I had an interesting conversation today with the lovely woman who has been cutting my hair for most of the last 20 years. Like me, I would describe her as generally liberal on social issues, but fiscally conservative, which is more of a recent trait for me. What I love though is that her view of the world is likely more complete than most people, because she encounters so many different categories of people.
First off, she's seen the hurt across all demographics in the last recession, and she's quick to point out that it's not any one group that constantly complains about things. Ultimately, she says, most people (but not all) are in the circumstances they are because of choices that they made. Yes, she was suggesting that people simply aren't very accountable for their own actions.
I would add that, in talking about donating time and money to charitable causes, she also doesn't understand the strong dislike for government programs that are intended to prop people up, or more specifically, the generalization that everyone who receives some kind of assistance is a low-life deadbeat. That's not saying that the deadbeats don't exist, but a lot of those folks are children who don't choose their parents, and of course the elderly. Making generalizations is kind of stupid.
Getting back to the people who make their own decisions, I'm starting to wonder if the "middle class" is in fact shrinking, or the definition of middle class is just completely wrong in the first place. If you go back to the middle of the last century, most people defined it as having a decent job, a modest house, and perhaps a car. Today it seems to mean having a job that pays more than the required skills justify, a McMansion, a $30k car and at least one college degree.
I read a rant today filled with more generalizations that suggested the problem was the unrealistic culture that has grown around extreme consumerism. The rant made the observation that many people can never make "enough" money because they just use it to buy a bigger TV, car or house. The optimist in me would like to believe that's a silly generalization, but maybe it's not.
While a sociologist would probably define "middle class" as household income in the $70k to $90k range, I think that's different from what one needs to live comfortably and securely. My little family of three could easily "get by" on $50k a year if we had to, though without changes in lifestyle, we wouldn't be saving much. If we ditched the house for an apartment and traded down for a cheaper car, I bet we could even go down to $40k. When I think about it in those terms, I'm not convinced that the middle class is shrinking as much as the middle class needs to alter its expectations about how to live comfortably.
The recession ended more than three years ago. While the recovery hasn't been at a rate that anyone is happy with, I don't think the world we lived in will come back any time soon. I think that wealth shouldn't be viewed as how much money you make (or crap you can buy on credit), but how small your expenses are. The true measure of financial freedom has always been how free you are from your commitments. One shouldn't make commitments they can't keep.
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