Here the heart of the problem, to the apparent lack of worker outrage.

[nadinbrzezinski]

There is no sense of class in the United States. Why we all are middle class, whether you make 20K and are single, or 250K and have a family of four. We all are middle class.

In reality our 20K earning single person is a member of the working class and our 250k earning family of four is a member of the upper middle class, in cheaper markets a member of the wealthy classes. (Taking into account NYC and Los Angeles). But by a feat of propaganda both call themselves middle class..it can't be, it is not...but this is how peope self identify. And of course our 20K earning fictional worker is the next Bill Gates.

Ain't propaganda great?

And until the 20K earning worker stops seeing himself the same as our 250K family of four, who for the record does not, nothing will really change. A sense of class in the classic sense needs to come back.

[hedgehog]

1. Yes!

[duffyduff]

2. A single person making 20k is actually poor, especially after taxes.

The federal figures for poverty level don't mean squat.

I don't know where in the hell people get this idea it is cheaper for a single person to live than it is for two working people in a household. After all, single people don't get discounts for housing, utilities, food, etc.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. But he or she sees himself or herself as middle class

Look, the family making 250k is wealthy even in the LA or NYC markets, but I am using federal data for both. Under federal data, and self identification, your 20K earning worker is middle class.

Why I sad he or she is a laborer.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. The lack of class consciousness in the USA IS the reason.....

for the lack of worker outrage. I agree fully with that. Even the unions, who are supposed to be the representatives of the workers, are "business unions", which take into account the business needs along WITH any worker needs.

The propaganda is twofold. For the workers it's "An honest day's pay for an honest day's work",( never mind whatever the hell that actually means) and NOT "An injury to one is an injury to all". And socially, we're all propagandized with the idea that we're just "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and that the USA not a class society. This protect the owners from any righteous indignation while they steal the working class blind.

Middle class might be a good economic marker in some specific academic studies, but it has no meaning in a societal setting. Unfortunately for the working class, it's become the norm for referring to politics and society. It's such a nebulous concept that it can easily be propagandized to cover both workers and owners.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yup, that history of labor of mine is taking a decidedly "strident"

Tone for the elite.

This is part of the notes.

[LeftInTX]

6. Totally agree! - KnR

[Brickbat]

7. Income is not the only indicator of class.

And in some cases, it's not useful.

[The Magistrate]

8. Exactly, Ma'am

This has been one of my recurring points for a decade here.

If you are paid a salary, you are a worker, selling labor.

If you sell labor, you are a member of the working class, you are not part of the middle class, not part of the strata between the large owners of capital and the workers, not a bourgeois nor a petit bourgeois, not a professional in practice nor a man in trade in a small way or small proprietor --- you are a worker.

The fact is that, above almost anything else, work and people who do work are despised in our society and culture. A great deal of lip service is paid, and lip music played, to the opposite claim, that work is the highest value, but this is a deep, damnable lie. We value the grifter, the speculator, the fellow who finds an end around and gets there easy before the rest, the fellow who can set himself up to take advantage of all the poor slobs who have to go to work for a living, and never has to llft a finger for himself, unless it is to wave the waiter over with another drink....

[bigbrother05]

11. The Sooners are admired, the Boomers not so much

The ones that went in early before the starting guns got a jump on the ones that played by the rules. The cheaters got unjust rewards and riches.

BTW - Okla born and OU grad, not bashing, just a comment on who writes the history

[The Magistrate]

12. Exacrly, Sir: I Know The Derivation

It is a splendid example of the actual lay of the land.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. A true hard core classic Marxist POV

Which under the proper conditions, see the USSR, becomes as useless as middle class has in the US.

That said, our mythical single earning 20K has nothing in common with a doctor, working at a hospital, drawing 200,000 a year, and head of household with two kids.

[HiPointDem]

25. wtf are you talking about 'hard core marxist'? where do you think your "classic class" analysis

came from?

your op is incoherent.

a single person making $20K has a great deal in common with a doctor employed by a hospital and supporting two kids.

first, the fact that they both work for a boss, who sets the terms of their employment.

[GiveMeFreedom]

24. Thank you for your post. n/t

[SoCalDem]

9. "Middle Class" is amorphous

To me, middle class has always meant "the way you live"..what you have that identifies you with the group..

Once upon a time, it could be :

having 2 cars
buying instead of renting
having an extension phone
having a shower AND a bathtub
having a savings account
taking a yearly vacation
sending your kids to college
having/being a wife who did not HAVE to work at a job outside the home
having a tv (and later a color tv)
having your own washer/dryer.

and other things at different times..

but in ALL cases, these were "things/achievements" that were available to you WITHOUT CREDIT.. you could AFFORD them.

What changed in the late 70's/early-mid 80's was that credit was suddenly available to and eagerly given to EVERYONE..even the ones who were NOT credit-worthy.. Why?..because we were switching to a consumer society, and real wages were no longer going to rise...

[YoungDemCA]

15. America has been a consumer society since the 1920s, really...

The difference was, the products that people consumed back then were produced here. Real wealth was created here.

Nowadays, though some of the production has been automated, much of it has been outsourced to developing countries, where the cost of production (like workers' wages, for example) is so much cheaper for the "multinational" corporations. Those countries are going through a "Gilded Age" of their own, in some ways-where a small group of multinational elites reap enormous profits at the expense of the masses of dirt-poor wage-earners.

As for America..well, we are still at the top of the world's list of countries for rich people. But as for the post-WWII working class that had enjoyed a historically high standard of living...those days are long gone. Close to half of Americans don't have basic needs being met in this economy.

We are not a post-industrialized society, we are a de-industrialized society.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. MC should very well be...not amorphous

But the hard core definitions in sociology...it has become amorphous and a tool of social control.

[SoCalDem]

26. Politics pretty much demands it

and schooling has devolved to a point where entire generations are "educated" for testing purposes only. Instant gratification is to be worshiped at all costs, ans any long-term/beneficial-to-all changes are "too-expensive/impossible-to-fund/implement.

Our politicians have managed to merge "small business" with mega-business and somehow the public buys it......subsidies for oil-baron, but nada for Mom & Pop donut shops.

Words & terminology no longer mean what millions think they mean, and no one ever demands clarification..

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Exactly, serving the goal of social control.

[kairos12]

10. The One Percent is deadly afraid of class awareness education and that is why they always scream

class warfare at the mere mention of it. The bottom 50 percent think they will rise to the wealthy class when data shows people are more frozen in place class here then any other industrial country. Tis a damn shame.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

13. I've heard that 20K worker called "the illusory middle class."

He has access to the material trappings of middle class through family, credit, etc., but in reality owns little and has minimal spending power.

[Yavin4]

14. Americans have been trained to not see class differences

Americans see race, gender, religious etc. differences before they ever see class differences.

Europe has its share of racists, sexists, etc. but they still vote their class needs first and foremost.

[hfojvt]

16. I'd say $250,000 makes you rich no matter where you live

Of course I will hear about living expenses and cost of housing, blah, blah, blah, but one of the things being rich means is that you can afford to live in a nicer neighborhood. Within a few miles of where I live a person can easily spend $200,000 or $500,000 on a house too. In fact, even a house across the street was listed at $170,000. But I got my house for $35,000 and looked at some houses in the teens and twenties.

If a person has a high income, but chooses to spend it on a nicer place to live that does not make them middle class. In almost every state $250,000 puts you in the top 5%.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. See 17

[n2doc]

17. 250k puts one in the top 5% of income earners

That's by definition not in the middle. But you know that. Hell over 100K puts one in the top 10%, which by statistical definition is 'rich'. The problem is, wages for 95% of us haven't kept up with costs. So having a 100k income doesn't mean one can afford a mansion, fancy luxo car and first class travel. What it usually means is being able to afford a nicer house (depending on location, forget about it in SF or NYC), a newer car every so often, and a vacation. Things that used to be 'middle class'.


I was looking at the San Francisco paper recently. They had a renovated victorian, not one of the real fancy ones, but an ok place in a good but not high end neighborhood. The sort of place that a mid to upper middle class person might have bought 30 years ago. They wanted 2 million for it.

There was also a true mansion listed. This one had it all. It was listed for 16 million and probably was worth that. But they noted that it had been bought in the 1970's for 225K. I don't think most people have had anywhere near an 80x increase in salary over that time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. This is why the definition of middle class we use

Is ideological, not based on any reality you or I are familiar with. For that matter it violates the classic definitions used in Sociology.

You know poor, lower working class, middle working class, upper working class, lower middle class and so on.

This s one reason you got no protests, and no sense of class. It's become mushy.

[hfojvt]

23. real estate has gone crazy in some places

that was partly bubble and partly a lot of wealth flowing upwards.

But it also means that some people have made fortunes in real estate.

But, of course, there is a difference between "rich" and "super-rich". And even I make enough money to take a vacation, and I could buy a new car too, if I didn't hate my job so much. (But that's not about the money, it's about the job, the management, the co-workers, and the time factor.)

[bvar22]

18. You really have Nailed It herre.

When the Working Class and The Poor realize WE have more in common with each other
than we have in common with the Ruling Elite,
THEN we can have "change", like our neighbors in Latin America have been able to produce.