I certainly don’t expect things to turn around in my lifetime. The future I want would require radical, systemic changes, but most Americans don’t want anything to radically change. That doesn’t mean a majority of Americans are happy with things the way they are, not at all, but they don’t want to radically change anything, despite their unhappiness. The majority of Americans want things to get better without anything fundamentally changing. I believe that’s one of the definitions of insanity.
Not wanting to fight a civil war =/= not wanting radical change
I guarantee we’d have a very different nation if individual issues and policies were put to a vote, as they are in some European nations.
As if Americans have any control over the change. Even if they/we did want it our capitalist overlords would never allow it to happen. They only want the illusion of freedom.
I’m certainly not suggesting that wanting change is all that’s required for change to happen, but it is a very necessary first step.
If we’re not expecting anything to ever get better, there’s a solution to that too; rather the opposite of “business as usual.”
That’s not middle class…
I don’t know if it has its own name, but it’s like the Overton window in politics.
Average people assume that they’re average and middle class means average, so they’re “middle class” despite having three figures in saving, no home equity, and a retirement account that will never be enough to retire.
Prior generations at least built up home equity over a lifetime.
The “middle class” is currently defined by arbitrary income levels, not purchasing power. Considering the cost of living disparity across the US it’s an absolutely useless measure.
To be in the middle class 50 years ago, you were able to buy a reasonable family house on one income. To do that today if you’re in an area where the cost of living isn’t absolutely bottom of the barrel you’ve got to make what is currently considered “upper middle class” income or slightly above.
Middle class living is relegated to upper middle class incomes while middle and lower middle class have to rent that lifestyle.
upper middle class incomes
The middle class died the day they had to make the “upper middle class” a thing…
That’s the wealth distribution middle class was supposed to be. But it shrank down so much they had to make new class distinctions up.
In pre-revolution France, the bourgeois were the middle class.
99% in poverty.
O.99% bourgeois
0.01%, the aristocrats!
That distribution wasn’t sustainable back then, it’s not sustainable now.
As wealth concentrates at the top, there’s less for everyone else, and we’re all poor.
"65 percent of Americans who are considered “middle class,” earning above 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), are in a financial struggle. "
That sounds more like a problem with the definition of the federal poverty level than it is a problem with the middle class.
If you’re struggling, you aren’t middle class.
Federal Poverty Level for 2024 is dependent on household size:
https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/federal-poverty-guidelines/
Oh, man, now I have to see if Lemmy can do tables… Hmmm nope!
Size - 100% - 200%
1 - $15,060 - $30,120
2 - $20,440 - $40,880
3 - $25,820 - $51,640
4 - $31,200 - $62,400
5 - $36,580 - $73,160
6 - $41,960 - $83,920
7 - $47,340 - $94,680
8 - $52,720 - $105,440
Each person over 8, add $5,380 - $10,760So let’s take the prototypical nuclear family, 2 parents, 2 kids.
$62,400 is 200% poverty. I could see that being a struggle. I think maybe what we need is to re-define the poverty level.
Size - 100% - 200%
1 - $31,200 - $62,400
2 - $36,580 - $73,160
3 - $41,960 - $83,920
4 - $47,340 - $94,680
5 - $52,720 - $105,440
6 - $58,100 - $116,200
7 - $63,480 - $126,960
8 - $68,860 - $137,720
Each person over 8, add $5,380 - $10,760Yeah, and consider how bad it is for the class below the middle class. We’re literally fucking drowning in debt.
I had to dig a bit, but I found out the source poll’s threshold for “middle class”: 200% or more past the poverty line.
The poverty line is about $15k for individuals. People making $30k a year are, clearly, not middle class. The current standard puts the beginning of middle class in the low $50k’s.
This is doomer clickbait bullshit.
To hell with the middle class, what about the working class? You know, the ones that get all the physical labor done so you can get your next day Amazon order before hitting the Starbucks.
We’ve really bastardized the terms middle class and working class. It’s feeding into the class warfare that is being used against us.
If you have to physically work for a living, you are working class. Let’s point our ire at the correct people here.
Speaking of class only contributed to class warfare only insofar as you see class warfare as the inevitable outcome of class distinctions.
the working class is the middle class.
unless you mean people who are in poverty.
It’s not a “who is suffering more” contest. Bad things are bad things because they’re bad.
You will own nothing and be happy.
Have they tried investing in GME? and Hodling?
