The portion of American families living in middle-income neighborhoods has declined significantly since 1970, according to a new study, as rising income inequality left a growing share of families in neighborhoods that are mostly low-income or mostly affluent.
“The middle class really means you are beginning to have more disposable income, not living at a subsistence level. If you think about what drives our current economy, its people’s ability to buy goods and services in the marketplace. With the loss of disposable income which comes with a declining middle class, you have begun to put kinks in the economic engine we all rely on.”
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.
Here are the statistics to prove it:
- • 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
- • 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. Read more.....
Why would anyone think there was any value in observing that the poor get poorer and the rich get rich during a recession or depression. I mean, DUH! It is like saying the temperatures are going down now that we are entering winter. Of course the poor get poorer! Of course the disparity in incomes grows larger. That's what a recession is all about. I assume when the recession ends and we enter a cyclical boom cycle you will fail to report that the poor got richer and the income disparity shrunk!
ReplyDeleteformally mid class hoods are looking more unkept, bad paint, leaky roofs, cracked driveways..oh well no problem, looked that way in the 70's and nobody cared, not as much keeping up with "appearances" then, not stuck as bad then in "appearance over substance" as now. how much money people pay because blinded by tv ads saying must have golf course quality lawns, newest counter tops and all the trappings. love to hear about some dude passing away with money left to give to his kids because his lawn was imperfect, his countertops where laminate, didn't buy a new car every 3 years just because the joneses on tv had one(supposedly or the tv said so)his furniture was "outdated"...all the load of garbage the tv ads and corp media would have us buy buy buying. so now with mass indebtedness when the roof leaks a need to borrow to fix it occurs. people didn't used to need to borrow money for everything before...where did the money we do make go? now-make sure you spend money on your lawn! make it purrrfect..because the tv say's so :))
ReplyDelete...appearance over substance-is how we vote for politicians too no?