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Look at how healthcare costs have risen. When I was a kid, you could still get a doctor's visit without health insurance for $20. Now, a lot of doctors won't see you if you're uninsured. It's $120 for a 15-minute visit if you do get in. If you have to go to urgent care, that's a $150 expense out of pocket.
Most of the research I've read regarding cost of living suggests that women are in a particularly difficult double-bind: they have to work to support the middle class lifestyle they're accustomed to because two incomes are required to purchase what one would have once covered, but they are penalized for doing so by the tax code in the United States. High paying blue collar jobs in the United States have largely been outsourced, and those are the jobs that contributed the most to the lower middle class.
Furthermore, the middle class is expected to be educated, and the cost of a college education in the United States is rising. Most people graduate university with thousands of dollars in student loan debt, which further cripples the middle class.
One of the things that has inadvertantly made living harder is easy access to credit. A huge portion of our economy is based on credit and debt collection. Someday, that is really going to hurt our middle class, regardless of whether or not they themselves have taken out mortgages or use credit cards. We're already seeing this in the meltdown of the subprime lending market. Credit will continue to squeeze the middle class well into the future.
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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