There is a diary on the Rec List about a Wall Street Journal article detailing how those making $400,000/year can still feel like they are “just getting by”. http://www.dailykos.com/...
I am glad the WSJ is giving comfort to its target audience, reassuring those well within the 1% of annual income that it is okay if they feel they are struggling to get by. The purpose, IMO, is to assuage any potential feelings their readers might have toward those with less, because they, the members of the 1%, have it rough as well, so that the 1% can be justified in their dissatisfaction with how little they have.
Of course, what the article actually does is prove to us, those who are way down the income scale from these 1%ers, how little the WSJ actually cares about the vast majority of this country, and how as a newspaper its editorial purpose is to be a fluffer to the 1% and keep them insulated from the realities that most people in the country live with every minute of every day.
But the corollary story that the WSJ won’t touch is this: if it families making $400,000/yr are feeling like they are struggling, then how must 150 million people getting by on less than $50,000/yr feel? Where is the WSJ chart showing us the typical distribution of expenses for a family making less than $50 grand a year? Show us that chart WSJ, and then explain to us, since you advocate for cutting all programs that benefit or help support these people, exactly where the fat is in their budgets?
The WSJ is such a strong advocate for our personal responsibility: save for your own retirement, save for your own medical costs, save for your kid’s education, etc., but when have they ever shared with us the math to support the fantasies they are advocating. Come on, WSJ, give us your monthly breakdown of our typical expenses, you moral oracles at the country’s premiere financial paper, and show us whether you really have clue about how we live. Show us exactly how half the country’s families getting by on about 1/10th of $400,000/yr need only suck it up and tighten their belts.
Let’s see that story.