For a while, the middle class was large, strong, and a market to reckon with in planning new products and services. Even if they did not possess the highest purchasing power, they had the numbers and the possibilities going for them, or so it seemed. For a while, the choice was not only limited to either being rich or poor since there was a level where reasonable life comfort can be attained where extravagance or affluence is not a necessary factor.
Economic observers are getting pretty uneasy about the unfolding scenario where bailouts are being offered to large multinational companies at the expense of the hardworking middle class. Having exhibited the capability to take care of themselves, members of the middle class are offered no special privileges. Unlike the poor who have the advantage of government subsidy and the rich who have the privilege of influence, the middle class literally had to rely on themselves to keep from slipping to a lower economic level.
It would appear that middle class income earners have to follow the lead of their subsidized counterparts in order to get a break. There are reasons why middle class people work hard and living with dignity is very much part of them. Though not particularly looking for freebies, they need some form of protection from the threats posed to their economic standing such as unabated rising costs of basic needs. There is something so wrong in seeing the fruits of additional work go to payment of additional costs of existing expenses.
So why does the middle class appear to be shrinking? The pressure from all possible sources has been so much that many aspiring middle class earners had no choice but to succumb to a downgraded economic class. A solution has to be offered fast before the middle class is reduced to a word found only in the dictionary.