The working class continues to be assaulted on several fronts. While many of its sons and daughters are pawns in the economic draft for US imperialism, working class people have also faced a chronic economic malaise. Law professor Elizabeth Warren notes, the middle-class have been hollowed out:
"So you've got, effectively, flat income in this time period with rising core expenses; housing; health insurance; child care; transportation, now that it takes two cars to get everywhere, two jobs to support; and taxes, because you've got two people in the workforce and we have a somewhat progressive taxation system. So that families are spending a lot more on what you describe as the basic nut."1
As Warren notes, the neo-liberal elite have been bailed out while the working class face greater vulnerability. As my time line indicates, this war on the working class has been systemic and lengthy. Sometimes the injuries are from a thousand cuts, such as the recent plan of Bank of America and Citigroup to begin charging annual fees to customers who pay off their credit card balances each month.2
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100800778_2.html?sid=ST2009100800781
2. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/6669772.html
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