If you introduced this concept to a room filled with individuals and families living in long-term poverty, while some would think they belong in the "middle class" they really don't. The only source of information most of these folks can get about the "middle class" is from the Mass Media. If the Media were to be believed about what constitutes the "middle class", we are talking about families that experience the following and often take for granted and:
- Live in large, single family homes in clean, safe and enriched neighbourhoods;
- Enjoy cultural celebrations of their ancestors and family heritage by partaking in community events by enjoying cultural relationships and club memberships;
- Enjoy family celebrations of common holidays like Christmas and Easter, have the resources to decorate their homes and enjoy hosting extending family during these periods;
- Have one or more children in the school system who are involved with athletics, drama, music club, student government, among other costly ventures, as well as at least one parent that has the time to participate in their children's schools;
- Have savings and resources to at least partially fund their children's post-secondary education, and would willingly support their children in this direction;
- Have resources or benefits from which to draw to cover common childhood and youth medical and dental issues, such as orthodontics, sports medical and training issues, gym memberships and other "extras" that most take for granted;
- Have at least one or two annual family vacations, which involve visiting the cottage up North or even traveling to Florida or some other similar destination;
- Have more than one personal vehicle for use by members of the family, with support for the older children to obtain their driver's license and use the family vehicle;
- Have some contacts which may assist their children in getting a start in the workforce; and
- Once the children have left the home, the parents continue to have significant resources to spend to either renovate their home to suit their needs as ageing persons or to find a smaller residence to reduce the amount of maintenance required in the home.
Articles about employment and human resources issues also address the false middle class environment as well, assuming that workplaces are all large, employing hundreds of people and utilizing several departments and department heads, hence the expression, "climbing the corporate ladder". Very few articles of this type actually address situations in employers with less than ten or even five persons, as it is assumed that everybody works for large companies. Even in articles intended to support those who have been laid off appear to reflect this myth about contacting human resources departments and checking company websites for job openings.
First, members of the Mass Media are completely out of touch with the lives of people that do not enjoy most or all of those above things, nor do they realize or ascribe this group of people as being much larger than people want to believe it is. However, there are more stories coming out about young people leaving college or university, even professionally designated courses, who end up unemployed or under-employed when they come out, hence, their trip to their parents' basement (yet they do not write about those that graduate but do not have parents that would take them back). The Mass Media wants to keep up the myth that most of us had these amenities growing up, or that those growing up today enjoy these amenities. As well, the myth is perpetrated that everybody has family to rely on and back them up, even if just on an emotional level. The writer has not experienced any of the above positive reflections of a so-called "Middle Class" fairyland, although technically, my family of origin was not poor. We just never enjoyed these other things, probably because less people than the media think have access to these things.
Second, politicians are even more out of touch with the lives of people they are elected to represent than that of the Mass Media. Politicians have identified a family income of being about $120,000 a year as being "middle class", and the idea that income splitting will benefit many members of this supposed "middle class", Politicians do not want to hear that most families, other than families of the elite 15%, need two incomes to keep up with even the basics. There is a prototypical (usually male) breadwinner that earns six figures in one of those rare jobs that can now pass along (on paper) up to $50,000 to his stay-at-home wife to save on taxes. This policy will cost the government over $2 billion but not put one more cent into the pockets of the real middle class, or into services needed by the rest of us. Don't be fooled if one of those politicians comes knocking on your door to try to convince you otherwise, especially if you are in a family like I am that hasn't noticed one iota of a positive difference in our well being since Harper took root, other than more costs.
Even Justin Trudeau who purports to speak for the "middle class" has never himself experienced being anything other than from the high priced elite. Both the Liberals and Conservatives have ran deficits over the past several decades and lately, their answer to these deficits is to further cut the programs that mostly benefit the "middle class" and the lower income individuals and families. At a provincial level, welfare and disability benefits go as far as they did in the 1970's, while paying today's prices. Don't kid yourself. Today, you may have a job, but tomorrow if you lose that job through restructuring, layoff or health issues, you too are more likely to rely on the state for survival, as less and less employers provide the kinds of benefits they did in the past to protect people under these circumstances, and according to some, less people are eligible for even EI benefits. Among those lucky to hold a steady job, which is the minority according to a recent article in the Toronto Star, their wages haven't been keeping up much either. In my own community, every second person I speak to is receiving Ontario Works, ODSP, OAS/GIS, EI, WSIB, LTD (from their workplace) or similar benefits. The mere number of these people have brought our average individual and family incomes down substantially, whereby Niagara Region is one of the poorest in Ontario.
One of the issues that is faced in Niagara is that more working poor are nervous about their own futures, so they see a need to attack those in a class below theirs. Those with jobs call those without jobs "lazy". Those that drive assume they are better than those that don't. Those that own their own homes are "better and more stable than" those that rent. This is felt throughout the community. Nobody has to say anything, but if you mention to people that you don't drive, or that you rent an apartment (particularly in a co-op or in government housing which is really faux pas here), or that you are having a hard time finding a job, the sarcastic elite of the non-elite tell people there are "help wanted| signs at Tim Horton's, etc. As if even if every single unemployed person applied for all of these jobs, that every single one of them will be employed ... Yeah, right.
Manufacturing is dead in Ontario, apart from some specialized manufacturing firms requiring high skilled workers and less of them. Other jobs, such as those in the public or quasi-public sector are under attack by the right. As if tearing down these jobs and the benefits they offer will increase the number of jobs and improve the benefits for those who are unemployed today ... the attitudes have to change. The NDP, while they pretend to speak up for the :little guy" tends to associate themselves with organized labour. While I have no animus towards organized labour, I feel those in unions represent the minority of working people and do not speak whatsoever for those in non-unionized jobs or for those who are self-employed but not running large corporations. The labour movement if it wants to be successful needs to speak up more for all workers, including self-employed persons, to push for structural changes in our political environment that would guarantee pay, benefits, time off, etc. for all of us ... and not just for those lucky enough to belong to a good union. Despite all of these issues being to the fore, the most the NDP has ever done about retirement, for example, is to push for the enhancement of the CPP - which will do nothing for the retirement of those who have not worked enough, contributed enough, or were self-employed most of their lives .... it is the OAS/GIS that needs to be substantially increased and restructured to address the retirement needs of people that don't have a defined benefit pension from their workplace or elsewhere.
Other proponents speak about housing as being the issue. Housing is an issue, but if people had enough money, housing would not be an issue. Left to the market, under conditions where people have a guaranteed annual income, the market would make necessary adjustments so that housing is available to more people at affordable prices. Most landlords today tend to measure affordability where the cost of the rent they charge should not be more than thirty to thirty five percent of what a tenant brings in, so in consequence, under a GAI system, this market equilibrium, this "market rent" will be much easier to set. As for home ownership, this should be made easier for people to get into the market and to maintain their housing after they retire, so people can "age in place". This is in contrast to these commercials that repeatedly air on TV about retirement homes that cost in the range of $3,000 - $5,000 a month to rich seniors, or Premier Care in Bathing, which provides walk-in luxury tubs, which on TV are only seen being installed in bathrooms the size of most people's living rooms. An older person on OAS/GIS will never be able to afford these upgrades and thus, will be more likely to be shipped off to a cheap nursing home, where their rights to basic medical care and even life itself might be at issue, based on costs.
After reading this, and our federal election gets under way, we need to ask our politicians what they define as the "middle class" and what the supposed "middle class" families can regularly afford to invest in right now without their help. Ask if they know what the average family income for your particular neighbourhood is. Have they researched it, or are their figures stayed from the time they stopped issuing the mandatory long form census? My bet is that politicians do not really want to talk to you if you ask these questions, because you will challenge their very assumption of who they must speak for if they did get elected.
Some of you reading this might say you don't vote or want to vote because none of the political parties speak for you, but I will tell you one thing ... this is EXACTLY what the elite want. They want people NOT to vote, so they can continue to put their puppets into power to do more and more bidding for them. I worked in elections for many years and have found that the percentage of eligible voters in well-off neighbourhoods far exceeds the number of eligible voters in low income neighbourhoods that actually fill a ballot. Politicians KNOW this, which is why you don't see politicians, or at least most of them, conducting their campaigns in low income neighbourhoods, public housing projects, and so forth. They will go to where people are most likely to exercise their vote and will target their proposed policies to those that do. Because politicians know the poor do not vote as much as the wealthier folks, they don't feel obligated to do anything about poverty ... other than address it through criminal avenues, such as law and order provisions against those poor who sleep in the wrong places or do not have anything to eat. On the contrary, if the poor voted in droves, politicians from all parties will be eager to develop policies to address their concerns ...
In addition to voting, we need to also train new voters to help them understand the impact of proposed policies from all parties and allow them to become informed voters. As an informed voter, I will not vote Liberal or Conservative in this next election because I see very little for the true "middle class" and even less for the poorest of all. But even if you exercised your vote for the Marijuana Party or the Rhinoceros Party, political campaign staff will note that you voted and that everybody in your neighbourhood also voted and this means, they will take your needs more seriously next time around.
Your thoughts?
