The Undeclared War on America's Middle Class

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2006.

This excerpt is reprinted with permission from Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class by Thom Hartmann; Berrett Koehler Publishers, 2006.

You can't be middle class if you earn the minimum wage in America today.

The American dream and the American reality have collided. In America we have always said that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can take care of yourself and your family. But the minimum wage is just $5.15 per hour. With a 40-hour workweek, that comes to a gross income of $9,888 per year. Nobody can support a family, own a home, buy health insurance, or retire decently on $9,888 per year!

What's more, 30 million Americans -- one in four U.S. workers -- make less than $9 per hour, or just $17,280 a year. That's not a living wage either.

The U.S. Census Bureau's statistics for 2004 show the official poverty rate at 12.7 percent of the population, which put the number of people officially living in poverty in the United States at 37 million. For a family of four, the poverty threshold was listed as $19,307. If the head of that family of four were a single mother working full-time for the government-mandated minimum wage, she couldn't even rise above the government's own definition of poverty.

Becoming middle class in America today is like scaling a cliff. Most middle-class Americans are clinging to the edge with their fingernails, trying not to fall. In the 1950s middle-class families could live comfortably if just one parent worked. Today more than 60 percent of mothers with children under six are in the work force. Not only do both parents work but often at least one of those parents works two or more jobs.

Middle class at 80 hours per week

In a 2005 article in the Chicago Tribune, reporters Stephen Franklin and Barbara Rose introduce us to Muyiwa Jaiyeola. Jaiyeola, who is 33 years old, works a 40-hour week as a salesman at a Sears store, then works another 20 hours in the stockroom of a Gap store in downtown Chicago. When Jaiyeola pulled two all-night shifts at his stockroom job in late August, he was able to sleep only two hours in the afternoon, then two more in the morning before going back to his sales job. He hoped to nap during his break in the middle of the night.

Jaiyeola is not hoping to get rich -- he's just trying to pay his bills. Working two jobs at this wage level is what it takes to be middle class these days. And he's not alone. According to Franklin and Rose:

Nearly 7.6 million Americans straddle two or more jobs and must find time to work, sleep and live somewhat contorted lives in a very full 24 hours. According to a 2001 U.S. Labor Department survey, most workplace moonlighters do it because they want or need extra money to pay bills ...

Those who specifically need the extra work to pay bills are most often women who take care of their families, and divorced, widowed or separated workers. For a quarter of the American work force, not only is the American dream not a reality, no part of it is.

Low wages are being paid not only to entry-level workers at places like Wal-Mart and McDonald's but also to adults like Jaiyeola who have work experience. The people being forced to work two jobs to make a living are the heartbeat of our society. They are child-care workers and nursing home workers, janitors and security guards, salespeople and stockers. They often have the most hazardous jobs, the late-night jobs -- the jobs that rarely include benefits.

Americans have traditionally believed in an economy where those who make a contribution are rewarded. A man like Jaiyeola should be able to work eight hours at Sears and then go home.

Low prices, low paycheck

Cons argue that we have to choose between having high wages and having low prices. They are wrong.

Take the case of Wal-Mart. According to the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), Wal-Mart could pay each employee a dollar more per hour if the company increased its prices by a half penny per dollar. For example, a $2 pair of socks would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would add up to $1,800 annually for each employee.

I wouldn't mind paying more for a pair of socks if it meant that my fellow Americans would be able to pay for good health care. That would save me money because right now Wal-Mart's uninsured employees run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills at emergency treatment centers when their problems often could have been solved more cheaply and with better results had they been caught earlier at a doctor's office.

Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host.