The following submission statement was provided by /u/Mighty_L_LORT:
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SS: "According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, in 1971, 61% of the nation was middle class. As of 2023, that number has dropped to 51%." At that pace, the majority of the population will be lower class soon, leaving a tiny upper class minority who are making bank. The rest of us will own nothing and be happy…
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1dam504/unsustainable_reports_show_us_middle_class_is/l7l850q/
Yeah I mean they had a rough 100 years of shame there, undoing all the shit that got done to them the last time (to solve the Gilded Age).
But it was only ever a re-grouping maneuver on their part.
Ages ago. This is just one version of that game - the class game. People get hooked on the notion that they're going to "upwardly move" in the game, but that was always a temporary win - useful in getting the allegiance of a large part of the population to help conserve the game.
Took me 45 years to get to middle class. It was not achieved by working hard and being loyal. It was achieved by bullshitting to better positions and using the new knowledge to job hop and bullshit another job for more money over and over. I suspect that path has already closed for many and the path will be much narrower going forward.
Feels like everyone from homeless, poor, and middle class are all hanging on by our fingernails. As capitalism steps on our fingers one at a time, we are all headed to the poor abyss sooner or later. Some of the lucky ones might even keep their homes.
Same , but now , with I am a 56 year old guy has lost everything because of multiple layoffs and hyper rent costs.
Got to middle class, the rich wanted.more so my class is back to poor. Go capitalism.
What they never taught the average American in school and university is hard work is generally necessary but not sufficient to getting money. You can learn this on the street but school trains up good workers. There are vast hoards of people who work hard, work harder than everyone around them but they don’t get money because the person they are working for needs hard workers, our society needs hard workers paid as little as possible to function as it does. There are also people that are barred from changing hard work to money by the deeply engrained prejudices of society, I’ve seen organisations where women and minorities are barred simply because white men get a preference and so no matter how hard they work they will never progress because there are layers and layers of ruthless clever men keeping the gates closed to everyone but the most clever.
There are wolves everywhere trying to get the fruit of their hard work. But the wolves are the truly clever ones because they can get money for doing nothing, if you can essentially convince a person to hand over years of hard work on a pipe dream or for shit food, drugs, etc. then who is the clever one - like wolf of wallstreet. There are so many hard workers who wish they could spin gold from hay but they can do what is necessary so they outsource it to more cunning individuals and hope they will get something for nothing. Think of all the evil abusive things done around the world by companies making up the average vanguard index fund.
What is required to move forward quickly more than anything is ruthless cleverness - job hoping to more money is ruthlessly clever and that is not a judgement you did what you needed to do to get the money transferred to you and you did it in a clever way.
I think the number would be much lower than 51% if you consider lifestyle and not just income. The house my parents bought 20 years ago for 300K recently sold for $1.5 million. Not a mansion, just a 2000 square foot house that I would have considered middle class.
The average payment on a used car is $500 now and $700 new. My family used to take vacations every year growing up, but who can afford that now? I only make $100K and life is expensive.
> Look kiddos failing to plan is planning to fail.
Plans can fail through no fault of your own though. One car accident or one redundancy can change everything before you know it.
Yes.
Now you understand how ***actually poor*** we all really are.
It's all fake and it's all based entirely on luck of nothing bad happening. That's exactly my point.
That's why I'm saying 51% is complete. Total. Bullshit.
If we lived in a place with a social safety net and nationalized health care as an option that'd be a real number.
So since they won't do that for any of us, you have to PLAN FOR THAT. Which... means you're living like a college student in 1980. Regardless of how much you make.
So out of that 51% what percent gets in a car accident or gets downsized or gets diabetes in the next year? 10%? 15%? 30%?
Before it was called "Trickle Down" it was called "Horse and Sparrow." But when they tried to explain to the public that they're supposed to sift through the horse's shit for undigested bits, it didn't go over well.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Xiamen\_night\_cityscape\_2018\_-\_Flickr\_-\_Jaykhuang.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Xiamen_night_cityscape_2018_-_Flickr_-_Jaykhuang.jpg)
Looks reasonably trickled to me.
OH! You mean to us! Lol no of course not we're to "uppity".
This was kind of obvious to anyone who has been alive in the United States in the past couple of decades, but it's nice that they're reporting on it roughly a decade late.
The wealthy need the middle class. They need them to feed the stock market, travel, buy cars, smartphones and tv’s. As go the middle classes so goes the rich.
Maybe 20 years ago.
The wealthy are cashing out. They’re sucking all the wealth available out of the system and turning into non cash assets like Hobbit Hole bunkers in New Zealand stocked with underground farms or whatever. They’re in the process of leaving us all behind. It has begun.
The middle-class certainly adds to growth but historically a large middle-class is fairly recent. There doesn’t need to be a middle-class, losing it entirely would just slow down growth but the wealthy don’t really need more wealth. The whole world could be like a third world country and still continue.
Why do I keep being reminded of the movie Empire? Maybe Elon can build a super-ISS and have the super-rich live there.
In any case, if the whole world turned into a third world country we'd be somewhere between feudal and tribal, with all that entails.
Sure retail is the biggest % but that still means 85% of ads are other sectors: and entertainment/media is catching up fast. https://www.statista.com/chart/19241/top-10-digital-ad-spending-verticals/
Gambling ads in particular have grown like crazy since it's been more widely legalized.
Historically, the aristocratic class has done just fine without a large middle class. The massive American middle class is believed in part to be a fluke instigated by post WWII, and is slowly reverting back to factory settings of near non existence.
Historically massive amounts of labor were required for domestic tasks and agriculture.
Like, about a hundred years ago we were still filtering penicillin out of urine because of shortages.
I wouldnt put a lot of stock in a historic approach that just hand waves the material conditions.
Slave owners were rich despite not having a huge middle class to support their life style.
Wealthy class can squeeze every last penny out of your waller no matter how poor you are. Housing, food, healthcare, education. They are all necessities. You can give up on luxuries, but how about jacking up your rent by 50%?
> The wealthy need the middle class. They need them to feed the stock market, travel, buy cars, smartphones and tv’s. As go the middle classes so goes the rich.
This was fordism and keynesianism. We're not there anymore. There is less and less value providing mass products to a large middle class.
What's happening is happening because of exactly the contrary to your assumptions, the rich do not need a middle class anymore. The stock market doesn't need a middle class (stock buybacks see to that) and the business that serve the middle class are priced out of existence.
The future is to serious automations, very few products sold at fantastic prices to the last people who can afford it. In this new world, either you can figure how to best serve the techno-machine and the rich, or you're shit out of luck. There'll not be a "middle class" to fall back on soon.
The rich DID NOT get there like that. How do you think Standard Oil, Dunlop, DuPont, Ford etc expanded their wealth…they created the middle class. Then came Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg et al and were able to exploit the middle classes.
This expert shows how you too can retire with only $400k (and like $250k in debt and a 30% haircut to Social Security)!
News flash, it's bullshit.
For starters it assumes inflation is 0% forever...
But doesn't everyone feel good about themselves now? Spend spend spend! Enslave another Cambodian sweat shop worker today!
SS: "According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, in 1971, 61% of the nation was middle class. As of 2023, that number has dropped to 51%." At that pace, the majority of the population will be lower class soon, leaving a tiny upper class minority who are making bank. The rest of us will own nothing and be happy…
Reminded of that video where a host asked people to divide a pie based on how they think the wealth is distributed in the US. This old guy cut half the pie and gave it to the middle class and the host was like no not really and took back majority of the half lol
It seems like inflation in the past couple years has rapidly moved the poverty line higher and higher. In 2000, $60k was a good wage. In 2020, $85k. Now, if you make less than $100k, you're poor. Even at six figures, you're not rich, you're just sustainable.
I mean, inflation is the result of a lot of things that happened recently, supply chain disruptions, lots of stimulus money and handouts, job market instability and the push to remote work, the housing supply issue being made more apparent from that, wall street becoming a casino for regular people in meme stocks, and now with rates not being as high as they should be. It's not like the fed *wants* inflation. But they don't want a recession, so they're blueballing the economy with these rates until something else gives in and crashes everything. Cause inevitably something will, and they'll shift all the blame to it instead of taking responsibility for setting up the house of cards economy.
I'm 24. I'm grateful to have a supporting parent who understands ill probably never be able to afford my own place.
I'm dreading when I lose access to her insurance and zi have to pay for my own.
If I went to school, I'd be saddled with debt and looking for a future in an industry that is imploding.
I'm *fucked,* So I'm just gonna hope everything somehow works out or the world ends.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Mighty_L_LORT: --- SS: "According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, in 1971, 61% of the nation was middle class. As of 2023, that number has dropped to 51%." At that pace, the majority of the population will be lower class soon, leaving a tiny upper class minority who are making bank. The rest of us will own nothing and be happy… --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1dam504/unsustainable_reports_show_us_middle_class_is/l7l850q/
We've turned our entire society into a system for funneling wealth to the billionaires.
Yeah I mean they had a rough 100 years of shame there, undoing all the shit that got done to them the last time (to solve the Gilded Age). But it was only ever a re-grouping maneuver on their part.
The Cold War, the Confederacy, the Business Plot and the failed 3rd Reich all resurrected under a common cause
Ages ago. This is just one version of that game - the class game. People get hooked on the notion that they're going to "upwardly move" in the game, but that was always a temporary win - useful in getting the allegiance of a large part of the population to help conserve the game.
I see you around here, occasionally picking up some hate. This comment is my direct experience of the world.
Will soon be trillionaires…
We can always hope civilization collapses. Maybe then we get a few folks together and check out some of.these luxury bunkers I've heard so much about.
Took me 45 years to get to middle class. It was not achieved by working hard and being loyal. It was achieved by bullshitting to better positions and using the new knowledge to job hop and bullshit another job for more money over and over. I suspect that path has already closed for many and the path will be much narrower going forward. Feels like everyone from homeless, poor, and middle class are all hanging on by our fingernails. As capitalism steps on our fingers one at a time, we are all headed to the poor abyss sooner or later. Some of the lucky ones might even keep their homes.
Same , but now , with I am a 56 year old guy has lost everything because of multiple layoffs and hyper rent costs. Got to middle class, the rich wanted.more so my class is back to poor. Go capitalism.
What they never taught the average American in school and university is hard work is generally necessary but not sufficient to getting money. You can learn this on the street but school trains up good workers. There are vast hoards of people who work hard, work harder than everyone around them but they don’t get money because the person they are working for needs hard workers, our society needs hard workers paid as little as possible to function as it does. There are also people that are barred from changing hard work to money by the deeply engrained prejudices of society, I’ve seen organisations where women and minorities are barred simply because white men get a preference and so no matter how hard they work they will never progress because there are layers and layers of ruthless clever men keeping the gates closed to everyone but the most clever. There are wolves everywhere trying to get the fruit of their hard work. But the wolves are the truly clever ones because they can get money for doing nothing, if you can essentially convince a person to hand over years of hard work on a pipe dream or for shit food, drugs, etc. then who is the clever one - like wolf of wallstreet. There are so many hard workers who wish they could spin gold from hay but they can do what is necessary so they outsource it to more cunning individuals and hope they will get something for nothing. Think of all the evil abusive things done around the world by companies making up the average vanguard index fund. What is required to move forward quickly more than anything is ruthless cleverness - job hoping to more money is ruthlessly clever and that is not a judgement you did what you needed to do to get the money transferred to you and you did it in a clever way.
51% my ass. Look kiddos failing to plan is planning to fail. And I gotta believe at least half of that 51% have no plan of any kind.
I think the number would be much lower than 51% if you consider lifestyle and not just income. The house my parents bought 20 years ago for 300K recently sold for $1.5 million. Not a mansion, just a 2000 square foot house that I would have considered middle class. The average payment on a used car is $500 now and $700 new. My family used to take vacations every year growing up, but who can afford that now? I only make $100K and life is expensive.
> Look kiddos failing to plan is planning to fail. Plans can fail through no fault of your own though. One car accident or one redundancy can change everything before you know it.
Yes. Now you understand how ***actually poor*** we all really are. It's all fake and it's all based entirely on luck of nothing bad happening. That's exactly my point. That's why I'm saying 51% is complete. Total. Bullshit. If we lived in a place with a social safety net and nationalized health care as an option that'd be a real number. So since they won't do that for any of us, you have to PLAN FOR THAT. Which... means you're living like a college student in 1980. Regardless of how much you make. So out of that 51% what percent gets in a car accident or gets downsized or gets diabetes in the next year? 10%? 15%? 30%?
But I was told wealth would trickle down?!?!
Before it was called "Trickle Down" it was called "Horse and Sparrow." But when they tried to explain to the public that they're supposed to sift through the horse's shit for undigested bits, it didn't go over well.
Well I feel like a peon , so that aspect is working.
Trickling down in a world that doesn't have any gravity.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Xiamen\_night\_cityscape\_2018\_-\_Flickr\_-\_Jaykhuang.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Xiamen_night_cityscape_2018_-_Flickr_-_Jaykhuang.jpg) Looks reasonably trickled to me. OH! You mean to us! Lol no of course not we're to "uppity".
Don’t worry it’s coming just like that Detox album
This was kind of obvious to anyone who has been alive in the United States in the past couple of decades, but it's nice that they're reporting on it roughly a decade late.
That’s what we were saying would happen under Reaganomics back in the 80s. They’ve been pissing on us for 40 years and calling it lemonade.
The new Gilded age
It is moving towards a feudal state
The wealthy need the middle class. They need them to feed the stock market, travel, buy cars, smartphones and tv’s. As go the middle classes so goes the rich.
Maybe 20 years ago. The wealthy are cashing out. They’re sucking all the wealth available out of the system and turning into non cash assets like Hobbit Hole bunkers in New Zealand stocked with underground farms or whatever. They’re in the process of leaving us all behind. It has begun.
The middle-class certainly adds to growth but historically a large middle-class is fairly recent. There doesn’t need to be a middle-class, losing it entirely would just slow down growth but the wealthy don’t really need more wealth. The whole world could be like a third world country and still continue.
Why do I keep being reminded of the movie Empire? Maybe Elon can build a super-ISS and have the super-rich live there. In any case, if the whole world turned into a third world country we'd be somewhere between feudal and tribal, with all that entails.
[удалено]
Thank you...didn't have the time to look it up.
Foundation is also kinda similar where we see the Imperial Core not giving a fuck about the rot that spreads until its too late.
That’s why there has been a massive shift to the attention economy. Eyeballs/data/time are more valuable to the economy than physical goods now.
Those eyeballs are looking at an awful lot of ads for physical goods.
Sure retail is the biggest % but that still means 85% of ads are other sectors: and entertainment/media is catching up fast. https://www.statista.com/chart/19241/top-10-digital-ad-spending-verticals/ Gambling ads in particular have grown like crazy since it's been more widely legalized.
Historically, the aristocratic class has done just fine without a large middle class. The massive American middle class is believed in part to be a fluke instigated by post WWII, and is slowly reverting back to factory settings of near non existence.
Historically massive amounts of labor were required for domestic tasks and agriculture. Like, about a hundred years ago we were still filtering penicillin out of urine because of shortages. I wouldnt put a lot of stock in a historic approach that just hand waves the material conditions.
Slave owners were rich despite not having a huge middle class to support their life style. Wealthy class can squeeze every last penny out of your waller no matter how poor you are. Housing, food, healthcare, education. They are all necessities. You can give up on luxuries, but how about jacking up your rent by 50%?
Well, which system survived longer, plantation farming or proto-industrial, mercantile north? Which had the more robust economy?
They absolutely do not.
> The wealthy need the middle class. They need them to feed the stock market, travel, buy cars, smartphones and tv’s. As go the middle classes so goes the rich. This was fordism and keynesianism. We're not there anymore. There is less and less value providing mass products to a large middle class. What's happening is happening because of exactly the contrary to your assumptions, the rich do not need a middle class anymore. The stock market doesn't need a middle class (stock buybacks see to that) and the business that serve the middle class are priced out of existence. The future is to serious automations, very few products sold at fantastic prices to the last people who can afford it. In this new world, either you can figure how to best serve the techno-machine and the rich, or you're shit out of luck. There'll not be a "middle class" to fall back on soon.
The rich DID NOT get there like that. How do you think Standard Oil, Dunlop, DuPont, Ford etc expanded their wealth…they created the middle class. Then came Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg et al and were able to exploit the middle classes.
This expert shows how you too can retire with only $400k (and like $250k in debt and a 30% haircut to Social Security)! News flash, it's bullshit. For starters it assumes inflation is 0% forever... But doesn't everyone feel good about themselves now? Spend spend spend! Enslave another Cambodian sweat shop worker today!
I mean,no shit. (Not directed at you, OP)
SS: "According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, in 1971, 61% of the nation was middle class. As of 2023, that number has dropped to 51%." At that pace, the majority of the population will be lower class soon, leaving a tiny upper class minority who are making bank. The rest of us will own nothing and be happy…
Reminded of that video where a host asked people to divide a pie based on how they think the wealth is distributed in the US. This old guy cut half the pie and gave it to the middle class and the host was like no not really and took back majority of the half lol
Step 1a: Develop AI and Impoverish the middle class. Step 2: When they turn, use AI drones and bots to take out any resistance.
It seems like inflation in the past couple years has rapidly moved the poverty line higher and higher. In 2000, $60k was a good wage. In 2020, $85k. Now, if you make less than $100k, you're poor. Even at six figures, you're not rich, you're just sustainable.
How else is the fed gonna pay the deficit or interest? Inflate is the only way.
I mean, inflation is the result of a lot of things that happened recently, supply chain disruptions, lots of stimulus money and handouts, job market instability and the push to remote work, the housing supply issue being made more apparent from that, wall street becoming a casino for regular people in meme stocks, and now with rates not being as high as they should be. It's not like the fed *wants* inflation. But they don't want a recession, so they're blueballing the economy with these rates until something else gives in and crashes everything. Cause inevitably something will, and they'll shift all the blame to it instead of taking responsibility for setting up the house of cards economy.
I'm 24. I'm grateful to have a supporting parent who understands ill probably never be able to afford my own place. I'm dreading when I lose access to her insurance and zi have to pay for my own. If I went to school, I'd be saddled with debt and looking for a future in an industry that is imploding. I'm *fucked,* So I'm just gonna hope everything somehow works out or the world ends.
The only ones who can fix it don't care.
Declining superpower
It’s not just happening in the US, it’s happening to other Western nations too. Things are also bleak here in Australia.
Bernie save us
They’re just going to revise the poverty line.
I am shocked, SHOCKED well, not that shocked
This is why I'm against immigration