Middle Class Strife Left Out of Conversation

[LongTomH]

An article by Peter S. Goodman at Huffington Post: Middle Class Strife Left Out of Conversation bemoans the fact that the beltway media and Washington seem completely oblivious to the problems besetting the average American.

How can we generate quality jobs by the million and prevent more homeowners from sliding into foreclosure? How can we arrest the long-running breakdown in American middle class life? These are fragments of a narrative long since discarded as politically infertile. They no longer fit into the format of the Sunday talk shows, where the only real question is who won the week, because no one is even trying to win on these points. Not this week. Not any week. The unemployment rate remains snagged at nearly 10 percent and 6.3 million people have been officially out of work for six months and longer, but the Conversation has moved on.

If only the topic of discussion could be so easily be dispatched around the dining room tables of ordinary Americans (an institution increasingly dependent on food stamps). There, the conversation seems stuck on the puzzle of the age: How to get by with less. How to pretend that, despite all indications to the contrary, better days lie ahead, because that's how things are supposed to go in the movie version of this land of limitless opportunity.

That dream has become increasingly difficult to sustain in the face of a broad sagging of national fortunes, a point brought home with discomfiting clarity by a new study released this morning by the Rockefeller Foundation. The report, "Standing on Shaky Ground: Americans' Experiences With Economic Insecurity," lays out just how savagely most Americans have been battered by the Great Recession and the degree to which fundamental economic anxiety has insinuated itself into the national psyche. It reads like a catalog of needs deferred, hopes relinquished and sustenance denied as people have lost their peace of mind, along with their jobs and savings.

<snip>

Far from an affliction reserved for the poor, the recession spread widespread pain across the income spectrum, even as the consequences proved sharpest for those at the bottom. Even in households with incomes ranging between $60,000 and $100,000 a year, among those who suffered the loss of wages or large unexpected medical bills, more than half reported having been "unable to meet at least one basic need." Put simply, they had lost their homes due to foreclosure or eviction, skipped meals, or dispensed with necessary medical care.

<snip>

Anxiety about job security jumped dramatically over the last two years for most Americans, but concerns about retirement savings, medical bills and housing changed little: They were already as common in 2007 as they were during the worst period of the recession, the study found.

It's worth reading the article and following the link to the New America Foundation report. This is reminiscent of comments I've heard about the last Great Depression: It didn't increase suffering for the very poor as much as it spread the suffering around to working and "Middle Class" families.

[Crazy Dave]

1. People doing well are more worried about what's on their Facebook account...

...than their neighbor next door getting kicked out of his home. And like one statement above implied about the media, the unemployed aren't good for ratings anymore so let's move on.

[pscot]

2. There is no middle class strife

The middle class is pacified. Or petrified. Ossified? Whatever.

[Demeter]

3. How About Endangered Species?

[pscot]

4. That may soon apply to any critter

larger than a coyote.