That is why people are trying to determine what constitutes a "liveable" wage. That is a wage that accounts for food, shelter, and health care. As such, we do have a large segment of the poor by liveable standards who are working. Given the spending trends, the middle class will likely be "working poor" by liveable standards within this decade.
OK, I don't entirely disagree with that. So how much is a "livable" wage? Regardless, minimum wage is for minimum work skills. Minimum wage jobs are for teenagers, and are not intended to be living wages. And anyone who is not capable of performing a job that pays more than minimum wage should probably be realatively poor.
I know a lot of people that may be considered "working poor", but they still have realitively middle class lifestyles. One couple I know has two children, one is attending college, the other is in high school. I was shocked last week when one of them told me that their high school kid qualified for free lunch. This family has two cars, owns their own house (them and the bank that is), and don't seem to be lacking for food on the table or money to pay the electric bill. They recently donated $150 to a non-profit group that we both support. He is on unemployment (former executive chef) and she is a kitchen manager at a modist restaurant.
I get really confused about people like them, are they poor or not? Seems to me, that as long as they have adequate food and shelter and transportation and their offspring are able to have educational opportunites, that they really arn't poor. I can certainly agree with lower middle class though.
Quite a few years ago I was a department supervisor in a large manufacturing plant. All of the people I supervised made about the same amount of money, my department only had three different wage levels. Some of these people seemed to be dirt poor, never any money to do anything with, not enough money to fix their car, no money for Christmas presents, others seem to do quite well off the same wage, with nice cars, nice cloths, and even had some extra to contribute to their retirement plan. Granted that was 20 years ago, wages were in the $18,000-$20,000 per yr range - I guess that may be something like $25k-$30k per year today.
Is it
spending trends or is it
wage trends that is likely to make our middle class "working poor" within this decade? And if our middle class disapears, then where did all the wealth go to?