“[The] lack of upward mobility has jeopardized middle-class Americas basic bargain that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead. (from Obama’s May appearance on David Letterman)”

The Middle Class?

How do you define middle class? Is In this article by Alan Nasser for Global Research he argues that one firmly “entrenched myth of the American ideology is that the United States is a middle class society.” His own research concludes “the US working class has always been poor.”

His historical look at the fabled middle class provides a different view of the “land of opportunity.” Nasser says, “America has always had a sizable class of permanently poor people and that it is just factually false that those ready, willing and able to work are on the path to middle class status.” In other words the working class has no real upward mobility.

Working Class, Wage Earners

Working class is the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages. Time is traded for money. A simple strategy to put food on the table and that’s about it. Working class folks are caught in the rats treadmill. Holding down several jobs just to break even. Even that is sometimes not enough. You know your potential is limited by the number of hours you have in a day.

As a wage earner in America you are growing more dissatisfied with your employment. So much so, according to the Conference Board (circa 2010 Job Satisfaction) Survey, not only were 55% of the respondents dissatisfied, 22% of them did not expect to be in their current job in a year. In the 2015 survey those satisfied in their current employment grew to 47%. The 53% majority, are still dissatisfied and looking for answers acheter cialis en ligne.

Is the American dream even possible for the debt burdened, underemployed graduate student to earn his way to the middle class? This article will shed some light on “Middle Class” and why working for wages just won’t get you there.

There Has Never Been an American “Middle Class”. The U.S. Working Class Has Always Been Poor | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Alan Nasser

One of the most firmly entrenched myths of The American Ideology is that the U.S. is a “middle class society,” a “land of opportunity” where anyone who works hard has the opportunity to achieve the standard of living which has made America “the envy of the world.” A common, and spot on, rejoinder has been to remind us that America has always had a sizable class of permanently poor people and that it is just factually false that those ready, willing and able to work are on the path to middle class status.

But does this reply concede too much? Has there ever been a substantial middle class in America? Or has a poor working class been able to mask its condition by accessing an institution that has disguised a large portion of a poor working class as a middle class? The best place to start is with the history of the modern American middle class.

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