Senator Bernie Sanders: Documenting the “Collapse of the Middle Class”

When it comes to talking about the problems facing Middle America, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VA) doesn’t mince words. On his Web site is a page entitled “The Collapse of the Middle Class.” How did he come to speak in such stark terms?

It all started when Sen. Sanders put an invitation on his Web site inviting his constituents to share their experiences in the current economy. The results shocked him. “I expected a few dozen replies,” he writes. “I was amazed, therefore, when my office received over 600 responses from all across the state, as well as some from other states.”

The Senator then took some of the letters and compiled them into an e-booklet.

Here are the conclusions he drew:

[S]ince George W. Bush has been in office 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty, 8 million have lost their health insurance and 3 million have lost their pensions. Yes, in the last seven years median household income for working-age Americans has declined by $2,500. Yes, our country, for the first time since the Great Depression, now has a zero personal savings rate and, all across the nation, emergency food shelves are being flooded with working families whose inadequate wages prevent them from feeding their families.

Statistics are one thing, however, and real life is another. The responses that I received describe the decline of the American middle class from the perspective of those people who are living that decline. They speak about families who, not long ago, thought they were economically secure, but now find themselves sinking into desperation and hopelessness.

These e-mails tell the stories of working families unable to keep their homes warm in the winter; workers worried about whether they’ll be able to fill their gas tank to get to their jobs; and seniors, who spent their entire lives working, now wondering how they’ll survive in old age. They describe the pain and disappointments that parents feel as they are unable to save money for their kids’ college education, and the dread of people who live without health insurance.

As a Democrat, Sen. Sanders of course engages in some (in my opinion, largely justified) Bush-bashing. But regardless of which party one favors, one thing is certain: it’s essential that more politicians like Sen. Sanders wake up to what is happening in America: that it’s not just a matter of the middle class “complaining,” feeling “frustrated,” or wanting to hear an upbeat “message.”

We need governmental policies that will create high-paying jobs and stop the export of jobs and production facilities and the import of cheap labor. Otherwise, the middle class will quite literally collapse to a fraction of its current size, and the U.S. population will consist chiefly of a small upper class and a huge impoverished underclass, just as in Third World countries.