Impossible to re-establish a solid middle class in the USA...

I guess because fewer people are joining unions. Or people are leaving unions.

But that doesn't answer my question: Aren't unions already empowered to represent all the workers who want to be represented? What do you think needs to be changed?

 

No it actually began Slightly before Reagan and with Obama it reached its peak and as your chart shows rather dramatically there isn't a one to one correlattion with tax rates. Please show where tax rate reductions under Kennedy which were much larger than those of Reagan produced a similar run up in the percent of wealth held by the wealthiest Americans.

 

If you desire to explore it further, you should also look at household debt over that same period which follows the same trend as the top 10% income. I will leave it to you to figure out why.

 

Middle class manufacturing jobs? Like what? What is the pay? What does a middle class US family of 4 look like to you?
Tell me all about your American middle class experience, please!!

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Huh?
What do you consider middle class for a family of four?

 

Unions are not anything the US middle class would be a part of unless they are teachers or pilots.

 

How doyou go about restoring middle class incomes? What is a middle class income for a family of four?

 

All thos vomit about middle class Americans and no mention of the biggest issue.
Any guesses?

 

You answered your own question. If they were you wouldn't see that decline. Do lower income workers want to work for lower pay?

 

You're still avoiding the question: Aren't unions already empowered to represent all the workers who want to be represented?

 

1) I never said it was just tax rates, though that is certainly a factor.

2) The top tax rate dropped from 91% to 70% under Kennedy (really Johnson). It dropped from 70% to 28% under Reagan.

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As middle class incomes stagnated, they turned more to debt to maintain the standard of living, that is true.

 

See post 90.

Current median income is around $52k, I believe.

 

Not effectively. See above. Why do you think people want to work for lower pay?

 

But you acknowledge that a union is able to represent any worker who wants it to represent them. So what's the problem?

I think most people would prefer higher pay.

 

I'll give you a C for showing up to class not reeking of Jägermeister.

 

Part of the problem is that people (esp. aging baby-boomers like me) tend to look to the 1950's and 60's A friend told me his father worked as a meat-cutter in that era and raised 4 kids. They lived in a big house with a lake view, and mom did not work for the most part. A 10 year old car was considered practically an antique.

Part of this was because the US had no foreign competition. Europe, Russia, and Japan had been devastated in WWII. The US was the first to adopt universal K-12 education. In 1955 80 pct of 15-19 yr olds were in school full time. In Europe that number was 10%. The fact that the rest of the world started to catch up in the late 20th century is not necessarily a negative development. Some of those manufacturing jobs were also made possible by lax regulation of pollution. Remember the river that caught on fire in Ohio in 1969? We would not want to go back to that either.

Some factors in the demise of the middle class were due to negative trends that need to be addressed. The growth of burgeoning government makes everything more expensive. Last time I bought a vehicle, the salesman had to go through about 20-30 pages of paperwork with me. He was an old guy, close to retirement, and he told me that when he started in the job it was about 1/2 page of paperwork. The tax code was under 1000 pages in the FDR era, 26,000 pages in 1984, and over 75,000 pages today. In the 50's and 60's there were no gov't agents harassing children with lemonade stands.

 

I'd love to see your monthly budget for a family of 4 on that 52k a year.
You are in Florida, I see.
What do you think about Florida's tax structure?

 

I couldn't care less what you do.

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Off topic.

 

The problem is that far fewer workers have organized representation to leverage wages that are more closely aligned to the "product of their industry" they should own, according to the OP.



I think most people would prefer higher pay.[/QUOTE]

 

I am gen x-y.
I think every generation is different, unique, and quite capable of making their mark in US history books.
Things get more expensive over time and due to inflation.

 

[/QUOTE]

Tell me what industries in the US have the greatest union presence, please.
Outside of pilots and teachers

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What do you think the average 52k fam spends a month on housing? Groceries? And utilities?

 

Got it wrong again it went from 90 to 48 under Kennedy. Johnson popped it back up to seventy and tax revenue and the economy were flat till Reagan came in and reduced taxes again incidentally because Reagan also closed many loop holes the percentage of the total income tax paid by the rich increased under Reagan. And please again you still haven't explained how soaking the rich helps the middle class. By the way - and I admit I was wrong on this Reagan and Kennedy changed the top rate by 42% Bush the second by only 3%. And you wonder why it had so small and impact both when enacted and when Obama ended it.

 

Inflation is a money supply phenomenon and in the long run is not really very significant. Who cares if we make $1/hr and a bag of potatoes cost $1, or $10/hr and a bag of potatoes costs $10? The standard of living is the same. Inflation can create short term winners and losers, but not long term winners and losers.

It's an entirely different thing when the government puts a big tax on the bag of potatoes, taking money from the potato farmer, distributor, and consumer, and putting it in the pocket of a lawyer and potato regulator operation out of Wash. DC. Or maybe passing a potato enforcement act and sending out potato police to arrest and imprison potato farmers who run afoul of the act.

That depresses the supply of potatoes, causes a relative price increase, and thus affects the overall standard of living for Americans.

 

Do your own research, please.

Off topic.

 

Wrong again.

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/default/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal.pdf

http://www.cch.com/wbot2013/029IncomeTaxRates.asp

 

Of course not. All you care about is making sure the fat cats at the AFL CIO live as large as CEO's off the backs of blue collar workers who get nothing in exchange for that big chunk of their paycheck every month.