The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.
While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.
After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans. ...NYT
2000 was the final year of American preeminence. George W. Bush became president and we began to slip -- not all of us, just most of us. We are what you might call the victims of the Reagan/Bush legacy.
Education has been a victim of the new poverty -- the victim of the the right's ketchup-as-vegetable thinking. "Educational attainment in the United States," the report tells us, "has risen far more slowly than in much of the industrialized world over the last three decades, making it harder for the American economy to maintain its share of highly skilled, well-paying jobs."
The numbers, based on surveys conducted over the past 35 years, offer some of the most detailed publicly available comparisons for different income groups in different countries over time. They suggest that most American families are paying a steep price for high and rising income inequality. ...NYT
And the hard numbers remind us we live in an America bearing little resemblance to "the land of the free, the home of the brave."
