The unraveling of the U.S. ‘middle class’

Economic crisis shows the real class divisions

Party for Socialism and Liberation

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor John Stoltenberg

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

The Occupy movement shows that the failure of capitalism to deliver on its promises creates the basis for new struggle.

Recent economic statistics reveal an undeniable pattern of the U.S. working class suffering an erosion of its standards of living. Taken one at a time, each of these statistics could be a shocking snapshot of our society; they could each be considered unjust. But if you put all these snapshots together, you get something more than a picture; you see a whole story unfolding, a process of long-term decline for U.S. workers. These include:
    •    61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007;
    •    The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth;

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Related:

The Emerging 3rd U.S. Economic Relapse, Jack Rasmus, It's Our Economy

• Politicians of both political parties have failed miserably over the past four years to deal with the fundamental causes and the resulting consequences of the economic crisis that erupted in 2007, morphed into the worst economic downturn in seven decades in 2008-09, followed by the weakest, most lopsided recovery on record for the past three years since 2009 that continues to date. But underlying this short term failure are a number of just as serious, if not more so, fundamental longer term crises.
• Collapse At Hand