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The middle class has shrunk: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www

by hedora 3y ago

The middle class has shrunk: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... See section 2. The trend is pretty clear: The upper class is transferring wealth from the middle class. So, demanding that firms cut wages on middle class workers has been standard practice for decades. They're running out of money to extract from there, so they're going after the bottom half of the uppe class next. I suggest joining a startup; investors that are willing to put cash into companies in times like this end up getting outsized returns on investment (since anyone that can leave the big companies does, the big company's R&D projects get cancelled during downturns, and general morale issues prevent minor product improvements from shipping). (Also, median of middle class is $90K, and median of upper is $219K. Lower class is $29K. If they broke upper class into 2-4 separate tiers, there'd also be a clear skew in wage growth toward the top of the upper class.)

claytongulick 3y ago
The TLDR of that article is that most of the "shrinking middle class" can be explained by changing demographics in the US - i.e. the country is getting older. Older people, pre-retirement, generally earn more then younger people. As it should be - they've spent their lives growing their net worth and gaining experience. Most "class warfare" can be explained by this - except that it doesn't get clickbait outrage reaction to say "older, experienced people are wealthier than young people starting their careers". It's much more exciting to skew charts and graphs to show massive wealth disparity, as if there's a sinister cabal of wealthy folks that for some reason don't want others to succeed. These charts are utterly meaningless if they aren't broken down by age group. You're putting someone who has 30+ years of career growth against someone out of high school and then screaming about wealth disparity. The article itself even points this out - they say most of the loss of money in middle income was made up for in the 45-65 year old bracket. After 65 (surprise) when folks are retired, this drops off. The issue isn't some sort of "class warfare" boogeyman. The issue is that we've made it damn near impossible to have a large family these days, and our population demographics are reflecting that, along with income. Also note: the article doesn't talk about absolute numbers or wealth. It's all percentile stuff. It's easy to play statistics tricks with that.

by hedora 3y ago

claytongulick 3y ago

The TLDR of that article is that most of the "shrinking middle class" can be explained by changing demographics in the US - i.e. the country is getting older. Older people, pre-retirement, generally earn more then younger people. As it should be - they've spent their lives growing their net worth and gaining experience. Most "class warfare" can be explained by this - except that it doesn't get clickbait outrage reaction to say "older, experienced people are wealthier than young people starting their careers". It's much more exciting to skew charts and graphs to show massive wealth disparity, as if there's a sinister cabal of wealthy folks that for some reason don't want others to succeed. These charts are utterly meaningless if they aren't broken down by age group. You're putting someone who has 30+ years of career growth against someone out of high school and then screaming about wealth disparity. The article itself even points this out - they say most of the loss of money in middle income was made up for in the 45-65 year old bracket. After 65 (surprise) when folks are retired, this drops off. The issue isn't some sort of "class warfare" boogeyman. The issue is that we've made it damn near impossible to have a large family these days, and our population demographics are reflecting that, along with income. Also note: the article doesn't talk about absolute numbers or wealth. It's all percentile stuff. It's easy to play statistics tricks with that.