I'll Never Vote for Hillary Clinton

Got any answers, Builder?

It's called free speech. Good speech is simple so all can understand. My boss at Florsheim taught me that.

....based on calculations by the Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels. It shows that from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, income gains under Democratic presidents have been greatest for those at the bottom and tapered off as you moved higher up the income distribution. Precisely the opposite has occurred under Republicans: The income gains were greatest at the top and tapered off as you moved further down the income distribution. The difference evaporated above the 95th percentile; the top 5% did about as well under Democrats as under Republicans. Still, below the 95th percentile the partisan difference was dramatic. I know no stronger evidence that Republicans are the party of the rich and Democrats the party of the middle class and the poor.

Obama’s presidency is a break with this tradition. Under Obama, income gains have been concentrated at the top and nonexistent (or, if you count taxes and transfers, quite small) in the middle and at the bottom. That’s not really Obama’s fault; he has done what he can, most notably with Obamacare and Dodd-Frank.

The real problem is that the economic forces at work since 1979, hugely exacerbated by decades of conservative government policies — of which tax policy is only one, and hardly the most important — have gotten steadily more difficult to change. Inequality is now extremely difficult to reverse, even for a president who’s made reversing it a top priority.

Charts, graphs, and a dead middle class.

Having people at the top getting richer quicker while the people in the middle and bottom stay the same or advance slowly does not mean the middle class is disappearing.

Disappearing middle class jobs
Mark Lieberman, 24/7 Wall St. 8:06 a.m. EDT March 8, 2015
24/7 Wall St. reviewed traditionally middle class occupations that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), are expected to contract in the 2012-22 period. These jobs often require no more than an associate degree and tend to offer only minimal to moderate on-the-job training.

The jobs that are projected to shrink range from office-related occupations such as couriers and messengers, word processors, and switchboard operators to light manufacturing machinists such as extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders who work with metal and plastic.

"A lot of these jobs are disappearing because in part of the increased use of the Internet and company intranets," observed Martin Kohli, chief regional economist at the BLS.

America's disappearing middle class
By Tami Luhby January 28, 2014: 6:00 AM ET

Fewer and fewer people are feeling middle class these days.

The share of Americans who describe themselves as middle class has taken a tumble, while the percentage who identify as lower class has soared over the past six years, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center/USA Today. The share of Americans who consider themselves upper class has also shrunk.

This downward shift is likely due to falling wages and the weak job market, said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project. The survey notes that median household income fell from $55,627 in 2007 to $51,017 in 2012, the most recent Census data available. And employment in middle-skill jobs increased only 46% between 1980 and 2009, compared to 110% for low-skill jobs, according to a New York Federal Reserve Bank analysis.

"Despite the economic recovery, the economic mood continues to head south," Kochhar said.

The U.S. job market is expected to grow by about 7% over the next decade. At that rate, roughly 10 million more Americans will be employed by 2024.

However, these new jobs are not likely to be created evenly across all occupations and industries. The nation’s middle class has been shrinking at what some call an alarming rate, and even as the nation’s job market is expected to grow, demand for many mid- to low-skilled, primarily middle class positions is expected to rapidly decline. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a loss of hundreds of thousands of such jobs in the coming years due to outsourcing and the development of new technology.

Jun 7, 2014 @ 12:01 PM 8,836 views
The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Middle Class Jobs Are Disappearing And The Fed Is The Culprit

Jeffrey Dorfman
Two big disappointments in the recent recovery have been the sluggish job growth and the continued underemployment of many people who had solidly middle class jobs before the recession but are now struggling to make ends meet with much lower incomes. Rick Newman recently detailed how routine jobs which used to help populate the middle class are disappearing. Essentially, lots of low-wage jobs are hard to automate and the same is true for most high-skill jobs. Unfortunately, many middle class jobs are “routine” according to the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and can be automated. Thus, machines replace people and we get a jobless recovery. What is missing from this story is the villain, but I can reveal its identity here.

Two big disappointments in the recent recovery have been the sluggish job growth and the continued underemployment of many people who had solidly middle class jobs before the recession but are now struggling to make ends meet with much lower incomes

I don't see any responses containing facts from either of you, just links. Figures.

And you, Lash, and George all get madder than wet hens....

And yet, you are unable to produce those facts on the forum.