Edward Mcclelland Analysis

The book “The Other America”, written by Michael Harrington, describes poverty in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when America became one of the most affluent and advanced nations in the world. The book was written in 1962, and Harrington states that there were about 50,000,000 (about 25% of the total population) poor in America at that time. The author did extensive research with respect to the family income levels to derive the poverty numbers, and used his own observations and experiences to write this book. This book addresses the reasons for poverty, the nature of poverty, the culture of poverty, the blindness of Middle Class America with respect to poverty, and the responsibility of all Americans in addressing the issue of poverty in America.

In other words, America has a widening gap between its wealthy and poor. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is a problem emerging: the disappearance of the middle class. Low-wage workers continue to fall behind those who make higher wages, and this only widens the gap between the two. There has been an economic boom in the United States, which has made the country more prosperous than it has ever been. That prosperity does not reach all people; it seems to only favor the rich. Rising economic segregation has taken away many opportunities for the poor to rise in America today. The poor may find that the economic boom has increased their income; however, as their income increase so does the prices they must for their living expenses (Dreier, Mollenkopf, & Swanstrom 19).

In Edward McClelland’s essay “RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013,” McClelland discusses to his audience that the middle class is slowly vanishing and soon enough we will only be left with the rich and the poor. Throughout the essay, McClelland uses various examples to demonstrate how the middle class will no longer exist. McClelland talks about how education is vital for pursuing a job at a reasonable pay that a person can live off of. Before, people were able to leave high school and go straight into a job with a pay that could support them. Nowadays, the same jobs that were supporting people before require a lot more education and still aren’t giving enough money that will allow them to live comfortably. Even though there are still jobs people can thrive at that will make more money without a serious education , the middle class is struggling to make it economically, because it is harder to find a job without education and financially it’s harder to make ends meet.

Nowadays, the middle class is shrinking, while majority of people are either moving into the lower or upper classes. This is due to the major economic and policy changes that have occurred throughout the past thirty years. Based on the Basic Economy Security Tables, one in four full-time working-age adults are not earning enough income to meet economic needs for themselves or their families. This is a serious problem in America today, the fact that the median income today is six hundred dollars less than it was in 1989 is proof of this epidemic. It is much harder now, than ever, to work your way into the middle class, much less stay there. The percentage income growth since 1967 for the top 5 percent of earners is 88%, top 20 percent of earners grew 70%, and middle-income households only grew 20%. (Camp) In simpler terms, the upper classes income has increased tremendously, while middle-income households have seen very little growth in their income. Since the middle class is not receiving any income growth, it is declining and moving towards the lower class. It is not nearly as easy as it was thirty years ago to get a decent job and make

This book is great for clients because it provides the fundamentals of the economic classes in America. Leondar-Wright starts off by defining who falls into which class and the unequal distribution in our country. She states, “two-thirds of Americans are working-class, low-income, or low-middle-class” which is an unsettling fact (Leondar-Wright, p. 2). Although most people believe that many Americans identify themselves as “middle-class,” Leondar-Wright reveals that this is false and that working-class is a more appropriate term. Working-class, as Leondar-Wright defines it, is someone who has little education, one non-luxury house, and has a job consisting of physical labor (p. 1). As you can see this applies to many more people than originally thought.

The Great Depression created a devastating shortage of jobs in the United States. According to Document A, there were nearly 11 million people without any jobs at all and those who did have jobs suffered a decrease in pay. Not only was pay down but because of the lack of jobs, production was down as well with steel production being at 15 percent capacity and the New York Times business-activity index “showed a new low of 55, meaning 55 percent normal.” The people of the U.S. migrated everywhere to look for work just how the Mexican immigrants had done just before the Depression

This time saw much prosperity for certain areas, such as the stock market. Investors were receiving astonishingly high returns on stocks and were seeing their incomes skyrocket. Overall, during the 1980s real GDP per capita increased by 23% and the value of the stock market almost tripled. However the economic choices Reagan made—transferring the weight of taxes from the rich to the poor—had unfairly redistributed the wealth in the nation. Along with the great prosperity came the equal suffering on the part of the lower class who felt the pains of Reagan’s policies. The wealthiest ⅕ of Americans’ income soared by a rate of 14%, while the poorest ⅕ of Americans’ income declined by 24%, widening the gap between the social classes.

The United States was full of prosperity in the 1950s. The standard of living was higher that it had been in years, and many people were living in luxury. Although there were many who were enjoying the lives they lived, there were also many Americans who were trapped living well below the standard of living. Michael Harrington shed light on this situation when he published The Other America in 1962. In his expose’, Harrington exposed how 40 to 50 million American citizens were living in poverty, and that to most Americans these people were invisible. He expressed how the lifestyle of people living in poverty was so different from those who were not that it created a “culture” of poverty. Harrington believed

The “Background” section of this article gives a lot of insight to how the middle class was formed and the economic problems that arose throughout the 18th and 19th century, and are still arising today. This section is divided into four smaller segments that each give insight to the middle class and economic issues in a specific time frame. These sections are titled “Early Middle Class,” “Government Intervention,” “Economic Boom,” and “The Reversal.” The “Early Middle Class” section focuses on the time frame between the late 1800s and early 1900s where the Gilded Age, Progressive Movement, and the Roaring Twenties took place.

Publisher, Richard V. Reeves, in his online article, "The Dangerous Separation of the American Upper Middle Class," shares how income, education, and political power has caused a split in the upper middle class. Reeves 's purpose is to convey the idea that the upper middle class has shifted from being a sociological curiosity to an economic and political problem. Reeves outlines how the upper middle class that was once considered an accessible hope or American dream, is now a blockade and an obstacle for others. He adopts a rational and analytical tone to appeal to the reader 's sense of reason. Reeves cites convincing facts and

The issue of income inequality is a reoccurring theme in Maria Konnikova’s article “America’s Surprising Views on Income Inequality” as well as Barbara Ehrenreich’s memoir Nickel and Dimed. To commence, Konnikova writes about the rapid growing gap between the rich and the poor. In particular, she elucidates, “Income inequality has grown by record amounts since the 2008 recession: between 2009 and 2012, incomes for the top one per cent of the population rose by more than thirty per cent, while those for the rest of the country-the bottom ninety-nine per cent-increased by less than half of one per cent” (Konnikova 1). Clearly, it is difficult for low-class individuals to make enough money to support themselves and their families. Furthermore,

It is no mystery that that America has inherent issues with taking care of its lower class in comparison to many other developed countries. What is concerning is that people can work a fulltime job or may be even two jobs and still not have the resources needed to make ends meet in this society of consumption. The poor of America do not even receive even the slightest bit of sympathy and are coldly told that they should work harder as if they were not already doing that previously. Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, gives up her role as a member of the upper-middle class and speculates on the viability of living impoverished, detailing awful and harmful that life is, and implies much needed changes, revealing harsh injustices

The success of the up-and-coming middle-class made America the place many dreamed to be. It is this similar type of journey of America’s riches to rags history that one will come to recognize has occurred many times throughout the nation. In “RIP The Middle Class-1946-2013”

Economic inequality seemed to be in a decline or general phasing off starting from the mid-1930s. However, in part due to the Reagan presidency and regime changes, starting 1981 we have seen a steady rise in economic inequality in America between the haves and the have not’s. Economic inequality is only emphasized as data shows severely concentrated gains as those in the top .1 and .01 percent “earn[ing] four and a half, and nearly seven times, respectively, that of their counterparts of three decades earlier” (234). McAdam and Kloos only emphasizes this growing inequality over a multitude of statistics that offers compelling evidence that convinces me that not only economic inequality has been on the rise for some years now but also shows that there is a possible connection to the slow-release revolution of the Reagan administration. While I do not believe that all economic inequality can be traced back to the Reagan administration, I do believe that it had a key part in changing the political landscape that would only seek to provide a prime breeding ground for economic inequality to flourish in America. Poverty also has a way of rising health inequality, as those with lower income do not have the discretionary spending

This “middle-class nation” is struggling to support all those who live in its borders and the misconceptions about wealth are vastly overrated. Furthermore, the idea of wealth and stability is incorrect, and there is a very sharp contrast between the rich and poor in the country. As the richest twenty percent of American hold ninety percent of the total household of the total household wealth in the country, those at the bottom have managed very poorly and suffer to get through the days.