Don’t Miss: Inside Out, The Vanishing Middle Class
WBUR Boston’s documentary unit Inside Out launches a special this week, The Vanishing Middle Class.
For the first time in American history there is a troubling and almost contradictory set of economic forces that are challenging the very fabric of American society. On the one hand, during the last decade and a half, American productivity surged. At the beginning of 2006, just before the onset of the current economic slow-down, the American economy was growing at a robust 5.3 percent – a strong measure of a society on the move. And yet, for the first time in American history, that robust economic performance didn’t reach the middle class. In terms of wages, “the middle class is nowhere it was in 2000,” according to Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Bernstein says more and more working Americans are asking the question, “If the economy is doing so well, why do I feel so squeezed?”
High prices for fuel, food, housing and health care have only increased the pressure on the middle class. Savings are at an all time low; consumer debt is at all-time high. Middle class families are struggling to pay for home, health insurance, transportation and their children’s college. The dream of the American middle class – that hard work and playing by the rules are the keys to success and upward mobility – is being transformed by a deepening sense of insecurity.
The series correspondent is Anthony Brooks, who is at his best in the doc format. Brooks and Executive Producer Anna Bensted started work on the series before the global economic collapse, but given the news of the last quarter year, the timing for this series couldn’t be more appropriate. Listen here.
