Heh. Just kidding.

Look at where we are now because of Obama’s middle out stimulus failures of thinking that government spending on infrastructures was somehow going to bring us out of the greatest recession since Black Friday. We have the worst recovery in 60 years with high unemployment, stagnation growth, cities going bankrupt, inflation creepy up, double the price of gas from when Obama was elected, wages dropping across the board and historic deficits.

Heres a chart for you I give up on the imaging for now.

This middle out economy policy is unsustainable and history proves it.

Sorry you missed the lesson.

People’s views of their mobility are discussed extensively in chapter 4 (remember, this is largely the results of an opinion poll), but actual statistical mobility isn’t really touched on (at least that I’ve been able to find. Long paper. If I missed it, flag me).

There is this in the overview:

In 2011, this middle-income tier included 51% of all adults; back in 1971, using the same income boundaries, it had included 61%. The hollowing of the middle has been accompanied by a dispersion of the population into the economic tiers both above and below.

The upper-income tier rose to 20% of adults in 2011, up from 14% in 1971; the lower-income tier rose to 29%, up from 25%.

If you do the math, the middle class dropped 10 points, the upper class rose 6 points and the lower class rose 4.

Then there’s this (not from the paper):

The percentage numbers don’t match, which I think is about where the different “splits” are made for income ranges. The chart shows its splits. Pew puts “middle income tier” at anywhere between $39,418 to $118,255 (footnote one in overview) which seems a bit generous since that latter number gets you comfortably into the top quintile.

Of course, my experiences are irrelevant, unless you consider that as part of the postwar Baby Boom, a lot of people were in the exact same boat I was. And it was a sweet ride, fueled by GI Bill, and other government welfare for the middle class! We pretty much missed the hard economy all around us and took advantage of the time to gather travel, experience and education. The Boomers went through the timeline like a pig through a python, pretty much unaware of what was going on all around them because for the most part, they usually hung out with people just like them: young, free, educated, and just starting their careers.

By the time I got my first professional hi-tech job I was 31, and I married at 33. I had no children, which was a decision many of my contemporaries also made, or postponed til later. I made out like a bandit, but I know why. The only really smart move I can take credit for was to realize the party couldn’t last forever and to take the appropriate precautions.

“They say I shot a man named Gray
and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks
and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”

(Tried to insert an image of a graph of income growth of the middle class, but it looks like it’s blocked for offsite linkage. See the report linked below, page 59.)

From a Pew report The Lost Decade of the Middle Class

You really weren’t aware of the post War boom and the huge expansion of the middle class? An expansion made possible by a balance of unionization, government-financed higher education (e.g. GI Bill), and government-guaranteed mortgages (VA and traditional FNMA). Interesting, too, is the fact that the top marginal tax rates peaked at 91% in 1960, in the midst of the greatest period of sustained prosperity in American history.

Sorry you missed it

It helps that “middle-out” economic policies have been tested and proven to work, long before the name came along. They’re the policies that created America’s first great middle class

What period are you talking about? I may have missed this.

At that time, the law was the result of a Congress where the Democrats had a 79 seat margin in the House and 58 seats in the Senate. That margin was in place for Obama for two solid years.

Most of Obamacare’s problems were caused by Democrats (and one independent) who had to be dragged on board.

The first draft out of the Senate was 2,076 pages. It left the Senate at 2,409.

Then there’s the Stimulus Bill, Dodd-Frank, the GM takeover, nationalizing the student loan industry, and the payroll tax holiday. All of these qualify nicely as “middle-out” ideas.

I’m well-aware that the mantra for 2014 is going to be “we could have done it if not for those meddling Republicans.” I’m watching Detroit being blamed on Republicans right now. But it’s important not to start believing your own bullshit.

Got anything of substance to say on economic inequality? Yes, I do. Go back and read it.