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No Recovery For the Middle Class

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This has been an uneven recovery, with the benefits accumulating to the rich and the corporate sector while regular folks have largely been left behind amid stagnant wages, rising living costs, mediocre job gains and persistent long-term unemployment.

And none of this is new. The recession merely exacerbated trends that started in the late 1970s: lost manufacturing prowess, an important source of good-paying jobs; a shift to generally lower-paid service jobs; freer global trade, which deepens these employment problems; and increased reliance on finance, credit and debt as families try to hold on to the American dream…

While Americans are working harder and are far more productive then they used to be, for a variety of reasons they are not sharing in the prosperity their work creates. This is a reversal of the situation enjoyed from the 1950s through the 1970s, when the middle class prospered amid strong demand for labor, widespread unionization and the ability to demand pay raises.

You can see this in the way median household income has badly lagged behind the per-capita share of economic output, as shown in the graphic above. Both measures are adjusted for inflation. While the available income statistics run only through 2009, it’s doubtful that they’ve improved much since…

One main problem is that since the recession ended, the economy has been creating low-quality, part-time, no-benefit positions…

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Middle-Class Rage Sparks Protest Movements in Turkey, Brazil, Bulgaria and Beyond

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Photo Credit: Washington Post

Photo Credit: Washington Post

As protests raged in Turkey and were set to explode in distant Brazil, Asen Genov sat in his office in Bulgaria’s capital on the cloudy morning of June 14, about to strike the computer key that would spark a Bulgarian Spring.

Only months earlier, public outrage over high electricity bills in the country had brought down a previous government, but Genov saw more reason for anger when the new administration tapped a shadowy media mogul to head the national security service. Furious, Genov posted a Facebook event calling for a protest in Sofia, the nation’s capital, though he was dubious about turnout for a demonstration focused not on pocketbooks but on corruption and cronyism in government.

“We made bets on how many would come. I thought maybe 500,” said Genov, a 44-year- old who helps run a fact-checking Web site.

But as he arrived in Sofia’s Independence Square, they were streaming in by the thousands, as they have every day since, with the snowballing protests aiming to topple the government.

“We are all linked together, Bulgaria, Turkey, Brazil. We are tweeting in English so we can understand each other, and supporting each other on other social media,” said Iveta Cherneva, a 29-year-old author in Sofia, who was one of the many peopleprotesting for the first time. “We are fighting for different reasons, but we all want our governments to finally work for us. We are inspiring each other.”

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Here Come Obama's Middle-Class Tax Hikes

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President Obama’s budget spin-meisters at the Office of Management and Budget deserve nomination for the Biggest Whopper of 2013 Award, thanks to their claim that the chief executive’s 2014 budget proposal “represents more than $2 in spending cuts for every $1 of new revenue from closing tax loopholes and reducing tax benefits for the wealthiest.” Sounds like smart budgeting, but is that statement true? As the Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell put it, “In a word, no.”

Look beyond the rhetoric at the concrete numbers in the Obama budget — which, let it not be forgotten, was submitted two months late and after both the Senate and House adopted their own versions of 2014 spending blueprints — and what becomes clear in three ways is that the president and his key advisers are intrigued by the figure $1.1 trillion. First, remember the sequestration budget cuts that were supposed to produce Armageddon if actually implemented? Those cuts totaled — can you guess? — $1.1 trillion over 10 years.

Second, as Morning Bell ably notes, the Treasury Department calculates that the Obama 2014 budget proposal contains new tax increases totaling $1.1 trillion. Third, remember the 2011 Grand Bargain That Never Was? That was when House Speaker John Boehner insisted on a lengthy list of spending cuts and conceded to $800 billion in new revenues by closing tax loopholes? It never happened because at the last minute Obama demanded another $400 billion in new revenues, which Boehner wisely rejected. Well, now Obama is endorsing Boehner’s spending cuts, which just happen to total $1.1 trillion.

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Obama’s Approval Hits All-Time Low Among Poor, Says Gallup

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A week that began with President Barack Obama going on national television to pitch his vision for a debt-limit deal in terms that pitted “millionaires and billionaires” against “everyone else,” ended with the president receiving his lowest-ever weekly approval ratings in the Gallup poll from the poorest Americans (those earning less than $2,000 per month) and from one segment of the middle class (those earning between $5,000 and $7,499 per month).

In fact, according to Gallup, Obama enjoys no more approval among the poorest Americans today than he does among the richest—and he enjoys significantly less approval among middle class Americans earning between $5,000 to $7,499 than he does among the richest Americans as measure by the income brackets reported by Gallup (those earning $7,500 per month or more).

Over the last seven weeks, Obama’s approval rating has dropped 11 percentage points among the poorest Americans—and 14 points among middle-class Americans earning between $5,000 and $7,499.

Among the poorest Americans, the president’s approval started at 54 percent in the week of June 13-19 and dropped to a record low of 43 percent last week (July 25-July 31). Over the same period, Obama’s approval dropped from 52 percent to a record low of 38 percent among those middle-class Americans earning between $5,000 and $7,499 per month.

Seven weeks ago, according to Gallup, Obama was doing far better among the poorest Americans and those earning $5,000 to $7,499 per month than he was doing among the wealthiest (those earning more than $7,500), who in the week of June 13-19 gave Obama a 44-percent approval rating.

 Read More at CNS News  By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com