Here's a scary stat. Only 1 in 4 people in working families have a good job -- one that pays at least $17 an hour, and comes equipped with employer-sponsored health insurance and a pension.

No wonder at least 48 million Americans in working families lack the where-with-all needed to do a chin-up to the middle class. This dismal but not surprising news comes from a new report, released Thursday (2/21) by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

So let's break this down a little further. A total of 48 million -- that works out to about one in five working Americans struggling to make ends meet on incomes that are below a basic, minimum middle class budget for their community. And a full-time job at $17 bucks an hour adds up to an annual income of just over $35k. No one's living high on the hog on that paycheck -- and they aren't likely to be buying homes, paying for college, or saving for retirement either.

Movin' On Up: Reforming America's Social Contract to Provide a Bridge to the Middle Class, takes a look at recent research by CEPR in various sectors -- such as job quality, economic security, and unionization -- then outlines a set of nationwide policy reforms that would make it possible for more struggling families to live the middle class dream. Here's the gist of the report's recommendations:

• Labor market standards and institutions must be strengthened
  
• Access to post-secondary education and training must be expanded
  
• The system of public and private health care benefits must be reformed

And, here's another "newsflash" that most working Americans could tell any government bureaucrat willing to listen: the country's current poverty standards do not accurately reflect the number of working families who are holding on to the middle class by their fingernails, or who cannot maintain a middle class lifestyle at all. Gee, ya' think? But of course, the government will disavow the military-industrial complex before they actually recalculate the poverty guidelines to mesh with the economic realities of everyday life. Even though, according to the report (and trust me, the good folks at CEPR are not the first to show such findings), almost half of all working families living below a middle class standard of living actually have incomes that put them above the official federal poverty line. This is not hard when the poverty threshold for a family of four is set at the unbelievable, wholly unrealistic level of $21,200.

Read the full blog at:
http://thezaftigredhead.blogspot.com/