Zapping the middle-class--Europe & the US, 1993-2006

by: Paul Rosenberg

Fri Nov 26, 2010 at 09:00

Change in share of total hours worked by lowest, middle and highest income occupations between 1993 and 2006

This all happened before the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession.

We're not alone, and we're not the worst.  It's a pervasive trend among the established Western industrial democracies. But since we have the weakest welfare state to help soften the blow, and the deepest ideological antipathy to doing anything about it....  Well, let's just say that this chart gives an indication of how badly screwed we are right now, since (a) the global oligarchs are in denial about the ongoing Great Recession & what needs to be done about it, and (b) this chart shows--from yet another perspective--that the problems began long before the Great Recession started.