Why Good News/Bad News for the Middle Class?

If you’re baffled by the latest good news/bad news for the American middle class – word that in 2015 typical family income got its best boost in five decades, but families are still worse off than in 2007, just think about trickle-down economics and how it works.  During an economic recovery, the modern U.S. business model of trickle-down capitalism focuses first on delivering corporate profits, then soaring stock prices on Wall Street and big stock bonuses for CEOs and corporate execs. And if the recovery goes on long enough, some of the nation’s income gains eventually trickle down to rank-and-file workers.  So that finally happened in 2015. It’s an important milestone worth cheering that last year, families smack in the middle of the middle class saw their household incomes rise by 5.2% to $56,516, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. While public policy does play a role today in amplifying economic inequality in America with low taxes on the rich and a frozen minimum wage, the good news/bad news scenario that now plagues the middle class is much less the product of presidential policies and much more the result of the private sector trickle-down business model. In the economy, the power to divvy  up the nation’s economic pie lies in the hands of Corporate CEOs and small business owners who reward themselves and their shareholders first, while cutting jobs, moving plants overseas and freezing the pay of average employees.