Edited to add - To be clear for anyone, it’s Oligarchs/Billionaires paired with rampant, unfettered corporate greed. (at least in my view)
Someone reminded me that I was using dogwhistle parlance in my use of they which may have suggested otherwise.
Here are some visual aids to accompany my clarification:
The F’d up thing is that being solid middle class and having sufficient income to help with a kid’s college money, put away money to actually retire, and pay a mortgage is top 10%. That’s literally what middle class was 50 years ago. Now you have to be a ~10%-er to do it.
I make twice the average household income where I am by myself. I’m doing okay, but like, not great at the same time. How the fuck are other people surviving???
Edit: Just kidding, I got the stats wrong, I make a bit above average household on my own, not twice. Point still stands, however.
Barely.
Yeah, remember when “Wow, I could make $100,000 a year?” was impressive? It was not that long ago.
It’s still better than what most people make, but it’s really not a lot anymore.
And that isn’t an accident. It’s by design.
It’s a race to the bottom. Go look for a job now. Your best offers are less than half what they should be. They want masters degrees and a decade of experience for “entry level” work. The more desperately poor people there are the less they can offer to recruit. Less pay, fewer benefits.
We’re able to just barely do those things on a just below median household income in a just above median cost of living area for one very, very specific reason: My wife’s greatest generation grandparents saw the economic writing on the wall 20+ years ago and went into assisted living to give their only grandchild their house as a wedding present. If we had real housing costs while living here we’d be paycheck to paycheck without kids at best.