The Economy Is Great. The Middle Class Is Mad

What middle class? None of the younger people from the article are middle class. Struggling to pay rent is not a middle class activity. And Techer&#x2F;Nurse are not good jobs given the low pay (not just compared to other &quot;profressional&quot; jobs but compared to manual jobs once you take into account the cost of student loans and time lost to study).<p>The problem here is people who are working class (a class lower than their parents) but somehow think they are middle class. You&#x27;ve been demoted but no one told you. Sorry.

Isn&#x27;t part of the problem here that bureaucrats measure and define their own metrics. They have every incentive to report that their policies are effective.<p>There are also malign incentives around Cantillon effects and central planning generally.<p>An incumbent will celebrate economic performance under his reign. He can freely cherry pick flattering statistics and his supporters will repeat the same. The state of the economy is immaterial.<p>Opposition politicians will claim that the incumbent&#x27;s central planning policies are to blame. When in office the roles reverse. Even if the opposition gives lip service to laissez-faire policies, <i>special</i> <i>circumstances</i> requiring central planning always seem to emerge. Opponents of laissez-faire cite this behavior as proof of debunking.<p>Regardless of who is in charge, the Fed chair will pick a number and price fix the rate of interest. Partisans squabble. Court economists rationalize. Somewhere beyond this charade economic production happens.

Of course the middle class is mad. It&#x27;s dying. And, as the article correctly points out, how the middle class is doing is a very good indicator for the health of the economy.<p>A big part of this is that we seem to have (in the US) geared our system to prioritize the interests of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.