The working class is getting royally screwed.

A

American Man

Verified User
It's no secret that CEOs are wealthier now than at any time in history. What is less known, however, is that the working class is poorer than it has been in generations.

Consider:

In 1974, my grandfather was a 20-something mechanic earning $6.25 per hour. It may not sound like a whole lot of money, but when you account for inflation, $6.25/hr in 1974 is equal to $36.65/hr in 2022.

His highest education is a high school diploma and by his 20s he was earning the equivalent of $36/hr.

This is why America is falling apart. It's not because of the left or the right, but the left and the right -- the wealthy elites stealing and hoarding our hard-earned wealth, bit by bit over the decades, and we're left with empty pockets and a struggle to survive.
 
Yup, they are getting screwed by those who inherited millions of dollars, its the American way... I call it economic slavery.

We need desperately to shift the tax burden from the lower middle class back to the wealthy, but it aint going to happen any time soon.
 
The problem with using terms as “working class” or “lower classes” is as Eugene Debs pointed out back in the 1920’s, people in America don’t want to be identified as the “working class,” the semantics never really fit American psyche

Middle class would be more appropriate, and yes, it has vanished with the income gap, we had a huge income redistribution since the turn of the century, from middle to top. The fading of the labor unions had a lot to do with it, there was a reason why such as the Koch declared war on the Unions, wanted everyone competing for the minimum salary job

Is it correctable, sure, but not in the direction we are going
 
archives said:
The problem with using terms as “working class” or “lower classes” is as Eugene Debs pointed out back in the 1920’s, people in America don’t want to be identified as the “working class,” the semantics never really fit American psyche

Middle class would be more appropriate, and yes, it has vanished with the income gap, we had a huge income redistribution since the turn of the century, from middle to top. The fading of the labor unions had a lot to do with it, there was a reason why such as the Koch declared war on the Unions, wanted everyone competing for the minimum salary job

Is it correctable, sure, but not in the direction we are going
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and globalization.....
 
This is a complex situation. There is nothing simple about it. The rich and powerful exert an outsized influence over our government because corruption is legal. People on both sides of the isle agree that big money has too much control in government, but there is too much apathy, which leads most to assume nothing can be done about it. (That is incorrect. There is much which can be done, but we lack the strive and organization to accomplish progress on that front.)

As long as the rich and powerful control government, they will increase their wealth and power. The 99% will continue to lose.

As long as apathy reigns, and people believe nothing can be done about the situation, no progress will be made.

To complicate that little dynamic, consider that big money spends heavily on the promulgation of propaganda which keeps people emotionally hateful of government and politics in general. As long as things remain on an emotional basis, a logical solution will not be realized.

Congress will not vote to end the legal corruption. Congress must be largely replaced with people who make that a priority. But every election is dominated by emotional propaganda, making people sick and tired of hearing about the whole thing. So we simply get more of the same. It won't change until people get better educated and take the initiative to get informed and vote.

Good people are not voting in great enough numbers to make a difference. Too many voters are motivated by hateful propaganda and not well enough informed. If they vote at all. Remember the apathy thing. Good people simply become disgusted with the whole thing and decide to avoid getting well enough informed to vote with confidence. Since they don't know what to do, they don't vote. Easy choice in this busy world.

Our self created government relies on the active monitoring of the progress of our country by every citizen. People really need to learn what's going on and get involved. What we have instead is the active participation of misguided emotional people who have been persuaded to actually vote against their own better interest, based on wedge issues.

We can fix corruption. It won't be easy, but it is entirely possible. We already have all the tools we need. It will just take a long time. Perhaps longer than many of us will live. It was the same way with the women's vote. People who fought for that were already dead when it finally happened.

Should we avoid fixing corruption because it won't happen instantly?

Apathy says yes, don't try, it's not worth it.

Fixing corruption
 
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American Man said:
It's no secret that CEOs are wealthier now than at any time in history. What is less known, however, is that the working class is poorer than it has been in generations.

Consider:

In 1974, my grandfather was a 20-something mechanic earning $6.25 per hour. It may not sound like a whole lot of money, but when you account for inflation, $6.25/hr in 1974 is equal to $36.65/hr in 2022.

His highest education is a high school diploma and by his 20s he was earning the equivalent of $36/hr.

This is why America is falling apart. It's not because of the left or the right, but the left and the right -- the wealthy elites stealing and hoarding our hard-earned wealth, bit by bit over the decades, and we're left with empty pockets and a struggle to survive.
Click to expand...

It's because we live in a society of special interests, where greed is the main interest of the powerful and advantaged.

Even among some of America's hardest working Americans, the powerful and advantaged divide us up through pure hatred and fear by using wedge issues like Guns, Abortions, taxes and who should be paying them and who shouldn't pay them, LGBTQ issues, and creating a racial divide in America through Hate Politics like CRT and Replacement conspiracy theories, Fake News, WHat-about-isms, and LIES.

If the rich and powerful can control your emotional state and hate meter, they can control Political power.

Many people go to the polls and vote against their best interests.

I can honestly say that the only party that works for the working class are the Democrats.

Republicans are too hung up with their own hatred against others than they are their own personal welfare, income levels, health, or rights.

Republicans are too busy hating change, minorities, gays, transgenders, and women's rights to know the Republicans are manipulating them and using them for their voting power.

Donald Trump- THE OBVIOUS REPUBLICAN LEADER ADMITS IT- "I LOVE STUPID PEOPLE- BECAUSE THEY VOTE FOR ME"!
 
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Geeko Sportivo said:
I can honestly say that the only party that works for the working class are the Democrats.
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youre-seriously-fucked-up.jpg
 
American Man said:
It's not because of the left or the right, but the left and the right -- the wealthy elites stealing and hoarding our hard-earned wealth, bit by bit over the decades, and we're left with empty pockets and a struggle to survive.
Click to expand...

I think it's inaccurate to treat this as a "both sides" thing. While you can complain that the left hasn't done more, there's a SPECTACULAR difference between what has happened under Democratic leadership and Republican leadership.

Take the poverty rate as an example, since that's really the test when it comes to the working class: are things getting better, such that more of them are climbing out of poverty and into the middle class? Or are things getting worse, such that more of them are sliding into poverty?

The data is here:

https://www2.census.gov/programs-su...series/historical-poverty-people/hstpov2.xlsx

What it says is really striking. We know what the change in the poverty rate is for every year from 1960 to 2000. During years with a Democratic president, the cumulative change in the poverty rate is negative 12.2. In other words, 12.2% of all Americans aren't in poverty but would be if not for those Democrat-led improvements. Meanwhile, in years with Republican presidents, the poverty rate ROSE cumulatively, 1.2 points.

So, we're just not talking about a "both sides are lousy" equivalency here. We're talking about extremely rapid improvement when we have Democratic presidents, and slow worsening when we have Republican ones.

The "bothsiderist" line of talking points is seductive, since it allows us to feel like we're big-picture people, above the petty squabbles of partisan politics. But what should ultimately matter to us isn't whether a talking point flatters our way of viewing ourselves, but rather whether it's accurate. And as a simple matter of historical fact, there's been a gigantic difference, for the working class, between how the left and the right treat them.
 
Geeko Sportivo said:
I can honestly say that the only party that works for the working class are the Democrats.
Click to expand...

Exactly! Too many people allow themselves to be seduced by bothsiderist rhetoric. They write off the Democrats along with the Republicans because it feels good to frame oneself as too cool for both parties. But that gives rise to a mindset where the wealthy vote consistently for the Republicans, while the middle and lower classes drift in and out of voting, convincing themselves many years that it doesn't matter because both sides are basically the same. That lets the GOP have power without having to earn it by actually serving most of us. And that bothsiderist view is just plain wrong. The Democrats may be terribly flawed, but they're terribly flawed in the way a stale sandwich is, whereas the GOP is flawed in the same sense as a can full of botulism. As a practical matter, we are going to end up relying on one or the other, and pretending they're basically the same is suicidally stupid.
 
I'm sorry, but neither party really cares about the working class. It truly is a matter of the haves and have-nots, regardless of politics.
 
Mina said:
I think it's inaccurate to treat this as a "both sides" thing. While you can complain that the left hasn't done more, there's a SPECTACULAR difference between what has happened under Democratic leadership and Republican leadership.

Take the poverty rate as an example, since that's really the test when it comes to the working class: are things getting better, such that more of them are climbing out of poverty and into the middle class? Or are things getting worse, such that more of them are sliding into poverty?

The data is here:

https://www2.census.gov/programs-su...series/historical-poverty-people/hstpov2.xlsx

What it says is really striking. We know what the change in the poverty rate is for every year from 1960 to 2000. During years with a Democratic president, the cumulative change in the poverty rate is negative 12.2. In other words, 12.2% of all Americans aren't in poverty but would be if not for those Democrat-led improvements. Meanwhile, in years with Republican presidents, the poverty rate ROSE cumulatively, 1.2 points.

So, we're just not talking about a "both sides are lousy" equivalency here. We're talking about extremely rapid improvement when we have Democratic presidents, and slow worsening when we have Republican ones.

The "bothsiderist" line of talking points is seductive, since it allows us to feel like we're big-picture people, above the petty squabbles of partisan politics. But what should ultimately matter to us isn't whether a talking point flatters our way of viewing ourselves, but rather whether it's accurate. And as a simple matter of historical fact, there's been a gigantic difference, for the working class, between how the left and the right treat them.
Click to expand...
Clinton signed NAFTA into law
Clinton's welfare reform took food stamps away from 10s of millions of children
Clinton's repeal of Glass–Steagall resulted in banksters pillaging the US treasury
Obama bailed out the banksters yet allowed for millions of illegal foreclosures
Obama started at least 5 new wars that left the fed insolvent
Obama is still pushing for a TPP that removes environmental protections
Biden is trying to instigate WW3 with Russia and China

Dems need to own up to their screwing of the working class.
 
Jarod said:
Yup, they are getting screwed by those who inherited millions of dollars, its the American way... I call it economic slavery.

We need desperately to shift the tax burden from the lower middle class back to the wealthy, but it aint going to happen any time soon.
Click to expand...

wouldn't the lower middle class be in the bottom 50% of tax payers?.......the ones who pay no federal income taxes?.......
 
goat said:
Clinton signed NAFTA into law
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Yes, and where the working class had been sliding over the course of the 20 years before that, it gained after that. Were you aware of that? Were you aware that over the course of the two decades before NAFTA, the poverty rate rose, unemployment rates rose, and median real incomes hardly budged at all? Were you aware that after NAFTA became law, the poverty rate plummeted, unemployment rates fell, and median real incomes soared?

Clinton's welfare reform took food stamps away from 10s of millions of children
Click to expand...

Were you aware that the poverty rate for children rose 7.9 points in the two decades before Clinton took office, but then plummeted 6.1 points on his watch?

Clinton's repeal of Glass–Steagall resulted in banksters pillaging the US treasury
Click to expand...

Were you aware that Glass-Steagall never actually got repealed, and instead all that happened is that certain provisions of it were repealed-- the major one being the rule against common ownership of retail and investment banks? Were you aware that the Treasury made a profit on its bailouts of the banks?

Obama started at least 5 new wars that left the fed insolvent
Click to expand...

Were you aware that before Obama took office, military spending was a much larger share of GDP than it was by the end of his presidency, and that before he took office we were suffering much higher rates of KIA's in foreign military engagements?

Obama is still pushing for a TPP that removes environmental protections
Click to expand...

He is? Do you have a link to him currently doing that?

Biden is trying to instigate WW3 with Russia and China
Click to expand...

What makes you think that?

Dems need to own up to their screwing of the working class.
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You need to own up to the measurable facts. When Democrats have led, on average, the real median income growth has been strong, unemployment rates have fallen, and poverty rates have plummeted... none of which is true for Republican have led. Don't the facts have a place in this discussion?
 
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American Man said:
It's no secret that CEOs are wealthier now than at any time in history. What is less known, however, is that the working class is poorer than it has been in generations.

Consider:

In 1974, my grandfather was a 20-something mechanic earning $6.25 per hour. It may not sound like a whole lot of money, but when you account for inflation, $6.25/hr in 1974 is equal to $36.65/hr in 2022.

His highest education is a high school diploma and by his 20s he was earning the equivalent of $36/hr.

This is why America is falling apart. It's not because of the left or the right, but the left and the right -- the wealthy elites stealing and hoarding our hard-earned wealth, bit by bit over the decades, and we're left with empty pockets and a struggle to survive.
Click to expand...

1. We are no longer in the Industrial Age. We've progressed to the Electronics Age. A different set of skills are now often needed, just as in the Industrial Age from the prior Rennaissance Age, and the Ancient period before it.

2. Who gives a shit what the CEO makes if your wage is satisfactory for you? All you're doing is playing the Leftist class warfare theories of Marx by demanding "fair and equal."

3. America is falling apart because the Left is increasingly gaining control of government and policy. That happens everywhere the Left gets in charge.
 
The Revolution is hammering the Middle Class even more than the Working Class, as Revolutions tend to do, because it is the only for them to maintain power.
 
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