Descending Into Poverty

I friended an acquaintance from my Midwestern hometown past on Facebook some months ago, and his rants ever since have been a real eye-opener for me.

Mind you, from what I remember, this guy, (who has been dubbed as Mr. Cranky by my BFF Diantha), was as middle class as I was, though perhaps a notch above, since I’m pretty sure his dad was a veteran and mine wasn’t. And that made a huge difference in social and economic status the 50s and 60s, unless you were university professors like my in-laws.

My Dad was too young to enlist in WWII. By the time the Korean Conflict (how’s THAT for a war euphemism???) rolled around, a cyst on dad’s back kept him out of that one too.

So my family didn’t benefit from “Big Gov’ment” benefits like Cranky’s family did. No GI Bill for us, no cushy jobs at the Postal Service, no government-provided health care at the VA.

And since my father didn’t want to work the land like his German ancestors, we didn’t get those farm subsidies that continue to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Are you listening, Billy B?

Instead, Dad just went out there and worked in non-union jobs for rich guys that paid him too little, screwed him out of a decent pension in his old age, and convinced him that if he dared join a union, the company would fold and he would never work again.

Dad was duped.

As are too many of us in what used to be the Middle Class, but who are now sinking into the ranks of the working poor. If we can get work. Otherwise, we’re just poor.







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