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A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. Everyone's been picking at all your claims except this one, so let me jump in on this part. You've been drinking too

A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. Everyone's been picking at all your claims except this one, so let me jump in on this part. You've been drinking too much of the kool-aid. It's certainly fashionable for talking heads to spout platitudes about the middle class, but it doesn't match the real world. The picture that's being painted is that the vast majority of us will be living lives as serfs, while a group of oligarchs (the arbitrarily mythical 1%) determine our fates while eating grapes and being fanned. That's not what's happening. In fact, the VAST majority of Americans are better off than they ever have been. Check out this [1], for example, based on US census data. Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class Further, in the demographics where we have seen increases in inequality, the lion's share of the change has been the result of lifestyle choices made by the individual. Imagine a social order - call it "A" - in which most people are paired off and raising a family. In that world, a large portion of the families have two incomes, which are going to pay for a single rent or mortgage bill, a single set of utility expenses, etc. Imagine another society, "B", in which many of the folks corresponding to those paired adults have instead decided to go it alone, either by way of divorce, or even deciding to have a family with no mate. Isn't it obvious that in society "B", the un-paired "families" are going to have far less aggregate income ('cause there's not a second breadwinner earning that income), and are going to have much greater expenses at the same time ('cause there's not a mate to share housing and utilities, and in fact other things like dining may need to be outsourced, that being the result of not having a mate to cooperate with)? And compared to those families that are following the "A" model, it'll appear that the "B"s have a disadvantage? It doesn't apply for every case, but for most "B"s, a decline in purchasing power for the family is directly explainable by their own choices. We might wish that our choices had fewer side effects, but we can't blame it on others who made different choices. [1] http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/ http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been...

api 11y ago
I started reading and after the second sentence was waiting for a reference to AEI. I was not disappointed. There's something very ironically Soviet about certain sectors of the American right. I'm sure at the height of Communism there were official mouthpieces that talked bout how everything was getting better, and I'm sure reading them was just as bizarre and vertigo-inducing like "what parallel universe do these people inhabit?" Ideologies die hard. You can cherry pick statistics to attempt to argue anything, but the scenario you describe does not match the real world.
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>In fact, the VAST majority of Americans are better off than they ever have been. Check out this [1], for example, based on US census data. Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/ http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been... -- You need to pick your sources a little more carefully. The organization whose article you cited is an ExxonMobil-funded conservative thinktank that was involved in some notable controversies, such as trying to bribe scientists with $10,000 to critique the International Panel on Climate Change. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpage... I'll be more specific with my criticism: the alleged increase in upper-middle class membership tracks extremely closely to women entering the workforce. Note that the data they use is family income, although the author has conveniently omitted that keyword from the graph title.
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  You need to pick your sources a little more carefully. I'm always annoyed at the invocation of the logical fallacy that the source of an argument renders it inadmissible. Not only is it a fallacy, but it's typically (but not in your case, especially since you're offering a specific criticism!) invoked by someone simply assuming that their own source is sacrosanct. That said... You may have a point, but it's not fatal to my argument. It maybe renders mine less strong. Why would you think that women entering the workforce must be treated exogenously? I think it's proper to consider this part of the overall improvement. For the years shown in my chart, the shift of women into the workforce was well underway. Even in 1950, women accounted for about 30% of the workforce [1]. So by my thumbnail estimation, the increase from ~1965 (when my original chart began) on is nowhere near large enough to account for the effect I showed. Further, women entering the workforce is central to my second point about it finding oneself in the lower income tiers is significantly a personal choice. If the rest of the world has passed you by, it's still your own choices that are holding your back. Without making any moral claims at all, purely based on mathematics, the two-income family has advantages beyond simply having double the income. As I alluded to, by sharing tasks and specializing within the family (e.g., I cook while my wife does the laundry), we're able to lower total expenses because we save enough time between us that more can be done without outsourcing work. It also offers better risk management. One partner can pursue a riskier but potentially more lucrative job, without fearing losing the family's only income. I have several friends doing this kind of thing, with one spouse running a small business while the other has a corporate job (including the medical care it implies). And if one spouse does lose their income, the consequences are much less dire, as there's some semblance of a buffer protecting them. Thus, even aside from the simple doubling of family income as women entered the workplace, they shifted the picture so that more wealth could be created in total by protecting against greater risks. But this is all endogenous to the question. Through their own means (in many cases, that being the decision of a woman to enter the workforce), Americans have transformed their demographics such that incomes have shifted strongly toward the higher end of the scale. [1] http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf page 2 (PDF warning) EDIT: I'd stupidly left the parens in para 4 empty; went back to fill them in.
unprepare 11y ago
When you actually look at the numbers, rather than simply believing the graphic, you will find that your data proves your opponent correct. The income levels that fell during the studied period: 15,000-24,999 25,000-34,999 35,000-49,999 50,000-74,999 75,000-99,999 Income levels that grew: 100,000-100,000+ 100k + increased by 6% 75k-99k decreased by 1.1% 50k-74k decreased by 3.1% But sure, you could make up your own categories for the data to make 75,000+ look like it went up, when in reality it was only 100,000+ that showed an increase. The fact is that the middle class is shrinking, and wages are stagnant or falling. I encourage you to actually check the sources linked in articles - when you find different categories of data in the article than the study, its likely something is being misrepresented.
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  I don't think you're saying anything different, you're just missing how it proves the point. The key is that the number of people in the higher tiers increased, while the membership of the lower tiers went down. That's exactly what you said. But what it shows is people were shifting into those higher tiers. You're right that in all groups below $75K, the percentage of people in the group went down. While from $75K and up, the membership of each group increased (you've read that part of the data wrong, as the $75l-$99K group also increased.). That's precisely what my linked article says, and exactly what we'd like to see: people are shifting from lower groups into higher groups, across the board. EDIT: here's the spreadsheet from the census bureau I was working from: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.xls http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.x... (Excel spreadsheet)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

api 11y ago

I started reading and after the second sentence was waiting for a reference to AEI. I was not disappointed. There's something very ironically Soviet about certain sectors of the American right. I'm sure at the height of Communism there were official mouthpieces that talked bout how everything was getting better, and I'm sure reading them was just as bizarre and vertigo-inducing like "what parallel universe do these people inhabit?" Ideologies die hard. You can cherry pick statistics to attempt to argue anything, but the scenario you describe does not match the real world.

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>In fact, the VAST majority of Americans are better off than they ever have been. Check out this [1], for example, based on US census data. Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been-disappearing-but-they-havent-fallen-into-the-lower-class-theyve-risen-into-the-upper-class/ http://www.aei.org/publication/yes-the-middle-class-has-been... -- You need to pick your sources a little more carefully. The organization whose article you cited is an ExxonMobil-funded conservative thinktank that was involved in some notable controversies, such as trying to bribe scientists with $10,000 to critique the International Panel on Climate Change. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpage... I'll be more specific with my criticism: the alleged increase in upper-middle class membership tracks extremely closely to women entering the workforce. Note that the data they use is family income, although the author has conveniently omitted that keyword from the graph title.

CWuestefeld 11y ago
You need to pick your sources a little more carefully. I'm always annoyed at the invocation of the logical fallacy that the source of an argument renders it inadmissible. Not only is it a fallacy, but it's typically (but not in your case, especially since you're offering a specific criticism!) invoked by someone simply assuming that their own source is sacrosanct. That said... You may have a point, but it's not fatal to my argument. It maybe renders mine less strong. Why would you think that women entering the workforce must be treated exogenously? I think it's proper to consider this part of the overall improvement. For the years shown in my chart, the shift of women into the workforce was well underway. Even in 1950, women accounted for about 30% of the workforce [1]. So by my thumbnail estimation, the increase from ~1965 (when my original chart began) on is nowhere near large enough to account for the effect I showed. Further, women entering the workforce is central to my second point about it finding oneself in the lower income tiers is significantly a personal choice. If the rest of the world has passed you by, it's still your own choices that are holding your back. Without making any moral claims at all, purely based on mathematics, the two-income family has advantages beyond simply having double the income. As I alluded to, by sharing tasks and specializing within the family (e.g., I cook while my wife does the laundry), we're able to lower total expenses because we save enough time between us that more can be done without outsourcing work. It also offers better risk management. One partner can pursue a riskier but potentially more lucrative job, without fearing losing the family's only income. I have several friends doing this kind of thing, with one spouse running a small business while the other has a corporate job (including the medical care it implies). And if one spouse does lose their income, the consequences are much less dire, as there's some semblance of a buffer protecting them. Thus, even aside from the simple doubling of family income as women entered the workplace, they shifted the picture so that more wealth could be created in total by protecting against greater risks. But this is all endogenous to the question. Through their own means (in many cases, that being the decision of a woman to enter the workforce), Americans have transformed their demographics such that incomes have shifted strongly toward the higher end of the scale. [1] http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf page 2 (PDF warning) EDIT: I'd stupidly left the parens in para 4 empty; went back to fill them in.

unprepare 11y ago

When you actually look at the numbers, rather than simply believing the graphic, you will find that your data proves your opponent correct. The income levels that fell during the studied period: 15,000-24,999 25,000-34,999 35,000-49,999 50,000-74,999 75,000-99,999 Income levels that grew: 100,000-100,000+ 100k + increased by 6% 75k-99k decreased by 1.1% 50k-74k decreased by 3.1% But sure, you could make up your own categories for the data to make 75,000+ look like it went up, when in reality it was only 100,000+ that showed an increase. The fact is that the middle class is shrinking, and wages are stagnant or falling. I encourage you to actually check the sources linked in articles - when you find different categories of data in the article than the study, its likely something is being misrepresented.

CWuestefeld 11y ago
I don't think you're saying anything different, you're just missing how it proves the point. The key is that the number of people in the higher tiers increased, while the membership of the lower tiers went down. That's exactly what you said. But what it shows is people were shifting into those higher tiers. You're right that in all groups below $75K, the percentage of people in the group went down. While from $75K and up, the membership of each group increased (you've read that part of the data wrong, as the $75l-$99K group also increased.). That's precisely what my linked article says, and exactly what we'd like to see: people are shifting from lower groups into higher groups, across the board. EDIT: here's the spreadsheet from the census bureau I was working from: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.xls http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.x... (Excel spreadsheet)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]