“… 51% of Likely U.S. Voters ages 18 to 39 would like to see a democratic socialist candidate win the 2028 presidential election. Thirty-six percent (36%) don’t want a democratic socialist to win in 2028, while 17% are not sure. …
“Among the youngest cohort (ages 18-24) of voters, 57% want a democratic socialist to win the next presidential election…
I was on Ali Velshi’s MSNOW show yesterday morning discussing this, along with Michael Green who recently wrote a thought-provoking article about how the official poverty line in America is completely out-of-date and out of touch with the needs of most Americans. I shared a few statistics from my recent book The Hidden History of the American Dream: the Demise of the Middle Class and How to Rescue Our Future:
— When, in 1957, my dad bought the house I grew up in, the average cost of a single-family home in America was about 2.2 times the average annual wage. Today it’s more than ten times the average wage.
— When my Boomer generation was the same age as today’s Millennials, we owned a bit over 22% of the nation’s wealth; Millennials today control only about 4% of the country’s wealth (and it’s the same for Zoomers).
— From the 1930s right up until the Reagan Revolution, it was possible for seniors to live comfortably on Social Security alone; Reagan undid that with his “reforms” so today that’s nearly impossible.
— When I ran my first seriously successful business in the early 1970s, it cost me around $35/month for comprehensive health insurance for each of my 18 employees; at that time hospitals and health insurance companies were required by Michigan law (where I lived; most other states were identical) to be run as non-profits. Today, health insurance can be as much as one-fifth of a company’s payroll expense.
— When Reagan came into office in 1981, a single wage earner could support a family with a middle-class lifestyle, and fully 65% of us were in the middle class (up from around 20% in the 1930s). Today, after 44 years of Reaganomics, it takes two full-time people to achieve the same status, which triggers huge childcare expenses, which is part of why only 43% of us are middle class .
— When my Boomer generation was the same age as today’s Millennials, we owned a bit over 22% of the nation’s wealth; Millennials today control only about 4% of the country’s wealth (and it’s the same for Zoomers).
— From the 1930s right up until the Reagan Revolution, it was possible for seniors to live comfortably on Social Security alone; Reagan undid that with his “reforms” so today that’s nearly impossible.
— When I ran my first seriously successful business in the early 1970s, it cost me around $35/month for comprehensive health insurance for each of my 18 employees; at that time hospitals and health insurance companies were required by Michigan law (where I lived; most other states were identical) to be run as non-profits. Today, health insurance can be as much as one-fifth of a company’s payroll expense.
— When Reagan came into office in 1981, a single wage earner could support a family with a middle-class lifestyle, and fully 65% of us were in the middle class (up from around 20% in the 1930s). Today, after 44 years of Reaganomics, it takes two full-time people to achieve the same status, which triggers huge childcare expenses, which is part of why only 43% of us are middle class .
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