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"15 Signs That The Middle Class Is In Serious Trouble"
by Epic Economist
"America has been built upon the backbone of a strong and resilient middle-class. We used to be a nation of opportunity, wealth, and prosperity. But little by little, that crucial foundation has started to crumble, and today, we all can tell that the U.S. middle-class is disappearing while poverty continues to explode all across the country and wealth becomes more and more concentrated amongst the ultra-rich. This is a nationwide trend that has greatly accelerated over the past three decades, according to data released by the Pew Research Center. Now more than ever, it can be a real struggle to thrive in our society. But the truth is that the system has been designed for the average person to fail.
For almost 50 years, middle-class incomes haven’t kept pace with living expenses. Middle-income families watched their nominal hourly wages grow a dismal 8% between 1972 to 2022, when adjusted for inflation, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During that same span, health care costs have grown over 600%, and the cost of college education shot up 1,120%. Over the past two years alone, the rise in inflation pushed the cost of living for the average middle-class household in America to jump by an average of $16,200 a year. It’s safe to say that workers haven’t seen a pay raise that matched those staggering increases. It’s a very difficult challenge to stay afloat in an economic environment that keeps squeezing us financially but provides very few chances for us to turn things around.
As incomes flatlined, the middle class was forced to go into debt. To try to keep up with higher prices for everything, people in this income tier had to resort to their credit cards. Federal Reserve data shows that since 2013, the debt burden of the average middle-class household is around 122% of their annual household income. That’s nearly double the debt load of American families in 1990, and a major issue considering that high levels of debt can prevent these families to save for retirement and emergency expenses. Without a reliable financial cushion to fall back on, any middle-class family can fall straight into poverty in face of adversity.
Unfortunately, we're trapped in a system that set us up for failure. We can't find decent jobs, we can't afford to get educated, we can't keep up with rising expenses, and we continue to see these problems piling up from generation to generation. The death of the U.S. middle-class is happening right before our eyes, and as we're forced to become more and more reliant from this rigged economic structure, we'll continue to watch our nation falling apart at the seams.
The road to the American dream doesn’t lead us anywhere anymore – and, unfortunately, conditions are unlikely to improve anytime soon. That’s why in this video, we’re going to expose the main reasons why the backbone of the U.S. economy is in serious trouble."
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