Why has the gap between the middle class and the wealthy been widening at an alarming rate over the years?"?

The wealthy got tired of putting up with the middle class trash!!! Greedy banks allowed the middle class to borrow enough to overextend themselves allowing them to be able to move into the wealthy neighborhoods thereby making the middle class feel like they had made it to wealthy!!!

It happens because the system has been engineered to assure that it does happen. In other words, the phenomenon is the surest indication you can possibly receive as to who it is that owns the government and which class that government caters to preferentially to the detriment of the others.

People earning middle class wages, and trying to live upper class lives. They charge stuff and charge stuff. Not only don’t they put anything aside, they spend years ahead of themselves.
People take equality wayyyy out of context, and think they should be allowed to have everything they want, instead of living within their means. It is making dogshit out of the economy, because then they owe like crazy, stuff doesn’t get paid up, and companies try to recoup losses with inflated prices.

Is the gap growing in Canada?

Here in America, I’d love to know how the actual statistic on income distribution, and how it has changed.

I do believe the rich are getting rich, but I’m not sure how much bigger or smaller the lower class and middle class is. I know for myself, my husband and I make ⅓ of what we used to, but that’s partly because my husband was laid off at 49, and I know so many people who got laid off around that age and never made it back to the income or level they had been at. It isn’t easy emotionally or monetarily. I’m not sure that’s because the rich are getting richer or some other societal problem.

Why is the gap windening? Because money does get money. Because the people in power make laws to help them make and hold onto their money. Because parts of the middle class believe the bullshit that is being sold to them about taxes. Because the US worker had very little power after the housing bubble burst, the economy dropped and unemployment went up in the 2006–2012 time frame. Workers were told they should be happy to make less money and be worked to death and they bought into it.

they bought into it because they perceive no other choice. Decent jobs are looked on now as relics of a bygone era, and there is a growing perception of damned near everyone I know under 65 struggling to get by.

Here is my take on it, the middle and lower classes wages, have seen a very slow growth since around 1980 the lower (middle class) have only seen their incomes go up around 4% while the upper class have seen income growth of close to 400%.

The middle class while keeping up with the times, example: technology, the jones’s, kids and so on have borrowed their way into poverty.

So basically ,inadequate wages, and over in debt and the gap keeps getting bigger.

The wealthy and and almost wealthy can take some of their money and INVEST.
Standard and Poor 500 (S&P 500) has gone from 1700 to almost 2850 in the last five years. They also can invest in revenue generating properties or businesses.

The Democratic party sold out to big business. They have been paid to fill the role of containing populism and leftist policies and to focus attention on social wedge issues, and putting up faux resistance to the right’s economic agenda. You saw this with Obama when the Democrats had control and passed the Republican healthcare plan from the 90’s without even any kind of public option at the very least.

The Democratic party used to be the party of unions and the working class. They would push for progressive taxation to fund investments in the American people so that we had equality of opportunity, and people could fight for the American dream. This isn’t the case anymore—it’s on pretending to be the party for the working class. Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is ~$120 million. Feinstein’s net worth is ~$80 million and her husband is a billionaire, the Clintons have a combined net worth of $125 million. The party is now the party of socially liberal multi-millionaires. They are chasing 6–7 figure checks instead of 2–3 figure checks from the masses.

Please don’t interpret this as me saying I like the Republicans. Trickle-down economics has been a disaster for this country. Slashing our social safety net and our investments in the American people to pay for tax cuts is like a company that fires it’s research and development team and uses the extra money to bonus its executives. It may feel fun in the short term, but that company is on borrowed time, especially if they’re financing those bonuses with loans too.

The reason I see the Democrats as the main problem though is that they’re supposed to be the ones fighting for the working class. It’s like when you have a corrupt police force and lots of crime. The criminals are always going to be there, but if the cops aren’t doing their job, then the problem will never get solved until they’re replaced.

@gorillapaws Aren’t we all suppose support “working class” or anyone group?

Laying the blame on the guys with “white hats”; ”‘cuz they aren’t doing their job” is non-nonsensical !

It isn’t that they haven’t been doing their job, it it that they are being deceptive about that job. An intentional deception is certainly blame worthy.

@Tropical_Willie Understand that they are actively fighting against progressives who want to solve the problem. They rigged the presidential primary in 2016. They rigged the DNC chairman position for Tom Perez. They purged the progressives from the DNC leadership roles (and cry about “unity”). I guarantee you that Pelosi, Feinstein and the rest of them would rather have Trump win in 2020 than a progressive Democrat. Don’t get suckered into the marketing. It’s all a show.

There is responsibility on both sides of the aisle. Being pissed with DNC for the way they run their operation is being silly. Yes they are trying to rid themselves of progressives.

@Tropical_Willie “Being pissed with DNC for the way they run their operation is being silly.”

You can call it silly, but under the current leadership the Democrats have lost over 1000 seats since 2008. We would have Bernie Sanders as our President right now and likely a blue legislature as well if it weren’t for the shenanigans of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. I don’t think that’s silly.

The silly part is you want the Dems to wear “white hats” and do things your way. They are politicians too, just like the GOP.

@Tropical_Willie The current crop of Dems are objectively terrible. It’s not me demanding the party do what Gorillapaws wants to do, it’s saying that the strategy over the past decade has been a total failure by any metric I can think of. The power of the Democratic party is near a 100-year low. They rigged the election against the guy who was the most popular politican in 2018 and managed to loose to a gameshow host who admitted to grabbing women by the pussy on tape. If that doesn’t demonstrate how incompetent they are, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Could and did are not the same.