It is virtually impossible to read or listen to a publication in any form without hearing or seeing the words “middle class.” The middle class is struggling, under attack, its income is going nowhere or losing ground; take your pick.
There are many reasons for this current state not the least of which is that the middle class was living beyond its means and now the piper is being paid, there is a fundamental structural change in jobs in the changing global world that is not going away and the functional family unit is disappearing in some ways because of the traps we have created for ourselves that have led to single parent families and the necessity of two income families which in turn is directly linked to our poor educational results.
Into this mix we must add the actions of employers, especially medium and large employers. Since the end of World War II many workers could count on a two-part compensation package; pay and benefits which equaled total compensation. This package allowed workers to live on their cash compensation with the non-cash portion providing short and long-term security. All that has changed.
The last four years have seen cash compensation frozen, decreased or at best rise modestly. If that were not bad enough, the non cash portion of total compensation has been greatly eroded as well. For decades we told workers they were earning not only their pay, but future retirement and health benefits. Then suddenly none of that mattered. Those non cash benefits that were earned over a working career simply disappeared. Part of earned total compensation was taken back retroactively. Think of it as the Board of Directors telling its executives they want the bonuses back that were paid ten years ago (LOL). It’s obvious employers never believed the total compensation line of BS they had been dishing out.
Employers want it both ways; they want to limit both cash and total compensation for their workers and they want customers to buy their products and services. Hey guys, those potential customers are working for companies cutting their workers total compensation too; talk about Catch-22. Talk about short-sighted and stupid!
The burden to make up the lost pensions and benefits now falls on the worker who is already facing stagnant cash compensation. The middle class Americans are going nowhere as long as they are squeezed in the quest to maintain or increase corporate earnings by short-sighted CEOs and CFOs. I was never strong on algebra but as I recall if you simply ignore one part of an equation, it will never work; employers have created an unworkable equation. Don’t employers understand that there are consequences to their actions, things like higher payroll taxes to fund Social Security, eventually more mandates to deal with this problem, and just look at health care where we have created massive government subsidies that eventually will be paid for well beyond anything that happened through Obamacare.
Don’t blame those Americans who have worked their way above the middle class, blame some in the middle class whose actions have trapped themselves and blame corporate America that changed the rules half way through the game.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
The larger issue, I believe , is that employers over promised and under delivered, and importantlly underfunded plans. No one believes so many pension db and retiree med plans would have terminated had they been well funded. And of course, here the govt focus on tax revenue, limiting funding, and addng to the challenge here.
And, of course, most never had a full career of accruals at the same employer
LikeLike