October, 2013 – This article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution discusses that even though the wealthy have increased their optimism in the economic outlook according to the latest AARC survey, the same cannot be said of the middle and lower classes. (http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/oct/31/good-times-getting-better-some-not-most/)
By Jay Bookman
The American Affluence Research Center, based right here in Alpharetta, tracks the mood and spending plans of the nation’s wealthiest 10 percent — defined as those households with a net worth of at least $800,000 — and sells that data to companies that market luxury goods to that demographic. As AARC likes to point out, that top 10 percent accounts for almost half of the nation’s consumer spending.
So what’s the mood among the affluent these days? Very good, it seems. AARC reported last week that its “index of current business conditions” rose 22 points since its spring survey and is up 40 points from a year ago. In fact, “This is the highest reading for this index since Fall 2007 (108) and indicates good potential for increased spending by affluent and luxury consumers.”
That shouldn’t be surprising. We already know that the top 1 percent has captured 95 percent of the post-recession income growth in this country, and that the Dow and S&P 500 are at record highs. But I can’t help but contrast that optimism to the dismal mood in places such as Rome, Ga., highlighted in a blogpost earlier this week; to the plight of the long-term unemployed in this country; and to the frustrations of young Americans trying to gain a foothold in this economy. We all know that the economic divide has been growing for several decades now, but it appears to have accelerated and taken a more brutal edge in recent years.
Trying to address that divide through government policy is complicated, with some on the right taking the position that it’s wrong to even try. Those conservatives who do acknowledge the problem seem to believe that it is caused by policies that treat the poor, the working class and middle class too generously. We’ve spoiled them and ruined their work ethic, the theory goes, a point of view that suggests there are jobs out there for the taking that Americans have become too lazy to fill.
Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t match the reality I see out there.
Many conservatives also argue that the best approach to closing the gap between the rich and the rest is to gut food stamps, deny health insurance to lower-income Americans, reduce spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and other safety-net programs while cutting taxes that support such programs. That’s the crux of the GOP’s economic message in Washington these days.
Again, that sounds like a doctor telling you that the best way to treat your broken ankle is to let him cut your foot off — I’m not sure I’d take that advice. Even some on the right are beginning to acknowledge the absurdity of that approach.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican with a long conservative pedigree who grew up in a working class suburb of Pittsburgh, noted recently that his Republican colleagues in Washington are indulging in “a war on the poor, that if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.â€
“You know what?” Kasich said. “The very people who complain ought to ask their grandparents if they worked at the W.P.A.â€
(That rings a bell for me personally. My father was raised as one of six children in a coal-mining town in West Virginia during the Great Depression, with his own father — the family’s breadwinner — paralyzed and bedridden by a stroke. Without assistance, they never would have made it. Believe me, that never seemed to weaken Dad’s work ethic.)
Kasich has also acted on his beliefs. Earlier this month, he bucked his party by pushing to allow the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid in Ohio, giving some 275,000 lower-income citizens access to health insurance for the first time. As he explained on “Meet the Press”:
“… we have many mentally ill people in this country who are being treated terribly. We have people who are drug addicted, and drug addiction is in every demographic, every race, every income level. And we also have many veterans who aren’t covered.
“So Ohio gets a good deal. We get $14 billion of Ohio money back to Ohio to deal with some of the most serious problems. And, you know, I’m not going to ignore the mentally ill and I’m not going to ignore the drug addicted or veterans or very working poor people on my watch.”
While that stance puts Kasich in direct opposition to GOP theology, he seems to put greater emphasis on a theology of a different sort. As he puts it:
“When you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor.”