August 30, 2012
A Pew Research Center
survey taken in the second half of July found that 85 percent of self-reported members
of the middle class “say it is more difficult today than 10 years ago for [them]
to maintain their standard of living.”
Dejection is felt by all cohorts in Anytown, USA: “[T]he
downbeat assessment is shared by virtually identical proportions of men and
women, Republicans and Democrats, the college-educated and those with a high
school degree or less.”
Only a third of middle-classers are “very satisfied” with their
finances. Forty-seven percent believe that their children’s quality of life
will either remain the same or be worse than theirs.
The results of “The
Lost Decade of the Middle Class: Fewer, Poorer, Gloomier” aren’t
surprising. Since the 1970s, liberals have wailed about a country of brutally exploited
wage-slaves living “paycheck to paycheck,” with economic calamity lurking
behind even minor personal or professional glitches. In the 21st century, this bleak
narrative finally began to ring true.
The twin terrors of the 43rd and 44th presidencies helped
push employment down by 4.8 million positions. Total
U.S. jobs peaked at 138 million in January 2008, around the onset of the
Great Recession. By George W. Bush’s departure in January 2009, the number had dipped
to 133.6 million, and his successor’s “recovery” saw a further slip to 133.2
million. In a June analysis,
the Federal Reserve’s Division of Research and Statistics calculated that
“median net worth fell 38.8 percent” between 2007 and 2010.
The
Wall Street Journal recently cited a Sentier Research estimate that median
household income has plunged by $4,019 under President Obama. But the Journal’s neocon editorialists deserve
credit for (grudgingly) admitting that Bush’s watch was no nirvana for the
typical American domicile -- the nation suffered “subpar economic growth across
the 2000s.”
Things are bad. Real
bad. So what got us here?
Pew’s respondents were asked how much they blame seven
“institutions or groups for the economic problems of the past decade.” Congress
led the way in “a lot,” at 62 percent, followed by banks and financial
institutions (54 percent), large corporations (47 percent), the Bush
administration (44 percent), foreign competition (39 percent), and the Obama
administration (34 percent).
Are “middle-class people themselves” to blame? “A lot” landed at
the bottom: just 8 percent. Forty-two percent replied “a little,” and 47 percent answered “not at all.”
Wow.
Congress is indeed stuffed with dingbats,
bullies,
cretins, lunatics,
codgers, and
grifters. But
Americans can still vote, right? In 2010, how many fedpols were forced into
involuntary retirement for supporting the ineffective, pork-laden “stimulus”? What
congressman or senator has paid a price for refusing to address the nation’s entitlement crisis?
When Our Man in Washington
brings home the
billions for expensive and unnecessary “defense systems,” is he condemned,
or feted?
With the exception of K Street creatures, disdain
for Big Business’s lobbying is widespread. But politically juiced “large corporations”
don’t siphon the public trough without help. Plenty of elected officials still in
office today backed the TARP bailout in 2008. And grassroots campaigns rarely block
the goodies -- e.g., reauthorization
of the Export-Import Bank -- delivered to corporate-welfare addicts.
A globalized economy poses a daunting challenge for a country that’s
been tops in nearly everything for the last century. But middle-class
voters are largely indifferent to policies that would help the U.S. perform
better in the planetary competition for investment and jobs. There’s no
groundswell of resistance to Washington’s
ridiculously high corporate-tax rate. Politically correct energy mandates
that boost the
price of fuel and electricity aren’t opposed. Protectionism, which drives up the cost of imported materials for
domestic industries, is popular. Real
education reform -- i.e., vouchers, tuition tax credits, homeschooling -- is
progressing, but far too slowly. Tens of millions of parents allow their
children to endlessly play graphic videogames and constantly watch “reality” programs
that glorify ignorance, boorishness, and sloth. Cheaper
pay, it would seem, isn’t the sole reason why corporations seek workers aboard.
The Average American doesn’t see himself as a contributor to his
economic travails. “They” are to blame -- crooked pols, evil corporations, a
Republican/Democratic president, developing countries that “steal our jobs.” Populism
works, nearly every time it’s tried. That’s why interest groups employ it’s-us-against-them
PR tactics.
Yet the surest method to remain mired in your current
circumstances is to believe that immutable forces are at work. Neither a man’s
nor a nation’s destiny is preordained. The middle class has more than enough cultural,
economic, and political power to transcend its “lost decade.”
D. Dowd Muska (www.dowdmuska.com) writes about government, economics, and technology. Follow him on Twitter @dowdmuska.
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