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In a new trend that looks good for America is seen at companies such as American Fleet, which makes diesel engines for trucks. During the pandemic it was making 40 engines when it could make 30 normally, by adding overtime. It looked for mechanics. Now as demand is slowing workers work fewer hours. And the company which has a hard time finding mechanics is avoiding layoffs. It wants to avoid the expense and trauma of hiring and retaining workers. With fewer engines to build workers are prepping engine blocks and upgrading equipment so that when demand picks up again they will be ready. Workers are being hired to fill unfilled positions allowing overworked employees to return to normal hours.This is a national trend reflected in declining overtime hours and working hours are shifting also with workers opting to work less because of work-life priorities. This should be seen as part of the renewal of America, because when workers do well, the middle class does well, and when the middle class does well America does well. America does well when companies and workers mean the same thing. ...

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What Kamala Harris stands for on behalf of the workers and families of America, on behalf of the American people, for in Carl Sandburg's immortal poem "The People, Yes!" and for people struggling to make a living with food and housing costs, in the words of Tim Walz at the Democratic Convention- "So this is the part — clip and save it, and send it to your undecided relatives so they know: If you’re a middle-class family, or trying to get into the middle class, Kamala Harris is going to cut your taxes. If you’re getting squeezed by prescription drug prices, Kamala Harris is going to take on Big Pharma. If you’re hoping to buy a home, Kamala Harris is going to help make it more affordable. And no matter who you are, Kamala Harris is going to stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life that you want to lead, because that’s what we want for ourselves, and it’s what we want for our neighbors." ...

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Obama's State of the Union address in 2014 focusses on increasing the minimum wage, reducing inequality and creating opportunities for the middle class. It marks a shift to doing things by executive order wherever possible to avoid protracted debates and delays by Congress.

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Leonhardt says that there is little reason to think that the flatter rates are better always. With the need to finance Medicare and health care for all, the government can use the extra dollars from taxing the very wealthy, the very rich in different tax brackets. The top bracket in 2008 started at 357,000, and you paid 35% whether you made 400,000, or $4 million, or $40 million. So basically the upper middle class was lumped in with the extremely wealthy. And considering the cost of college tutions for 2 or 3 kids, the upper middle class is only middle class. It makes sense not to lump the two together. Considering that there has been a lot of wealth accumulated at the the very high end, it would also reduce inequality, generate tax revenues for health care, and not have much effect in the incentives for generating economic growth. It is something he says the Obama adminisstration may and should consider.

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A surge in demand for robotic vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washing machines and other appliances are taking the place of the many maids and servants employed in Indian middle class homes. India has over 8.5 million coronavirus cases and most high rise apartment building communities restrict the entry of outsiders. The new trend is for more appliances in every middle class household to take over the work of many maids and household help that were once seen as less costly than appliances but now are seen as a blessing. The risks of catching coronavirus from household help that goes back to their villages for breaks are too great for many families.

As jobs shrink in household help many  new jobs could be created for a large new household appliance industry and in the other jobs in retail distribution of appliances and transport.  

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Huge orders made in 2023 for new planes from Boeing and Airbus now place India in the top ranks of the world civil aviation market. A large growing middle class is using air travel for business and tourism. The government is investing billions of dollars to build new airports in smaller and midsize cities in addition to Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore. A new aircraft industry is also coming up in Gujarat state.

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Galston cites a Federal Reserve Board of Chicago 2014 study showing setbacks for black people in achieving improvement in income status. Even for children born into middle income black families about 55% are expected to fall below middle income status compared to 36% for children of white middle income families. The problem is not just the gap as Galston points out but what it says for the declining income mobility for the white middle class when 36% are likely to see declining status and prospect for the future, and 23% will see no improvement. Overall it shows a lack of income and social mobility for whites and minorities alike compared to the past improvements since the 1960's, not a bright prospect and less hope for the future the way things are, and why so many of the establishment candidates and existing policies are being questioned by voters.

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Peter Baker offers an assessment of U.S. president Obama's 2015 State of the Union address in 2015, as marking the huge disconnect between him and the Republicans in Congress, after Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. Obama offered programs for 2 years of free community college and student aid, and other programs that have no realistic basis without the two parties coming to an agreement. For most of the evening he appeared to be talking to his own party's base towards the end of his presidency. Baker asks if this was irresponsible considering that it had little basis in reality. Especially when opportunities to help the middle class and working class Americans were missed earlier in the two term presidency.

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The Congressional Budget Office report in 2011 shows after tax resource flow that a family has to pay for consumption, a better approach to measuring the growth in incomes since 1970 including government help to lower income people and gains in the stock market for upper class Americans. This report shows after tax resource flow for the top 1% in the U.S. tripled from 1970 to 2011. For the middle fifth of the distribution families experienced real net income gains of 36 percent, and the bottom fifth of the distribution real net income gain of 50 percent.This suggests gains of about 10 percent a year if averaged over 30 years for the top 1 percent compared to 1% a year for the middle fifth and 1.5% for the bottom fifth. The report was done in 2011 and this could skew the results. Between 2011 and 2015 the stock market recovered and this would suggest a much higher gain for the top 1% of incomes and the top 10%, while also providing improvement in incomes for the middle fifth and the bottom fifth as unemployment decreased. Working class and minimum wage slowly recovered, and interest income on savings extremely low, with large student and other household debt, so that even at 10-12% gains per year for the top 1%, and 1-2% for the middle fifth of the distribution and 1.5-2% for the bottom fifth the last three decades have not been good for working class and middle income Americans compared to the the period 1950-1970 early postwar period recovery....

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This report in the NYT says Hillary Clinton has studied policy briefings, academic papers and taken advice from 200 policy experts, including experts from Bill Clinton's administration such as Alan Blinder, all in an effort to define her own policy positions on issues facing the U.S. This happens at a time different from the period of slow growth when Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush. Since then middle class families face the added problems of not being able to keep up with the rising cost of college education, health care, child care, low interest rates on savings and volatile markets dampening savings growth. For working class Americans in the middle class during Bill Clinton's time in office the problems take the shape of a sharp decline in the manufacturing wages that once supported a middle class life in industrial states of the midwestern U.S., with global competition doing the damage, and few solutions available except improving technology and technical skill of the workforce to compete in higher end products. Consider the points made by Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman at a Boston Fed conference in Oct. 2014- Fed information for 2013 showing the average net worth of the lower half of American families representing 62 million households is $11,000. Only this conceals the situation facing one fourth of these families who have zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction owing more on their homes than they are worth. Hillary Clinton told a audience at the New School in Greenwich Village in New York, this is the defining economic challenge of our time. " We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle class life. This will be my mission from the first day I'm president to the last."...

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For 51 million seniors over 65 years the $4000 added deduction in the Big Beautiful Bill 2025 would take the standard deduction for married to $40,000 a year in 2025 and $41,100 in 2026.This is in lieu of eliminating the tax on social security benefits entirely which was originally considered but could not be done under the budget reconciliation rules used to pass this DJT budget. For married taxpayers it is phased out after reaching $250,000 of income. What does $4000 provision over 65 years cost? It costs $66 billion over 3 years, and needs renewal in 2028. Eliminating taxes on social security benefits entirely would cost $1.4 trillion over 10 years or over 3 years $420 billion with a lot of it going to income earners with income over $100,000 or $150,000. It makes sense that this was avoided, and the political appeal being still in place for an ideal situation where when it comes to social security where middle class incomes of $200,000 are not taxed-as consider that it costs that much to just have a middle class life in these costly times.  ...

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Plaid Cymru leader says "decades of complacency caught up with them," and he derides Starmer's "managerial politics." Lucy Powell is shown on this page charting a new course for Labour as deputy leader elected by 54% amidst all this chaos of the Starmer leadership years. A sense of conviction and doing what is right with all the conviction and hard work that backs it is missing in the Starmer leadership. Labour needs to get back to listening to its grassroots and be what it truly is a party of the working classes, the middle class and the vast segments of the whole people of Britain.

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David Brooks describes the efforts of Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute that calls for a global capitalism that embraces the needs and hope of the middle class. A society to aspire to in their view is one that improves average incomes, promotes upward mobility, with a greater share of national income going to the majority of hardworking Americans, Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans.

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Asians are highly overrepresented. Hispanic communities are underrepresented in the UC California system colleges but still make up more than whites at 36% of the UC colleges. Whites make up about 17% and are also underepresented. There are imbalances all around and large investment is needed badly at the public school levels to motivate white and minority students who have fallen behind. Strengthening reading comprehension skills by pouring in new resources is a first and fundamental step to give whites and minorities a better chance- it can be done. There are three times as many white families that make less than $50,000 a year as Black and Hispanic families showing huge income gaps in the white segment. Universities by taking into account socioeconomic factors can help bring a more diverse socio economic class than a racially diverse class. This helps the white community after the outsourcing of US manufacturing and shrinking of the white middle class from being highly underrepresented in universities. The black communities have about 2% of the UC colleges with about 5% of the California population. ...

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Values of St Augustine are to be celebrated with Vance, and of Mohandas Gandhi with Harris. Then why the discord? End wars (Biden ending the war in Afghanistan). End migrant incursions Harris pledge to sign the Lankford-Biden legislation into law that fixes asylum entry and Closes the Border with Mexico. Cost of living that hurts the needy and middle class the most. As Applebaum writes about Housing costs Trump has no plan, Harris is willing to put government resources into it. Republicans have their hands tied by a hands off government that is supposed to do nothing and hope everything will work out. That is without corporate housing company greed in a system that doesn/t work -they set the prices too high. As Kristof writes about in the NYT the Republicans will not support paid marital leave, will not support child care assistance, will not support cuts to high pharmaceutical costs, making healthcare unaffordable even to the middle class not to speak of the lower income working class. And will not support investment in the infrastructure that is crumbling around us even as the infrastructure is crumbling around us, like the bridge in Baltimore that went down in minutes. Trump used infrastructure issue in 2016 and rightly so, and talked about it being Infrastructure Week every week, yet did nothing for infrastructure, nothing serious until Biden in 2016-2020. This a continuing project for Harris. Part of this is to end the wars (Biden's efforts in Afghanistan ending it). And end the migrants incursions, Harris 's pledge to sign the Lankford-Biden immigration bill that fixes asylum entry and closes the US Border with Mexico. ...

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This WSJ editorial points to the median income levels for 2014 being 6.5% below the level in 2007, median income level declining in 2011 and 2012, stagnant in 2014, according to the Census Bureau, as a reason why there is so much economic anxiety for average Americans. The appeal of Sanders and Trump reflects this anxiety and anti-establishment feeling. The official poverty rate at 14.8%, means 46.7 million Americans are below the poverty line. About 34.5% of the people experienced 2 or more months below the poverty line in 2009-2012, showing how it is hitting the middle class.

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America had forgotten it's workers built America in a Clinton-Trump world. The Federal Poverty Level is $35000 - $40000 when entry younger UAW workers at lower tiers make $34000 a year during wage negotiations and a UAW strike in 2023. The contrast from 2016 could not be greater- no president in history except Biden on a worker strike picket line yesterday, Mrs Clinton oblivious about unions in the midwest in 2016. Mr. Trump saying wage negotiations not important as he visits Drake Enterprises, automobile parts supplier, in Clinton Township, Macomb County, Michigan. The Guardian reports most were small business owners, with  few autoworkers. Enthusiasm of small business owners high for Trump in this swing county in Michigan. In stark contrast to the 2016 campaign president Biden was seen the previous day with a bull horn at a UAW auto workers strike picket line, becoming the first US president in history to do this. Biden said "workers built the middle class." Trump said China was the enemy not low wages or incompetent bosses, saying "the current wage negotiations are not as important as you think," when workers had tiered wages from previous concessions on wages, with entry level wages starting at about $17 an hour. That is only slightly above the $16 minimum wage in California. America in the Clinton-Trump world had truly forgotten that workers in its factories built America, and workers families made America what it was for most of the century since Lincoln and the Industrial Revolution. ...

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University of Texas professor James Galbraith tells Tom Keene that its a good thing that the supercommittee failed because long term cuts to Social Security and Medicare would have inflicted significant damage to the middle class in the U.S. He says if the U.S. cannot make large investments in infrastructure building, one necessary step is to make a large increase in the minimum wage. He considers the ratings agencies downgrade of the U.S. credit rating an act fit for comedy, because these are the same agencies which not only missed the subprime crisis but actually benefitted and supported it with misconceived ratings.

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Hilsenrath describes how the Federal Reserve missed the signs of the mortgage financial crisis of 2008, the bubble economy, and how low interest rates and other actions of the Fed to rescue the economy led to a situation which hurt savers. The lack of a serious plan for homeowner rescue as part of the actions by the government further hurt the working and middle class. The rescue also lacked credibility because the banks ended up becoming bigger than they were, and no action was taken in the U.S. which had been pushed by the U.S. in similiar situations overseas- for example on South Korean banks for overborrowing during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.  At the 2014 Boston Fed sponsored conference on Inequality, Fed chairman Janet Yellen described what she called the largest inequality in the U.S. not seen since the 19th century. The average net worth of the lower half of the distribution, said Yellen, of 62 million households, was $11,000, and a quarter of them had zero net worth. These were the shocking statistics that propelled two unlikely outsiders forward- Donald Trump to the Republican nomination for president, and Bernie Sanders who coming close to getting the Democratic nomination settled for a big part of setting the Democratic agenda supported by nominee Clinton in 2016. ...

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Speaking at the Brookings Institution Biden senior adviser Jake Sullivan laid out the "foreign policy of America's middle class." What he means by this is "President Biden's core commitment- indeed his daily direction to us- to more deeply integrate domestic policy with foreign policy." "After the Second War the United States led a fragmented world to create a new international economic order. It lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. It sustained thrilling technological revolutions. And it helped the United States and many other nations around the world achieve new levels of prosperity. But the last few decades revealed cracks in these foundations. A shifting global economy left many Americans and their communities behind. A financial crisis shook the middle class. A pandemic exposed the fragility of our supply chains. A changing climate threatened lives and livelihoods. Russia's invasion of Ukraine underscored the risks of overdependence. So this moment demands we forge a new consensus." "When president Biden took office the coutnry from our perspective faced four fundamental challenges. First America's industrial base had been hollowed out. Second economic integration with a large non-market economy did not work out. Third, an accelerating climate crisis, and the urgent need for a just and efficient energy transition. Finally we met the challenge of inequality and its damage to democracy."   ...

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Republicans say they are for Family and Children and values that support marraige. Yet they oppose actions to reduce child poverty, paid maternity leave and women's rights that help protect women in marraiges, oppose action that would increase incomes for poor and middle class families in favor of the highest income groups. He says Biden took action that cut child poverty in half and faced resistance from Republicans. These are questions that don't go away as Democrats could do more for families and children yet Republicans aren't letting their actions match their words.

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The Guardian gives this story of Khamanei's rule in Iran after 1989. He was made president in 1981 in a landslide win at that time just 2 years after the revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah of Iran's monarchial regime. Khamanei comes from a the family of a modest cleric in the town of Mashaad who was immersed in the anticolonial writings coming out of Arab North Africa's liberation movements. His policy towards Israel and the US, difficult relations with Arab countries in the neighborhood, and pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies, led Iran to become isolated and face sanctions that hurt its economy and its oil industry for three decades. It created its own version of governing and in setting up proxy militias but this resulted in huge investments diverted from the economy of Iran, neglect of its oil industry and production under western sanctions, that led to economy collapsing and student protests every decade. This expanded in 2025 to broad sections of the population calling for a new direction. Protests were suppressed leading to a disconnect with the people by 2026. To truly understand Iran one has to step back to the 1900's ( as one must also do to understand China or India), as Iran was ruled by the Qajar dynasty at the time. The first Majlis parliament was set up in Iran in 1906 -with the help of "good" Britishers like the British agent in Rajkot who helped send Gandhi to London to study law- wished to see a constitutional setup similar to Britain and limit the powers of the monarchy so that reforms in agriculture and in the civil service could be made. It lasted until 1908. At the time other Britishers in the British Empire both in India and in London sought to maintain British influence and keep out Russian influence. It was not a coincidence that the Majlis lasted only till 1908. That year in 1908 the first discovery of oil in West Asia was made in Khozestan province by George Reynolds, with investor backing of William D'Arcy. The following year 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company( later Anglo Iranian Oil Company and later British Petroleum) was formed. The oil concession was given by the Shah from Qajar dynasty. From that time on Iran became the scene of oil company interests, monarchial interests first under Qajar dynaasty and then under Pahlavis dynasty (which set itself up like Napoleon II in France from humble origins, after 1925 to replace the Qajar dynasty), and the emerging middle class lawyer and civil service, agricultural landowners class, all competing for power and influence in a Asian region with Shihite Islamic embedded in the fabric of the society. Power swung to different groups from 1925 onwards for 5 decades to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi temporary replacement monarchy that worked with British oil interests. West Asia became a meeting point for anticolonial writings emerging from Arab North Africa and other places that took the form of and led to a socialist style anticolonial Baathist influnce that overthrew a monarchy in Baghdad Iraq in the "Free Officers" coup of June 14, 1958 led by Karim Kassem. Out of that Pan Arabic Iraqi mood emerged S. Hussein who with weapons systems imported from the US and Europe initiated the war with Iran in 1980. The Iranian counterrevolutionary movement to Iraq began from that time with the leadership of Khomeni and Khameni from 1981. This is what one has seen swing back and forth in the West Asian region for about 5 decades to 2026, the regional Arab states mostly Sunni monarchies ranged against Iran with its Shiite and also modernizing population. US oil interests in Arab monarchies of the West Asian region from the time of FDR's meeting with Saudi's Faisal in the WWII period clashed with Iranian public interests competing with oil interests (US and British) allied to monarchial interests, and the emergence of Shiite Islamic authority in Iran in these clashes. Iranian public interests that started out with the Majlis and parliaments set up by the "good Britishers" never got a chance in Iran just as the modernizing effort of Sun Yat Sen in China in the 1900's never got a chance in the middle of the surviving monarchy in China by 1910, and the Japanese colonial interests in China from that time competing with the Nationalists Koumintang and the Communist Chinese workers movements emerging in the 1930's, all competing for influence during the Chinese civil war and in its aftermath the emergence of Mao and the CCP of China. This is the situation we in the world face today. ...

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David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, says letting the fiscal cliff cuts in spending go into effect is fairer to the poor and middle class than the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts proposed by president Obama and the Democrats. He says the pressure of public opinion would lead to some minideals for the Bush tax cuts to go to lower incomes and for restoring some funds to defense after the fiscal cliff agreement goes into effect, leading to a fairer outcome.

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Serious problem of rapid premium increases for middle class people not eligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies have increased premiums rapidly to pay for the cost of treating people with previous conditions and the uninsured, as well as population with poor health conditions.