Death of the Middle Class
Henry Ford paid his workers a wage substantial enough to allow them to buy his product. He realized that a strong middle class is key to economic prosperity. In the ensuing hundred years we’ve forgotten that principal. The US middle class is rapidly disappearing. The top 1% of Americans now control 40% of the nation’s wealth.
In sharp contrast, the developing nations of the world are poised to increase their middle class exponentially in the next twenty years. North America and Europe today account for 54% of the world’s middle class, but according to the Brookings Institute, this percentage will drop to 21% by 2030. The Asia Pacific region alone will see a middle class increase of 514%; The number of middle class North Americans is projected to drop by 5%.
The result will be that in this country a few super-rich will enjoy a fairytale lifestyle and the rest of us will be forced to accept infrastructure deterioration, more crowded classrooms, and a downward adjustment of our aspirations every year. Without a vibrant middle class we will never emerge from our present economic malaise. Those of us who still consider ourselves middle class must stop drinking the tax-cut, anti-government-spending (except to bomb the rest of the world into thinking like us) kool-aid being promulgated by the richest 1%, or we’ll find ourselves a footnote to the history of the world economy.
