Vanishing Middle Class Reappears

You’ve been hearing for years, the Middle Class is disappearing. The separation between the wealthy and the poor is growing ever wider they keep telling us on TV, in newspapers and left leaning websites. The problem is like so many things we have been told over and over again it just isn’t true.

I have been openly skeptical about the claims of the so-called ‘dying Middle Class’ that has been regurgitated time and again. It was hard for me to believe that the Middle Class was becoming a thing of the past with all the things I saw every day. Restaurants are full and so are parking lots at the mall. Unlike when I was growing up everyone seems to have a newer car. When I was a kid there were a whole lot of rust buckets rambling around on the roads. People had one television not three or four. We didn’t have iPhones and computers in everyone’s house. In fact I see more toys by a factor of ten than I ever did in the 1970’s or 80’s.

If anything I have thought the Middle Class has become larger and more affluent during my lifetime and not the other way around. There is more money both in private hands and in government coffers than ever before. Unfortunately our elected officials have squandered much of what has been given to them and pulled most all of us into the abyss of massive debt. Sadly millions of Americans have followed suit and buried themselves in consumer debt like we have never experienced before.

However, a new report shows that despite the spiraling debt both public and private the economic engine of America continues to pound away unlike any economy on earth. According to the United States Census Bureau the nations median income has reached an all time new high water mark of $59,039. The figure, which is adjusted for inflation surpasses the previous mark, set in 1999.

Poverty has also fallen to its lowest rate in a decade. The latest numbers fron the Census Bureau shows those living in poverty is 12.7 percent. The report also found those without health insurance is down to 8.8 percent thanks in large part to the expansion of welfare in the form of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

The Census numbers are proof positive that the idea that the Middle Class is disappearing is vastly overstated but that seems to be the way news works these days. Words like ‘unprecedented’ or terms like ‘we have never seen anything like this before’ are used far too often in a news industry that is more interested in revenue than actual journalism.

We can protect the re-emerging Middle Class by following the agenda of President Trump when it comes to reducing regulations and lowering taxes on companies and individuals.