This Could Be You

You're an average man, with an average family and a comfortable income. You aren't extravagant and have worked hard to save money and live frugally. You have $1000 left to pay on the car and then it's yours. You have no other debt, save a credit card you pay off every month.
Then, things get bad very fast. You lose your union job due to massive cuts at the factory.  The family cuts back and lives off your wife's part time income of $600/mo. and savings. You do alright for awhile, but are totally unprepared for the events which follow.
Finding work is difficult since you have no skills. You get an offer which pays half your former salary. It's a tough decision. Taking a job at half the pay will prevent you from actively seeking more appropriate work. If you take such a job, the cost of commuting will make your income less than it is on unemployment. Even worse, the job offers no benefits. You figure if you don't find work before the unemployment runs out, you can find a similar job quite easily. So you decide to keep looking.
Then, after a month or two, the health benefits expire. You can't afford to pay $900 a month for COBRA benefits because your unemployment is only $1200 and the mortgage is $960. Several family members require prescription drugs which now cost your family $100 a month. You wife goes to the doctor to get her meds refilled, and you get a bill for $95—$15 more than the total charge when you were insured.  You can't pay it all up front, so they agree to an installment plan, which includes a monthly fee of $3.
Things are starting to get tight. The brakes need replacing on the car and you put it on your credit card, though you've stopped paying it off every month. Your wife is also looking for work. She must be able to earn enough to compensate for childcare expenses, but her job skills can only get her minimum wage.
You are still looking for work after several month. The entire economy is in a downturn and jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. You have a hard time finding the 2 jobs a week the state unemployment office requires you to apply for.
Even though your unemployment benefits continue, your family has exhausted their savings and you now have credit card and medical debt. You begin to feel depressed with no work in sight. You do your best not to sit around and let the situation get the best you.
Bill time again. You paid the credit card bill one day late last month and a $35 late fee has been added to your balance. As an additional penalty, the interest rate has risen from 6% to 19%. Your minimum payment has doubled.
You've been paying the mortgage late as well and you are worried about paying the extra $50 a month late fee. Then you get a disconnect notice for your electricity—that also has a late fee. The garbage collector is threatening to cancel your service. If that happens, they will charge an additional $12 reconnect fee to resume service again.
Despite paying on time every month for nearly 5 years, your auto the lender refuses to work out a payment plan. After you've worked hard and payed nearly $18,000 on your truck, the lender repossesses it with only $500 remaining on the debt! You feel as though they have stolen it from you, and in a very real sense, they have.
When you are finally able to find work, it doesn't pay your former union wages. The health benefits are substantially less and premiums are now taken from your salary. You have accrued nearly $15,000 in debt between credit cards and medical bills and facing the foreclosure of your home. You will be struggling to catch up for years. Worst of all, you must now borrow thousands of dollars at high interest, so you can buy car to get to work each day. To save your home, you cash in the last of your 401K and now you also owe a few grand in penalties to the IRS.
Now you know what it is to struggle. You've lost everything you've worked for. Now that you're poor, the odds are stacked against you and your children as well. Since you can no longer afford a private tutor, your daughter is failing math. She will not get into college. You apply for various grants and special programs, but you are told your income is too high to qualify. Your son no longer plays in the band, because the rent on his drums is too high. Music was his life. Without his music, his behavior takes a turn for the worse and his grades begin to fall. With both parents working full time, they lack energy are unable to notice he has begun using drugs.
You long for the days when life was good. You turn on the news and they're talking about investing for retirement. Now you are fighting tears. Retirement? Eking out a living and buying your car all over again leaves little left to invest. Retirement is a dream you will never get to realize.

Only when you have felt the sting of reality, will you be able to dream of an alternate future for society—and to understand that there is a better way for all humanity.

Other publications of interest:

• Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It
• Not Keeping Up with Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class
• Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class
• The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream