"Middle-Class" is the median (I assume you know what that term means). Based on wages, the median American income is $41k per year for a family of 4. The "poverty line" is 50% of the median income, which is $20.5k per year for a family of 4. BTW, those numbers are gross income, before taxes.

So Wagner, tell me how one would live a "middle class" life on $41k per year before taxes for a family of 4. I'd like to see what your monthly budget would look like.

The simple answer is that it cannot be done. $41k per year for a family of 4 does not allow that family to live a "middle class" life. It allows a family to just get by with the essentials. The median American family is no longer middle class.

Did I say I could? And yes you could live on that with a family of four, my father did that just fine with less money. So yes..you can. However our family didn't insist on having cell phones/flat screens and new cars. So you can pretend that it isn't possible to live on that money, but it most definitely is.

Oh, I wasn't counting pulling money from one pocket to put it in the other one.

Eric, this is what I mean about accountability. I agree with Wagner. My family too didn't have much money - we did without lots of stuff. Guess what, we were ok with it. Sure it would have been nice to have a bunch of other stuff but we didn't. Lots of people live beyond their means. Not smart.

Who's fault is it? The businesses that sell them things? Is that what you are trying to say? Should they just be getting money from the gov't because they don't fit your definition of middle class or should they do with less or earn more?

You guys are kidding right? Are you really saying the lifestyle you guys had growing up on your parents 40k could be had present day for the same price???

Ummmmm...I'm not sure what you mean. Are you under the mistaken impression that the Federal Reserve is a government agency? They are indeed a group of private banks. That 0.25% goes into the pockets of those banks.

Yes, I think that is what they are saying. They fail to realize that cost of living has far outpaced wages over the past 30 years.

$40k per year before taxes leaves you with about $2800 per month after taxes. Break down the costs for me of a family of 4 and make it fit into $2800 per month.

Um, yeah. I'm only 9 years out of living with my parents.

Things we didn't have that people insist are necessary now:

1) Computer
2) Cell phones
3) Never went out to eat, most meals were made with noodles & chicken broth
4) Never went to the movies
5) Never been to Disney anything
6) Had one pair of shoes that lasts 2-4 years before being replaced
7) Only had clothes that were bought on sale, no name brands
8) Bought my own car for $200.00 when I turned 16, worked since I was 15 and paid my own insurance
9) Paid my own college, worked all day/school all night
10) Had one TV in our house, 28"
11) Had basic cable
12) Had one car, my dad's which was used. He has had three new cars in his life...one in 1968 and one in 1999 and 2005
13) We lived in the same house my entire life
14) My dad bought the lot his house was built on and helped the builder, build it.

That is life on a school teachers salary and ya know what, wouldn't change a minute of it for the world. Hard work didn't kill anyone, laziness & excuses do.
YES, it most definitely is possible. People choose to make it not possible.

No you're flat out wrong Eric. My family had no car payments and a mortgage of $650/mth...now my dad still has no payment and a $300 dollar a month mortgage. Stop making excuses for stupid individuals that live beyond their means.

In general, wages should be higher. We should not be competing for jobs against countries that have slave labor or pay $1 per day to their employees. These "free trade" agreements need to exclude countries that do not have proper labor laws. That is the main reason for a declining standard of living in this country.

Another, but much smaller reason, is corporations paying their top executives higher and higher salaries instead of paying more to the people who actually do the labor. There should be laws stating that for a public corporation, no full time employee can earn more than 10 times any other full time employee. or make the number 12 times, or whatever. But in the current system, you have corporations that pay their CEO a few thousand times as much as their lower level employees, even when the corporation is losing money. Not only is that unfair to the employees, but the stockholders are getting hosed too.