Society has been built on three main income classes known as the poor, the middle class, and the rich. It is everyone’s desire to be in the rich category, however, it does not always work as one would imagine. Some will be lucky and be born into wealth as some will not be so lucky and be born into poverty and middle class. In American society, most working families fall into the middle class category, but as time progressed, the great American middle class is slowly shrinking and is no longer so great.
It is shrinking steadily, according to economists and politicians, where millions of Americans income is not enough to raise their family and they have to maintain a second job. It can be stated that the middle class citizens stopped believing in the American Dream. The gap between the rich and poor has widened in America where the odds of someone climbing from poverty to wealth is less likely to occur, leaving the current generation to be viewed as being in the same economic class as their parents were 35 or 40 years ago. In the present day, most people are living from pay-check to pay-check, maintaining the small income their receiving because the cost of living has risen while salaries have stayed the same.
Many researchers wonder why America’s middle class is shrinking, but they failed to realize that people are ignorant when it comes to social classes. In Gregory Mantsios’s article “Class in America”, he focuses on the idea that the class an individual is born into significantly impacts the kind of life they will be living. Mantsios discussed four commonly beliefs that society expresses about social classes and completely disagrees with them. He argues that social classes do exist in America and it affects everyone’s life in different ways.
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Secondly, he states that America is not a middle class nation because of its economic disparities that includes poverty. He also disagrees with the idea that America is moving up in the economic and social ladder, and finally, he refutes the idea that everyone has an equal chance to succeed. Based on Mantsios thoughts, it seems he is making fun of the idea that everyone has the possibility of being financially stable in America by sacrificing things, putting in hard work, staying determined to achieve goals and having persistence. However, the saying goes “it is easier said than done” and the goals everyone set does not happen the way they have planned. Often, circumstances in life happens where it puts that individual a step back.
In Mantsios argument, he uses statistics and examples to support the ideas he refutes. He states that “six percent of America’s capital is essentially by about 60% of the nation’s population”. He discussed how the middle class earnings progressively dropped since 1979 to the early 2000s. The rich earnings rather than expanded. The author refers to the decline of net worth which occurred in the 90s that was characterized as global economic prosperity. Based on author’s explanation, he was emphasizing that the government failed to create more opportunities for the people to have the money that is necessary to fill their needs and most of their desires which was a disadvantage of economic prosperity.
By what the author stated, he expressed that the middle class in America is shrinking because of the government and society’s disbelief of social economic classes. The economy may be in a good place right now, but many Americans are struggling to afford a middle class lifestyle. According to a study conducted by the United Way ALICE Project, 43% of Americas cannot afford to accommodate all their basic needs because their income limits their ability since they have to budget everything which includes, housing, health care, transportations, cell phone payments, and food. The results also include the 16.1 million of people who are living in poverty. These individuals income is less than what is required to survive in the modern economy.
The director of the project Stephanie Hoopes stated that the data shows many financial hardships that continues being a problem in the current day. Some areas that have many struggling families are California, New Mexico and Hawaii at 49%. They cannot afford to live a decent life since their income is not enough. People are striving to make ends meet with the little that they do save, but it does not always get them by. They continue to struggle and face many financial difficulties. In Andrew Miller’s article “Why I America’s Middle Class Shrinking”, he discussed the research from Pew Research Center that the middle class is in fact shrinking since the sharing of incomes between adults has fallen from 61% to 50 % in 2015.
Meanwhile, the rich incomes have risen from 14 to 21 percent. In news outlets like the New York Times, they stated that the middle class is shrinking because the of “choice” of free market does not bring in the necessary income to working class families. The reason the income is not coming in as it should is because often at times, families break apart and the shared wages are now spread to sustain additional members needs, causing the household income to dramatically drop. The incomes shared in a marriage fell from 71 percent in 1971 to 49 percent in 2014. Because of the breakups in families, single parents struggle to maintain their basic essential needs. Back in the 1970s, a male’s annual income was around $40,778 and a female’s annually income was around $14,224 since they worked part-time.
Adding up both incomes, a family can maintain their needs and have a few dollars extra. By adding a child into this family, they would be considered a middle class family. However, if a divorce takes place, the woman would have fallen into the lower class if she attain custody of the child and does not work or finds a better paying job. When economists study such topic, they measure income inequality by using an index called Gini coefficient. A coefficient of zero means that everyone has the same amount of wealth throughout the nation. However, a coefficient of one shows that one person owns everything and wealth is distributed unequally. Based on many reports, the Gini coefficient for the United States households has risen from 0.4 percent in 1967 to 0.48 percent in 2014.
This means that the rich are getting richer and the poor are remaining poorer. Family breakdown is one major reason why people fall into financial burden. They don’t have any support so they rely on the government for temporary relief. America has come to the point where almost 50 percent of the population receives benefits from government programs in 2011. In the current state, the government spends 49 percent of the budget on programs to help Americans. Politicians have brought it to attention that these programs are out-of-control spending. One way to rebuild America’s middle class is by building stronger families and giving them more opportunities to accommodate their financial needs.
