Drew Carey helps puts some perspective on the "Middle Class Squeeze."

Predictably, the video wasn't cheered in all quarters.  And many would argue that's it's income inequality that should really be addressed by government.

Radley Balko offered this response:   

Seems to be some animosity in the comments section about the Drew Carey video.

Look, the purpose of the video wasn’t to tell middle class people that they’re happy if they aren’t. It was to provide some economical and historical perspective to counter the constant class war message in the media that the middle class is “under attack.” It just isn’t so. Inequality may well be growing, and that may well contribute to the sentiment among many in the middle class that they’re being left behind. But they aren’t suffering, or on the verge of extinction. We’re all much, much better than we were a generation ago. We have more free time. We take more vacations. We have nicer things. We have less to worry about. This was the basis of the great work of Julian Simon . 

My friend Will Wilkinson’s work on happiness studies factors in to all of this. We’re hard-wired to be competitive, to want more than the next guy. Back on the grassy plains, the guy with the most stuff got to mate with the best-looking women, and had the most children. My reading of happiness scholarship is that generally speaking, the best predictor of happiness and contentment isn’t overall wealth, but being the biggest fish in your particular pond. We’re wired to measure our worth by looking at the people around us. So you’re better off having the nicest house on a middle-income block than the median house in a high-income neighborhood. That the last century of unprecedented prosperity hasn’t made us significantly happier isn’t terribly surprising. We’re constantly measuring ourselves in comparison to those around us, not to our parents or grandparents. And if everyone is getting better off, everyone is going to continue measuring their self-worth against everyone else. Someone is always going to have the best house on the block, someone is always going to have the second-best house, and someone is always going to have the worst house. So long as there are classes, there will always be class envy. That everyone is getting progressively better off can easily escape our notice.

 

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The point is to get people to put aside class envy for a second, and appreciate that trade, markets, and capitalism are making us all better off, even it is making some “more better off” than others. It’s to counter the Lou Dobbses, Hillary Clintons, and Bill O’Reillys of the world, who want to in various capacities seal off borders, restrict trade, socialize medicine, and generally end the very policies that have made us so prosperous, healthy, and long-living. Yes, those policies may well make everyone marginally more equal, but they also slow overall progress, and stop the tide from rising.

Bubbles, foreclosures and other temporary market corrections notwithstanding, things are generally getting better for everyone. It’s important to recognize that, so we can continue the policies that got us here.

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