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In reply to the discussion: They once inhabited a vast swath of North America but their numbers have been greatly reduced [View all]bhikkhu
(10,732 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 6, 2016, 08:10 PM - Edit history (1)
but I had this argument with a right wing nut a week or two ago in town so the numbers were fresh in my memory. The point there was that Obama had destroyed the middle class, and most pointedly that the middle class was vanishing breed because of liberal policies. I looked up the numbers to show that, according to the BLS, the Census Bureau, and the Pew Research Center, the actual number of people in the US in the middle class has been steadily increasing. At which point the conversation veered predictably from facts to anecdotes and character attack (that's where I leave).
Other metrics are less encouraging of course (notably the overall measures of income inequality), but the only point I wanted to make was that the middle class, by the numbers, has grown. I thought it was a simple point, and believe that a reliance on facts is fundamental to making any argument or intention useful.
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