meeting with Kucinich in order to sway his vote, which he later did.

I can only imagine what was said, but the interesting thing is, Kucinich never recanted from his claim that Obamacare was a bail out for insurance companies.

 

[Bfgrn]

I simply don't buy that the Dims wish to save the middle class, and here is why.

The Dim philosophy has always been a paternal view. People eat too much, drink too much, spend too much, pollute too much, etc. Their complete focus is depriving us of freedoms, especially when it comes to the free market.

What they really want is to build a big fence around the nation and regulate us to death.

In fact, prison is a Dim utopia. Everyone eats the same, dresses the same, lives in the same building, etc. In fact, every day is gay pride day.

I've been around since Harry Truman was President, so I lived through a good portion of the liberal era that started with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society. It was America's finest moment. It was an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city on the hill', the envy of the world.

That era ended at the end of the 1960's and the conservative era began. It has continued ever since. It has been a negative mirror image of the liberal era. We now lead the world only in the dubious like incarcerating human beings, killing innocent people and launching Hirohito sneak attacks on sovereign nations.

Here is what a REAL nanny state looks like...

Who leads the world in 'gulags'? Cuba, USSR, China, North Korea, Burma, Venezuela, Iran, Russia???

NO...

We're is NUMBER ONE! We're is NUMBER ONE! America is NUMBER ONE!

Conservatives built the BIGGEST Nanny State in the history of the world...

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
Thomas Jefferson to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland" (March 31, 1809).

 

[rightwinger]

How the middle class has fragmented under Obama - Yahoo Finance

When President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address in 2009, 53% of Americans considered themselves middle class. Six years later, just 44% of Americans define themselves that way.

It’s no secret working Americans have been under duress for more than a decade, as wages stagnate, computers and robots displace human workers and wealth becomes concentrated among an alarmingly small portion of the population. Obama has promoted policies meant to help the middle class throughout his six years in office, yet the problem today is quite different than when he started the job in 2009—and it’s not clear Obama fully grasps the change.

The president's latest proposal to aid the middle class is a “Robin Hood” tax plan that would hike taxes on the wealthy to finance tax cuts for lower earners. Transferring money from the rich to the working class through the tax code has been a recurring theme of Obama’s (and many Democrats’) tax proposals. And his latest plan seems no more likely to pass a Republican-controlled Congress than many other ideas that have starred in a State of the Union address, then quietly retired.

The middle class itself, however, has changed notably during the relatively short time Obama has been in office, as the chart below shows. The portion of Americans who consider themselves middle class has dropped (as has the portion considering themselves upper class), while the ranks who call themselves lower class have swelled.

Percentage of adults self-identifying as each social class:

Harris “alienation index ”—which measures satisfaction with five different elements of public life—at the worst level in the poll’s 39-year history. The government’s approval ratings remain close to record lows, and a startling majority of Americans still feel the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

What’s striking about the sour mood is that it has persisted throughout an economic recovery that’s now in its sixth year, with 2014 being an especially strong year for job growth. Obama has correctly identified many economic factors that dog working families—such as flat pay, a shortage of digital-era skills, and the high cost of child care, college and healthcare—but there’s something else going on that Obama’s various proposals for the middle class don’t capture: Too many Americans seem to be losing hope in a bright economic future.

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

There's no set definition of "middle class." It might consist of families between the 25th and 75th income percentiles, or between the 20th and 80th income percentiles, which would roughly equate with household income ranging from $25,000 to $105,000. But there are many subjective factors that contribute to a middle-class lifestyle and aren’t easily measured. Many people with incomes in the top 10% of earners, for instance, consider themselves middle class, because they work for their income instead of living off investments and come from modest circumstances.

A 2010 report commissioned by Obama himself declared that “middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income.” And it’s those aspirations that may be the most threatened element of a middle-class lifestyle today.

The 2010 White House report identified six principal things middle-class families aspire to. Examining them one by one helps explain why Americans are down on their prospects. Here are the six essentials of middle-class living:

Owning a home. The homeownership rate has historically been around 64%, but it peaked at 69% during the housing boom and drifted back to about 67% by the time Obama took office in 2009. It has since fallen further, to around 64%. That’s OK from a historical perspective, but because it’s been going down, not up, a lot of former homeowners feel terribly displaced, while many other potential buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage. Renters have more mobility than homeowners, which is a good thing these days, but ownership is clearly more difficult than it used to be for most people.

Owning a car. Auto sales have been strong, suggesting this important element of middle-class living remains intact.

College education for the kids. Big problem. A college degree is more important than ever, yet the cost of college has been rising by nearly three times the rate of inflation since 2009. No wonder the amount of student debt has soared by 58% during that time, to a staggering $1.3 trillion.

Health security. The scorecard is mixed. The Affordable Care Act has helped several million people who didn’t previously have health insurance get it. At the same time, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have shot up during the last several years, adding to the healthcare burden for many middle-class people who otherwise have stable coverage.

Retirement security. The twin stock-market and housing busts that greeted Obama in 2009 trashed retirement planning for millions. That has improved somewhat during the last several years, yet more than half of retirement-age households face serious financial risk. That’s up sharply from pre-recession levels -- and a potential crisis in the making.

Occasional family vacations. Americans take less vacation now than at any time on record. Some employees suffer from a “work martyr complex,” according to one study, leading them to take less time off than their employers allow. Many lower-income workers, meanwhile, don’t get any paid time off at all. If we’re a prosperous nation, it’s not evident in the way we spend our free time.

Of those six middle-class aspirations, four are further out of reach than when Obama took office in 2009. Two others are arguably the same or a bit better: Healthcare is more attainable for some, and a combination of low interest rates and permissive lending have kept America’s driveways filled with fresh autos.

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

Great points

They show that the American experiment in Supply Side Economics has been a disaster for America and we need to start dismantling it

 

[Bfgrn]

How the middle class has fragmented under Obama - Yahoo Finance

When President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address in 2009, 53% of Americans considered themselves middle class. Six years later, just 44% of Americans define themselves that way.

It’s no secret working Americans have been under duress for more than a decade, as wages stagnate, computers and robots displace human workers and wealth becomes concentrated among an alarmingly small portion of the population. Obama has promoted policies meant to help the middle class throughout his six years in office, yet the problem today is quite different than when he started the job in 2009—and it’s not clear Obama fully grasps the change.

The president's latest proposal to aid the middle class is a “Robin Hood” tax plan that would hike taxes on the wealthy to finance tax cuts for lower earners. Transferring money from the rich to the working class through the tax code has been a recurring theme of Obama’s (and many Democrats’) tax proposals. And his latest plan seems no more likely to pass a Republican-controlled Congress than many other ideas that have starred in a State of the Union address, then quietly retired.

The middle class itself, however, has changed notably during the relatively short time Obama has been in office, as the chart below shows. The portion of Americans who consider themselves middle class has dropped (as has the portion considering themselves upper class), while the ranks who call themselves lower class have swelled.

Percentage of adults self-identifying as each social class:

Harris “alienation index ”—which measures satisfaction with five different elements of public life—at the worst level in the poll’s 39-year history. The government’s approval ratings remain close to record lows, and a startling majority of Americans still feel the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

What’s striking about the sour mood is that it has persisted throughout an economic recovery that’s now in its sixth year, with 2014 being an especially strong year for job growth. Obama has correctly identified many economic factors that dog working families—such as flat pay, a shortage of digital-era skills, and the high cost of child care, college and healthcare—but there’s something else going on that Obama’s various proposals for the middle class don’t capture: Too many Americans seem to be losing hope in a bright economic future.

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

There's no set definition of "middle class." It might consist of families between the 25th and 75th income percentiles, or between the 20th and 80th income percentiles, which would roughly equate with household income ranging from $25,000 to $105,000. But there are many subjective factors that contribute to a middle-class lifestyle and aren’t easily measured. Many people with incomes in the top 10% of earners, for instance, consider themselves middle class, because they work for their income instead of living off investments and come from modest circumstances.

A 2010 report commissioned by Obama himself declared that “middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income.” And it’s those aspirations that may be the most threatened element of a middle-class lifestyle today.

The 2010 White House report identified six principal things middle-class families aspire to. Examining them one by one helps explain why Americans are down on their prospects. Here are the six essentials of middle-class living:

Owning a home. The homeownership rate has historically been around 64%, but it peaked at 69% during the housing boom and drifted back to about 67% by the time Obama took office in 2009. It has since fallen further, to around 64%. That’s OK from a historical perspective, but because it’s been going down, not up, a lot of former homeowners feel terribly displaced, while many other potential buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage. Renters have more mobility than homeowners, which is a good thing these days, but ownership is clearly more difficult than it used to be for most people.

Owning a car. Auto sales have been strong, suggesting this important element of middle-class living remains intact.

College education for the kids. Big problem. A college degree is more important than ever, yet the cost of college has been rising by nearly three times the rate of inflation since 2009. No wonder the amount of student debt has soared by 58% during that time, to a staggering $1.3 trillion.

Health security. The scorecard is mixed. The Affordable Care Act has helped several million people who didn’t previously have health insurance get it. At the same time, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have shot up during the last several years, adding to the healthcare burden for many middle-class people who otherwise have stable coverage.

Retirement security. The twin stock-market and housing busts that greeted Obama in 2009 trashed retirement planning for millions. That has improved somewhat during the last several years, yet more than half of retirement-age households face serious financial risk. That’s up sharply from pre-recession levels -- and a potential crisis in the making.

Occasional family vacations. Americans take less vacation now than at any time on record. Some employees suffer from a “work martyr complex,” according to one study, leading them to take less time off than their employers allow. Many lower-income workers, meanwhile, don’t get any paid time off at all. If we’re a prosperous nation, it’s not evident in the way we spend our free time.

Of those six middle-class aspirations, four are further out of reach than when Obama took office in 2009. Two others are arguably the same or a bit better: Healthcare is more attainable for some, and a combination of low interest rates and permissive lending have kept America’s driveways filled with fresh autos.

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

Great points

They show that the American experiment in Supply Side Economics has been a disaster for America and we need to start dismantling it

“If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).”
John Kenneth Galbraith

Voodoo economics was a huge conservative success...it wiped out the New Deal and brought back the Gilded Age...

 

[Freewill]

I simply don't buy that the Dims wish to save the middle class, and here is why.

The Dim philosophy has always been a paternal view. People eat too much, drink too much, spend too much, pollute too much, etc. Their complete focus is depriving us of freedoms, especially when it comes to the free market.

What they really want is to build a big fence around the nation and regulate us to death.

In fact, prison is a Dim utopia. Everyone eats the same, dresses the same, lives in the same building, etc. In fact, every day is gay pride day.

I've been around since Harry Truman was President, so I lived through a good portion of the liberal era that started with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society. It was America's finest moment. It was an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city on the hill', the envy of the world.

That era ended at the end of the 1960's and the conservative era began. It has continued ever since. It has been a negative mirror image of the liberal era. We now lead the world only in the dubious like incarcerating human beings, killing innocent people and launching Hirohito sneak attacks on sovereign nations.

Here is what a REAL nanny state looks like...

Who leads the world in 'gulags'? Cuba, USSR, China, North Korea, Burma, Venezuela, Iran, Russia???

NO...

We're is NUMBER ONE! We're is NUMBER ONE! America is NUMBER ONE!

Conservatives built the BIGGEST Nanny State in the history of the world...

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
Thomas Jefferson to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland" (March 31, 1809).

Conservatism started in 1960 with the election of Eisenhower? Eisenhower who integrated the military, and created the interstate highway system? I would say that the middle class started around 1960. The US walked on the Moon in less then 10 years.

I am not sure the gloom and doom of today's life is all that justified. The cars we drive are vastly superior then the ones driven in 1960. We not only have better color television we can carry it in our pockets, and do. Things we only dreamed about back then have come true.

BUT, that does not mean everything is right in the world. What we are seeing with the mostly low skilled and low educated that used to go to the mill for a job was predicted when they were stabbed in the back and it has come true. Clinton destroyed these people with his "free" trade agreements that were not so free. The agreements did open a market for lower price goods that did, in a way help the middle class, but sure screwed the lower class. Now there are fewer jobs that pay a living for those without an education or skill and those jobs are in competition with illegal aliens flooding our border. Even high tech jobs are being flooded by migrants.

All this puts downward pressure on the middle class. Then throw on Obamacare which does help keep the lower class poor but does little for the middle class and it is no wonder the middle class is in what people think is a bad situation.

 

[rightwinger]

How the middle class has fragmented under Obama - Yahoo Finance

When President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address in 2009, 53% of Americans considered themselves middle class. Six years later, just 44% of Americans define themselves that way.

It’s no secret working Americans have been under duress for more than a decade, as wages stagnate, computers and robots displace human workers and wealth becomes concentrated among an alarmingly small portion of the population. Obama has promoted policies meant to help the middle class throughout his six years in office, yet the problem today is quite different than when he started the job in 2009—and it’s not clear Obama fully grasps the change.

The president's latest proposal to aid the middle class is a “Robin Hood” tax plan that would hike taxes on the wealthy to finance tax cuts for lower earners. Transferring money from the rich to the working class through the tax code has been a recurring theme of Obama’s (and many Democrats’) tax proposals. And his latest plan seems no more likely to pass a Republican-controlled Congress than many other ideas that have starred in a State of the Union address, then quietly retired.

The middle class itself, however, has changed notably during the relatively short time Obama has been in office, as the chart below shows. The portion of Americans who consider themselves middle class has dropped (as has the portion considering themselves upper class), while the ranks who call themselves lower class have swelled.

Percentage of adults self-identifying as each social class:

Harris “alienation index ”—which measures satisfaction with five different elements of public life—at the worst level in the poll’s 39-year history. The government’s approval ratings remain close to record lows, and a startling majority of Americans still feel the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

What’s striking about the sour mood is that it has persisted throughout an economic recovery that’s now in its sixth year, with 2014 being an especially strong year for job growth. Obama has correctly identified many economic factors that dog working families—such as flat pay, a shortage of digital-era skills, and the high cost of child care, college and healthcare—but there’s something else going on that Obama’s various proposals for the middle class don’t capture: Too many Americans seem to be losing hope in a bright economic future.

[Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App]

There's no set definition of "middle class." It might consist of families between the 25th and 75th income percentiles, or between the 20th and 80th income percentiles, which would roughly equate with household income ranging from $25,000 to $105,000. But there are many subjective factors that contribute to a middle-class lifestyle and aren’t easily measured. Many people with incomes in the top 10% of earners, for instance, consider themselves middle class, because they work for their income instead of living off investments and come from modest circumstances.

A 2010 report commissioned by Obama himself declared that “middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income.” And it’s those aspirations that may be the most threatened element of a middle-class lifestyle today.

The 2010 White House report identified six principal things middle-class families aspire to. Examining them one by one helps explain why Americans are down on their prospects. Here are the six essentials of middle-class living:

Owning a home. The homeownership rate has historically been around 64%, but it peaked at 69% during the housing boom and drifted back to about 67% by the time Obama took office in 2009. It has since fallen further, to around 64%. That’s OK from a historical perspective, but because it’s been going down, not up, a lot of former homeowners feel terribly displaced, while many other potential buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage. Renters have more mobility than homeowners, which is a good thing these days, but ownership is clearly more difficult than it used to be for most people.

Owning a car. Auto sales have been strong, suggesting this important element of middle-class living remains intact.

College education for the kids. Big problem. A college degree is more important than ever, yet the cost of college has been rising by nearly three times the rate of inflation since 2009. No wonder the amount of student debt has soared by 58% during that time, to a staggering $1.3 trillion.

Health security. The scorecard is mixed. The Affordable Care Act has helped several million people who didn’t previously have health insurance get it. At the same time, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have shot up during the last several years, adding to the healthcare burden for many middle-class people who otherwise have stable coverage.

Retirement security. The twin stock-market and housing busts that greeted Obama in 2009 trashed retirement planning for millions. That has improved somewhat during the last several years, yet more than half of retirement-age households face serious financial risk. That’s up sharply from pre-recession levels -- and a potential crisis in the making.

Occasional family vacations. Americans take less vacation now than at any time on record. Some employees suffer from a “work martyr complex,” according to one study, leading them to take less time off than their employers allow. Many lower-income workers, meanwhile, don’t get any paid time off at all. If we’re a prosperous nation, it’s not evident in the way we spend our free time.

Of those six middle-class aspirations, four are further out of reach than when Obama took office in 2009. Two others are arguably the same or a bit better: Healthcare is more attainable for some, and a combination of low interest rates and permissive lending have kept America’s driveways filled with fresh autos.

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

Great points

They show that the American experiment in Supply Side Economics has been a disaster for America and we need to start dismantling it

“If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).”
John Kenneth Galbraith

Voodoo economics was a huge conservative success...it wiped out the New Deal and brought back the Gilded Age...

I love how conservatives preach the wonders of trickle down and then complain that the middle class is suffering because of Obamas policies

 

[Bfgrn]

I simply don't buy that the Dims wish to save the middle class, and here is why.

The Dim philosophy has always been a paternal view. People eat too much, drink too much, spend too much, pollute too much, etc. Their complete focus is depriving us of freedoms, especially when it comes to the free market.

What they really want is to build a big fence around the nation and regulate us to death.

In fact, prison is a Dim utopia. Everyone eats the same, dresses the same, lives in the same building, etc. In fact, every day is gay pride day.

I've been around since Harry Truman was President, so I lived through a good portion of the liberal era that started with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society. It was America's finest moment. It was an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city on the hill', the envy of the world.

That era ended at the end of the 1960's and the conservative era began. It has continued ever since. It has been a negative mirror image of the liberal era. We now lead the world only in the dubious like incarcerating human beings, killing innocent people and launching Hirohito sneak attacks on sovereign nations.

Here is what a REAL nanny state looks like...

Who leads the world in 'gulags'? Cuba, USSR, China, North Korea, Burma, Venezuela, Iran, Russia???

NO...

We're is NUMBER ONE! We're is NUMBER ONE! America is NUMBER ONE!

Conservatives built the BIGGEST Nanny State in the history of the world...

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
Thomas Jefferson to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland" (March 31, 1809).

Conservatism started in 1960 with the election of Eisenhower? Eisenhower who integrated the military, and created the interstate highway system? I would say that the middle class started around 1960. The US walked on the Moon in less then 10 years.

I am not sure the gloom and doom of today's life is all that justified. The cars we drive are vastly superior then the ones driven in 1960. We not only have better color television we can carry it in our pockets, and do. Things we only dreamed about back then have come true.

BUT, that does not mean everything is right in the world. What we are seeing with the mostly low skilled and low educated that used to go to the mill for a job was predicted when they were stabbed in the back and it has come true. Clinton destroyed these people with his "free" trade agreements that were not so free. The agreements did open a market for lower price goods that did, in a way help the middle class, but sure screwed the lower class. Now there are fewer jobs that pay a living for those without an education or skill and those jobs are in competition with illegal aliens flooding our border. Even high tech jobs are being flooded by migrants.

All this puts downward pressure on the middle class. Then throw on Obamacare which does help keep the lower class poor but does little for the middle class and it is no wonder the middle class is in what people think is a bad situation.

President Harry S. Truman integrated the military.

This Day in Truman History
July 26, 1948
President Truman issues Executive Order No. 9981 Desegregating the Military

Eisenhower was the last progressive Republican to hold the office of President.

The "free trade agreement" Clinton signed was delivered part and parcel by George H.W. Bush

Clinton Signs NAFTA–December 8, 1993

On December 8, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which eliminated nearly every trade barrier between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, creating the world's largest free trade zone. The House of Representatives approved NAFTA on November 17, 1993, by a vote of 234 to 200. Remarkably the agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and only 102 Democrats. That unusual combination reflected the challenges President Clinton faced in convincing Congress that the controversial piece of legislation would truly benefit all Americans.

President George H.W. Bush was NAFTA's original sponsor, signing the deal on December 17, 1992. The trade agreement ended tariffs between Mexico, America, and the United States, and set a 15-year timetable for the elimination of most other impediments to international investment and commerce between the three nations. Like many Republicans, President Bush believed that open economic borders between nations would benefit all concerned. Ideally, as production rose to meet the new demand for American exports, jobs, wages, and the economy as a whole would improve. However, securing Congressional approval fell to the newly elected President Bill Clinton. It was not an easy task.

Labor leaders were skeptical of NAFTA's promises. They believed that American corporations would flee the United States in order to profit from much lower Mexican labor costs and the new absence of tariffs. Presidential candidate Ross Perot spoke to those concerns when he famously predicted a giant "sucking sound" as U.S. jobs were lost to America's southern neighbor. The fears of labor—traditionally one of the strongest components of the Democratic coalition—helped explain why passage of NAFTA proved so difficult.

President Clinton and key members of his administration worked tirelessly to assuage the fears of key House Democrats. The President inserted limits on agricultural imports to minimize the negative effects of competition on produce. He also created a North American Development Bank in order to assist development along the Mexican border and show sympathy with the concerns of Hispanic Representatives. Clinton was willing to risk alienating American labor to some degree because he was convinced that long-term prosperity depended on free trade between nations, and because he felt that his administration needed an important, visible early win to generate momentum and credibility. NAFTA amounted to an administration victory, but many still regarded it as a net loss for American labor and the environment, which they claimed suffered in the absence of adequate Mexican regulations.

 

[Bfgrn]

How the middle class has fragmented under Obama - Yahoo Finance

When President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address in 2009, 53% of Americans considered themselves middle class. Six years later, just 44% of Americans define themselves that way.

It’s no secret working Americans have been under duress for more than a decade, as wages stagnate, computers and robots displace human workers and wealth becomes concentrated among an alarmingly small portion of the population. Obama has promoted policies meant to help the middle class throughout his six years in office, yet the problem today is quite different than when he started the job in 2009—and it’s not clear Obama fully grasps the change.

The president's latest proposal to aid the middle class is a “Robin Hood” tax plan that would hike taxes on the wealthy to finance tax cuts for lower earners. Transferring money from the rich to the working class through the tax code has been a recurring theme of Obama’s (and many Democrats’) tax proposals. And his latest plan seems no more likely to pass a Republican-controlled Congress than many other ideas that have starred in a State of the Union address, then quietly retired.

The middle class itself, however, has changed notably during the relatively short time Obama has been in office, as the chart below shows. The portion of Americans who consider themselves middle class has dropped (as has the portion considering themselves upper class), while the ranks who call themselves lower class have swelled.

Percentage of adults self-identifying as each social class:

Harris “alienation index ”—which measures satisfaction with five different elements of public life—at the worst level in the poll’s 39-year history. The government’s approval ratings remain close to record lows, and a startling majority of Americans still feel the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

What’s striking about the sour mood is that it has persisted throughout an economic recovery that’s now in its sixth year, with 2014 being an especially strong year for job growth. Obama has correctly identified many economic factors that dog working families—such as flat pay, a shortage of digital-era skills, and the high cost of child care, college and healthcare—but there’s something else going on that Obama’s various proposals for the middle class don’t capture: Too many Americans seem to be losing hope in a bright economic future.

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There's no set definition of "middle class." It might consist of families between the 25th and 75th income percentiles, or between the 20th and 80th income percentiles, which would roughly equate with household income ranging from $25,000 to $105,000. But there are many subjective factors that contribute to a middle-class lifestyle and aren’t easily measured. Many people with incomes in the top 10% of earners, for instance, consider themselves middle class, because they work for their income instead of living off investments and come from modest circumstances.

A 2010 report commissioned by Obama himself declared that “middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income.” And it’s those aspirations that may be the most threatened element of a middle-class lifestyle today.

The 2010 White House report identified six principal things middle-class families aspire to. Examining them one by one helps explain why Americans are down on their prospects. Here are the six essentials of middle-class living:

Owning a home. The homeownership rate has historically been around 64%, but it peaked at 69% during the housing boom and drifted back to about 67% by the time Obama took office in 2009. It has since fallen further, to around 64%. That’s OK from a historical perspective, but because it’s been going down, not up, a lot of former homeowners feel terribly displaced, while many other potential buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage. Renters have more mobility than homeowners, which is a good thing these days, but ownership is clearly more difficult than it used to be for most people.

Owning a car. Auto sales have been strong, suggesting this important element of middle-class living remains intact.

College education for the kids. Big problem. A college degree is more important than ever, yet the cost of college has been rising by nearly three times the rate of inflation since 2009. No wonder the amount of student debt has soared by 58% during that time, to a staggering $1.3 trillion.

Health security. The scorecard is mixed. The Affordable Care Act has helped several million people who didn’t previously have health insurance get it. At the same time, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have shot up during the last several years, adding to the healthcare burden for many middle-class people who otherwise have stable coverage.

Retirement security. The twin stock-market and housing busts that greeted Obama in 2009 trashed retirement planning for millions. That has improved somewhat during the last several years, yet more than half of retirement-age households face serious financial risk. That’s up sharply from pre-recession levels -- and a potential crisis in the making.

Occasional family vacations. Americans take less vacation now than at any time on record. Some employees suffer from a “work martyr complex,” according to one study, leading them to take less time off than their employers allow. Many lower-income workers, meanwhile, don’t get any paid time off at all. If we’re a prosperous nation, it’s not evident in the way we spend our free time.

Of those six middle-class aspirations, four are further out of reach than when Obama took office in 2009. Two others are arguably the same or a bit better: Healthcare is more attainable for some, and a combination of low interest rates and permissive lending have kept America’s driveways filled with fresh autos.

Most of Obama’s proposals for strengthening the middle class are fairly mainstream ideas backed by reputable economists. What’s harder to assess is whether Obama’s style of leadership inspires middle-class ambition and the spirit of self-improvement long associated with it. The declining portion of Americans who consider themselves to be the backbone of the U.S. economy suggests—not really.

Great points

They show that the American experiment in Supply Side Economics has been a disaster for America and we need to start dismantling it

“If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).”
John Kenneth Galbraith

Voodoo economics was a huge conservative success...it wiped out the New Deal and brought back the Gilded Age...

I love how conservatives preach the wonders of trickle down and then complain that the middle class is suffering because of Obamas policies

They love regenerated "oats"

 

[Votto]

I simply don't buy that the Dims wish to save the middle class, and here is why.

The Dim philosophy has always been a paternal view. People eat too much, drink too much, spend too much, pollute too much, etc. Their complete focus is depriving us of freedoms, especially when it comes to the free market.

What they really want is to build a big fence around the nation and regulate us to death.

In fact, prison is a Dim utopia. Everyone eats the same, dresses the same, lives in the same building, etc. In fact, every day is gay pride day.

I've been around since Harry Truman was President, so I lived through a good portion of the liberal era that started with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society. It was America's finest moment. It was an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city on the hill', the envy of the world.

That era ended at the end of the 1960's and the conservative era began. It has continued ever since. It has been a negative mirror image of the liberal era. We now lead the world only in the dubious like incarcerating human beings, killing innocent people and launching Hirohito sneak attacks on sovereign nations.

Here is what a REAL nanny state looks like...

Who leads the world in 'gulags'? Cuba, USSR, China, North Korea, Burma, Venezuela, Iran, Russia???

NO...

We're is NUMBER ONE! We're is NUMBER ONE! America is NUMBER ONE!

Conservatives built the BIGGEST Nanny State in the history of the world...

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
Thomas Jefferson to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland" (March 31, 1809).

In 1960 the conservative era began?

What exactly is the conservative era and how did it begin? Was it LBJ? Was it Nixon? Does it continue with Obama?

The terms conservative and liberal have been bastardized. Essentially all I see is the never ending growth of government and their corporate crony masters.

After all, corporations are a government creation. Without government, they would not exist. By themselves, corporations are like mini governments.

What I find amusing is that neither the "left" nor "right" seem to see it. A great illustration are recent Supreme Court decisions.

SCOTUS ruled that Obamacare was Constitutional, only after changing it into a tax. Before this, it was sold as anything but a tax because Obama promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. It ended up being the largest tax on the middle class, which then enriched the insurance companies. Liberals across the country hailed it as a left winged success.

Then we had SCOTUS rule on corporations being considered equal to that of individual people when it came to donating money to campaigns. This time the "right" declared victory thinking it favored "right" winged politicians like Bush who did nothing but increase the size and scope of government.

In the end, both "left" and "right" think that SCOTUS leans both directions, when in reality, they only lean one direction, which is toward their corporate masters.