With income inequality on the rise, middle class earnings stuck, and more people being forced to rent because of lack of money, the middle class has been stagnant for years. Before the financial crisis of 2008, the U.S. already took first place for containing the highest disparity of wealth in the industrialized world. Since then, the gap between the wealthy elite and the remaining 99 percent has only worsened with those in power now in possession of over 70 percent of all monetary assets. With the 2016 presidential elections rapidly approaching, can any prospective candidates offer this change?
When it came to economics during the Republican president debates, the worries of the middle class were largely passed over for other topics. During this time, I only counted three times that the phrase “middle class” was spoken. Whenever the topic of the middle class became the focus of discussion, the candidates seemed intent on trying to one-up each other with bigger tax cuts that only benefited the already wealthy elite.
On the other hand, Democrats mentioned the middle class eleven times. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has solidified her campaign around gaining benefits for average working class families: increasing child care support, decreasing the cost of public college costs, and demanding required paid leave. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has spent a considerable amount of his campaign blasting the one percent, saying that “we are living in a rigged economy where 57 percent of income is going to the top one percent; it is immoral and wrong that the top tenth of one percent in this country own as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.” To save the middle class, Sanders wants to create more well-paying jobs, tax the rich, and overhaul systems that spread inequality such as our current criminal justice system.
-Quenton