Consider Reasons for the Decline of the Middle Class

Our theme for August is not particularly beach reading. Perhaps it's more Halloween-scary: the Decline of the Middle Class. No, it's not just you that's wondering where the middle-class life you thought you were going went. If you're like me, when you got out of school (in my case, grad school), you thought if you wanted to buy some clothing, you could do so whenever you wanted. You thought you'd be able to take vacations like your parents took you on. You thought for sure you'd be able to put money aside for your kids' college tuitions. Instead, well, you find yourself more limited than you anticipated. No, it's not just you. There's a pile of very recent books discussing how this happened, the social and market forces at work, the politics, and where this trend may be leading us. One of our members compiled a list of eleven recent books on this topic (with detailed descriptions, and whether they are in the County library system or not), to make it easy to dive in and get going on this meaty topic. The Word file is saved as a File under the "More" tab at the top of the home page for this Meetup's site.

The meeting will be at a private residence near the 55/73/405 freeway intersection. I'll email out the address and a phone number to people who have RSVP'ed yes a couple of times in the week before the meeting. This meeting will be over the dinner hour, so please bring a main dish, side dish, drink, or dessert to share. If you find you are late, don't worry, we'd rather have you late than not present at all. Bring your comments, your curiosity, and your willingness to listen to others' ideas. Be happy.

Briefly, the eleven books suggested are:

James Carville's It's the Middle Class, Stupid (2012)

Thom Hartmann's Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- and What We Can Do About It (2007)

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics (2011)

Robert Frank's Falling Behind (2007)

Arianna Huffington's Third World America (2011)

Chuck Collins' 99 to 1 (2012)

Joseph Stiglitz' The Price of Inequality (2010)

Timothy Noah's The Great Divergence (2012)

James Galbraith's Inequality and Instability (2012)

Jefferson Cowie's Stayin' Alive (2010)

and John Stines' The Happy Pill: Portrait of a Middle-Class Homeowner During the Fallout of Economic Meltdown (2011)