The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy

Theda Skocpol does an excellent job in bringing to light a problem that not only will not go away, but a problem that has been made worse by this nation's politicans, both Democrat and Republican. And yet it is an easy problem to ignore, because the economy has yet to betray it.The word of the day is "investment." The nation has enjoyed an 8-year bull market, the Dow, for the moment, is still over 10,000, and we are said to enjoy a budget surplus. Yet, there is talk of a further tax cut to aid those on whom the tax burden is supposedly the greatest: the rich and the poor. But the largest and most oppressive tax burden has always fallen on the working class (often called the middle class to deflect any sort of class consciousness). It is the working class that pays the most into the system and gets the least out of it. The rich enjoy loopholes, the poor are helped by such gimmicks as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Both the loopholes and the EITC (as well as the budget surplus)are funded by the taxes paid by the working class, for whom the tax system offers few benefits aside from the famous mortgage interest deduction that is seemingly always under attack from some economist or politican as a form of welfare. Skocpol takes a thoughtful look into a system that aids the very rich and the very poor often at the expense of the forgotten working class. A decline in wage progess coupled with little or, in many cases, no health care has left the working class vulnerable to financial disaster, often turning them into the working poor, where a two-salary family is often necessary to keep heads just above the financial water line.Skocpol's only flaw is putting too much emphasis on the role of government. While government has certainly played its role in getting things to where they are today, the working class has functioned as an enabler. Union membership is down to less than 15% of the working class, and unions themselves often throw their support behind politicans who have little or no sympathy. Government policies have played their role in helping this country lose most of its manufacturing base in favor of a service economy (with its inevitable consequences in terms of wages and benefits). The slide towards today has been a broup effort.How to fix the mess? Skocpol's suggestions, for the most part, would only serve to enable further mischief (lending individuals money from the Social Security Trust Fund for education or training), while others, such as the expansion of Medicare to all, are short on details on how to function without draining the economy -- and thus raising taxes on a working class ever more burdened by the spectre of overtaxation.However, all criticisms aside, this is a welcome volume that should be more wide read than it probably will be.