The Disappearing Middle Class and the Decrease of Money Circulation

America is widely considered the greatest economic powerhouse in history. It has always been the place for dreamers looking to make their fortune, a fact that brought tens of millions of immigrants to the nation in the 20th century. If one looks at the straight numbers, one would be able to see that the average American is quite rich.

If the total net worth of the population of America is divided among the overall number of citizens, one would find that the average American possesses a hefty amount of personal wealth amounting to over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This seems to prove America’s status as the land where dreams come true, where a man can go to make his fortune.

However, underneath the surface a different reality becomes apparent. America’s financial policies seem to greatly favor the upper class, despite the fact that most presidents, in their election campaigns, target mainly the middle class due to the large volume of workers possessing middle class jobs. However, it is money that makes the world go around, and election campaigns need funding in order to be able to reach potential voters at all.

Hence, presidents after they have been elected tend to favor the upper classes that funded their election campaigns and that would eventually fund any potential reelection campaigns they might undertake.

As a result, the distribution of wealth makes it so that the upper class gets the lions share of America’s total wealth. Resultantly, the average American’s personal wealth is well short of the apparent three hundred and fifty thousand dollars it appears to be. It is instead closer to a little over thirty thousand dollars. This discrepancy between the apparent distribution of wealth and the actual distribution of wealth makes it clear that the upper class owns far, far more money than the middle class.

This discrepancy in wealth distribution is just one of the many woes of the middle class, a class that has long been considered the anchor of the American economy, particularly in the 21st Century. A middle class lifestyle was once the absolute of the American dream for an immigrant population that worked solely in blue collar jobs. The middle class was a bastion of the true American dream. Nowadays, however, a disturbing trend has been discovered regarding America’s middle class: it appears to be shrinking.

The reason for this is simple. It is caused by the government’s preference given to the upper class. The upper class consists of business owners that are implementing cost cutting methods which are resulting in a drastic decrease of middle class jobs. The mechanization of the manufacturing process and the development of algorithms to do complex jobs has resulted in middle class jobs becoming less valuable. Human labour, however, is still valuable, which is resulting in a number of middle class employees resorting to lower class jobs in order to ends meet, resulting in a disappearing middle class.