Middle Class Shrinks In 9 out of 10 Cities in the US as incomes fall.

[liberalnarb]

Source: Associated Press : Top News

In cities across America, the middle class is hollowing out. A widening wealth gap is moving more households into either higher- or lower-income groups in major metro areas, with fewer remaining in the middle, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

In nearly one-quarter of metro areas, middle-class adults no longer make up a majority, the Pew analysis found. That's up from fewer than 10 percent of metro areas in 2000.

That sharp shift reflects a broader erosion that occurred from 2000 through 2014. Over that time, the middle class shrank in nine of every 10 metro areas, Pew found.

The squeezing of the middle class has animated this year's presidential campaign, lifting the insurgent candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Many experts warn that widening income inequality may slow economic growth and make social mobility more difficult. Research has found that compared with children in more economically mixed communities, children raised in predominantly lower-income neighborhoods are less likely to reach the middle class.


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MIDDLE_CLASS_DECLINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-12-11-59-48

[Akicita]

1. Hooray. It's working. The massive influx of low wage foreign workers streaming across our border

and the massive outsourcing of jobs to foreigners is well on its way to destroying the middle class and making the one percenters much, much richer by lowering wages. Once the middle class destruction is completed we can get rid of this "American Experiment" and go back to the good old days of just Lords and serfs.

What a brilliant masterstroke by our puppet masters in the one percent to convince us puppets to blunt any opposition to their plan to destroy the middle class and further enhance their lifestyle by getting us to brand anyone who opposes American jobs going to foreign POC as racists. Just a brilliant strategy. By attaching the racism stigma to silence opposition there will be no stopping the free flow of American jobs away from Americans, especially American POC, which will further drive down wages and finish the job of destroying the middle class.

I can't wait. Those Lords and serfs days were so romantic.

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. I think computers are probably the biggest culprits.

Computers can do the work of thousands of people in a lot less time. And it's going to get worse.

[jtuck004]

3. Yet there is still too much left undone, and doesn't address the very human need for purpose.

. This is resource mismanagement, a wetware problem. Not the technology. The people.

[Akicita]

6. So all those many thousands of workers displaced by computers are competing for the fewer jobs that

are left. Why then do we allow our corporate masters to import millions of foreign low wage workers and out source many of the human jobs that are left to foreigners which just exacerbates the problems of the American workers displaced by computers?

Wouldn't it make even more sense for America to have immigration and trade policies that protect the American worker in the age of computers? Well managed policies that don't devastate the middle class?

[leftyladyfrommo]

8. Most of those dreaded foreign workers

here in KC put roofs on houses in the dead of summer, or they lay sod, or they work for landscaping companies. Or they work cleaning hotel rooms or they work for house cleaning companies. I don't think they are much of a threat. We also have a lot of Hispanics that work in the fast food joints but those jobs are dead end and don't pay a living wage. A lot of older people are working those jobs, too. But there are still a lot of kids that work in those places.

Now the jobs that are moved to other countries are a different ballgame. I think a lot of those computer jobs were pretty high paying. I don't know that for a fact but I would guess that is the case. But even those jobs are all computerized now. In a lot of call centers you never talk to a human. You just press one of about 20 buttons and hope you don't get cut off. It's miserable.

[Akicita]

13. The old They just do the jobs Americans just won't do schtick. I haven't heard that one since the

years.

And even with the higher tech jobs, the foreign workers are paid less than their American counterparts and that drives down wages for the jobs that are left in America.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. So you want to ban all "foreigns" in this country?

That's not going to happen any time soon. Well, unless Trump gets his way.

[Akicita]

19. Of course not. I am advocating immigration and trade policies that actually take the best interests

of the American worker into account. Currently both immigration and trade policies only take the best interests of the one percent and corporations into account. If we had a government controlled by the people, government policies would be designed to be in the peoples best interest. Because we have a government controlled by the one percent and special interests, government policies are designed to further the best interests of the one percent and the special interests. That's why we see the growing gap between rich and poor and are starting to see the destruction of the middle class.

Times are great right now for the rich. They are getting ever richer. Times are not so good for the poor and middle class. The middle class is struggling to make ends meet and the ranks of the poor are growing. Millions more on food stamps etc. All that is no accident. It's policy.

We should always have immigration. It enriches the country. But it should be controlled and regulated like most countries do with the best interests of the citizenry, not the one percent, in mind. Same thing with trade policies.

[raccoon]

4. We need experts and research to tell us this?

Many experts warn that widening income inequality may slow economic growth and make social mobility more difficult. Research has found that compared with children in more economically mixed communities, children raised in predominantly lower-income neighborhoods are less likely to reach the middle class.

[azurnoir]

5. WWHD?

[Binkie The Clown]

7. "That's ridiculous" says Forbes Magazine

The middle class is shrinking because more people are becoming rich. And they should know, right?

Link

[pat_k]

9. So, middle class is not headed to "extinction" --

that makes the report wrong?

No stats cited to support claim they are "moving up." At least no stats that I can see in article.

[Igel]

15. And yet the article says both.

It's not "either/or". It's "both/and".

"In cities across America, the middle class is hollowing out. A widening wealth gap is moving more households into either higher- or lower-income groups in major metro areas, with fewer remaining in the middle, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center."

Hollowing out means that there's upper and lower boundaries that still exist. More households are either higher- or lower-income groups--the only possible inference is that middle-class families are either moving up or moving down. This has been constant: The last such scare was a bit over a decade ago, where the NYT nicely made the same kind of claim you seem to want with a nice graphic showing that the dominant movement then was moving up. The numerate graphics department probably read the article by the innumerate reporter and sighed.

The median income's down. Then again, more low wage jobs have been created than high-wage jobs. So the median has to move. Median =/= average. That's a clear trend.

Whether a greater percentage of the middle class has moved up or down depends on the city. Manufacturing-based cities are harder hit.

At the same time, it leaves out possible reasons beyond just economics. I know a lot of middle class families who would move down and out if they divorced. Same income, same jobs, but the economic unit would be different and both would be lower than middle class. I also know some single middle-classers who, if they married somebody like themselves, would move up and out of the middle class. This is where it becomes evident that the word "class" here means "income." "Class" in the US also deals with education, lifestyle, culture. Middle-incomes require middle-class-style families to produce the classic overlap between income and families these days. (Yes, there were "middle income jobs," but you'll always have those, just like you always have a top decile and a bottom decile in any cohort.)

The full report is available here, which does a better job (although not nearly as polemical a job):
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-a-close-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. Yea, right.

I have to remember to tell all my friends who used to be middle class but who are now trying to live on SS that being poor is an illusion. We are all really rich but we just don't know it.

It's everyone I know.

[Angel Martin]

11. "In cities across America, the middle class is hollowing out."

FOUR MORE YEARS !

[Skittles]

16. four more years of WHAT?

[Angry Dragon]

12. I would someone to define the term middle class

and have it the only definition

[taught_me_patience]

17. Nowhere does it control for shifting demographics (aging population)

Many boomers retiring and their income falling below middle class. This probably explains most of the shift. A lot of millenials are still in college... that also skews the stats lower.

[LiberalElite]

18. "Automation" sung by satirist Allan Sherman circa 1963