"This Is About As Good As Things Are Going To Get For The Middle Class" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/23/2014 17:02 -0400
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
The U.S. economy has had six full years to bounce back since the financial collapse of 2008, and it simply has not happened. Median household income has declined substantially since then, total household wealth for middle class families is way down, the percentage of the population that is employed is still about where it was at the end of the last recession, and the number of Americans that are dependent on the government has absolutely exploded. Even those that claim that the economy is "recovering" admit that we are not even close to where we used to be economically. Many hope that someday we will eventually get back to that level, but the truth is that this is about as good as things are ever going to get for the middle class. And we should enjoy this period of relative stability while we still can, because when the next great financial crisis strikes things are going to fall apart very rapidly.
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released some brand new numbers, and they are quite sobering. For example, after accounting for inflation median household income in the United States has declined a total of 8 percent from where it was back in 2007.
That means that middle class families have significantly less purchasing power than they did just prior to the last major financial crisis.
And one research firm is projecting that it is going to take until 2019 for median household income to return to the level that we witnessed in 2007.....
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Of course that projection assumes that the economy will continue to "recover", which is a very questionable assumption at best. Meanwhile, total household wealth has been declining for middle class families as well.
According to the New York Times, the "typical American household" is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.