By: Damenica Ellis
Image Credit: Canva
Todd Steven Burroughs, 56, is getting two free turkeys this holiday season, not for Thanksgiving or Christmas but to freeze for the coming months. This is the first time he is afraid he may not be able to afford his monthly groceries in the months to come.
In past years, Burroughs was in a financial position where he was able to buy turkeys for others and donate them to food pantries.
“I’m scared that I might not have any money for food in December and January,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, food pantries have been visited more by people of the working class and middle class.
Burroughs is a Ph.D. in Communications, currently an adjunct professor at both Seton Hall University in New Jersey and Wayne State University in Detroit. He is simultaneously a freelance contractor who titles himself a “writer and public historian.”
Most of his bills are paid by his freelance work, but his role as an adjunct is steady and dependable. As an adjunct at both universities, his annual net income is about $20,000-$25,000.
“My financial situation is getting worse,” he said. Burroughs added that this is because of his status as a freelancer. Freelancers do not receive advancements like traditional full-time positions do.
America’s middle-class is facing some of the same challenges the working-class, and under-class have been enduring.
Two men in middle-class, one, Burroughs on the cusp and one, Waters within the income range, are both struggling with the increase in prices. Their struggles highlight a growing disconnect between national economic ratings and the realities of American citizens following a presidential race that sided with Trump although Harris’ campaign had a robust plan for the middle-class and Trump had “concepts of a plan”.
Waters III, 67, goes grocery shopping in his hometown of D.C. every two weeks. As of late, he noticed a difference in his grocery bill; each time he shops he pays close to $100. Sometimes, he recalls, the items he bought were not even enough food to last the week.
He remembers times when groceries were more affordable and when habits like eating out and traveling were more common.
“The idea of having to spend $100 seems like a lot. I don’t recall that being the regular and I haven’t necessarily changed the things that I get at the store,” said Waters.
The Pew Research Center defines middle-class as households with income between about $56,600 and $169,800 in 2022. Lower–income households with salaries less than $56,600, and upper-class households with incomes greater than $169,800.
“The share of Americans who are in the middle class is smaller than it used to be. In 1971, 61% of Americans lived in middle-class households. By 2023, the share had fallen to 51%, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.” The lower class grew from 27% to 31% and upper-class increased from 11% to 19%, said the Pew Research Center.
Burroughs made $60,000 last year but said it didn’t feel like it. People who may fall into the middle-class income range are having financial challenges, he says.
Waters thinks about two-parent households with two kids receiving $58,000 yearly in D.C. and said, “I don’t know how somebody could live on that.”
Even with his status in the middle-class, Waters was discouraged from having kids due to costs.
“I didn’t think that I could afford to have children if I wanted to have a certain type of lifestyle,” he said.
In “A Brief History of America’s Middle Class” NPR writes that in July 1959, “as part of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the State Department stages a ‘typical’ middle-class home to showcase American comfort.”
This ‘typical’ house had three bedrooms and 1 ½ bathrooms. According to CNBC, the median home value was $11,900 in 1960 which equals around $98,000 in today’s dollars. The median sale price for houses in the U.S. in April 2024 was $433,558, according to Redfin.
Burroughs’ rent has increased $500 in the four years he has resided in his apartment in Newark, New Jersey, where the median income is $49,000.
“Everything is going up, I pay more rent, I buy less food, I buy less books, and I’m more worried about my stability than ever,” he said.
Median household income in 2023 was about $56,000 for Black households, which was barely considered middle-class income in 2022, and $89,000 for white households. There is also disparity in the amount of savings and investments each group has. RAND wrote that “the median Black household in America has around $24,000 in savings, investments, home equity, and other elements of wealth. The median White household: around $189,000, a disparity that has worsened in recent decades.”
If you look at what these two groups consider middle-class regarding lifestyle, you can see this wealth gap. Burroughs explained that many Black people define middle-class as having a house- compared to an apartment- having money in a bank account, and both adults in the household having jobs. Most white people consider middle-class to be million-dollar houses, both adults in the household making six figures and kids going to good public schools. This household can miss one paycheck but might not be able to miss two. For both middle-class families they may be denied grants or scholarships for their kids because they qualify as middle-class.
Waters considers owning a home as the marker that puts him in the Black middle class while Burroughs feels like he’s on the cusp as he is in danger of defaulting on his student loans next year.
One of the aspects that was appealing to Waters during the Harris-Walz campaign was the idea of aiding middle-class households to acquire a home.
Waters said, “Home ownership is one of the great dividers of class structure in this country. Being able to actually own a home and pass it to the next generation, I think has tremendous value beyond just providing a place to stay dry and put your head down.”
Waters explained that most of the time the value of homes increases. He went on to say that homes offer revenue-making opportunities. His grandfather bought the house he lives in in Georgetown in 1927. Neville Waters Sr. rented out rooms back then and Waters III does the same now. Homeowners, Waters said, can also use their home to get a loan for a business or run a business out of their home.
For these reasons, Waters thinks homeownership “is really the basis of achieving what Americans call the American dream.”
Burroughs believes the current issue isn’t the middle-class, but people getting kicked out of the middle-class.
“The line of the democratic party was ‘we have the lowest unemployment rate, and we have these great ratings, and people who are getting kicked out of the middle-class aren’t feeling that on the ground.” What they are feeling is that eggs cost more and rent cost more, he added.
So, the economic ratings and employment rate didn’t translate to real life, according to Burroughs. He believes Harris provided awareness to people working multiple jobs, but there was a disconnect between this and the Biden administration saying that America’s economy is the best in the world.
Facebook post by Kamala Harris from the Harris-Walz campaign
Vice President Harris brought awareness to the recent middle-class challenges with her plan, A new way forward for the middle class: A Plan to Lower Costs and Create an Opportunity Economy. Harris and Walz both are from middle-class families, and middle-class voters were one of the main groups that their campaign focused on.
Vice President Harris’ policies for the middle-class included housing, tax relief, health and medical care costs, and investing in small businesses.
Harris proposed the construction of three million new homes over four years. She also supported tax incentives for builders of affordable starter homes and down payment assistance of up to $25,000 for first-time homebuyers.
She planned to expand the child tax credit to $6,000 for families with newborns and make permanent the $3,600 per child tax credit introduced during the Biden administration. She also proposed an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to reduce taxes for lower-income workers by up to $1,500.
Harris wanted to lower the costs of prescription medications through government negotiations with drugmakers, reducing prices by 40-80%. She also aimed to cancel up to $7 billion of medical debt for qualifying Americans.
What does the future hold for the middle class and under classes?
“Those stimulus checks would help a lot of people,” Burroughs said also mentioning the SAVE plan that helps with student loans.
Citizens received stimulus checks in 2020 and 2021 under both Biden and Trump, Biden did not sign his name on the 2021 checks.
