"The American middle class, like the American economy in general, is ailing. Labor-force participation has hit a 35-year low.
Median
household income is lower than it was five years ago. Only the top 5
percent of households have seen their incomes rise under President
Obama.
Commuters are paying more than twice as much for gas as
they were in 2008. Federal payouts for food stamps, unemployment
insurance, and disability insurance have reached unprecedented levels.
Meanwhile,
the country is still running near-record budget deficits and is
burdened by $17 trillion in aggregate debt. Yet the stock market is
soaring.
How can we make sense of all this contradictory nonsense? Irony." [National Review]
Although I cannot claim to be politically savvy, I too see strong evidence of the shrinking middle class. Numerous of contributing factors, health care is what causes my family to adjust our retirement expectations, I know others challenged with THEIR ADULT CHILD'S student loans (their now adult children who have been living at home since college graduation, working any jobs they can find), small business owners burdened by a multitude of regulatory laws & taxation I cannot even begin to understand... Most of us have worked hard our entire lives, baby sitting as soon as we were old enough, transitioning to the more lucrative minimum wage job as soon as we were 16, which paid for some of our college education-which was subsidized by our parents & student loans. Via searching thru many a newspaper want ads we could find a job that, although started out paying lower than we hoped, once we proved ourself, paid accordingly....developed ourselves professionally while in chosen field, all the while contributing to our 401k's, IRA's, kids 529's.....and the XYZ's.....with the dream of one day, maybe by age 60 if we really followed all the 'rules'
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