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The middle class? Not what it used to be
The middle class in the United States isn't what it used to be. A big dividing line? Education.
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Jeremy Hobson: So do you consider yourself middle class? Well, the definition of that term is what we'll explore now as we launch our new Wealth and Poverty Desk.
It used to be middle class meant "doing well" -- realizing the American Dream. Well, as Mitchell Hartman reports, it's more complicated now.
Mitchell Hartman: A lot of Americans think of themselves as middle class. My family does. We arrived more than a century ago in Philadelphia with the proverbial "clothes on our backs," delivered bread and sewed men’s suits. A couple generations later, we were teachers, accountants and cardiologists.
I dialed up my first cousin, Marcy Tanter. She teaches English at a state college near Fort Worth, Texas.
Hartman: Are you middle class?
Marcy Tanter: Yes, and I think for the most part our family is. Pretty much everybody has a college education, everybody has jobs. We travel. We have computers and iPads and iPods and cars.
We’re lucky to be in the upper-middle-class sweet spot, with incomes in the top 25 percent. We’ll be able to help our kids -- with SAT classes, college costs or a first home.
Some of our relatives haven’t made out as well. They didn’t go to college, and have worked in real estate, construction, waitressing, selling auto parts. In the Great Recession, a few have lost homes or gone bankrupt.
Welcome to America’s struggling middle, says University of Wisconsin economist Timothy Smeeding. It’s people making around the median income: $50,000 a year.
Timothy Smeeding: And this group is still middle class. But 10 years ago, they were behind the white picket fence, they had a nice house and steady jobs, and their kids would do better than they would. And now they’re finding a lot of that crumbling.
Smeeding says with the increased computerization of manufacturing and secretarial work, people with less education have limited long-term prospects.
Smeeding: What’s left to them are personal services: cashiers, sales clerks, lawns, food preparation. Those jobs don’t pay a lot of money, so the traditional avenues to the middle class are gone. At the same time, people with higher education, particularly post-graduate degrees, are doing really well.
So, what’s the middle class? Well, there isn’t just one. There are two, and they’re pulling apart. Get higher education or technical training, chances are you’ll do pretty well. Miss out on post-high-school education, end up working jobs that require few advanced skills, and you could find your family squeezed out of the middle class, altogether.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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It is true that if you have a high level of education it increases your chance of getting a well paying job. However, sometimes people who have a high paying job don't get the job they deserve or think they should get. I think the nation should allow oppertunties to citizens who qulaify for the job but not "hand it" to them bercause then they are relying on the government for jobs.
College has become a standard nowadays. Children are growing up all with the expectation to continue off to college after high school. As a high school student that is starting to think about colleges it has become very apparent that most quality schools will break the bank of any middle class family or the students loans will be over my shoulder for the rest of my life. College will help anyone have a better, more successful career in life but it takes a toll on the bank accounts severely limiting the options for post college lives. Graduates will have a harder time paying for food or housing depending on how expensive the college they went to was and the social class they are part of.
I believe that the "American Dream" is disappearing for our generation. As the cost of colleges sky rocket and more technologies are being built to do the work that used to put people in the middle class, there will not a whole lot of opportunity to do financially better than our parents generation. Our generation will have to redefine what it means to be wealthy. Wealth may have to be about taking care of the environment, caring for others, and make it so everyone has their basic needs met and educational opportunities. The "American Dream" will have to move past the accumulation of material goods.
In order to recieve a great education after high school, it is necessary to be able to afford the expenses of college. And as more and more Americans are becoming lower-class, it is harder for everyone to pay for the expenses of a good education. Today, it is crucial to have a college education in order to find a job that can cover your expenses. It is becoming more important to even recieve education past college, and many students that attend graduate school have an easier time because they can find good-paying jobs quickly with a higher education degree.
It is interesting to hear how big of a difference education makes. That decision to go to college or not can make a difference in the long run. The example of his family added more depth to this topic. It showed just in one generation, the choice of higher education can change a person’s lifestyle.
The trouble with finding a good, well-paying job, is in the type of major a college student picks. Much of America's more technological or factory jobs have been outsourced to places such as China or India. In fact, the only real export that America has at the moment is food, such as wheat or maple syrup. It's extremely rare to find a "Made in America" tag on a piece of clothing. The best jobs in this economy are the ones that can't be outsourced. Such as trade work (electrical/carpentry) and health professions. The jobs that people have to do by hand, that can't be done on a computer or assembly line, are the best investments. Many college students think that technology or computer programming is the best field to go into, not really though. it might have worked for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, but to the average college student, there won't be any jobs left for them with their major by the time they graduate.
I think it is safe to say that you need more than a good education to stay in the middle class today. Being someone who is applying to colleges and who knows a lot of people who have graduated I can see how pricey getting an education can be. The loans after graduating are what a lot of people are struggling with now, pushing them into the lower class.
The middle class used to be about "realizing the American dream". The upper middle class is portrayed as haveing nice things such as iPODs, iPhones , and nice cars. People with limited knowledge end up working jobs that involve little to no skill at all to do rather than working in a big fancy office crunching numers and putting your knoledge to the test. Due to the economys state though I do agree that the middle class is being seperated ito two and that the upper middle class and the lower middle class will split and the middle class will once again become the oredicted white picket fence and 401Ks that they have been and the lower middle class will form with the working class but be at the top of the working class. Some may even say its the other way around and that the upper middle class will move up to a lower upper class postion and the lower middle class will create just one big middle class. This strongly depends on the future education of students all over the state and what high paying jobs they'll recieve.
Social standing within society seems to be based on what your profession or education is, or your background. Recently it is becoming harder and harder to secure jobs, and it seems that having that higher education or specialty training is the only way. Many people all across America are losing their homes, many of them are within the realm of middle class and upper middle class, so according to this article then those with higher education are still in just as much danger as someone who is working as a food prep. or a sales associate.
It is true that if you get a higher education you have a better chance of doing well. That doesn’t mean that you will definitely do well. If you go to college, there is no guarantee that you will get a high paying job. Even if you still get a good job right out of college, chances are there will be a lot of student loans to pay off, especially if you went to a high-end school so you could get a high-paying job. There are always ifs. But every single person in this country relies on the ifs and the possibilities to give them hope that they can move up.
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