“Worth The Fight”

“Inequality for All” is the official Facebook page of economist and author Robert Reich.

 The following is a post from Wednesday March 5^th.  

 It is offered because it is an excellent and extremely accurate perspective worth our consideration.

“How many of you recall a time in America when the income of a single school teacher or baker or salesman was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family? That used to be the norm.

 For three decades after World War II, we created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. During those years the wages of the typical American worker doubled, just as the size of the American economy doubled.

 More than a third of all workers belonged to a trade union -- giving average workers the bargaining power necessary to get a large and growing share of the large and growing economic pie (now, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized).

 CEO pay then averaged about 40 times the pay of the typical worker (now it's over 300 times).

 In those years the richest 1 percent took home 9 to 10 percent of total income (today the top 1 percent gets more than 20 percent).

The tax rate on highest-income Americans never fell below 70 percent; under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, it was 91 percent (today the top tax rate is 39.6 percent).

 Some of this money was used to build the largest infrastructure project in our history, the Interstate Highway system; some to build the world's largest and best system of free public education, and dramatically expand public higher education.

We enacted the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to extend prosperity and participation to African-Americans; Medicare and Medicaid to reduce poverty among America's seniors; and the Environmental Protection Act to help save our planet. And we made sure banking was boring.

Then came the great U-turn, and for the last thirty years we've been heading in the opposite direction. The collective erasure of the memory of that prior system of broad-based prosperity is the greatest propaganda victory…the privileged have ever achieved.  But the fact we did it then means we can do so again -- not exactly the same way, of course, but in a new way, fit for the twenty-first century and future generations of Americans. It is worth the fight.”

 I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood.

 The McGraw’s (4 kids), the Magneson’s (6 kids), the Scott’s (6 kids), the Hass’ (4 kids), the Malat’s (5 kids) and everyone of those families, as well as the other families in that neighborhood, could provide for their families.  They could own a house, buy a new car every couple of years, take a family and a couples vacation every year.  They could put their kids through college, had enough discretionary spending to enjoy hobbies (boating, golf, fishing, snow skiing, ball games) and save enough money for a comfortable retirement.  This was accomplished by dad working the same job in the same profession for 20 to 30 years while their wives would stay at home and work at the toughest, most important, most rewarding job in the world - being mothers and care givers to their families.   

 The year was 1960 when the average or median family income was $6,691.  $10,000 was considered an exceptional income and provided an excellent living.

 The argument is often made that while a new Mustang today may cost $40,000 while costing roughly $2,500 in the mid 1960’s, that that inflation isn’t viewed as unreasonable because incomes were lower.  Inherent in that logic is the absence of the fact that a high school student working part time during the school year and full time during the summer months could save the $2,500 for the car.  Not Today 

In the military a young man stated he had one objective during his three-year-tour of duty in Germany.  It was to buy a Porsche.  Shortly before leaving he paid cash for that brand new Porsche and had it shipped home.  He managed it on military pay and odd jobs he worked on base.  Not Today.

 The stories are endless on how much further a dollar went in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.  Ask any grandmother today and she will tell you that she could feed her family of 4 or 5 on roughly $120.00 (includes meat, toiletries and cleaning products) per week.  Not today.  

The strongest economy the world has ever seen was the American economy of ‘50s and ‘60s.  That success was predicated on the creation of the most affluent middle class the world has ever known.

 The size of an Americans income only has value in its spending power.  That spending power for middle class America has been ravaged and along with it a meaningful and prosperous quality of life that fostered a sense of pride in accomplishment.  To recapture that lost prosperity, that far better way of life, that sense of pride that this nation once exhibited is certainly “worth the fight.”