This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
How America's Middle Class Lost The War In One Simple Animation
Over six years ago this website made a simple prediction: as a result of the Fed's disastrous policies designed to make the rich richer beyond their wildest dreams, the US middle class - the growth dynamo behind America's economic power for over a century - is on its way to extinction.
Overnight, we reported that according to a new Pew study, this is precisely what is taking place because while in 1971 two out of three Americans live in middle-income households, now for the first time in at least four decades (and likely ever) just under half of all households (about 49.9 percent) belong to the "middle class." Slightly more than half of Americans (about 50.1 percent) either live in a lower-class household (roughly 29 percent) or an upper-class household (about 21 percent).
As a result of factory closings and other economic factors, the country now has 120.8 million adults living in middle-income households, the study found. That compares with the 121.3 million who are living in either upper- or lower-income households.
"The hollowing of the middle has proceeded steadily for the past four decades," Pew concluded.
And middle-income Americans not only have shrunk as a share of the population but have fallen further behind financially, with their median income down 4 percent compared with the year 2000, Pew said.
Initially, many mocked us for our dire prediction. Now, it is conventional wisdom and the implications are reverberating everywhere from monetary policy (even the Fed has admitted the QE does not work) to politics, where general discontent has fueled the stunning surge of such anti-establishment candidates as Donald Trump. Here is the FT:
The prevailing view that the middle class is being crushed is helping to feed some of the popular anger that has boosted the populist politics personified by Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. “The middle class is disappearing,” says Alison Fuller, a 25-year-old university graduate working for a medical start-up in Smyrna, Georgia, who sees herself voting for Mr Trump.
But while the US middle class officially has lost the war, one group of Americans has never had it better. For the answer, we refer you to the FT animation below.
Finally, for those curious how the distribution of income growth has changed over the same period for 90% of the population, vs just the top 1%, here it is again with the one event that precipitated the surge in wealth for the top percentile duly highlighted:
»
- 71 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
All your middle class are belong to us. Just what they wanted , a 2 class society.
Most of the USSA is a no-class society.
Good, so when I notice that it's quite a boner rising out on the far right of the income animation, I'll fit right in among the no-class peasants.
Back to feudalism
Anyone up for a free lunch at my Mansion?
http://www.thepornster.net/video/475/homeless-gets-free-lunch
End the Fed!
" We impoverished some folks. "
~ Barry Sotero
'Murica: Feel the trickle!
We've gone way past a trickle long ago.
https://youtu.be/a79Y5VOude8
Keynesian in practice!
What a bunch of shit (and piss).
To make it fair we need a video of a donkey doing the same routine.
Funny you said that because I thought the same thing.
https://youtu.be/nbCDcMpt23E
Further proof that animals are superior.
America is becoming Soviet.
USSR: Rich elite class on top, poor slaves on the bottom.
Brutal military state to keep the slaves under control.
OK, I understand the concern over the disappearing middle-class, but what does that have to do with voting for Trump? Isn't Trump just a fed-funded casino operator himself?
The middle class lost ground because they allowed themselves to be distracted by a blow job while both parties were busy fucking them in the ass.
"We cornholed some folks..."
I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole.
https://youtu.be/xiztNZ3KdvA
Wanna job? Move to China; they're hiring!
ah its a diving whale
Elysium will not be built.
Period.
Spoctor Din
Already has been built
Address? If it's still on Earth, you can drive there.
American worseship the holly billionaire and dream of becomming one by doing nothing.
And they even plan for it!!!!
That's why they're against taxing those billionaires just in case they would suddenly become one.
That's funny. I just got back from Disneyland with my wife and three kids, and was struck by how many Americans have no class at all.
The ones with class are keeping to themselves these days and you won't see them ingesting the mass culture slurry much anymore. The core of Americans who are still Americans is just very quiet at the moment. But it is an extremely large cohort, made to seem small by media suppression.
Busy buying supplies.
I'm amazed that anyone can even afford to go to Wally World. Isn't a Park Hopper ticket something like $100?
When you see 1000 tourists in Europe, you can spot the Americans just by watching them eat, order a ticket, order a drink.
Americans always think that everybody is stupid and to be talked to in a rude way.
And if you want to see a American crumble like he's been raped by a group of baboons, just tough their arm. Americans can't handle physical contact.
And in Europe, when we see a tourist who has lost the way, we just walk to them and ask them if they need directions.
If that tourist is an American... You see sheer panick in their eyes because you talked to them "without any reason".
And Americans eat like 6 year old children. If it's not a hamburger or spagetti or a pizza, they look at it like it's dogshit.
And when you see them drink a beer... they'll never order a second.
In Asia you can spot the Europeans by their pensions. Just as bad as Americans but oh so PC. Come on - they are just as obnoxious - percentage-wise.
Okay asshole. I lived on your side of the pond for 7 years and found Brits to be by FAR much more obnoxious than Americans. Ever see a pack of Brits trolling in Amsterdam or Krakow? What a bunch of wankers! Don't get me started on not being able to talk to people spontaneously. Euros are just about the WORST at this. If Euros don't know you and you start chatting them up they recoil immediately and make short work of the conversation. This is less true in Southern Europe but most certainly true in France, Holland and where you hail from. So spare me.
They are obnoxious in our own country, but I dispute the second beer deal...
yeah, americans are jerks, but you got lucky to have those two american marines in that train, otherwise you would have been slaughtered like lambs, spineless european intellectual perverts. The more you hate the americans the more you wish to become like them. Go and eat your bland waterzoii, idiot.
You were at Disneyland? But I thought all Disney customers were supposed to begin queuing up at theaters yesterday for the new Star Wars movie...the instructions were on all of the network "news" programs!
and look at the fucking Dow....
what fucking bullshit....
Well, they are losing control of the housing market in some countries:
House prices set to PLUNGE by 7.5 per cent - as Australia's over-inflated market sparks fears the country is on the brink of a recessionhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3268970/Australian-house-prices-...
Two words: NAFTA and GATT. Lots of others in nations far and wide are thriving in ways unimagined 45 years ago. Here at home, not so much.
It was obvious 20 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
and just you wait for tpp. Make nafta look like barney fife
Don't forget the influx of H1B visa's that took what was left of the jobs!
Sunni Muslim Barrack Hussein Obama, citizen of Indonesia and Muslim-madrasah attendee, Unconstitutional President of the United States of America and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, implementation of plan to destroy America from within is succeeding.
Fun to make fun of him, but he don't get the credit.
Clinton and Bush baby were the dildoes they fucked us with long before Obama came along to add more insult to our injury.
Presidents is dizzstractions, don't you know that by now, boi!?!
Jackson was the last decent president.
Eh, you have to give JFK credit as well. He was a thorn in the banker's sides, so much so that they blew his brains out.
Yeah Obama has been planning this since 1971 right?
Obama traveled back in time to 1913 and personally wrote the Federal Reserve Act.
Someone has a straw and they are drinking our milkshake, look at that graph, they are slurping it right up.
About that graph... I hate to swim against the prevailing ZH tide of relentlessly negative stories about anything US-related, but it's worth pointing out that the FT animation actually tells a mostly positive story.
With the single exception of the $0-5k band, which has gone up from about 1.5% to 2.5%, we can see that the number of people in every band below $85k has dropped, while the number in every band above $85k has increased. This is not due to inflation: values are shown in constant 2014 dollars. Thus, this graph shows almost every US household becoming considerably wealthier. The people who complain about high Gini coefficients should be pleased.
As for that last big $200k+ bar, it seems misleading to me, and an odd value to choose as the cutoff. Incomes generally follow a power law distribution; this graph compresses a very large number of (increasingly small) values into one bar. If the intention of the ZH article is to encourage 1%-bashing, bear in mind that this last bar does not show "the 1%" at all, but the top 7.5% or so. Apparently in the US (according to 2012 figures) you'd need a $400k income to be in the top 1%, probably more by 2015, so it would bave been clearer to show individual bars up to $400k or $500k rather than $200k. (Perhaps this was chosen as the cutoff because in 1971 about 1% of households had an income of $200k or more, in 2014 dollars.)
All in all, the graph doesn't support the point that the article is trying to make. If anything, it suggests that if the middle class is shrinking, it's because a large number of people have gotten wealthy enough to move out of the $42k-125k band marked "middle class". Good for them.
The war is just getting started.
as soon as am done working/shopping/sleeping/netflixing/googling/iphoning/perscriptioning/serving time.
You'll get over all that. Or you'll be a sheep in the city while your brethren take up arms in the next few years.
There are two nations coexisting within the borders of the "United States".
take up arms? Ill believe it when I see it. While we have been procrastinating the gov has been extending its reach. Its too late to start now, snuffed before you can even assemble.
Just a note, I dont like this fact but I dont see it changing.
sorry the chart should go to million to really understand what is going on. $200k where I live is lower middleclass.
It's becoming ever more difficult to rob the rest of the world, ain't it?
" It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in."
- Jeb Bush
now jeb, that kind of talk isnt going to get you in the white house.
When a workhorse outlives its usefullness then it is to be put down and sent the Glue Factory.
Long live Old Major.
So Jeb just wants to squeeze the last remaining bit of productivity out of America to benefit the elite.
Then they will just liquidate and discard the unfunded liabilities.
Yeah, I guess if the USA sticks with their traditional political parties and their establishment politicians this will all correct itself.
Paul Ryan and Cruz have got our backs.
"This next election will change everything. It has to!"
uhhh ... uhhh ... do you Americans know how we think about you ? whahahahahaha idiots
only insecure libtards care what euro trash think about them.
Do you know what we think of you? Oh wait we don't
That is why you shouldn't take all the shit we do personally. It's not that we don't like you. It's we really don't think about you. I know staring at the lead dog's ass allday everyday for years gets old and makes you cranky but that's just the way it is now. Don't worry there will be a new lead dog's ass for you to stare at someday
Do you think we care? bwahahahahahahaha Idiot!
I wish people advised me to get into government instead of STEM. And this was were the money was supposed to be... jokes on me!
Im going to write my congressman and tell him to fix this, on the double!
Same here, joke's on me.
also learning that if you are highly skilled you'll never move up in the hierarchy because you're too productive executing. Gee ive got everything backwards!
We are comfortable with you at your current position.
Translation : Someone (you) has to do the actual work, we can always find people to kiss ass and "manage"
all this means is, tough shit. you had your chance to get rich and you missed it. now you and most of the rest of your generational progeny will forever be poor fn slaves with or without a paycheck.the only good thing for you is the wealthy will be willing to pay for your ebt card so you don't kill them.
the only good thing for you is the wealthy will be willing to pay for your ebt card so you don't kill them
And you think that is security???
Tell that to the angry homeless hordes about their EBT Cards...which THEY DO NOT HAVE.
They refuse assistance by the Government as they are unwilling to abide by any rules.
You are going to have to build a lot more cages...or start shooting a lot more people, many countless millions of people, if you really want that security.
Guns are the least of your worries as bombs and poisons work much better...against limited access gated communities. Restricted access also means restrited egress. Rockets and shells fly over walls. And since there are many homeless veterans they know the tactics well. And you still feel secure because of your lack of planning?
But you thought that all of that training wuld just evaporate after you sent armies into the foreign nations as cannon fodder to provide for your plunder....But the troops survived and came home....damaged by the experience. You failed to plan for their deaths...although you do label them as a threat to the State, put them on the Watch List and label them terrorist.
Actually the Roman Empire was quite a bit smarter about the troops than the American Empire. Those tropps shared in the plunder.
But Rome still fell and so will America.
But for two decades, we were told there wasn't a class war going on.
Do you mean to tell me that there WAS?
I, for one, am shocked. SHOCKED, I tell ya!
The American middle class was a fluke. It was born out of socialism, when a country stuck in a long deep depression entered the World War and the government took over the factories to build arms. The strong manufacturing sector continued after the war and those workers formed unions to look after their standard of living. The companies didn't like that, so they shipped the jobs to China with the help of their crony politicians. And here we are.
No, there has been a "Middle Class" in every civilization that comprises modernity. Most of standard history is a struggle between an Oligarchy and King with his middle class supporters.
What you might mean is that prosperity is a fluke and that people should get used to being peasants and eating rotten potatoes again. You would be wrong.
I could be wrong. But we have some strong headwinds. 1. Automation (robots and other tech) and more globalization are going to put the hurt on jobs here. Most jobs added recently are crappy service jobs. 2. Debt. Lots and lots of debt. 3. The bozos we call candidates are not even addressing 1 and 2.
You are only wrong if you didn't inhale. Pass the hash pipe and crank
The Doors tape.
Does 1799 France comprise modernity? What about 1917 Russia? 1949 China?
Yes.
Let me inject some arithmetic to this discussion. The middle declined by 10%. The upper INCREASED by 7%. The lower INCREASED by 3%. More folks moved up than moved down by more than 2:1. This could only be seen as a bad situation by those who want to talk the US down. You shorts need to come up with a better story.
Share of income
Middle Income Families
- 1971 - 62%
- 2015 - 43%
lower income families- approx 9%
upper income families- 1971 - 29%
- 2015 - 49%
Its the trend that is most disturbing to me.Man you are really onto something there. If we could just shift even more people from middle to lower class then we would really be posting some great numbers!
In a supposedly (economically) mobile society, upward mobility as well as downward mobility
must be operational. Why? People need to be allowed to do stupid shit--and fail miserably.
Just like they need to be allowed to succeed fabulously stupid shit notwithstanding.
They moved up how? Gubmint checks?
I hate to throw a monkey wrench into the author's thesis, but from the first graph, about 2/3 of those lost from the middle class went to the upper class. I think that's called increasing prosperity. If 2/3 was lost to the lower class, I could understand, but that is just not what is presented.
My thoughts exactly, either it's just a bad graphic, or it lends itself too easily to misinterpretation (in which case it's still a bad graphic).
That's why this article adds the moving graphic. The original graphic is not a good one. Because you need to look at the distribution of gains WITHIN the upper class.
But Donald, "the blond Zorro", will resuscitate it with the click of his fingers and a nod of this toupée...
Oh, Donald what would the US be without youuuuuu ! The American eagle flies once again !
Hey Donald, Zorro was an Hispanic, ya know the guys that you wanna keep out?
Don't bother me with details...I'm the New Messiah !
"Crusaders all ! Islam at our gates! "
Meanwhile in land of Anglo Crusaders 400000 want to vote Donald indesirable !
Ye Gods ! And Eisenhower and FDR saved those effetes from Hitler's ire!
Perfidious Albion ! Now making doe eyes to China !
Trump Vader
*its kinda long and only somewhat funny. I found it amusing, thought id share.
Middle-Class for me is state of mind. Ok if your personal income falls, your expenditure falls unless you take on debt, however just because someone earns above middle income doesn't make them middle-class.
If you lose a good job which reflects your standing and take up low paid work to get by does this mean that you slip down the ladder , so to speak to working class?
No i move around with high earners who don't exude much class and again with tradesman/factory workers who exude plenty.
This middle-class reference is a bit pretentious me thinks
true "high earners" make sport of exclusion.
If youre not one of them, you dont mingle with them.
How much resource do you command?
What we really need is some UFC fighting among that 200K+ group to thin the herd there. Speaking as one of the peasants, there are too many masters so if they could cull it down to less than 100 that would be good...oh and add titles like Earl and Lord to the front of their names would be good too.
Don't worry they will change the definition just in time to save it.
Moral of the story: be the 1%.
(Or coat-tail in the second 1%).
Just play the lottery, bitchez and scratch and pick your way into the upper class. And when you win you'll get a huge check that's long and wide like a sheet of drywall; you'll get to pose with the cardboard check on TEEVEE at a press conference. Then the other 75% of the revenue collected by the lottery goes quietly to the State so that some other people can receive little checks twice a month when they retire at age 49.
how do you define middle class? certain amount of income/assets? if you change those numbers, would you not inc/dec the % of middle class in the population?
Most of the people who think they are Middle Class are deluding themselves. If you have a house, a car, and a steady paycheck it hardly makes you Middle Class if you owe a mortgage, a car loan, and biweekly taxes.
Americans were reduced to peasantry by finance, and they never knew it until now. The American dream was to be free and own your own land. It was not to pay for the privilege of having a mortgage and return the property to the State and its banks when you die.
If you leave your children nothing, you are not even a serf. You are a landless peasant.
Hmmm 25 year old woman, no less, is voting for Trump? Good news, although, I can't say its entirely unexpected. Such a person a few years ago would almost certainly vote for anyone or thing on the left. But, you see, the left has failed the millennial, the very core of their political base. And, not necessarily out of ideological change, but rather, out of practical necessity, the most powerful of influences, this girl and presumably many others are going to vote for Trump or, at least, the right. We've gone way too left in this country. The fucking president, if asked, will tell you that there is no difference between men and women? Meanwhile some assholes adopted a 65 year old man who not only thinks hes a woman but he also thinks and acts like a 6 year old. The same man ran out on his ~ 5 kids. I go outside and look around and I don't see a tim burden movie, I see regular people, period. And us boring and backwards old regular people cannot relate to "transage", not only because its so bizarre but because we can't suspend our grip on reality ergo not insane enough. Things are changing and its about fucking time!
But upper income has increased by 50% in that timeframe.
Note from the Fed: Mission Accomplished!
Yep, I agree: http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Government-the-artificial-cause-of-income-5374498.php, http://www.chrisbaecker.com/blog/borrowing-to-save3