> The late 1990s were the only time in the last 35 years that American
> workers across the income distribution, from women at the 10th
> percentile to men at the 90th, black and white and everything else,
> all got real wage increases.
>
> As part of its monthly consumer confidence survey, the Conference
> Board has been asking people to characterize the job market since
> 1978. In July 2000, 56% of respondents said jobs were "plentiful,"
> and just 10% said they were "hard to get," a gap of +46 points. That
> far surpassed the previous peak in April 1989, when they numbers were
> 35% and 20%, a gap of +15 points. The best it's gotten in this cycle
> is 30/19, a gap of +11. It's now 24/23.
>
> So the late 1990s really stand out.
That's still just a blip over the long term. I'm well aware that the economic "boom" of the late 1990s trickled down more than usual, but we are talking here about a period of only a few years, hardly enough time to have a significant impact on social change movements. It's not like people suddenly decided that since they were getting bigger paychecks that it was time to go out on the streets in places like Seattle. Movements like the anti-globalization movement were built on years of organizing, campaigns synchronizing together and a few lucky breaks, like the Seattle cops going stupid for several days.
> And what do you mean by "middle class"? Unless you're using it in
> some narrow sense - entrepreneurs and professional/managerial -
> what's the diff between middle and working class?
I define the middle class rather broadly, but my take on the working class in this thread is the more narrow definition of the working poor.
Chuck0