On June 9, 2013, Jane Yurechko writes on NationOfChange.org about several witnesses testifying at a Senate haring on the “State of the American Dream: Economic Policy and the Future of the Middle Class,” called by Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, Chairman of the Senate Banking subcommittee on economic policy. These witnesses were representing middle-class families that had been featured in the documentary film “American Winter,” which highlighted the continued challenges the disappearing middle class in America is facing.
Programs traditionally thought to be only used by the unemployed are now dominated by working Americans who depend on them to meet their needs in these tough economic times. Pundits wishing to cut social services programs often call individuals relying on them lazy and still tout President Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” rhetoric. With nearly 20 million people still unemployed and 15 percent of our nation receiving food stamps, people are not abusing the system; they are poverty-stricken and hungry. As Melson put it, people “are not sitting around wanting a handout,” but are still “in over their heads like many of us are.”
Merkley outlined the problem clearly when he stated, “60 percent of jobs we lost in the recession were living wage jobs, and 60 percent of the jobs that are being restored after the recession are not living wage jobs.”
Amy Traub of Demos opened her testimony added that this “go-it-alone economic system is creating record inequality.” One of her solutions to these growing problems is to help workers “rebuild the power to organize and join a union.”
Nick Hanauer of Second Avenue Partners said big businesses are heralded as job creators, but that is simply not the truth. The real job creators are the middle class because, as he knows from personal experience as an affluent venture capitalist, “We only hire more people if consumers demand it.”
The essential message we are left with at the end of this hearing is that the old American Dream was, as put by Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., “If you work hard, you’ll succeed, if you play by the rules, you’ll be rewarded.” Heller acknowledged that this dream is becoming increasingly difficult for middle-class Americans to realize.
It now seems the American Dream is quickly turning into even more of a fantasy.
