Class 10 Economics Chapter 4 Pdf Download High Quality
Alysha Perry
Over the past decade, the Great Recession, a housing market collapse, an unemployment surge and an anemic recovery have squeezed the middle class. An overwhelming majority of middle-class Americans (85%) say it is more difficult today than 10 years ago for those in the middle class to maintain their standard of living, according to a Pew Research Center national survey of 2,508 adults.
Within the middle class, the downbeat assessment is shared by virtually identical proportions of men and women, Republicans and Democrats, the college-educated and those with a high school degree or less. However, there are some notable differences by race and age.
Different demographic groups within the middle class point the finger of blame in different directions. For example, men are more likely than women to blame Congress (68% vs. 58%) for the economic problems of the middle class. Blacks are more likely than whites to blame large corporations for the economic woes of the past decade (57% vs. 45%). About four-in-ten blacks (41%) and 34% of Hispanics say foreign competition is a major cause of these problems. Whites are more likely than Hispanics to say Congress is at serious fault (65% vs. 52%) for middle-class difficulties.
The Pew Research survey posed a battery of questions designed to gauge the economic attitudes and experiences of middle-class Americans over various time periods. The findings are mixed. While a sizable majority of respondents (71%) say it is more difficult to get ahead today than it was 10 years ago, they are evenly divided when it comes to measuring their own personal economic progress over the past decade. Some 42% say they are less financially secure, while 44% say they are more secure and 12% say there has been no change.
Asked about the impact of the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, 42% of middle-class respondents say they still have not recovered financially, while nearly a third (32%) say they are in better shape now, and 23% are doing no better or worse than before the downturn.
Asked about their experiences in the past year, about six-in-ten report they have had to cut back household spending in the past 12 months because money was tight. Roughly three-in-ten in the middle class say they had trouble paying their bills, and 12% say they lost their jobs.
The remainder of this chapter offers more detail on these and related findings. The first sections examine how middle-class Americans say they have fared financially over the past 10 years, including how well they have bounced back from the Great Recession. The next section examines how Americans have fared in the past year. The final section describes how people in the middle class judge their current financial circumstances as well as their family life, education and housing situations.
The middle class divides nearly equally when asked if they are more secure financially now than a decade ago. Four-in-ten (42%) say they are less secure now than 10 years ago, while about as many (44%) say they are more sheltered from economic shocks.
In terms of their financial security, different demographic groups within the middle class say they have headed in opposite directions in the past decade. Majorities of blacks and those under the age of 50 say they are more secure now. In contrast, older adults are more likely to say their sense of economic well-being has worsened over the past 10 years. Democrats are more likely to say they are more secure than independents (50% vs. 39%). About four-in-ten Republicans (42%) also feel more protected now.
According to the Pew Research survey, middle-class blacks say that they are more financially secure now than they were a decade ago. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say they are more secure today while about a third say they are less secure.
Education offers little or no protection from economic reversals, the survey suggests. About half of middle-class college graduates (48%) and 43% of those with less formal education say that they are more financially secure than they were 10 years ago.
Seven-in-ten middle-class adults (71%) say it is harder to get ahead now than it was 10 years ago, an increase of nine percentage points since this question was asked in a 2008 Pew Research survey.10Substantial majorities of every core demographic group in the middle class say it is harder to get ahead today than it was a decade ago. But some notable differences between groups do emerge. Whites, older adults and Republicans are more likely than non-whites, those younger than 50 and Democrats to say that it is more difficult to advance.
The racial pattern seen in other questions appears again here. Three-quarters of all middle class whites (75%) say it is more difficult now to move forward. In contrast, about six-in-ten blacks (61%) and Hispanics (62%) believe advancement is harder.
Also, older middle-class adults are more negative than the younger generations. Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) of those 50 years old and older say it is more difficult to get ahead, compared with 65% of younger middle-class adults.
The Great Recession lasted 18 months. But three years after the downturn officially ended, about four-in-ten (42%) middle-class adults say they are worse off financially today than when the recession began in December 2007. An additional 23% say they are doing about as well as they were before the downturn. About a third report they are at least a little better off.
Middle-class blacks and Hispanics are significantly more likely than whites to say they are doing better financially now than before the slowdown. About half of blacks (49%) and 43% of Hispanics say they are doing better, compared with only 28% of whites. In addition, a plurality of whites (45%) say they are doing worse, compared with 28% of blacks and 39% of Hispanics.
Adults younger than 50 are twice as likely as those 50 and older to say they are doing better (43% vs. 20%). But this generation gap narrows when the focus shifts to those who say they are doing worse. Nearly four-in-ten middle-class adults ages 30 to 49 (37%) say they are not doing as well as they were before the recession, compared with 47% of those 50 to 64 years old.
Republicans and political independents say they have been the slowest to recover: About half (51%) of all middle-class Republicans say they have not fully made up their recession-era losses, and nearly as many independents say the same thing (46%).
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Americans in the upper, middle and lower classes agree that maintaining a middle-class lifestyle is more difficult today than 10 years ago. But on other key economic questions, predictable differences emerge among the social classes, with the upper class faring better and those in the lower class faring worse.
Similarly, those in the lower class say they were hit the hardest by the Great Recession. About six-in-ten (58%) say they are not yet back to where they were financially before the recession began. Among upper-class Americans, only about a third (34%) say they are worse off while 42% report that they are in better financial shape now.
However, substantial differences by social class exist. Among those in the lower class, only about half say hard work and determination bring success, while roughly as many (45%) disagree. Many more in the upper class (71%) and middle class (67%) express confidence that persistence and effort eventually pay off.
Though the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, the middle class has still experienced economic hardships over the past year. About six-in-ten middle-class adults (62%) say they had to cut back household spending in the past year because money was tight. Three-in-ten (29%) had trouble paying their bills. Just under two-in-ten had trouble getting or paying for medical care for themselves or someone in their family (18%), and a similar share had trouble paying their rent or mortgage (16%). And fully 12% have been laid off or lost their job in the past year.
Hispanics (51%) in the middle class are more likely than whites (32%) to say they have experienced two or more economic struggles. The black share (43%) falls in between the shares of whites and Hispanics.
Not surprisingly, there are large differences in each of these economic hardships across the three class groups, with the upper class significantly less likely than the middle class to have experienced them over the past year and the lower class being significantly more likely.
Among the largest differences between the upper and middle classes is the share that had to cut back household spending over the past year because money was tight: 62% of middle-class adults had to do so, compared with only 41% of upper-class adults (a difference of 21 percentage points). Fully 84% of the lower class had to do this.
Overall, the gaps in experiences between the middle and the lower class are larger than the gaps between the upper and the middle class. Among the largest gaps between the lower and the middle class is the share that had trouble paying bills over the past year. Nearly two-thirds of the lower class (64%) experienced this problem, while only about three-in-ten (29%) of the middle class and 13% of the upper class say the same.
While 45% of lower-class adults had trouble getting medical care for themselves or their family, only 18% of middle-class adults and 11% of upper-class adults say the same. The shares that had trouble paying rent or mortgage follow a similar pattern: 45% of the lower class experienced this problem, compared with a much lower share of the middle class (16%) or the upper class (7%).
One-quarter of those who say they are in the lower class (25%) say they have been laid off or lost their job over the past year. This compares with only 12% of the middle class and 7% of the upper class.
Among the middle class, three-in-ten (30%) report exactly one negative economic experience in the past year, about a quarter (27%) say they experienced two or three, and one-in-ten (10%) experienced four or more.
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