Why The "Middle Class" Is Disappearing

The middle class of America has been shrinking for multiple decades now, but does that mean that people are actually living worse lives? There's a debate going on in the internet right now. It's going viral. Yeah, we're talking about multiple articles, multiple posts on Reddit. The most recent one was a meme that went viral saying, once upon a time in the 1950s, a family could own a home, a car, and send their kids to college all on one income. And then we cut taxes on the rich and the middle class died. And this sparked a huge debate. A lot of people supporting this. A lot of people going against it. A lot of people providing, what, additional context and nuance. So make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Andrew, there's a lot of stats. Andrew, Pew Research. I got the infographic charts right here to show that it is true. People who are in the middle class have been shrinking over decade to decade. I mean, it looks like it's just like a V-taper down and down and down. What, are we shrinking to zero? And I think most people would agree that's not a great thing. You do need a strong middle class for a lot of things. As you can see from this graph, the upper income has been increasing. The middle class is shrinking. This has been going on for a little bit of time now, but I think the conversation has changed. One, I think a lot more people, and we're going to get into a number of points and also the comment section, but I think the biggest point is a lot of people are asking, okay, the middle class is shrinking, but are lives actually getting worse? Are middle class people, which is a shrinking portion of people, but are they still living a good life? And are people generally living a better life than they were 20 years ago? Right, because a simple income statistic, like one infographic cannot explain the extreme, almost infinite complexity of daily life, right? So anyway guys, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Andrew, I think it's clear that it is shrinking in a generalized sense, but it really depends on which demographic you fit into. There was a lot of comments and we're going to get into it saying, yeah, if you were like a straight white male, you might wish you went back to the 1950s, but anybody who is not a straight white male, including straight white women, like 2023 more, even though there's a lot of problems now that didn't exist back then because all the other tribes or groups, subgroups of people were just screwed back then. Right, another point that a lot of people are bringing up is like, people may own less assets. It might be harder to buy a house. Or pay off the mortgage, right? Nowadays, right, but a lot of people are still living better lives. They have more things. Maybe they're happier. Are people happier? Are their lives better? Do they have dogs? Are they living in a better apartment? Do they have more hobbies? Are they just generally, you know, just enjoying life more? Possibly. Right, I think there's a ton of reasons for this shrinking macro statistic about the middle class, and I think that everybody can argue about the distribution of the pie slices, but I think everybody can understand, Andrew, that there's like, realistically, 20 to what, 100 factors that play into this, but everybody would rank them differently, right? Like, your rank of how you rank the 100 factors might be different than mine, but we can both agree, whether, let's say, for example, I'm an extreme left and you're extreme right. It's got to be made up of a ton of reasons, right? Right, right, and I think a lot of people are asking like, what does even middle class mean exactly? Like, what is the cutoff point where, look at this chart where it's like, okay, for a family of one, if you make under $34,000 a year, that's lower income, and then the middle income is anywhere from $34,000 to $100,000, and then upper income for a single person is $100,000 and up. Now, with inflation, salaries are larger, things are more expensive. What does that even mean? Should it be measured? Like, is this based off coastal cities or the middle America, right? Yeah, and the cost of living is different in different cities, so $100,000 in New York City and Manhattan is different than $100,000 in San Antonio, Texas. For sure, and what about social capital or cultural capital? Some people, Andrew, who are experts on this subject, would argue that those are even more important or just as important in terms of life experiences, and those are incredibly difficult to quantify because they are not hard metrics with any sort of quantitative number you can place on it. Right, now, are people traveling more? Are people having more good times? I guess that's questionable. I mean, a lot of people say social media is making a lot of people depressed and stuff, so I guess that, you know what it is? That metric is harder to measure. For sure. It's harder to measure because everybody can measure the income because that's a dollar amount, but it's hard to measure. And then you know how everybody says that social media is making people sad, but then why do they spend hours a day on social media? It's because the social media must be causing some sort of dopamine release. Yeah. So that's theoretically the dopamine. I don't know, maybe it's different than serotonin, whatever. Is there, David, depressive dopamine? Is that possible? See, this opens up a whole bunch of can of worms. Anyway, let's get into the comment section, Andrew. Somebody said, there's plenty of data showing that quality of life is much better today. This is the stupidest flat-earth theory that everybody thinks that the leave-it-to-beaver days were all great and everybody was, like, super happy in America post-World War II. Yeah, that might have been a select group of people, especially, like, white families that were on TV or depicted in Hollywood, but no, everything's better nowadays. Yeah, right, right. I mean, that is true, man. If you cherry-pick something like, oh, it was easier to buy a house back then, that's the only thing that determines quality of life. I get it that buying a house is part of family life. It's a significant portion, but literally, is that the only metric? Yo, if you look at some of the food, Andrew, those TV dinners that they had to eat in 1950, that was way worse. They was eating the meat with the gelatin. And what I don't like is, like, looking back at those days, like, we can never bring those days back. We cannot bring those days back. They are long gone. Technology has changed. Everybody has the internet. Even school has changed. I'm going to get into my theory about school curriculum later in this video. Well, why can't we bring it back to those good old days? Somebody said, then the factory jobs were gone. Then the entire country thought it was a good idea to try to be real estate tycoons. Then the real estate prices exploded. Then the loan and credit card industry exploded. Then wages stagnated for two decades because people would rather take out another credit card than ask for a raise or get a new job. Then the house and credit card bubbles exploded. And then everybody was facing the fact that housing, healthcare, and education are ludicrously expensive and no job is paying enough to make ends meet. This was kind of blaming it on the average citizen falling for these, what, Guy Kawasaki or, you know, there's all these, like, different things you could, you know, rank them. I think just falling into consumerism. First of all, here's my stance. This is my hot take. I don't like blaming average citizens for being average, for thinking average. And the average thing to do is to kind of buy into consumerism and what the government is telling you and what the big corporations are telling you, what the holidays are telling you. That's generally the average person and that's okay because that's how most average people act in most societies. In what society is the average person super smart and like, oh, no, no, no, I can reject these things, guys. I'm wasted. It is true, to play devil's advocate, Americans like to view themselves as incredibly independent thinkers or like critical thinkers, right? Because, I mean, it's a very diverse society. It's less collectivist. David, who is the quarterback of society? All right, these movemakers, these big corporations, these hedge funds, these groups here and there, they're the ones making all the moves. They get most of the money and the glory. Therefore, they should get the blame. Okay, so you are not blaming the consumers for signing up for like seven credit cards and like, you know, having not that good of a job. I'm not blaming them as much. I'm not blaming the average person as much. That's my opinion. All right. Well, this next comment, Andrew, put the blame on the politicians. Somebody said, man, it's just crookonomics. This is where the thieves win, the politicians get bought, and the real producers and workers that provide everything get less than 1% of the pie that they actually build. The world will burn for the sake of satisfying oil money instead of improving the human condition. And this is basically talking about corporatocracy. Other people are pointing out Bezos and Musk and other people who buy out things, BlackRock. So people are saying, is it the corporations or is it the politicians or is it because the politicians are controlled by lobbyists which are funded by the corporations? Yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, you guys let me know in the comments down below what you think, but I'll say this. I mean, I think the government does have control over certain things. All right, like they kind of have more control over like what goes into the school curriculum or at least that's like a board of people that kind of work for the government. And then there's also like things that the government can do like handle crime differently, but the government cannot control how kids grow up at home, right? They cannot control the family life. They have no impact in that. They only have impact in the government structures. Andrew, here's a little bit of history for you. Other people were pointing out that the original British colonialism that led to the creation of America was funded practically by private ventures like the Virginia Company and the first colonists were actually just working for private companies living in private company towns that were just called colonies. So basically somebody said, you know, this is just inherent to our creation story. We're just not taught that in public school. Oh, I did hear this thing. So guys history buffs. Let me know. How true is this? I'm not talking about some conspiracy theories. Is it proven that really the first people, you know, they weren't coming here just to free themselves from religious prosecution over in England. They were coming here as private companies for money. I heard that this next comment pointed at globalization. The rest of the world is a lot more competitive nowadays and American exports. They got to compete with a bunch of different countries. Somebody was saying in the wake of World War two the entire industrial world with the exception of the United States had been completely bombed to rubble. So everybody else had to buy American exports since then the rest of the world has recovered and in some ways even overtook us in certain industries and in some ways. So now we were just at a time where we were just like killing everything. It's almost like a team Andrew the hits like 15 threes in a row. It's just unsustainable. Oh and then no and then the opposing team has like one of their star players injured, right? So it's almost like this perfect storm of things guys. I think you're blowing out the world by like 60. Some people said, you know, what's interesting Andrew Germany and Japan went against USA in World War two, but those countries actually recovered a little bit quicker than other countries as well. But now Germany still doing okay. Japan has been stagnant for 20 years and some people are saying that now maybe the USA is is past its Westbrook MVP average triple double years because the USA was just like going hard. Wow, I don't know guys. It's tough to say I think but there's something to it. Why I think this goes back Andrew. There was a bunch of comments about the founding fathers Andrew. They had built this into the system. We were sold lies. This whole thing has been super capitalist from the beginning and someone said yeah, it's hilarious to think the founding fathers were anything than wholesome said the word some wholesome set of human beings. That's just public education and someone's like, yeah, I'm sure they predicted this when they were just pooping in an outhouse with a candle like how much is it fair that we blame the founding fathers because they're I mean they were I guess they were just living in their era setting up systems, but they had no idea how things were we're not going to do. I don't know man. I think it's been like it's been a couple centuries man. I feel like you have to start looking at the people that were making the decisions as a 50 80 years ago. Um, somebody said up to this somebody said that it's all about kicking the kids out a lot of kids. They parents. They kick their kids out when they're 18, but that causes them into a bunch of debt and it just like cycles over time like basically other more traditional cultures don't kick the kids out for sure until they're 30, but in America, they're kicking the kids out of the house at 20, but at 20, you might not have the earning power and the almost adult responsibility to make the right reads to survive on your own, but there's also a lot of articles. I read in the past year that said Millennials are one of the only groups that are actually moving back home and living back with their parents at least for a few years. So I think it is more common. Whatever this person is describing of living with your parents longer that is actually starting to happen for sure. Somebody said it's actually a child care bubble the child care prices of like sort over the time. So that's what's causing people to not even want to have kids or if you do have kids it crunches your whole finance equation for your family. There's so many bubbles David. Yeah, man a bubbles on bubbles. I mean, I guess what David if all the bubbles are added together it makes one gigantic bubble. Somebody said it's all a smoke screen because the internet makes you feel like you're middle-class even if you have maybe 15 thousands in savings in Robin Hood and their your stocks are all going down, but you have the newest iPhone that even the richest billionaire cannot get a better version of so basically society has tricked you because you have a designer wallet and the newest iPhone that comes out every year. You just figured your middle class, but all your assets are with Blackrock. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what it means like standard of living or or or quality of life. Like what does that really mean because if crime is going up that affects your quality of life. Now you have everybody has nicer things better food. Now. I will say this food is way better than it ever was drinks are way better than it ever was clothes design shoes cars gadgets way better and cheaper than they ever were not to me. I'm okay with the old in and out days. Yeah, but I guess boys do the vegan burgers are way better than they've ever been. No, but I know what you're saying though. But yeah, it's it's difficult to say. I think there's a lot more variance nowadays. Like you said like it's almost like up to you what type of life you want to live. I know some people Andrew that are still living like America's like 1962 other people living in like the year 3,000 and I want to I mean, that's why I think it is beautiful that people still live on the ranch with their family and they still enjoy their life. Despite all these new things that we have listen, I'm leave a comment down below. How do you judge your quality of life? Like what are some of the metrics that you judge your quality of life on? Is it just your income? Is it just how many friends you're having? Is it how many backyard barbecues you're having? Is it how much you have a hobbies? You know what I mean? Yeah, a European chimed in and said I'm middle class in Europe. I own my own place and I have two cars. I send my kids to uni for free and everybody has health insurance. I guess Europe feels like a cheat code sometimes but of course and Americans had a blast back and said, yeah, I'm sure your house is 3,000 square feet on one acre, right? How many miles per gallon does your full-size SUV get? Huh? Do your kids both have MacBook Pros with iPhone 14 Pros with unlimited 5G data and PlayStation 5s? Do you have OLED TVs in every room? Because that's what's considered in middle class in the USA because everybody in the family's got orthodontic braces. You ever seen an American refrigerator? You ever seen what a refrigerator looks like in Europe? It's like a fifth of the size. So by the way, if you got everything you're listed that I just listed your filthy rich by European standards, but we just call it middle class. So basically he was basically saying what is middle class because it is true Android the way they live in Scandinavia Western Europe, even though they have certain things that they're not worried about going into debt into their refrigerator is way not as nice. Yeah, that's true. That's true. We have the best air fryers. Andrew, how much does it matter that for example black households are way more represented in the middle and upper middle class now since 1971 to modern day, right? So basically a lot of people were saying that oh everybody always who post these memes has to be a white male because maybe white males macro statistics have slipped and their stranglehold on power, but everything has been become more distributed. Yeah, I think America is still really good for immigrants. America's great much better for black people than it was few decades ago. So I guess like everybody should be happy and should be at least, you know should I guess understand that I guess, you know, so I do think a lot of the people posting the memes honestly are like 40 year old and up like white males. No, for sure. I think that they want the time machine possibly not all come on guys enter the last thing was a there was a lot of French sociologists and public intellectuals that came up with this thing to measure social and cultural capital. Basically, they wanted ways to measure how somebody's life was outside of just hard metrics because for example, Andrew, let's say you're an immigrant kid your parents open up, you know, like a chop suey spot like a walk spot in the middle of nowhere and your parents make $170,000 a year, but they work 17 hours a day seven days a week. It almost feels like you're living in poverty, but you've got money in the bank that's going to skew like income statistics, but you're living a horrible life, right? Oh, yeah. I mean your life. Maybe you don't enjoy your life and you feel stuck in it and therefore your quality of life is worse. Yeah, so I guess what do you think like should people in America more look at try to quantify social or cultural capital because we know as Chinese and a lot of Chinese the income statistics are decent, but they might be working like 365 days a week again. I think this goes to the question guys. You let me know in the comments down below. How do you measure your quality of life? Yeah in America. Anyway, let's get into some solutions on how to solve middle class issues Andrew. I think early track vocational schools with real skills emphasis for people for a lot of kids were basically like schools not their thing. Yeah, I think there's going to be an increase of kids who don't feel like school is their thing. The structure of school is now starting to feel old school because now with the internet you can learn all these things good and bad things you can spend a lot of time on the internet and just a lot of kids are just not going to be able to sit in the classroom. Does that mean you force them to well of the government mandates that and punishes kids for playing hooky and not going to school then? Yes, you can but the government has to do that, right? The government has to put that in place. The families are not going to be able to keep their kids in school the government literally the police literally have to tell these kids go go back to school or stay in school, you know, there has to be some type of repercussions if they don't want to sit still in school, but other than that then you got to change the curriculum of school. Do you think there needs to be more money management or money growth or saving investing due diligence on business deals? Like they don't teach you how to balance your credit cards or anything in school and I mean financial education man. There is a lot of financial education out there, but I a lot of it's based in like how to get rich quick and all this stuff and that's what I don't like. I think it is sad that a lot of people do not trust the people who run society anymore. We don't trust it because we're saying listen, I have to buy my own house. I have to rush to buy a house because if I don't buy that some Black Rock or some real estate tycoon or some guy who is who owns like 50 properties now was going to buy that and then Jack up the price for me. So I need to buy that house quicker than other people can. Yeah, it feels like that right now in a perfect world. You'd be like, yo, I'm just like trying to rent and maybe I'll buy a house, but hopefully it's not ridiculously high. Right, right, right. And I did some googling, you know, the the main solutions that people say are like, you know, higher minimum wages renewed infrastructure investments almost like the new new deal with Theodore Roosevelt to me. I ultimately think that those sound that sounds right, but it's going to ultimately fall on individual communities to share knowledge amongst themselves. Yeah, you know, like for example right now, there's a lot of urban black pages that did the work and they're almost taking like Bloomberg knowledge, but they're distilling it with a different messaging in a different tone for a new audience that otherwise wasn't receptive to it when it was all like, you know, yeah, I mean the messenger matters. That's like saying having like certain, you know, Asian people deliver a similar message as something else, but it's going to hit different hits different. It hits different. Yeah, I think people just got to help each other out more right? Like I do think that the days Andrew of having a nine-to-five plopping down in front of your big screen TV for three to four hours and then just thinking that life is going to be gravy. That's probably not going to work anymore moving forward, right? Yeah, I know and I think the world is more complicated but like I think students almost have to be taught like how to use social media to their benefit versus like for negative, you know what I mean? Because it's going to be there like unless we literally are locking down phones like China and like limiting like phone usage and app usage. Does TikTok need the education tab in America? Yeah. Yeah, and the government needs to come in and step in to be honest because really people are only going to follow it as much as the government allows you to really honestly. Let's just get into our takeaways Andrew. I think as far as the macro statistics on the shrinking middle class, I think there's so much that goes into it. But the truth is Andrew, nobody can change it, right? Like there's it's very very difficult. There's so many there's like a thousand factors that go into you know, this V taper of you see this like middle-class bar shrinking on the infographic. It is what it is, right? And I think that that's why you see so many people going for this new gold rush mentality of everybody's like trying to get rich by any means whether that's like, you know, only fans or whatever. I mean, there's a lot of other ways that you know, yeah, outside of the system, but I'm saying everybody's like going for those right now, but those are not necessarily fully constructive either. Yeah, I think just people have to there has to be more focus. This is my last takeaway is that there needs to be more focus on speaking to people who do not want to operate in the traditional systems like even our job. Yeah, we get a check from Google and YouTube, right? That's part of it. And then there's certain brand deals we work with but we are kind of like one step out of the traditional system. And I think people need to stop thinking that more and more people are going to jump back into the traditional system, even though the corporations. I'm sure that's what they want. Yeah, you still need electricians and stuff like that. Like so someone has to train that job, but I'm saying like more and more people are finding a way to make money in a new way. So you have to prepare for that. Yeah, you have to prepare for that. I just think on an individual basis, you know, people take care of your body, your spirit, your soul don't only get caught up in the Joneses and like this and that I think there's ways that you can still live a really good middle class life. If you are in the middle class and you have no intention of like being outside of that but it's like you got to surround yourself with other people who are thinking like you and yeah, I think like you said Andrew the tools are out there. The game is more complex, but there's also more like game packs to understand the new expansion pack that we're in. Yeah, I think people need to stop focusing on the past because the past was so simple life was more simplistic back then. I'm not saying it wasn't hard. It was just more simplistic. So I'm saying life is now more complicated perhaps maybe easier more comfortable but more complicated to figure out. So what are you going to do? Yeah, you just can't think old school in the new school. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We are the hot pop boys. 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