The Middle Class has collapsed, and why that's dangerous for America

The collapse of the middle class presages a hard turn to the left in America.

A Pew Research survey shows the middle class has now sunk below 50% with the number of poor growing. The demographic change has terrible implications for our republic.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Americans are missing a massive threat to the nation. The middle class has fallen below 50% of the population for the first time.

Plato suggested rule by the middle class would produce a stable society, for the wealthy just care to get richer, and the poor just want to eat the rich. Only the middle class wants stability and is thus naturally conservative.

Unfortunately, the conservative branch of American politics is beholden to the rich. The poor are growing. The rise of socialist Bernie Sanders is telling. American society is poised for a hard turn to the political left.

According to Pew research, 99.9 percent of all new wealth created in the present economy is going to the top 10 percent of earners. Families that bring home less than $51,500 per year after taxes are losing money and sinking further into debt. High rents, high-interest debts, and high taxes are exacerbating the problem.

Of course, at the heart of the problem are slipping wages, which are not keeping pace with inflation. Middle-class workers now earn a full one-third less income than their predecessors did 40 years ago.

Income inequality is perhaps the most serious problem facing America. A poor population cannot consume and will look to government saviors to soak the rich and provide for their need. It's a fatal proposition and one that will destroy America as a free country. Without a robust and free consumer base, capitalism cannot survive.

While debates center on the iconic $15/hour figure, such focus is misleading. It is not the amount of the wage, but rather the purchasing power of a wage that matters more. How much purchasing power should a person who works 40 hours have? Should this person also need taxpayer-funded help to make ends meet? Or, should their employer pay more to cover the basic costs of their living?

Fairness dictates the second answer. The employer generates revenue from the worker's labor, while the taxpayer does not. A person who works full time should not be a burden to taxpayers, as a fairness issue. From the UN Declaration of Human Rights to the various decrees of the Vatican, employers are morally bound to pay living wages to workers. It is wrong to work these people for a full week, then dump them on the taxpayers to sustain them.

The boardroom obsession with spreadsheets has focused executives on ever-larger bottom lines. There's little room in corporate culture for anything better than minimal wages.

Many workers no longer receive bonuses, periodic raises, and their benefits have been slashed. Republicans in particular, oppose maternity leave for parents, minimum wage increases and other advancements for workers saying they will "cost jobs."

We find ourselves positioned to reap two generations of stagnant wages. Our future holds a new left-leaning nation that will eventually soak the rich, and quite possibly destroy itself in the process.