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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMost Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-of-life/The analysis, from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), looks beyond whether people can afford daily necessities like food and shelter to consider whether they have the means to pay for things like the technology tools necessary for work, higher education, and health and child care costs.
(snip)
The findings? For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a "minimal quality of life" is out of reach, according to the group, a research organization focused on improving lower earners' economic well-being.
"The middle class has been declining we just haven't recognized it fully," LISEP Chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. "It's really dangerous because it's the kind of thing that leads to social unrest, and it's not fair. The American dream is not that it's given to you it's that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead and achieve the things in life that you want to achieve. It's not living in a tent, not having to steal."

Initech
(104,791 posts)And the idiotic Fox News correspondent who cosplays as the Secretary Of Commerce is on that fucking worthless station every night telling us that we need to feel pain from an intentionally caused recession because a golden age is coming, or something.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(122,884 posts)They'll piss down your back and tell you it's raining.
LastDemocratInSC
(4,028 posts)Just like the Southern slave owners said to their slaves.
Initech
(104,791 posts)Don't promise them things that are going to happen now. Promise them things that are going to happen in the not too distant future. But you must suffer for it. Then keep moving back the goal posts every time the "future" comes closer. Works every time.
keep_left
(2,886 posts)"Work and pray, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Songbook
Magoo48
(6,305 posts)Initech
(104,791 posts)
kimbutgar
(25,049 posts)Are they ok with billionaires paying less taxes than them who earn $50,000? They lose funds in their community also Medicare/cade so a rich person gets more money than theyll ever need! Then youre a special kind of stupid!
leftstreet
(36,749 posts)Johnny2X2X
(22,862 posts)Because Joe Biden had a pretty good 4 year run for working people, people actually saw wage growth in excess of inflation, and that was most pronounced in the bottom 25%.
But this concept and the inability of our leaders to address it is largely why we have lost our Democracy right now. 60% of the population just sees little security, a lite of wanting, and little hope.
I've been on both sides of that divide, I remember all too well of going up to the corner store for a 99 cent loaf of bread and a $1.99 package of bologna and then counting the slices to see if this would feed me for 5 days until pay day and if I had enough mustard left to make sandwiches with. I've been there, where you let the car insurance lapses so you can afford to keep putting gas in your car to get to work. And then you promise to put insurance back on your car next month and that turns into several months until it's time to renew your tabs, which you can't do without proof of insurance so your tabs expire. It's a struggle every week and every month. And then you maybe use credit cards to buy groceries and it's a whole vicious cycle of revolving debt. You're one fender bender from disaster. And you're one car repair from going hungry, or one traffic stop from huge fines for expired plates and no proof of insurance. The majority of the country is living some form of this. It's stress every single day, it's sleepless nights of worry, and it just kind of grinds you down, sucks the joy out of everything. So enough people were desparate enough to believe a used car salesman that he alone would solve all their problems. The hard truth they're all about to learn is that there's absolutely nothing in Trump's polcies for any of them, in fact it's more of the same and a trend that will move that 60% to 8-% or 90%.
And the ologarchy will do everything they can to get that 60% to blame the other 40% when it's really only the 1% that is to blame. As someone who made it to the top 10ish %, the life I am leading is not that different from the midle class life I grew up with in the 70s and 80s. It's the life I saw around me and seemed normal and seemed like most people had a chance at. I own a modest home with a payment than I can afford. Have 2 used cars that are paid off, one is 11 years old, the other 7. Was able to completely get out of credit card debt a while back, and that allowed me a modest savings for emergencies. Saving enough for retirement. I'm not going on vacations, I'm not buying jewelry or going to 5 star restaurants. It's just a normal life. I live on a budget, can afford home or car repairs without too much pain, and just sleep better. It's not too much to ask for for the rest of the country. This country is RICH! And the wealth the country has is a product of the work the bottom 99% does, not the top 1%. Tehy've swindled us, they're getting rich off your work while 60%$ of you struggle for even the basics in life. It's wrong, and this is what we need to address.
uponit7771
(92,861 posts)Biden and Obama years didn't allow for 10% gains as much in buying power cause they don't need it.
Both Bush and Trump admins did though, they expanded debt to GDP mostly focusing on the rich decreasing buying power and overall wages on bottom end and now inflation.
It's NOW TIME for someone to scream tax the rich and corps their effective share in assets.
There's little where else to go to pay off debt and increase the buying power or the 60%.
The upper 10% tax cuts were that devastating to the 70%
Johnny2X2X
(22,862 posts)Quantitative easing (printing money) didn't realy cause this.
Basically, labor created wealth at an exponential rate for 40 years, but the labor didn't share in those wealth gains. An hour of labor in the auto industry in the 1980s maybe produced $150 of value and the laborer got $30 an hour plus $25 an hour in benefits, so he kept $55 of the $150 his labor created in value. Today, an hour of labor in the auto undustry maybe produces $500 of value and that auto worker is keeping the same $55 an hour for himself (if he's lucky). That other $350 an hour went to executives and shareholders. Numbers just a generalization to illustrate the point. And some of this increased productivity is automation for sure, labor didn't get a piece of it at all.
Basically, we've gotten better and mopre efficient in everything we do and in everything we make, those gains made the top 1% into kings while the bottom 60% struggled.
uponit7771
(92,861 posts)... for the last 40 yrs for the lower quarter income.
Damn, makes tax cuts for the rich even more evil
OldBaldy1701E
(7,856 posts)But it is not about earning. It is about corporate greed and the constant desire to add as many layers of fluff as possible between you and what you need so that they can suck even more from the consumer while doing little to actually aid in the supply. (Advertising, anyone?)
However... we do love our commercials, so...
LudwigPastorius
(12,406 posts)

leftstreet
(36,749 posts)Interesting
DURec