Buh Bye Middle Class

The shirking and shrinking middle class is not a new item for anxiety. Part of the reason the illegal immigration debate has suddenly sprung forward in the last few years is because it is being framed in terms of how it directly affects the middle class, it is being sold as an explanation as to why the middle class is suffering. Illegals are taking middle class jobs. It is a great way for Republicans and Dems to transform themselves into populists and divert questions of the other ways in which the middle class has been subverted.

I am a legal immigrant myself and you would think I would have stronger exclamation points about my own validity versus that of illegal immigrants but I don’t. I lived in the border area of South Texas for a few years and we were so close to the other side that it was possible to park and walk over. Many of my patients were illegals and I had many colleagues who were once illegal but managed to change their situation. I can’t speak knowledgeably about all of Mexico, but I can say this: if I had lived in Piedras Negras, I might have crossed the Rio Grande myself. In the summer, the Rio ain’t so grande and it is possible to cross and not drown.

I suspect that it doesn’t matter who is in power in Mexico, elite power groups and whoever happens to be governing see illegal immigration as a practical solution that acts as social safety valve that essentially prevents any kind of national revolution and maintains the status quo there. I stress this as an opinion, not an objective fact.

Astra Taylor offers some ideas about what happened to the concept of middle class. She notes that a combination of rising costs of living without corresponding salary increases combined with changing expectations about what it actually means to be middle class have created a ghostly presence of decline. The cost of rent in major areas: New York, Boston, and San Fransisco surged between 60 and 70 percent between 1995 and 2002. Minimum wage is worth 30  percent less than it was in 1968 and college tuition, the supposed gateway to the middle class life has outpaced inflation by three times. In addition, Pell grants used to much more of the total tuition for students they now cover only about a third of tuition compared to three quarters of the cost in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Combine this with rising health care costs, salaries that are becoming flat, the disappearance of the “job for life” that many corporations once offered Americans, and it is not hard to see how unattainable the middle class lifestyle is becoming.

However, she goes on to notes that our expectations about what middle class actually entails has also expanded. A Pew research study notes that our notions about the stuff we can’t live without has greatly expanded since 1973. Part of that is because more “stuff” is available. Part of that is because we have convinced ourselves we need it. Most of my friend’s parents still live in the same homes they grew up in. They did not feel the need for an upgrade. My mother survives quite nicely without a computer, cell phone, or cable television. She considers all of them a “waste of time”.

Taylor also argues that part of the reason younger Americans aren’t progressive is that they are working longer hours for comparatively less money and have less free time to devote to “causes”. I think one might be able to extend that reasoning to all Americans.

But clearly our attachment to our stuff what we consider “necessary” is the way in which we become trapped. On the other hand, more and more Americans aren’t even being given the opportunity to become middle class, they aren’t attached to their “stuff” they are attached to the basics: decent shelter, enough food, and a month without a health crisis that could make them homeless in the blink of an eye. Since middle class people don’t want to examine the basics of their own myths, issues like illegal immigration become lighting bolts for anxiety. I am not trying to dismiss the debate so much as wonder why it has suddenly become front and center. There were illegals here when times were good and while people did not like it, they were not viewed as competition.

My middle class myth issue is the “steady job”, I went into a field that I turned out to be relatively competent at but have no real love for, because of a few times of unemployment that were humiliating and draining. I deliberately picked nursing because I thought the likelihood that sick people would disappear was minimal. My own cowardice has probably prevented me from exploring facets or talents as being inherently unpractical, so while I want fundamental change, I can hardly critique the consumptive middle class as being too apolitical without looking straight at myself and wondering what I am doing to prevent the change I say I want.

What is middle class and how badly do we really want it? What will we lose if we ditch the myth and create a new economic reality?