The iron mines cut back, and on Dad’s last day of work, we became some of the first victims of the global economy. Foreign steel was becoming inexpensive. Mining companies would spend years trying to find ways to compete, but cuts were unavoidable. Dad lost his job. He had been working for a mining company for some time and had advanced to become an operator of an ore sampling drill. He could have stayed with the mines if he’d relocated, but he had invested so much of his life in his farm that he decided not to. Instead, he would farm full time and try to make it work.
It never did work. We dropped out of the middle class. The ladder disappeared from beneath us.
It never did work. We dropped out of the middle class. The ladder disappeared from beneath us.
Christmas was never the same again. I can remember well how it felt to be comfortably middle class, and I know what a struggle it was for us to lose out and never be there again. In microcosm, my dad’s story is this country’s story. The middle class has ceased to exist in the United States of America. Good, honest people who have no exceptional knowledge, talents, or skills can still dream of a better life. They just need jobs that pay a living wage. But those jobs have left the country.
The death of the middle class is concurrent with the proliferation of daycare centers, but the two are not merely coincidental. Time was, a breadwinner, even an undereducated, untrained one at entry level wages, could bring home enough money without overtime to take care of the family. Young children didn’t go to something called “daycare,” because they were at home with their moms.
These days, a “job” is anything paying wages, but most so-called “jobs” don’t provide a living. Now a typical worker is someone skilled, either certified in a trade, or educated with a degree, or experienced, who, if he or she is fortunate enough to obtain work at all, starts out at a wage below that of an excellent barmaid. If the breadwinner takes a second job and his or her mate also works, they might be able to afford the rent, utilities, a phone, transportation, daycare, and food. If they are very fortunate, one of their employers provides a family health plan, or a large share of it.
But by any decent standard, they are not middle class. A member of the middle class is not merely a person who earns ten thousand two hundred ten dollars and one cent. Middle class is a way of life, not a wage.
For a time, my dad was a prime example of the middle class. In his day, he could have afforded to buy an average home with his total yearly salary of about $6000, assuming he could have saved all of it, as the filthy rich can and often do. Of course he had other commitments, but he was middle class by that standard, nevertheless. Can you afford an average home on your annual salary?
Dad was able to provide living arrangements that were a little below average by some people’s standards, above average by others. He purchased a farm, including house, a garage, a well, and forty acres of land, for less than half his year’s salary. He paid $2500 for it. Could you actually purchase a house and property where you live for slightly less than half your yearly salary?
A fairly “average” new car in those days cost around one third of his salary. He could have laid out $2200 and taken home a new Ford or Chevy. Could you buy a new car today on a bit more than one third of your annual salary?
Dad was able to buy good food, and lots of it, for all five of us, for an entire month, on about a fifth of his gross monthly wages. What fractional part of your wages do you spend on food for a month?
Dad’s health benefits were excellent. The mining company provided them. He did not have to pay for health insurance. Do you have health insurance? Does your workplace really provide it, or do they deduct from your paycheck for it?
Dad had a retirement plan. He needed to be working for a number of years in order to become vested. The mining company played a dirty trick on him. They laid him off a year or so before he was vested. They saved a lot of money not having to provide for his retirement. It is a common trick played these days.
Since he was not particularly literate and was therefore not very knowledgeable about the details, he didn’t realize until years later what they’d done to him. He often wished he’d continued to work a year or two more with the company, even if he’d had to live in another community for part of the time, just long enough to obtain a retirement, and then he’d have been much better off. What kind of retirement plan do you have? Is it pretty risk free, or is there a chance it will be all gone when you’re of age?
Allow me to apply my situation and respond to the above questions. It is a matter of public record that a few years ago, after about 29 years of teaching, I reached the point in my career where I made over $60,000 for a yearly salary. On that basis, I will address the issues I’ve just raised:
House: If I bought a house for my year’s salary, assuming I could even find one, it would never measure up to the house of an average middle class person of the 1960’s. In some parts of this country, you can’t even buy a piece of ground big enough to put a house on for $60,000.
Car: I could never have bought a new car on a fifth of my salary through most of my working years. But now, I could buy a stripped down new car for one third of my salary. To get one I really want, I’d need to pay closer t half my salary, so I drive used cars now, like Dad did.
Food: Through most of my working years, food always took just a little more than a fifth of my wages, but if I wasn’t careful, it took a fourth, or more. Now the food budget holds pretty close to one fifth of my monthly income, more or less.
Health benefits: None of my health care is entirely free. I’m not complaining, though. Totally free health benefits have been all but utterly removed from the middle class for years. I’m just very fortunate to have benefits at all.
Retirement plan: This will be the next thing stolen from the middle class. It is happening all around us. Even the best plans are scaling down. Guaranteed retirement benefits are becoming more and more rare. We’ll all be on our own very soon. I am extremely fortunate. I retired from teaching full time less than one year ago. I was able to retire with full benefits at age 55. That’s how I’ve been able to find time for my passions of theater and writing.
As I see it, then, by 1960’s standards, I’m still not middle class, but a few years ago, when I reached the $60,000 mark in salary, after 29 years working in my field, I climbed a rung that got me at least a comparable lifestyle to the one my dad provided for a time in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. To maintain this standard of living after retirement, I still need to work a bit, and I’m doing so. We won’t need a spacious house when my wife and I have just one kid at home instead of three, as was the case a couple years ago. We’ll be able to scale down over the next five or ten years or so, and even if we drop back out of the middle class, the kids will probably be living on their own by then, and my wife and I won’t need to earn as much to remain comfortable.
Again I will repeat, I am not complaining. I am a very, very fortunate American. I actually have a little time to contemplate my life. By that standard alone, the privilege of having time to reflect on our lives, middle class status is a thing most of us will never get to enjoy. The rungs are disappearing under our feet. We Americans can be proud, on one hand, that we work harder than any other people in the world, but you don’t live with any kind of “class” when you can’t get enough traction to find time to enjoy your life. If you’re constantly scrambling to stay where you are, it’s not a living. It’s an effort to avoid going under.
