Insecurities for the Bottom 90% of the US Population – part 1

We have written at some length about the flatlining of income growth for the bottom 90% of the population since 1980 and the transfer (heist) of that income to the top 10%, really almost all to the top 1%. This is the $47 Trillion Heist.

Insecurity – a central feature of American life

One of the chief outcomes for the bottom 90% is the tremendous increase in the number and intensity of their insecurities.

The insecurities we are talking about are not the inevitable ones of life—not illness, catastrophic storms, accidents, or relationship breakups. No, the insecurities we are speaking of are a product of our economic system. They did not arise as a result of some natural functioning of the economy. They are a design feature of an economy that has transformed income and wealth inequality while impoverishing the public domain over the past fifty years.

Here is a clear illustration of the impact of wage stagnation over the past 40 years on middle-class incomes. she self-identified home for conservative economics, American Compass, has created a Cost of Thriving Index (COTI).

“The Index measures the number of weeks a typical worker would need to work in a given year to earn enough income to cover the major costs for a family of four in the American middle class in that year: Food, Housing, Health Care, Transportation, and Higher Education.

In 1985, COTI was 39.7 weeks. Costs totaled $17,586, while the weekly income for a man aged 25 or older working full-time was $443 per week ($23,036 per year).

In 2022, COTI was 62.1 weeks. Costs totaled $75,732, while the weekly income for a man aged 25 or older working full-time was $1,219 per week ($63,388 per year.)”¹

In 1985, a single male worker worked 39.7 weeks to pay for the basics of middle-class life for a family of four. In 2022, the same worker had to work 62 weeks just to pay for the same basics. But, of course, there are still only 52 weeks in a year. So, he ended up $12,344 short for the basics over a calendar year. This occurred in the span of 37 years. This, then, is a part of the explanation for the disappearance of the single-breadwinner family.

Another symptom of changes in the economy is the capacity of middle-class and working-class people to buy a house. The cost of a single-family home in the suburbs, the American dream, rose from 3.5 times the family income (price to income ratio) in 1970 to over 7 times the family income today.²

So, this series of posts, Insecurities for the Bottom 90% of the US Population, will explore in modest detail the many insecurities that our American capitalist system produces for the vast majority of Americans.