The Middle Class Squeeze

According to Tami Luhby, in CNN's Money article, Middle Class On The Edge, the average family is spending $4,655 more on basic expenses, such as gas, housing, food and health insurance.

In Saint Louis I am seeing the reprocussions of the failing economy.....almost every day my co-workers discuss the rising costs of goods and service, of how they are cutting corners just to put more of their hard earned dollar$ in the tank...and to buy basic necessities like food.

Thankfully my daughter is grown and I don't have to worry about child care expenses (which is soaring also).

Americans are turning more and more to their credit cards to pay on simple services. (When I think about the interests they pay for these services it breaks my heart).

According to Elizabeth Warren, professor at Harvard Law School, nearly 10% of total disposable income in the United States goes to paying off such debt.

America's middle class is feeling the pinch.

I fail to see how a moderate inflation (it's the economy stupid) promotes employment, (think about the total jobs lost this year alone)....8.5 million Americans are unemployed.

???

Obama: "Our economy has now shed 438,000 jobs over the past six months, while workers’ wages fail to keep pace with the skyrocketing cost of gas, groceries and healthcare. The American people are paying the price for the failed economic policies of the past eight years, and we can’t afford four more years of more of the same. That is the essential issue of this campaign because Senator McCain has fully embraced the Bush economic agenda. I believe it has to change."

In the end a long term solution needs to be developed and initiatives created to re-established our wonderful nation back to its original glory.

Election year 2008 has many concerns on the table and not just the war in Iraq (which is a very dire and important issue) but to also pump some life back into the anemic American economy.