What progressives generally say about the economy is unrelentingly pessimistic -- stagnant wages, rising costs, overwhelming burdens of debt. It's a message that doesn't resonate with the middle class -- not only because it's overly negative (by itself political poison), but because it's simply flat out wrong.
- $63,300. That's the 2004 median household income of people in their prime working years, ages 25-59 (it's $70,000 for married households and nearly $80,000 for two-earner households).
- $248,700. That's the median net worth of pre-retirement Americans, ages 55-64.
- Zero. That's the median credit card debt for all American households.
No question, the middle class faces challenges, such as rising costs for health care and college tuition and the declining real earnings for non-college-educated men. There's also no question that the wealthy have received the lion's share of economic growth over the past 25 years. Nevertheless, absolute living standards for the middle class have only improved, even if relative increases in income don't match the gains at the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment