Time Is Running Out For the Great American Middle Class

Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, partisans on both sides of the aisle have argued over the size, shape, and sustainability of the recovery of the American economy. Anti-Obama forces insisted that the recovery was anemic during his administration, while anti-Trump forces insist that he’s taking credit for the economic recovery begun by his predecessor. In truth, if the data is to be believed – there hasn’t been much of an economic difference between the two. The reality is that the US is now just a few months shy of notching the longest sustained economic expansion in its’ history, and unemployment has hit a 49-year low. For the general public, however, this “boom” has been a pyrrhic victory.

That’s because the average American isn’t sharing in any of this economic good news. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wage growth in the US has been flatlining in recent months, continuing a trend that’s been in evidence since the 1970s. At the same time, household debt has now climbed past where it was before the financial crisis, as families from coast to coast struggle to keep up with costs of living that are out of sync with their ability to earn a decent wage.

Broadly speaking, even some of the headlines trumpeting good economic news have been dangerously misleading – like the reports of booming soybean sales that failed to mention the sharp downturn that happened immediately afterward. They’re the kinds of stories that news outlets can get away with since only those with direct ties to an affected industry would be able to spot the obvious deception they involve. If you’re a careful observer, though, you can even spot some more troubling indicators of economic disruption on the horizon.

Consider the voluminous reports coming out of industry analysts like Bain and Company, who are warning that we’re less than a decade away from seeing automation eliminate as many as 25% of the available jobs in the US. Their take on the subject tracks with the consensus career roadmaps now on offer to students of today – but ignores the fact that we’re setting up a whole generation of kids to fight over a dwindling number of available positions – which will exert further downward pressure on wages.

The bottom line here is that we’re witnessing an economy in the early stages of a meltdown, and it’s being aided and abetted by political forces on all sides who are keen to curry the favor of the eventual survivors of the coming plunge off of the economic cliff edge. Consider that the two biggest results of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act were to drive corporate tax receipts down to pre-financial crisis levels, and to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the Federal Treasury. Those two outcomes weren’t bugs – they were precisely what the bill’s authors intended.

On the other side of the political spectrum, we now see calls for massive infrastructure investments, costly new social programs, and all manner of additional regulation – all of which will coincide with a debt-to-GDP ratio that’s already looking like those of Europe’s biggest socialist democracies before any new spending is added. In practice, that makes most of the plans little more than a sop to the uninformed masses who don’t yet realize that there won’t be any way to pay for any of them.

Taken together, all of this adds up to one inescapable conclusion – the US economy has already left the average American behind, and it’s not coming back on its own. On top of that, the pace of its’ departure is accelerating, and there’s not going to be a real safety net left behind for those on the wrong side of the wealth divide. That means that there’s precious little time left for those in the great middle to do something to wrest back control of the country they hold so dear – and that’s to see through the duplicity being espoused by conventional politicians of all stripes, and start to work to elect candidates that are truly “of the people, for the people, and by the people”. It’s still not too late, but the clock is ticking, so take heed and spread the word.