Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Myth of the Middle Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in
Savings
________________________________________
Myth of the Middle Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in Savings
By Ben Norton [1] / Salon [2]
January 14, 2016
American politicians constantly speak of the middle class. Democrats,
Republicans and even many independents all insist their policies defend it.
But what does it really mean? This question is rarely asked. What exactly is
the middle class?
A new study suggests that the U.S. hardly even has one.
More than half of Americans - 56 percent, to be exact - have less than
$1,000 combined in their checking and savings accounts, according to a
recent survey, Forbes reported [3].
This is to say, most Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Furthermore, almost two-thirds of Americans - 63 percent - do not have
enough in their savings for an emergency. A substantial majority of
Americans would need to borrow money if faced with an unexpected expense.
U.S. politicians frequently rant about supposed "American exceptionalism,"
but, compared to other industrialized nations, the U.S. has grossly
disproportionate poverty rates.
Roughly 15 percent of Americans live in poverty [4] - 46.7 million people,
in 2014. Close to one in every four American children suffers from poverty.
And, among black and Latina/o Americans, the economic hardship is even
worse.
This poverty has tangible, evident implications. It means that the U.S. has
the sixth-highest hunger rate out of all of the economically developed OECD
nations.
In other words, more people go hungry in the U.S. than do in Poland and the
Slovak Republic. Slightly fewer people go hungry in the U.S. than in
Estonia. And hunger is much less widespread in the poverty-stricken nations
of India and Brazil.
Politicians constantly insist that the U.S. is the putative "leader of the
world," but why does this matter if it does not translate into positive
gains for actual working-class citizens? The U.S. may be the most powerful
country in the world, economically and militarily speaking, but if this does
not bring with it a high standard of living or ensure well-being for
citizens, it ultimately does not matter; it simply benefits the rich, and
the rich alone.
And the rich is exactly who benefits.
The richest 0.1 percent of Americans have almost as much wealth [5] as the
bottom 90 percent. 160,000 families have as much money as around 290 million
Americans.
Globally, the figure is even more stark. The richest 1 percent is estimated
to have more wealth than 99 percent [6] of the people on the planet.
Put a bit differently, 7.23 billion human beings have less wealth than 70
million.
Increasingly, "middle class" is an ideological term, not an objective one.
As the moribund middle of the economy shrinks, poverty becomes more and more
mainstream. Terms like "middle class" simply serve to normalize the myth of
the American Dream which, as the dissentious comedian George Carlin [7]
infamously put it, you have to be asleep to believe.
Meanwhile, income inequality is constantly on the rise. It is at the highest
it has been since 1928 [8] - the eve of the Great Depression.
President Obama admitted in his final State of the Union address [9] that
Wall Street was responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, but Wall Street
is precisely the one who benefited from it. None of the banking executives
who crashed the economy and robbed millions of American were punished. And,
in the eight years since then, income inequality has only continued to grow.
If most Americans do not have any savings, and this number is rising, the
term "middle class" is useless. Politicians and news outlets may try to
redefine it, but, if a majority of a country's citizens live
paycheck-to-paycheck, that country has been hollowed out - replaced with an
inverted bell curve whose peaks are getting farther and farther apart and
whose trough is so overstretched it will eventually burst.
It is time to admit it: There is no middle class; there is only the working
class and the ruling class - the economic elite.
Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter
at @BenjaminNorton [10].
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [11]
[12]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/myth-middle-class-most-americans-dont-even-h
ave-1000-savings
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ben-norton-0
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-americans-dont-ha
ve-enough-savings-to-cover-a-500-emergency/#2715e4857a0b313a03186dde
[4]
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/18/ben_carson_blasted_north_korea_for_spending_
money_on_the_military_instead_of_the_hungry_has_he_looked_at_his_own_country
/
[5] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/11/income-inequality-rise-1-percent
[6]
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/blogs/2015/01/richest-1-per-cent-will-own-more-than-
all-the-rest-by-2016
[7]
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1858074_18580
85_1858083,00.html
[8]
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-ris
e-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/
[9]
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/13/obamas_hypocrisy_he_said_blame_wall_street_n
ot_food_stamps_but_he_bailed_out_bankers_and_cut_help_for_the_hungry/
[10] http://twitter.com/benjaminnorton
[11] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Myth of the Middle
Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in Savings
[12] http://www.alternet.org/
[13] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Myth of the Middle Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in
Savings
Myth of the Middle Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in Savings
By Ben Norton [1] / Salon [2]
January 14, 2016
American politicians constantly speak of the middle class. Democrats,
Republicans and even many independents all insist their policies defend it.
But what does it really mean? This question is rarely asked. What exactly is
the middle class?
A new study suggests that the U.S. hardly even has one.
More than half of Americans - 56 percent, to be exact - have less than
$1,000 combined in their checking and savings accounts, according to a
recent survey, Forbes reported [3].
This is to say, most Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Furthermore, almost two-thirds of Americans - 63 percent - do not have
enough in their savings for an emergency. A substantial majority of
Americans would need to borrow money if faced with an unexpected expense.
U.S. politicians frequently rant about supposed "American exceptionalism,"
but, compared to other industrialized nations, the U.S. has grossly
disproportionate poverty rates.
Roughly 15 percent of Americans live in poverty [4] - 46.7 million people,
in 2014. Close to one in every four American children suffers from poverty.
And, among black and Latina/o Americans, the economic hardship is even
worse.
This poverty has tangible, evident implications. It means that the U.S. has
the sixth-highest hunger rate out of all of the economically developed OECD
nations.
In other words, more people go hungry in the U.S. than do in Poland and the
Slovak Republic. Slightly fewer people go hungry in the U.S. than in
Estonia. And hunger is much less widespread in the poverty-stricken nations
of India and Brazil.
Politicians constantly insist that the U.S. is the putative "leader of the
world," but why does this matter if it does not translate into positive
gains for actual working-class citizens? The U.S. may be the most powerful
country in the world, economically and militarily speaking, but if this does
not bring with it a high standard of living or ensure well-being for
citizens, it ultimately does not matter; it simply benefits the rich, and
the rich alone.
And the rich is exactly who benefits.
The richest 0.1 percent of Americans have almost as much wealth [5] as the
bottom 90 percent. 160,000 families have as much money as around 290 million
Americans.
Globally, the figure is even more stark. The richest 1 percent is estimated
to have more wealth than 99 percent [6] of the people on the planet.
Put a bit differently, 7.23 billion human beings have less wealth than 70
million.
Increasingly, "middle class" is an ideological term, not an objective one.
As the moribund middle of the economy shrinks, poverty becomes more and more
mainstream. Terms like "middle class" simply serve to normalize the myth of
the American Dream which, as the dissentious comedian George Carlin [7]
infamously put it, you have to be asleep to believe.
Meanwhile, income inequality is constantly on the rise. It is at the highest
it has been since 1928 [8] - the eve of the Great Depression.
President Obama admitted in his final State of the Union address [9] that
Wall Street was responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, but Wall Street
is precisely the one who benefited from it. None of the banking executives
who crashed the economy and robbed millions of American were punished. And,
in the eight years since then, income inequality has only continued to grow.
If most Americans do not have any savings, and this number is rising, the
term "middle class" is useless. Politicians and news outlets may try to
redefine it, but, if a majority of a country's citizens live
paycheck-to-paycheck, that country has been hollowed out - replaced with an
inverted bell curve whose peaks are getting farther and farther apart and
whose trough is so overstretched it will eventually burst.
It is time to admit it: There is no middle class; there is only the working
class and the ruling class - the economic elite.
Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter
at @BenjaminNorton [10].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [11]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[12]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/myth-middle-class-most-americans-dont-even-h
ave-1000-savings
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ben-norton-0
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-americans-dont-ha
ve-enough-savings-to-cover-a-500-emergency/#2715e4857a0b313a03186dde
[4]
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/18/ben_carson_blasted_north_korea_for_spending_
money_on_the_military_instead_of_the_hungry_has_he_looked_at_his_own_country
/
[5] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/11/income-inequality-rise-1-percent
[6]
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/blogs/2015/01/richest-1-per-cent-will-own-more-than-
all-the-rest-by-2016
[7]
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1858074_18580
85_1858083,00.html
[8]
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-ris
e-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/
[9]
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/13/obamas_hypocrisy_he_said_blame_wall_street_n
ot_food_stamps_but_he_bailed_out_bankers_and_cut_help_for_the_hungry/
[10] http://twitter.com/benjaminnorton
[11] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Myth of the Middle
Class: Most Americans Don't Even Have $1,000 in Savings
[12] http://www.alternet.org/
[13] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
