In today's term what is the middle class in the US? If the government wanted to help the middle class and poor how would they go about it? Beside the toss money at the problem solution?

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Patnou@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

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Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Free healthcare, basic income, free kindergarten and school at least up to high school?

Something most civilized countries already have.

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- cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  What countries have UBI?
  
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  - Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Well, my point was on healthcare and school mostly … But many countries tried some form of UBI, and mostly failed tough.
    
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  - Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Most civilized countries. Can’t you read?!
    
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- Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  That sounds like a money toss.
  
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  - Steve@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    It is a money toss.
    Tossing money is how problems are solved. Heat goes out? Throw some money at it. Car breaks down? Kid can’t get into collage? Company not selling enough widgets? Country won’t sell you resources you want? Toss some money at it.
    
    Saying your looking for solutions that aren’t tossing money, shows a complete misunderstanding of how things work.
    
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  - Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    It’s called a functional society…
    
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Steve@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Well, the middle class is defined as the middle 20% income percentile. The 40-60% range of people.
Of course I’ve always found that definition to be unhelpful. Instead, I’d define it by what percentage range can own their own home, cover all their basic living expenses, and still have 20% of the income left over for discretionary spending or saving.
With that definition I imagine it’s closer to only 10% of people and they are somewhere between the 60th and 80th percentile range.

Money is the problem of the middle class.
Tossing money at it, is the only solution.
So I don’t realty understand what you’re asking here.

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rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Money can buy goods and services. One way or another, they’ll have to redirect money flows.

I suppose changing how the police and judicial system works might help while saving money. Having the world’s highest incarceration rate is actually pretty expensive.

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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Modern social services and protections

encourage unions

universal healthcare

universal pre-school

universal college

extended parental leave

childcare support
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marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The middle class doesn’t really exist in any meaningful way in the latest capitalist era. It originally meant the link between peasantry and Nobles in the late feudal period when the more aptly named Merchant class starting rising. This distinction was important at the time because unlike peasants the merchant class could generally own land and lived in relative luxury, but unlike nobles they couldn’t exercise any legal or military authority directly.

The “modern” term started with a random fuckass UK statistician that had that same mindset, but called nobles and the incredibly wealthy “upper class” where as pretty much all business owners and managers were middle class because they controlled large amounts of ‘human capital’ just without any real legal or military authority.

But really it’s all bourgeoisie, Either you work or you don’t. You produce or aid in the production of something, or you’re a ‘manager’ or ‘owner.’ There is no effective middle class in modern societies, because even if you do own a small business, the gap between you and the lowest paid worker in your society is minuscule compared to the gap between you and the real bourgeoisie; so you’re either bourgeoisie or a class traitor if you consider yourself middle class.

That all is to justify: We should be focusing on eliminating the “middle class,” by total expansion of the working class to the standards of said middle class. The government should be empowering the poorest members of its society, its foundation, instead of worrying about a mythical and nonexistent middle class or showering the top with infinite money.

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NaClKnight@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You could, for instance,

Expand the same home buying program that the military members enjoy to the entire populace.

Provide meaningful and useful pathways to avoid and/or discharge medical debt, including tighter regulation of insurance companies and cheaper more competitive government sponsored healthcare options not tied to employment

Subsidized childcare (which is currently very expensive in part because of the insurance they’re required to carry)

Relax/increase income limits on programs that support low income or disabled people

Revitalize/reintroduce the oernment owned/provided tax preparation service to reduce cost of filling for average filers

Heavily tax company purchases of residential properties

Return to 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s levels of college funding and reduce tuition costs at public universities

Reintroduce/increase student loan discharge or payback options

Relax restrictions on financial aid use to attend graduate level degree programs

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Doomsider@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Give the money to the people that will spend it to stimulate the economy. Stop giving the money to people who don’t need it.

There are countless proven ways to do this. There are also some good ideas like UBI that would be worth a try. Tried and true ways like raising minimum wage, progressive taxes, providing training and education, subsidizing healthcare/schools/childcare, etc.

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IndustryStandard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Build affordable housing

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Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
A generic version of what many people are saying… support the middle class and poor by making their lives easier. Same thing with teachers. Pay would be great, but actual support in doing their jobs would make a much bigger difference. Most poor and middle class people don’t really want a handout. They want less stress and more security about their future.

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Paragone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Enforce a Market-Basket-Measure based minimum-wage:

live in an expensive city?

Yes, there’s much more innovation-per-capita there ( because more complex interactions are happening, more people sparking other-people ), but the costs are higher there, too, so therefore the minimum-wage has to be higher, the bigger the city.

You also get the rural-living-tax, though, as you’re much more motor-vehicle-dependent, rurally…

Fix the wages law, so parenting can be unbroken, & that would have significant cascading-effects.

Enforce proper education’s availability, so that critical-reasoning becomes normal for 80+ percent of the population, ASAP.

That would undo much of the idiocracy-cult’s traction, & get rationality beck into the world.

Prevent DarkTetrad/DarkTriad people from being electABLE, or having authority in public-service ( including police-services ), & that would make huge difference.

Criminalize bribery, including lobbying, & force all issues to be decided through rational issue-diagrams, not through “politicking”, & that would clean-up our countries, significantly.

etc.

Combined-Arms: hit all the dimensions, simultaneously, & force the enemy-of-our-viability to yield, no matter what.

Otherwise, The Great Filter’s going to be our world’s epitaph, in about 60y.

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impairedimperator@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Sit and do nothing.

Money is an abstraction of time and resources. If you are interested in investing time and resources, your only option is to wander off, come back later, and hope that the problem fixes itself.

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