Yeah. I hate the negativity of the Internet, but this is what “life” (at least in the first world) has become: the negative stories are amplified and the positive ones are short.
In a time of great planetary wealth creation, there is still disparity. One of the richest nations on the Earth has packed all of its citizenry onto the “liveable coasts”, into cities.
The couple mentioned in the article tried to move away to a more affordable area with more land (Portland is Urban, and Spokane is rural), and were met with boredom and dissatisfaction.
They both earn collectively $250,000/year, which seems like a lot, and to many people in the U.S who earn the median salary of $52-65,000/year, it is.
They mention not wanting to pay more than 30% of their budget to mortgage costs, which they stated with “$5,000 being 50%”, which means their real adjusted income is closer to $120,000, not $250,000.
That’s still a lot, but more reasonable to the point of Median Salary × 2.
What this average couple demonstrates however, is that the erosion of the “middle class” in the United States is complete: The middle class is dead. They are both educated professionals who are working honestly, and don’t make enough money to own a home.
That makes them poor. That makes all of us poor – and it is a gross failure of the economic system with misplaced incentives and lack of regulations that has led us to this point.
The important thing to remember that this socioeconomic and political atmosphere is wholly contrived.
A better world is possible – it however requires sacrifices that many people are unable or unwilling to endure. Whatever you are imagining going through your head right now, that’s exactly what is necessary to change the first world for the better.
It’s not any one individual’s fault this happened. The honest working man and woman haven’t done anything wrong here, and aren’t to blame – it’s precisely because the honest (the just) have enabled the dishonest (the unjust) to continue to run amok, completely unchecked and unchained.
Here is to a better future, and for all the hardship we must all endure, to get there. 🍺
Fuck Private Equity.
ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
For the middle class to be dead, it would have had to be real in the first place, but it has always been an illusion.
There is the owning class and the working class.
If you don’t own the means of production (and or a load of property to leech rent off of), you are part of the working class, however uncomfortable that might make someone with the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” mentality feel. The lie exists in the first place to create and feed that mentality, to ensure at least some working class people consistently vote against their own interests.
anachronist@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
The middle class historically was the loyal servants of the upper class, whose expertise was needed to maintain the system. While they worked for wages they were allowed income sufficient to accumulate surpluses, property, and a facsimile of financial security.
In the 20th century it seemed possible for labor organizing to grant the privileges of the middle class to everyone in society. People who were definitely working-class were able to live like the middle class.
In the 21st century the rich seem to be starting to operate on the idea that, not only can labor be broken and the working class cast back down into hand-to-mouth poverty, but that vast numbers of people in the professions have been misclassified as essential loyal servants and they, too, can be cast down into poverty. I think the end state is that the middle class is squeezed down to the size it was during the gilded age and return to being an afterthought rather than the central focus of our politics.
ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
You are literally just describing how the “middle class” is artificial and manufactured, not an actual thing. High earning working class people are still working class people. Making you think otherwise serves the owning class by dividing the working class and pitting us against each other, and providing a fictional carrot and the motivation to step over others to try and get it (but you never will, unless you win a lottery, which is a similar carrot).
anachronist@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
The middle class is real and was originally identified by Engels.
The important distinction for Engels is that the middle class’s interest are aligned with the upper class. Importantly: they don’t think their interest s are aligned. Their interests really are aligned with the upper class. If you’re a solicitor or, say, hat-maker to the king in 18th century England, you owe your social position to upper class largess.
In the 20th century the idea developed that with organizing, the middle class lifestyle is attainable for everyone. This began the era of the “broad middle class” or what Piketty called the “patrimonial middle class.” Engel’s original middle class in this society was the PMC.
In the late 20th and early 21st century the upper class started a class war, first targeting organized labor. But with that deed done they are now focusing on the ranks of the PMC, which they see as bloated, and they’re going through and evicting as many people as they can from it.
Dkarma@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
This so much. Middle class is just working poor.
arefx@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
It’s too bad the majority of people are too thick to understand this.
ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Yeah, that’s the problem, not the state and capitalism serving propaganda machine and education system…
Krauerking@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago