How do you predict the growing gap between lower middle class and upper middle class will affect society?
345295
Didn't you mean "What do you think of celebrity baby names?" Just kidding.  Actually, this is something that I think about often.  I believe that my generation will begin to witness the demise of the middle class (by which I mean the lower and middle middle classes, not the upper middle class).  The reasons for this breakdown are, I imagine, extremely complex, and I doubt very much that I am qualified to render a competent analysis.  I will speculate that the most fundamental cause of this phenomenon is complacency.  This generation of people seems genuinely unconcerned with any kind of political education, which need not be formal at all.  As long as people really are more interested in what goes on in the tabloids than the political and social forces that are eroding our society as we know it, social and governmental elites will continue to protect their own interests at the expense of those from whom, theoretically at least, they derive their power.  Change requires recognition, and as long as we bury our collective heads in the sand, nothing will be done.  This nation seems to be following the path of all fallen empires.  We are so incredibly overextended that taking care of the needs of the bulk of our own population is simply no longer a primary concern.  The number of people in this country living without access to health care bears this out, and this is by no means the only issue faced by the lower and middle classes.  We will either wise up, or experience the kind of unrest and violence that such social divides inevitably bring.  I hope for the former, but expect the latter.
550626
Classic trickle down economics... this is pumping billions and billions into the hands of the upper class... when they spend money it will go to buy products produced by workers so it all eventually ends up in the pockets of the "little man" again...\n\nI do not buy this argument, because it is based on the upper classes intention to buy items... if they don't want to purchase anymore items than they normally do, then it doesn't help anyone...
826911
the generation gap...\n\ndifferent peers, different friends, different societal norms, different values, different status in the family, different music, different language, different clothes.
858283
This looks like something a government economist/statistician might come up with.  I went to google and looked up Total Poverty Gap, then scanned a few articles about Canada, South Africa, and Malawi.\n\nThe Total Poverty Gap is the amount of money poor people would need to get them up to the poverty line.\n\nIt looks to me like someone first fixes the poverty line -- $365 in your example.  Then they see how many people fall below that line -- 353 in your example.\n\nNow, those 353 people do have <some> income, and it's necessary to know how much.  In your example, those people averaged $278.86 each.  (That's the number you need.)\n\nSince the poverty line is $365, and the poor people averaged $278.86, then on the average, they came up $86.14 short.\n\nNow take this $86.14 shortfall and divide it into the $365.  You'll get 4.237 ... very close to your 4.232.\n\nThis 4.237 is the factor which must be divided into the $365 to get the $86.14 which, on the average, each poor person must get in order to get up to the poverty line.\n\nAnd if you multiply by the number of poor people, 353, you get this:\n\n($365 / 4.237) x 353 people = $30,409\n\nwhich is the Total Poverty Gap.\n\nSo I think that's where your number comes from.  To get the Total Poverty Gap, you must know how much income the poor people have, on the average.  Once you have that, then any competent government bureaucrat/economist/statistician can do the rest.
387149
As long as their are poor people, and third world countries, there will be no end to immigration issues.\n\nI see what you are getting at, I think.  Without the immigrants; without the poor, there would be no middle or upper classes.  Poor people do the work for the middle and upper classes to maintain their social status.\n\nHope that was kind of what you were getting at :)
469697
Strangely enough, it's not a certain investment that will reverse the trend of the current middle class economic condition.  It's a change in spending habits and debt.  We are a country in massive debt working to pay back credit card and lending companies.  All we would have to do is change the way, and frequency, in which we spend and the middle class would once again grow and be strong.
332565
I don't think that's happening directly...I think they don't see any way out of their situation, so they do something that ends up leading to prisons, so that in effect, if you're lower class, there's a very high chance you'll end up there.\n\nI think giving people a way out is the best hope - helping them to see that there is a way out of the bad situations they're in (by improving access to decent-paying jobs, healthcare and education).
524327
Unfortunately, some of the few who have moved from lower economic strata to the "upper middle class" and beyond have become very selfish and backed laws to protect their money to the detriment of society as a whole.
1126485
No because we would still not be all on the same level. There would be just a poor rich class compared to the absolute filty rich.
3283
That no matter what, there's still going to be social class differences. And although some may be able to blur the distinctions, they will remain.
316749
You are asking a loaded question. In the next ten years there will be 76,000,000 people retiring, that alone will shift much of life as we know it. Real estate may peter out as baby boomers sell their big homes for smaller ones. Stocks may not do so well with less people working. Commerce (GNP) will slow as there are less buying dollars. Foreign powers will gain strength, economic and political.
309659
Essentially it is because we are spending more.  We have become an expendible society.  Cars break we buy new a button breaks we buy a new shirt.  We do not make our own clothes now, we barely make our own food things cost more oil cost more, experience costs more.  The middle class has to try to keep up with the other middle class then in a recession it makes them poor and others rich depending on investments.  The goverments tax system also does not support the middle class only the lower income and the high end with exemptions.   There for our government, society, and economy do not support the middle class this has been this way for decades catch the phrase "rich get richer poor get poorer"  as well as the man shipping all our jobs overseas is laughing at the middle class all the way to the bank.  I hope to see our society actually vote a working middle class person in to office of several levels to turn arround the laws and tax breaks to help out the middle class.  I wait for that day.
860294
Republicans usually pull for the upperclass and dems pull for lower/middle class
456178
stable?!?!? we're gonna have another stock crash and the middle class will become non existent
941704
This will help with #1 I think......hard to explain it on here but the affairs our government creates can break us or make us.  One is the social programs they create, another is how high they increase taxes and allow prices to rise\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics\n\nNot sure what you mean by #2 see if this helps with that one:\n\nThe middle class, in colloquial usage, consists of those people who have a degree of economic independence, but not a great deal of social influence or power. The term often encompasses merchants and professionals, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
920952
middle class. not rich... but not poor...
768979
After they took to our streets, May 1, they created a backlash which they will never see the end of.\n\nThis ripple has become a storm and soon will be a tsunami of unequal proportions.\n\nThe middle class is the power class and as we unite through joining pro-American organizations and spending our money saving our heritage, we will be a force not to be reckoned with!\n\nTo quote a Patriot....."be afraid....be very afraid"