ran 3.4 miles
For a long time I have been asking, "What is the definition of the middle class?"
We always hear our president referring to this faction of Americans with this broad label but you have to wonder who exactly it is he is speaking about. I consider myself middle class but very little of what our president has to say resonates with me. Does that mean I am not part of the middle class? At what point of not earning does a household become poor and at what point of earning does a household ascend into the upper class? I don't think there is an official number on either end of the spectrum because so much fluctuates in our economy and our costs of living. I cannot answer what sum of money propels a household from middle class to upper class, but I did find this information on what defined being poor in 2010.
"In 2010, the poverty level was $22,314 for a family and $11,139 for an individual. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as non-cash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.
An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the
poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.
The Associated Press reportedly surveyed more than a dozen economists,
think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal
or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official
poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as
15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1
percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since
1965."
An estimated 47 million Americans were "poor" last year. That is approximately one out of every six people in America, not even including food stamp and tax credit recipients.
This isn't progress. This is enabling a large portion of our population who take advantage of the safety nets we have set up for families in hard times. The tax dollars financing these safety nets are worth every penny if they are actually necessary but many people take advantage of our system and Barack Obama does nothing to address the abuse but, instead, feeds it with more and more tax dollars earning himself the title of "Food Stamp King".
Wasteful government spending is setting America's economy on its head and the biggest shame about Barack Obama and his theme of "hope" and "change" is that if he would ever pull back the reigns on any of this spending that he has wasted for the past four years he wouldn't stand a chance of getting reelected. The man is an enabler. Much of this nation has an addiction to the sensation of feeling like a victim when they are nothing of the sort. Our president is their dealer of false hope and the stuff he is dealing (other people's money) is eventually going to run out, sooner rather than later.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 85.1
Here is what happened one year ago on Day329.
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