Frontline tale of two families

[Zebo]

I greatly enjoyed watching this Frontline broadcast following two families over 25 years which helps personalize destruction of middle class we see all the time in charts.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/two-american-families/

 

[bradley]

We need to somehow incentivize the status quo not to squeeze the middle class from both ends. Obviously it's never going to happen. Bookmarked for later.

 

[TheVrolok]

Will watch later

 

[Jhhnn]

If you don't have time for the video, just go to the linked charts-

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...ate-of-americas-middle-class-in-eight-charts/

The income distribution chart would be much more stunning if it compared the 50th percentile of earners to the top .1%.

Obviously, another tax cut for the financial elite will bring back prosperity, right? You Go, Job Creators!

 

[Doppel]

Cannot watch now but may later. I reviewed the link by jhnnn and it is more socialist bullshit.

People are not saving because everybody has to have a brand new $35k truck on their $50k salary and trips to Disney plus a flat screen for every room. Your job doesn't pay? Sorry, nothing is free. Get a better education. Nobody is keeping you down but yourselves. You wanted your cheap Walmart stuff well now you got it and have to compete with foreigners who work harder than you do and don't bitch about it.

The above is a joke of course although somebody was going to say it so I got it out of the way. The truth is the situation is complex and the only thing we know for sure at the end of the day is that middle and lower classes in America are being left behind. It is more of a sink or swim every year and idealogues are fun on a forum but at the end of the day if you are not top 20% you are losing ground. And if you are top 20 you're basically treading water until you hit top 10.

 

[KB]

I watched the program and thought it was very good. I enjoyed the look-back through the last two decades and realization that times never change. Whether it was the recession of 1991 or 2012, things looked the same for these families except their TVs were better.

Although I typically blame people for their own misfortune, the program did a good job of creating compassion for these two families who worked hard, but had difficulty paying the bills due to limited pay. I was amazed that waterproofing basements only paid $7/hr when they charge thousands for the work. Even driving an armored car in which you are responsible for hundreds of thousands in cash, you are still paid a pittance.

What the program points out in stunning detail is that a college education is so important and Milwaukee is a $h*t-hole. The only people to succeed from these two families were the ones that got a college eduction or left Milwaukee.