How the Globalists Stole Christmas

America’s middle income earners must feel like little Cindy Lou Who when she saw that nasty green Grinch skulking about her house, stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down. “Santa, why are you taking our Christmas tree?” she wondered innocently.

The American middle class, the economic engine of the U.S.’s once-thriving post World War II society, is fighting for its very survival against the forces of globalization, technology and immigration.

A new study by Pew Research Center shows that the middle class is withering away. Even using Pew’s generous definition of the middle class as between $42,000 and $126,000 in annual income for a household of three, this group shrank from 61 percent of the population in 1971 to just 50 percent in 2015.

Not only is it disappearing, but the middle class is getting poorer. The median income for the group in 2015 is four percent lower than in 2000, and the middle class’s share of total income in the U.S. over this period fell from 62 percent to just 43 percent.

The findings are a sharp indictment of President Obama’s “middle class economics” strategy. It has sought to bolster Middle America through expanded government programs, wealth transfers, minimum wage hikes and stricter labor regulations. Meantime, Obama allows low-wage – or no-wage – immigrants to pour in.

Instead of closing the income gap, these efforts have only served to exacerbate it. Yet the administration still remains mystified as to how society is becoming poorer despite its benevolent social engineering.

“You have seen a hollowing out of the middle of the income distribution and there’s neither one cause for it nor a single answer,” Jason Furman, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, told the Financial Times.

In light of this, it’s not hard to understand why populist candidates like Donald Trump and his pledge to “Make America Great Again,” or even the extreme brand of socialism from Bernie Sanders have become so popular.

The stratification of society, diminishing living standards among the working classes, diminishing economic opportunities and record-high distrust of Washington bureaucrats make the idea of blowing up the entire political establishment much more appealing.

Indeed, the Pew study vindicates what these disgruntled voters have been saying all along. The gains from trade, globalization and technology are largely accruing to the upper class — which saw its ranks and share of income surge. Meantime, outsourcing and unchecked immigration are putting downward pressure on wages for blue collar work.

These forces, along with the perceived apathy of elected leaders, have combined to squeeze out the middle class and create the perception among Americans that the economy is rigged against the average worker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMyp0h-Ykko

As manufacturing and factory jobs have largely been shipped abroad, blue collar workers must compete with unskilled immigrants for the lower paying and less stable service sector and “gig economy” jobs, meaning ad hoc work like driving for Uber.

“Those Americans without a college degree stand out as experiencing a substantial loss in economic status,” the report noted.

In 1971, 76 percent of the middle class was comprised of adults with a high school education or less compared to 24 percent with some college education.

Fast forward to 2015, and those figures have largely flipped. Sixty percent of the middle class has some college, versus 40 percent with a high school degree or less.

A telling new poll by Harvard University shows people between ages 18 and 29 believe that the concept of the “American Dream” is largely dead.

One silver lining of the Pew study is that traditional families, though they have largely broken down over the past 40 years, are performing well economically compared with other demographics.

“Winners also include married adults, especially couples where both work. On the flip side, being unmarried is associated with an economic loss,” the study stated. “This coincides with a period in which marriage overall is on the decline but is increasingly linked to higher educational attainment.”