Several recent reports suggest that Obamas improved the economy and brought down the rate of unemployment. Really? Are you feeling the benefits yet? The recession may be over, but a continuing lack of wage growth is still killing middle class Americans, including here on Staten Island. If you need any proof, just check out the Advance stories this week on the continuing struggles faced by our middle class neighbors here in the borough. They have jobs. They work overtime. But they still cant make ends meet. Thats because their salaries have remained flat for years while prices have continued to rise steadily. Anybody who goes to the supermarket knows how much food prices have increased in recent years. The price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs is up 68.2 percent since 2000. Meanwhile, property taxes, always a sore spot for Islanders, have gone up by 70.2 percent. Health care and utility costs have also shot up, and so has college tuition. In fact, increasing health care costs for employers may be making them reluctant to raise wages, a vicious cycle indeed considering that more of the burden for health care has been passed along to workers. Imagine how bad the crunch would be if gas prices werent so low. Imagine how bad it would be if we started having those big inflationary spikes like those we saw back in the bad, old 1970s. The younger generation is feeling the squeeze as well. College graduates arent able to find jobs and have come back to live with their parents, which sometimes adds a further burden to the household. Making it tougher is the crushing loan burden that students are coming out of college with, thanks to those skyrocketing tuition costs. The notion that one wage-earner can bring home enough to keep a household afloat has gone the way of cassette decks and VCRs. Now two-earner households are the norm, with one person sometimes holding a second job as well. If its a household that includes children, you have to wonder what effect its having on family life when mom and dad are constantly passing each other in the revolving door. People who want to work full-time can only find part-time jobs. So while they may technically be employed, these are not jobs that they can support themselves or a family on. Its proof that the unemployment rate is far from being the best measure of how strong the economy is, even if that is the measure that many Americans find easiest to grasp and one that politicians on both sides of the aisle like to trumpet when it serves their ends. It has all led to an era of diminished expectations. Americans no longer expect to do better than their parents did. They no longer expect that their children will do better than they themselves are doing. They no longer envision being able to retire from their job at a decent age and to never have to work again. Every election cycle, we hear a lot of talk about helping the middle class. But it couldnt clearer that the middle class has been sinking for years. They need to be helped, not used as political pawns. Let that top the agenda in Washington, Albany and City Hall this year. silive/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/stagnant_wages_are_killing_the_1.html
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:11:46 +0000