The problems facing the middle class present a high-end issue

Seattle was once a middle-class city. But that was a very different Seattle.

That Seattle was the home to blue-collar union jobs at Boeing, the seaport and railroads. Locally headquartered banks, retailers, manufacturing firms and the broader maritime sector also provided numerous middle-income positions. So did the regional affiliate of AT&T, Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone, which was also based here.

This was the Seattle that had its star turn in 1962, with the Century 21 Exposition (the Seattle World’s Fair).

The situation was similar nationally, from the auto factories of Detroit to the steel mills of Cleveland and Pittsburgh and the defense industries of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Middle-income households with veterans in the post-World War II era could afford higher education and low-interest home loans thanks to the GI Bill. For example, a new three-bedroom split-level house on Beacon Hill sold for $16,500 in 1961.

That means $170,768 adjusted for inflation. But still, it would be a bargain. According to Zillow, the only property now in Beacon Hill that comes close to that price is a vacant lot. Otherwise, we’re talking houses that cost from $650,000 up to the millions.

I thought about this middle-class America when I was reading a story in The Washington Post concerning how many people see such a life and why they believe it’s impossible to reach it.

A poll done by the newspaper found widespread agreement on what it took to be considered middle class. Among them were a secure job, the ability to save money for the future and being able to pay bills on time without concern.

According to the Social Security Administration, “Although there is no official government definition of the middle class, the three middle quintiles of the income distribution ($28,000 to $109,000 for married couples and $11,000 to $41,000 for single persons) are a commonly used definition.” (Quintiles divide a value into five equal parts).

However, such financial security is lacking for two-thirds of American adults, according to The Post’s analysis of Federal Reserve data.

“The idea that you can have a secure job with predictable wages, with health care and retirement, and being able to pay for your housing — those things are all part of a midcentury vision of the middle-class life trajectory,” Caitlin Zaloom, an anthropology professor at New York University, told The Post.

The Pew Research Center reported this past year that the share of adults who live in middle-class households declined to 50% in 2021 from 61% in 1971. Meanwhile, incomes for most in upper-class households increased significantly.

Retirement is increasingly a problem for the middle class and especially the lower middle class.

According to research by economics professor Teresa Ghilarducci and colleagues at the New School for Social Research, a New York City graduate institution, wealth for the bottom 90% of households nearing retirement has fallen during the past 32 years.

For the bottom 90%, the major source of wealth assistance is Social Security. (The findings were first reported in The New York Times.)

The middle class has its origins in the early days of the nation. “Middling” people such as artisans, shopkeepers, mechanics and small merchants formed an important part of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party.

Some important caveats are in order when addressing the golden age of the American middle class from the late 1940s to the 1970s.

Many people of color were left out and held back. Events such as the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 involved the destruction of a prosperous African American neighborhood — called the Black Wall Street — by white mobs. This middle-class Black enclave was leveled and its inhabitants forced to start over. Many people of color couldn’t use GI Bill benefits either. As a result, intergenerational wealth transfer — such as through a house — left many such families far behind.

The causes of the middle-class troubles are well-known: Middle-income jobs were lost to technological advances; corporate mergers and industry consolidation killed more employment; the demands of Wall Street and rising executive compensation took priority over the needs of employees and communities; wages stagnated while household debt levels increased.

Starting in the 1970s, incomes began to diverge, with the middle class increasingly left behind.

The so-called China Shock of the People’s Republic entering the World Trade Organization and gaining access to Western markets cost more than 59% of the U.S. factory jobs lost between 2001 and 2019.

The situation was made worse by the Great Recession and the slow recovery that followed in much of the nation. Then inflation hit, along with higher interest rates. The United States is enjoying a strong economy with low unemployment, but President Joe Biden gets little credit.

In some cases, the middle class acted against its own interests — such as shopping at anti-union Walmart and buying products from China. But what are people to do when they’re struggling and the Beast of Bentonville offers good prices? It’s a classic feedback loop.

And this is assuming people in this cohort act as a “class,” when in fact they can range from supporters of Donald Trump to liberal Democrats. Pressure on the white middle class drives support for Trump. Biden grew up in a struggling household before his father became a car salesman and the family achieved middle-class security. Biden has made lifting the middle-class part of his agenda.

Today’s Seattle has a middle class of sorts.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Seattle’s median household income was $116,068 as of 2022, compared with $75,145 nationally (the median is the midpoint of data and considered more descriptive than using average).

By contrast, the median household income in Tacoma was $79,085, Portland $85,876 and Boise $76,402.

In Seattle, most of the old midlevel jobs of 1962 are gone. For example, far fewer longshore jobs are available because of new ships and technology meant to speed the loading of cargo.

Middle-income jobs still exist here, too, such as UPS drivers represented by the Teamsters, and public employees, also members of organized labor. But middle-income work doesn’t provide the income for most of its recipients to live in the city of Seattle or many of its suburbs. Maybe they can buy houses in certain outlying suburbs or rent in the city or elsewhere nearby.

Most Americans identify themselves as middle class and holding “middle-class values,” even if they’re wealthy.

But the troubles of the real middle class will be a potent social and political force for years to come.