29% of households have jobs but struggle to cover basic needs

[Laodicean60]

I think modern monetary policy is a force that is widdling down the middle class. The printing of money (QE) since we left the gold standard and especially after the GFC, has caused asset prices to inflate along with property taxes and insurance.

Government spending also causes inflation which will send more people to the streets. Yet we keep electing clowns on the right and left that has no clue about economics and try to cater to ignorant constituents. Last year I thought my politicians knew what they were doing by setting fiscal policy and I now realize, they are as clueless as I was. Federal Reserve is even worse most of their data is lagging and they use this for future monetary policy. That's why the majority of the time they pivot too late which makes the problem worse for Americans because of unemployment.

 

[FireDragon76]

I think modern monetary policy is a force that is widdling down the middle class. The printing of money (QE) since we left the gold standard and especially after the GFC, has caused asset prices to inflate along with property taxes and insurance.

Government spending also causes inflation which will send more people to the streets. Yet we keep electing clowns on the right and left that has no clue about economics and try to cater to ignorant constituents. Last year I thought my politicians knew what they were doing by setting fiscal policy and I now realize, they are as clueless as I was. Federal Reserve is even worse most of their data is lagging and they use this for future monetary policy. That's why the majority of the time they pivot too late which makes the problem worse for Americans because of unemployment.

Before modern monetary policy, we had cycles of booms and busts and an even smaller middle class.

 

[seeking.IAM]

For there to be a middle class, there also has to be a lower economic class. Part of the problem facing America is that no one wants to live like they are in that lower economic class. We can't all live in a $300,000 house in suburbia, drive the latest shiny automobile (or two) with all the latest tech, have an i-phone, and feed cable into our 50-inch flat screen. But we think we deserve it, we are entitled to it. So, we carry debt up to our eyeballs and struggle to meet what we think are our basic needs. In the meantime, our jobs go overseas to people willing to work for lower wages, people who don't have all the things we think we need to live satisfying lives.

One of the worries I have had for my own children raised in the middle class is that they really don't know how to be poor if life circumstances ever changed requiring them to be. Those of us who grew from poverty into the middle class at least know how to be poor if we'd have to do it again.

 

[Laodicean60]

Before modern monetary policy, we had cycles of booms and busts and an even smaller middle class.

You are correct that the economy runs in cycles including the stock market but our MMT policy tries to prevent economic slowdowns that are part of the cycle. We are spending 1 trillion dollars every 100 days to prop up a slowing economy. Then you have the government choosing industries to invest in like the EV movement and the consumer is showing that they don't want it.

Today we have accelerating mortgage delinquencies and many Americans have large credit card debt because they are struggling to make ends meet. The homeless problem in America shows that the middle class has dwindled.

 

[FireDragon76]

You are correct that the economy runs in cycles including the stock market but our MMT policy tries to prevent economic slowdowns that are part of the cycle. We are spending 1 trillion dollars every 100 days to prop up a slowing economy. Then you have the government choosing industries to invest in like the EV movement and the consumer is showing that they don't want it.

Today we have accelerating mortgage delinquencies and many Americans have large credit card debt because they are struggling to make ends meet. The homeless problem in America shows that the middle class has dwindled.

Before modern monetary policy, the only way people in the US generally could afford homes to own was to live on land appropriated (stolen) from other people.