Chaz Valenza - It's Official -- Gov Stats Shows the Middle Class is Dead
January 5, 2012 There was once a middle class in America, and if you were an average worker you were part of it, but not anymore.
Peruse last year's government figures for the average American family's spending and debt. The conclusion is dumbfounding: it's official, 2011 was the year the middle class died.
Long live the "Lower Class"
To Americans, being middle class means two things: more or less average wages that paid for life's necessities with cash leftover for discretionary spending.
In a country where those from the marginally poor to the marginally rich claim to be in the middle, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) set a factual standard: the Average American Consumer Unit.
The BLS's statistically computed family, with 2.5 humans and 1.3 workers, is a fictional construct. But, it is also the one true benchmark that pinpoints the dead center of the American worker's economic situation.
Read More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Middle-Class-Vanishes-by-Chaz-Valenza-120101-954.html
