Middle Class shrinkage: Cold water effect or real problem?

[Darat]

Just as a slightly different way to look at this - as Dr Adequate summed up in his post in the UK being middle class (or any other class) is not determined by just money - indeed many would say money or wealth are not even part of determining someone's social class.

 

[Roswell-Perseis]

I could open the general link, but not the story. .

Did it ask you to sign up? I know signing up for the online service was free, although they might try to get sell you a subscription or other stuff. When I logged in, the articles were working . . .

Anyway, Obama's website used to mention "strengthening unions and retraining under-employed workers for middle class jobs." That seems to have dropped from his updated website.

Hillary mentions it here, even though it is so transparent and fake that she wants to "continue Bill's work" on the middle class issue, as if Bush single handedly unraveled the middle class in 6 years after Hillary's husband had it humming right along.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031100065.html

In a speech to a Democratic Party fundraising dinner, Clinton echoed economic themes from her husband's first presidential campaign in 1992. Then, Bill Clinton talked about the forgotten middle class. Under Bush, the New York senator said, middle class Americans have been ignored.

Then there is Edwards and his "Two Americas" theme. It's cute, but once I almost lost my house to a slip-and-fall lawyer. Their whole M.O. is fear-based and threat-based.

I just don't think government can do a whole lot. Look at Detroit. People want Toyota's, not Dodge's. Michigan's senator, Carl Levin, seems to care about the little guy, but what can he do?

Ma & Pa businesses can't compete with Walmart, China, etc. I suppose government can offer assistance to community college training, or maybe low interest loans for people wanting to start up a small business.

I don't believe Obama or Clinton, either. However, the election is a way off and hopefully the candidates will mature a little and talk about issues, etc. etc. I mean, they probably won't, but I'm trying to stay a little hopeful.

 

[Roswell-Perseis]

Just as a slightly different way to look at this - as Dr Adequate summed up in his post in the UK being middle class (or any other class) is not determined by just money - indeed many would say money or wealth are not even part of determining someone's social class.

Really?

In the US, as far as my sociology classes have gone, I know that wealth, money, and social approval of a job are the biggest indicators of one's social class. The NYT site also uses education as a fourth measure. I the US, what one makes and what one owns is very much a part of their social class- not that I think that is right. I do think that is the reality, though.

 

[steverino]

Did it ask you to sign up? I know signing up for the online service was free, although they might try to get sell you a subscription or other stuff. When I logged in, the articles were working . . .

Yes, it asked me to sign in. Looks like it will take several minutes, which is fine. I should probably do it. I'm from Chicago and rely on the Tribune a lot.

 

[steverino]

Really?

In the US, as far as my sociology classes have gone, I know that wealth, money, and social approval of a job are the biggest indicators of one's social class. The NYT site also uses education as a fourth measure. I the US, what one makes and what one owns is very much a part of their social class- not that I think that is right. I do think that is the reality, though.

I do think America is different than Britain on this. While we have big-name families like the Hilton's, if I were to hit the lottery, or marry someone with a rich grandfather who just left her a billion, I could "buy my way" into society quite quickly. My education, grasp of grammar, comprehension of fine wine, etc., would not be suspect. As a society photographer for years, I understand how to play the game to enter society. You attend certain charity balls, wear the right jewelry, "buy a table" at a $1000-a-seat dinner where you invite "the right people" to join you. You attend charity auctions. You'll start to get noticed and mentioned in the society pages. It helps if you live in certain suburbs or part of the city.

I don't know the British answer to this. IOW, the Pygmalion story. On the other hand, I've noticed on Jeeves and Wooster (on TV) that Wooster is always broke and getting bailed out by his aunt. So he is broke, but is also a socialite.

 

[Kerberos]

I never claimed otherwise. But if you set up a metric which can display an "improvement" even in cases where things get obviously worse for everyone, then the metric is just screwed up. You aren't measuring poverty, but only disparity, and the two aren't the same. Whether or not reducing poverty is the sole purpose of government, it's still going to be something government tries to do, regardless of whether or not it should, because that's popular. So don't use a bad metric, or you can get bad policy which exploits the flaws of the metric to produce "progress" which is actually nothing of the sort.

Many if not all economic measures are similarly flawed. Getting people to dig holes and then fill them will reduce unemployment, no matter how pointless it may be, and smashing a car and then repairing it or anything similar can give a higher GNP than not smashing it in the first place. So I guess unemployment and GNP are screwed up too. Let me know what you come up with the replace them’ k?

EVERY metric is arbitrary to some degree. Hell, yours is just as arbitrary (why use 60% of median income, and not 55%?) as any absolute criteria.

Of cause mine is just as arbitrary I never said anything else, I just recognize the fact.

But a criteria which uses some sort of absolute scale (such as, for example, calculating the cost of food needed to survive and multiplying by some fixed factor) doesn't have the fatal flaw that your relative metric has: it cannot fall under conditions in which those under the poverty line are all getting worse off. It can ONLY drop if those who are moving above the poverty line really are experiencing an improvement.

Congratulations you have managed to give a definition of poverty that has the exact same flaw that you complain about. Under your rather vague definition poverty a relative price change for food would move the poverty line without necessarily making people better or worse off. For example a drop in the price of food compared to other goods would likely make formerly poor farmers no longer "poor" despite being worse off. On the other hand an increase in the price of food could send more farmers into "poverty" despite being better off. Or a poor person today would be much poorer than a poor person in the past since the relative price of food has dropped dramatically IIRC.

Also of cause if you attempted to give a less vague answer on what poverty was we would undoubtedly find that you would be using a modern American standard. Had you lived a 100 years ago you would have used that as your standard. Or if we moved 20 years into the future and hypothesised a dramatic drop in the living standards of the US we would find that your "absolute" standard of poverty had dropped, just like one based on the % of average income would have.

 

[BPSCG]

What worries me is when I chat with someone doing one of those jobs that supposedly "Americans don't want to do," and I learn that person is educated, articulate, and used to be middle class, like me.

Heh. Ann Coulter touches on that in her column this week (I've hidden it in a spoiler tag so you Coulter-phobes won't have to stab your own eyes out with a barbecue skewer - she's, as usual, over the top):

The people who make arguments about "jobs Americans won't do" are never in a line of work where unskilled immigrants can compete with them. Liberals love to strike generous, humanitarian poses with other people's lives.

The only beneficiaries of these famed hardworking immigrants — unlike you lazy Americans — are the wealthy, who want the cheap labor while making the rest of us chip in for the immigrants' schooling, food and health care.

These great lovers of the downtrodden — the downtrodden trimming their hedges — pretend to believe that their gardeners' children will be graduating from Harvard and curing cancer someday, but (1) they don't believe that; and (2) if it happened, they'd lose their gardeners.

(...snip...)

We fought a civil war to force Democrats to give up on slavery 150 years ago. They've become so desperate for servants that now they're importing an underclass to wash their clothes and pick their vegetables. This vast class of unskilled immigrants is the left's new form of slavery.

What do they care if their servants are made citizens eligible to vote and collect government benefits? Aren't the fabulously rich happy in Venezuela? Oops, wrong example. Brazil? No, no, let me try again. Mexico! ... Well, no matter. What could go wrong?

 

[steverino]

Heh. Ann Coulter touches on that in her column this week (I've hidden it in a spoiler tag so you Coulter-phobes won't have to stab your own eyes out with a barbecue skewer - she's, as usual, over the top):

Thanks BEEPS. It has been my experience that if you listen to extreme opinions, you can parse out the outrageous stuff and sometimes take with you a gold nugget or two. I think there is a bit of truth in what she says here. The image of Mexicans picking lettuce is misleading. Construction contractors and others are being lowballed in their bidding. Sometimes the work is shoddy to cut corners, so the family buying the cheaper house is getting screwed, same as the (legal) American carpenter.

 

[shecky]

The image of Mexicans picking lettuce is misleading. Construction contractors and others are being lowballed in their bidding.

And the problem with that would be...?

Sometimes the work is shoddy to cut corners, so the family buying the cheaper house is getting screwed, same as the (legal) American carpenter.

So Americans buying inadequate services can't help themselves from continuing to buy inadequate services? You'd think the market punishes businesses that do poor work by no longer patronizing such businesses.

If native workers can't compete on skills alone, maybe it's because those skills are overvalued. Does anyone still sympathize with the plight of those poor wheelwrights and blacksmiths since the arrival of that newfangled automobile? Same goes for carpenters, broom makers and, yes, photographers. Government regulation of immigration to protect labor markets is really no different than government regulation of wages or imports. The goal is to stifle markets and competition, and instill protectionism, a path that leads to worse economic performance, not better.

 

[steverino]

If native workers can't compete on skills alone, maybe it's because those skills are overvalued. Does anyone still sympathize with the plight of those poor wheelwrights and blacksmiths since the arrival of that newfangled automobile?

OUCH!

Late erase and late edit:

You are making a simple fact confusing. This thread asks if the middle class is shrinking. I say it is, in part for the reasons you say it is, like blacksmiths, as some professions are over-valued, like travel agents, realtors, and, yes, photography. If you are saying don't pout about it, OK. But you are helping me make the case that the middle class in America is shrinking.

As for your free market argument, the flaw, IMO, is that a "native" carpenter is competing with someone who is illegal, which is to say, here illegally. That worker will work cheaper. This is not the free-market at work.

If Canadadrugs.com can provide Americans with cheaper perscriptions and it is legal, fine, then our drugstores must compete with convenience, price, brand recognition, and service. But if I have perscriptions in the trunk of my car to sell you even cheaper than canadadrugs.com, and not only that, but you are taking my word for it that the pills have the same medications in them, that is not the free-market at work.

 

[brodski]

In the UK we say the opposite - our working class is shrinking and our middle class is expanding.

I think in the USA the working class IS the middle class. At least, that's what the politicians say.

The terms "middle class" mean different things in the UK and the USA.

In the USA "class" is a purely economic distinction- in the UK it is not, we only have two "economic classes", "working" (or "lower") class, and "middle Class". The "upper Class" refers to those with titles, the aristocracy- regardless of their actual economic status.

If Bill gates moved to the UK he would be "middle class".

ETA- noet to self, read the whole thread before replying...

 

[brodski]

So what classes are you supposed to have in the USA? Do you have an upper class and if so what characteristics do they have?

I even struggle to work out what "working class" in the UK s supposed to mean anymore. Do they have to work in mine or does any manual work count? I know plasterers and decorators who make more than mortgage advisors - are any of those working class or middle class? What about call centre staff? What about their managers? It all seems a bit confusing and pointless.

In the UK I would use the NRS social grade^WP

ABC1 are "middle class" C2DE are "working class". Of course this about type of job and not economic status, some in the C2 category could be much better off than some in the B or C1 catogory, dispite being a "lower" class.

 

[steverino]

And the problem with that would be...?

You'd think the market punishes businesses that do poor work by no longer patronizing such businesses.

If native workers can't compete on skills alone, maybe it's because those skills are overvalued.

Oh, by the way, Shecky, I am looking into renting a storefront in Mexico City and opening a photo studio. You got any ideas for names? Oh, wait. It is illegal for me to move to Mexico and also to set up shop. Never mind.

 

[shecky]

You are making a simple fact confusing. This thread asks if the middle class is shrinking. I say it is, in part for the reasons you say it is, like blacksmiths, as some professions are over-valued, like travel agents, realtors, and, yes, photography. If you are saying don't pout about it, OK. But you are helping me make the case that the middle class in America is shrinking.

Am I? The definition of middle class in the US is not strictly defined. I'd be willing to bet some could argue that the "middle class" is greatly expanding.

As for your free market argument, the flaw, IMO, is that a "native" carpenter is competing with someone who is illegal, which is to say, here illegally. That worker will work cheaper. This is not the free-market at work.

It's exactly the free market at work, more than the law officially allows, btw. In this case, immigration restrictions would act as price controls on carpentry in order to protect native workers.

If Canadadrugs.com can provide Americans with cheaper perscriptions and it is legal, fine, then our drugstores must compete with convenience, price, brand recognition, and service. But if I have perscriptions in the trunk of my car to sell you even cheaper than canadadrugs.com, and not only that, but you are taking my word for it that the pills have the same medications in them, that is not the free-market at work.

Not sure what you're getting at here, but buying drugs from someone's trunk, while possibly being cheaper, would turn some customers off.

Oh, by the way, Shecky, I am looking into renting a storefront in Mexico City and opening a photo studio. You got any ideas for names? Oh, wait. It is illegal for me to move to Mexico and also to set up shop. Never mind.

Is it illegal? If yes, I'd say that a pretty good example for the US to not follow.