‘The US? We’re in bad shape’: squeezed middle class tell tales of struggle

Dan Roberts:

Once upon a time, this middle-aged professional, who is putting her daughters through university too, would have been considered solidly middle class. Yet that full-time teaching job pays just $3,333.33 a month, a household salary that is now below official definitions of middle income – even when adjusted for the relatively low cost of living in a town such as Goldsboro, North Carolina, where she works.

When tax and medical insurance are deducted, her take-home figure drops by more than a third, after which money for food, housing, a car and college tuition has to be found. To make the numbers add up, she has to work three other jobs a week.

Sadly, her experience is far from unusual. Across the town of Goldsboro, like many other places in a country once famous for the width of its wealth, America’s middle class is struggling. The issue was one of the most prominent and persistent mentioned when Guardian US asked, as part of our Voices of America series, more than 1,300 voters to identify the single most pressing issue for them in the 2016 election campaign