It is great that WSJ is given some time to this issue now. Most Americans already new they were falling behind. Unfortunately there is nothing on the immediate horizon that will take the middleclass back to a growing path because for all practical purposes the titans of finance have unpatriotically sold out our country in their continued efficiency in wealth accumulation and their income expansion.
Interesting enough if the average Americans do not educate themselves, (after-all both main stream and Right Wing media mislead, the latter ever so much more) in order to not repeat the same mistakes of the last 30 years. It is clear that these policies had middleclass America simply treading water.
My book identifies & explores these issues and suggest big picture solutions that we pay our politicians to effect into policy.
Book Title: As I See It: Class Warfare: The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
ISBN: 1453608168
Amazon(Paperback): http://amzn.to/dt72c7
Amazon(Kindle): http://amzn.to/9uFIrV
Book Webpage: http://bit.ly/9sJpA1
By CONOR DOUGHERTY And SARA MURRAY
The downturn that some have dubbed the "Great Recession" has trimmed the typical household’s income significantly, new Census data show, following years of stagnant wage growth that made the past decade the worst for American families in at least half a century.
Conor Dougherty and Mark Whitehouse discuss two sides of America’s strained economy: a poverty rate that has climbed to its highest level since 1994 and the increasing income volatility among the rich.
The bureau’s annual snapshot of American living standards also found that the fraction of Americans living in poverty rose sharply to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008—the highest since 1994. Some 43.6 million Americans were living below the official poverty threshold, but the measure doesn’t fully capture the panoply of government antipoverty measures.
The inflation-adjusted income of the median household—smack in the middle of the populace—fell 4.8% between 2000 and 2009, even worse than the 1970s, when median income rose 1.9% despite high unemployment and inflation. Between 2007 and 2009, incomes fell 4.2%.
"It’s going to be a long, hard slog back to what most Americans think of as normalcy or prosperous times," said Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
CONTINUED
