Low, stagnant wages have been the reality in America for so long, that state of affairs is about to become a permanent part of the American economy. All Americans who recall, as adults, a time of high wages and economic prosperity are either retired or entering their retirement years. None of those now entering the workforce ever knew a time of high wages and prosperity; not even their parents had the benefit of the American Dream economy.
Income disparity between the wealthy and the middlce class begain in the 1970s, became entrenched in the economic model during the 1980s, and has persisted to the present. During that time, income disparity has only widened. In the wake of the Great Recession, Americans saw a sudden and substantial reduction in real income. Psychologically, the current state of affairs -- including low and stagnant wages, the need for multiple jobs to survive, lack of economic mobility, and a general reduction in government services for poor and middle-class Americans -- is becoming cemented in the minds of Americans as a "new normal."
For the majority of Americans, the idea of a broad middle class that commands high wages and enjoys full employment in a stable and prosperous economy is nothing more than a fantasy of wishful thinking. They are too young to remember when we actually had that. Their economic reality is harsh, and they lack the vision and experience necessary to believe it can ever be better. And lacking that vision, they also lack the will to make it so.
If we do not now make a push for a sustainable living wage and a functional demand-side economy that emphasizes high wages so that the consumer classes have the disposable income to drive the economy at healthy levels without resort to credit, we may forever lose the middle class and the American Dream.
The business and monied interests like it just how it is. Business does well with low wages and high unemployment. They can attract the best and brightest at bargain prices, and push their employees harder and harder, driving production and profits to record highs, while reducing or eliminating the benefits of employment hard fought and won by their ancestors. And with an emerging global market at their disposal, the monied interests no longer need an American middle class to consume their products and services.
So the rich get richer, and the poor can't even remember a time when they weren't poor. Shortly, given how long the problem has existed, that will become the new America: the permanent uncerclass economy, the America-as-third-world-structure economic model.
We as a people have only allowed this to happen because it has been so incremental, and has been bouyed by artificially created economic crises. Like the proverbial frog in the pot, which sits placidly as the water slowly comes to a boil and kills it, so has the Great American Middle Class sat idly by while it is slowly destroyed.
What we need today is a new economic model. One that pays even the lowest level employee a living wage. One that pays high wages to workers and gives them both the disposable income and the free time to spend that money on American products and services, driving the economy at robust levels. It's time to have that conversation. For so long, we have been told that businesses create jobs when the company makes a high profit. But that has proven false, and any American businessperson knows that they do not hire when they have a lot of money. If they have a lot of money but low demand, they shed jobs until they have only those employees necessary to meet that low demand. But if demand rises, they hire to meed that increase demand. And when demand is very high, they hire many, many employees, and have to pay those employees well, because jobs are easy to come by.
This is the demand-side economic model that can be the salvation of the American middle class. But it is the enemy of the very wealthy; the same very wealthy who control the conversation in America, and control the media and the politicians. So they are not going to entertain discussion about killing their golden goose. We will have to fight for it.
We fight for it by convincing our elected representatives, our friends in the media, and our bloggers to make a middle class-friendly economic model the subject of the national debate. It doesn't matter if it is a heated discussion; in fact, fierce resistance is inevitable. But we need to start the conversation and refuse to abandon it until we have a thriving middle class again.
This takes political courage, a commodity in extremely short supply these days, especially on the left.
So we need to give them the courage, by talking about it anywhere and everywhere we can. If we talk about it, we will make it safe for them to talk about it. And if they talk about it, then the political courage will spring forth out of thin air. For a demand-side, middle class-friendly economic model is a winning issue for Democrats, liberals and progressives. The American people just have to hear it. Every day. Over and over. In every blog, newspaper, magazine and news show in the country.
My parents' generation was the last prosperous generation. I recall it only from my childhood. It was a time when my father, a blue collar worker without a high school diploma, was the only one in the family who had to work, and was able to buy a house in the suburbs on his single manual labor salary. We had two cars, were able to buy most of the gadgets of the day, and my parents could afford to give us kids lessons in music, and art, and sports. We had the American Dream, right down to the dog and the picket fence. I remember that.
Do you?
It's time to start a conversation about the importance to our nation of high wage jobs, before the middle class and the American Dream are gone forever.
