A breath away: Many in the middle class struggling just to hang on

What does it mean to be middle class?

What used to be a measuring stick for keeping up with the Joneses bears more weight today, especially with tax reform looming. Now news outlets and both political parties are scrambling to define what exactly constitutes the middle class.

According to the Trump administration, the middle class stands to benefit from proposed tax cuts and a restructuring of the tax brackets from about seven to three.

But, to borrow a line from the stellar film "The Departed," cui bono -- who benefits?

With a presidential promise of an essential pay raise of $4,000 to $5,000 for the average American family, the answer might be more pertinent then ever before.

Middle class, to some, used to mean having the house with the white picket fence and two cars. Maybe it meant having all of one's bills paid and enough to eat until the following payday. Or, perhaps more universally, it meant not being rich but not being in debt, either.

Estimates of a median income of between $45,000 and $72,000 are being cast as the modern day middle class, juxtaposed to what some media outlets are saying was the Democratic definition of a couple of years ago -- espoused by then-President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their respective campaigns -- of the much higher $250,000 per year.

That is a vast difference.

In Wayne County, according to U.S. Census data, the median household income hovered over the last few years -- up to 2015 -- at about $41,000, give or take a few hundred dollars. Family income averaged a little better at $50,000.

So what does it all mean? That has to be subjective. What a person or family brings in annually versus what their income-to-debt ratio is coupled with their spending habits is going to dictate the kind of lifestyle they lead.

But for a lot of people in this area, from what we hear in our newsgathering travels around town, the gap between retail jobs that pay minimum wage or slightly better and the manufacturing and industrial careers that offer a more livable wage is ever-widening.

So, even if the average income is between $40,000 and $50,000, the figure is likely skewed by a small number of people drawing much higher salaries and a larger number of people drawing lower salaries.

Drive past any of the major dealerships in town and you might see that there more cars and trucks out front than can be sold in a month's time. Drive up and down any of the city or county's residential streets one afternoon and count the for sale signs that have been there since last spring.

That isn't a critique on our local businesses, real estate market or government. If you have the required credit score, down payment and verifiable income, you can likely purchase the car, truck or home you desire. If not, there is the bus and -- despite last year's record flooding -- a fairly accessible rental market.

In the end it is all speculative. The markets continue to hit record highs, the cost of health care continues to climb, and the amount of purchase power the individual has -- whether due to debt or stagnant wages -- has either plateaued or decreased in recent years.

Set aside who is to blame for a moment and consider this. The question of what constitutes middle class isn't one to be answered in the short term. For most of us, the end-all, be-all of it begs the answer of a single question: Will I ever be able to retire?

We'll see.

Published in Editorials on October 29, 2017 9:31 PM