America's Middle Class Can't Take Much More Punishment

I think we have a semantics problem here. The article is about Middle Class.

I read an article a few months ago about there being 2 million unfilled skilled labor positions. It said that could go up to as many as 8 million in the next decade. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty any more and they don't seem to realize sometimes you have to move to where the work is. Plumbers, Electricians and the like make as much as people with Masters Degree's but nobody wants to do that work. If I were starting over I'd take advantage of that.

Unfortunately, that is not an option where I live....I dont even think there is a mass transit system where I am at.

I feel bad that times are hard. Making nearly 70 grand and broke? What are you spending your money on? Sounds like you should spend more time on your finances then whining about money on a web site. Maybe a $300,000 house with two leased cars isn't such a great idea. Keeping up with Joneses gets you into debt.

Check out Dave Ramsey's stuff.



[edit on 23-7-2008 by Barry the Debunker]

Poky Joe I took the lawn mower gas last week for my car. For the first time in my llife have have ask friends and family to loan me $20 dollars just to keep going. I ask at least 2 people a day for work. All no so far. Best of luck in your quest for work. Never before has the price of gas affected where we my family go. This year I can't pay for enough gas to get to the "free 4th of July" concert in the park. Free and I can't afford it...bil

OK, since you are all asking.

My Wife's and my income combined ranges from $80,000 to a little higher depending on the year. That puts me about in the middle range of middle class I suppose. On that we are able to live in a 3,000 square foot home and drive an SUV. I can afford a vacation most years.

We don't drink, party or do drugs and we always have a little extra to put away. We engage in activities within our means.

Alaska is a bit higher to live in than most of the lower 48, but our mean household income is about $10,000 a year higher.

I think some of you are under the impression that middle class refers to low income earners and unskilled people. It does not and never has in my lifetime. Middle class traditionally starts at the level where you own your home and can drive a newer car with that being lower middle class. Below that is low income and only includes those without a specific skill or a good education.

What you guys seem to be describing is where I was 30 years ago. Like everyone else who was not born with money, I worked long hours and sacrificed to build a small business. When we started we worked 80 hours a week each and our employees made more than us for a time. Because we paid our dues, we now enjoy the fact we never have empty pockets. Nothing good comes without sacrifice I'm afraid.

I've watched others who never got motivated for some reason, drinking , drugs and what not; struggle their whole lives. It was their own fault though. They always seemed to think the world owed them something and never caught on that the trick is hard work and study. I've gone back to school twice as an adult to improve my situation while others sat around and whined and blamed the system. We are the system and the only one who will ever help you is you.

The hardest times where under Carter. It was truly bad then. Inflation was out of control and mortgages at over 20% interest were the norm. Way more people own homes now than did then. The standard of living is much higher now. Anyone telling you different is full of it I'm afraid.

Screw you dude. I dont do anything extravagant. I have 2 cars and a house that I rent. I dont know where the 300,000 dollar house thing came from. Im not whining about anything, im contributing to the thread.

I can't believe how people describe so called 'middle class' in America.

My household is Husband and wife, with two children, yearly income of $35K.
We are not well off, yet consider ourselves not desperate becuase we do not have to decide which pet to eat for dinner.

How do you seriously, describe middle America?
Deciding what cable TV company to choose?

I don't get it, if we can manage to survive on our lousy wage of $35K for a family, then it can be done.

We don't have to resort to drug dealing to get by.

Oh my goodness! What is this? A class warfare article meant to draw artificial social lines between classes and get them angry at each other? From a known Democrat propganda site during an election year? On ATS? How unusual!

I am not middle class. I am low class, as all students are while we further our education. An education financed not by taxpayers or myself but by private donors who set up PhD scholarship funds. All of my money from working outside of school goes to keeping up my small apartment and my car which is going on 15 years old.

And you know what? Things are not doom and gloom for me. Oh god, I have to pay more for gas and food. Oh well, I had to cut my cable bill off and went to dial up internet. Problem solved.

Perhaps I should be more of a whiner though. I'd get so much sympathy. I think however that the people spreading the doom need to be careful: the media has been successful in ingraining an "oh woe is us" mentality amongst the populace. They will be following along crying for themselves now, but if you do it too much they might look around themselves and see things are not as bad as they've been led to believe. And once those blinders are out, the doom and gloom will cease to be effective.

I've noticed the same pattern with these economy threads: people must fall in line with "oh woe is me" doom and gloom, or be rabidly attacked by the doom and gloom post gang who insults all dissenters and always imply that all who do not share doom and gloom are elite rich people.


[edit on 23-7-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by earthchild

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That is a relative statement.....the cost of living is like 4x here what it is in Podunk, USA. Yet, the jobs pay the same.

[edit on 23-7-2008 by Grafilthy]

I had to think about this.

First I came from a poor family. My Father from Ranchers and my Mother from Farmers. My Father died when I was 15 and we lost our farm. I went to work at a truckstop at 15 and worked my way through a Bachelors Degree by working graveyard shift and going to school in the daytime.

(We had fruit orchards and my Father was a Construction Welder so I did all the work on the Farm most times. By the age of 10 I handled the irrigation, pruning and picking the fruit. I pulled so many weeds I still have knobs on my knees.)

I then worked construction because there was no work then like there is now. I worked Industrial in the armpits of the universe, like the high Wyoming desert, mid-winter at 30 below zero. Why, because it fed my new family and it paid well. I did not get to go home often, but you do what you have too to feed the family.

Between those jobs, where I managed to finish an Industrial Electricians apprenticeship, I would Roughneck on the oil rigs. Work sucked but it paid OK. At the time it was said to be the most dangerous job even trumping Fire Fighters for fatalities.

I went back to school and learned marketing and how to run a business while working whatever I could find. My current Wife and I started a business with $190 and an old Ford Galaxy. We worked 6 days a week 9AM to 9PM so we could make payroll. At first it was a struggle but it got better and better because instead of whining we worked our asses off.

Now we enjoy a trip to Florida every winter for a little sun and we are comfortable. We never forgot poverty. My Wife was also raised dirt poor on a farm in North Dakota. We never sat around an blamed others or the system.

I now employ and support a half dozen people and their families. They all make a decent wage. I may not be wealthy, but I'm happy and fulfilled. I won't lie, I suffered along the way, but I never gave up and sat around trying to survive where there was no work. I changed with the times. 10 years ago I could not even use a computer, now I earn thousands extra a year just by doing little desktop publishing projects for others. My business is at the point it runs itself pretty much.

Your veiled attack on me was uncalled for. I made my way in this world the hard way. I earned the right to criticize as did you it seems. I've seen others suffer because they got it into their heads they had to live in the same place their whole lives. Lots of farms and ranches in my family.

My Father was youngest of 11 and my Mother youngest of 12, brought up through the Depression. Some of my Aunts and Uncles lost there farms because they could not seem to comprehend the farms were no longer viable. The ones who sold made millions while the stubborn ones went bankrupt. I've seen it all. At one time my Fathers and Mothers families combined had litterally millions of acres of misery and heartache called land. Like I said, the smart ones sold out and moved on.

reply to post by Grafilthy

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But that is what I mean by middle class here is not the same as middle class there. I also believe this is sort of what Blaine was saying in a way.

For instance PokeyJoe’s post above yours says he and his wife together make $65-70K per year, and that they are broke. My wife and I do not even make but around $50K per year and we are not that bad off. I believe that people try to say middle class makes a certain amount but that is not entirely true. I think middle class is more about cost of living and your wages in your area. While my wife and I are certainly middle class we are about the middle of that for this area. In PokeyJoe’s case he and his wife maybe at the lower middle class point where they live, or even actually poor.

If my wife and I lived where you do our wages would certainly put us at what I believe to be poor level of income. But here in my area we make just above lower middle class level.

It is really unfair to judge a person’s wages and place them in a class without looking at the cost of living as well.

Raist

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

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Really? What about the 3-4 person households that have 2 working adults and children?

Where do you get the money to go to school?

The middle class is certainly in the crosshairs of the elite, IMO. A new feudalism is the goal, and it will be accomplished primarily through economics, then backed up with police state bullying. The value of the dollar will continue to be destroyed to this end, so if I had large amounts invested I’d get it out of the dollar ASAP. I don’t have much, so my savings is in silver, stored food, heirloom seeds and emergency stuff. It’s going to take a spectacular catastrophe to subdue the American people, and I think that’s just what’s coming.

This is very true and is taking palce in my very own home;

My Mother just lost her job, so now we are living off of my Stepfather's paycheck, while me and my sister are both working piddly jobs to pay rent and cover all of our own expenses, which my Mother used to cover for me. So needless to say, it couldnt have happened at a worse time. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up being forced to move out into a smaller, less roomy .. older home, instead of living in this current home that we had custom built. Well, it was based on a design that the builders do all the time, but many customizations were added making the house unique.

We moved here back in 2000, when Clinton was wrapping up his 2nd term in office, and our economy was right on point.

[edit on 7/23/2008 by runetang]

And what about the people in Zimbabwe who have raw sewage running through their streets and can't afford a loaf of bread? That's the problem with this sort of logic, there is always someone in this world who has it worse off than whatever sob story you want to give, and unlike the average American family those in Zimbabwe are never even given the opportunity to do well for themselves.

Life is not fair. Everyone can't be rich. I will have a equivalent of 11 years of higher education and make less money than some of the people in this thread. Thats OK. Someone is going to have to work, and just because you have to work for it doesn't mean its worthy to whine about. The vast majority of those who are having "difficulties" are due to circumstances completely within their control. There are very few people in this world who have made all the right decisions and had every disaster fall down upon them in ways they cannot handle even though they planned for it - those are the only people I feel sorry for.



My schooling is free because I worked hard throughout high school to get free merit (not taxpayer need based) scholarships. However, my living expenses are not free, which is why I work at the school as a research assistant and take contracting jobs. I could easily take out massive amounts of student loans and then promptly cry about them when they become due, as many of my colleagues have (although not all!) - but I'm not going to.

[edit on 23-7-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by DimensionalDetective

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No surprise to me if this keeps up america will be a third world country where the gap between the rich and the POOR is OVERLY and well defined.

No crap! It's even worse in the suburbs. I'm way out on the East side in the foothills and the prices out there are even higher. I don't believe that houses have gone up that much, but the land under the houses is driving the prices. Well, combined with our unethical assessors here who over valuate everyone's home so they can collect more in property tax every year. I'm more than a little curious to see what this area is going to do for state, county, and city finances when this year's property taxes come in way below what they've been in recent years alongside the fact that the state has taken a serious hit in gas tax revenue with so many more people using ST & Metro rather than driving in everyday. (I'm not kidding when I say this, my bus is standing room only by the 3rd stop in downtown every evening... it's ridiculous that an every 10 minutes accordion bus fills up that quickly.)

reply to post by Grafilthy


I make about $40K (middle class around here) and am sending my daughter to school. My son will be 3 years behind her. It can be done. We have a 27" regular TV, I drive an old Chevy pickup, and we live in a house trailer. It's more about what you put emphasis on than anything else. The Joneses next door can brag all they want; what I am paying for is the most important to me.

TheRedneck

Just a friendly reminder to please keep the discussion civil and on topic.

Thank you.

One of the NWO Agenda's is to destroy / elimanate the Middle Class.

They want two classes: The Elite Rich and the Serfs.

Now, the $50,000,000. Question is who "They" are.