President Barack Obama’s fight for the middle class: What is the middle class?

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama spoke about the middle class and how Congress had prevented a middle-class tax hike. But what is the middle class anymore? Newly sworn-in Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would not define the middle class according to Red Alert Politics on Jan. 5, 2013.

“In an interview with the FOX News affiliate in Boston on Friday, Warren refused to assign a salary range to middle class Americans, saying it’s ‘not a numbers issue’.”

Being middle class used to mean that a family has a house, a somewhat well-paying job, two or more nice cars, affordable and efficient health care, and surplus resources to either invest or to take a family vacation.

Most importantly, being middle class used to mean not having to worry about monthly bills, about education costs, about food prices, about gas prices, and about health care.

Who even makes enough money anymore to pay taxes, let alone paying more taxes.

According to Red Alert Politics, Sen. Warren said that “When we strengthen education, when we make it possible for kids to go to college, then we strengthen America’s middle class, and that doesn’t mean a dollar figure.”

With the constantly rising cost of a college education and the cost of living, how many college students are still able to go to college unless they have one or two jobs and accumulate so much debt that they will be spending most of the rest of their lives paying for that education?

What education is being strengthened? Classes are overcrowded, teachers are underpaid, a balanced educational program that serves all students has virtually become impossible (unless one can afford a costly private school), and families do not have enough money to feed their children or meet their health care needs. Schools instead of parents have to take care of those needs.

There seem to be two different realities in the United States. One reality is the one that President Obama and Sen. Warren are talking about when discussing the “middle class.” The other reality is that people who still have enough money to worry about paying higher taxes are not really middle class but upper class.

What used to be the middle class is now an “endangered species” class. What used to be the middle class are now families that have too much to be poor but too little to be able to have all of those “middle class” things that Sen. Warren is describing.

During the Fox News interview, the reporter argued that “the middle class is, by definition, a group of people in a certain income level.”

That income level for the middle class used to range between $25,000 to $100,000 dollars. However, earning $25,000 a year is not enough for a family to be middle class with the rising cost of living, housing, food, gas prices, health care, and education. Who can live on $25,000 a year or about $2,100 a month when housing alone takes more than half of that?

Red Alert Politics states that Sen. Warren emphasized during the Democratic National Convention that President Barack Obama is “a fighter for the middle class” but criticizes her “inability to define the middle class.”

Sen. Warren is not alone. Who can define “middle class” anymore?

No matter whether one is a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, or non-political, it is obvious to most everyone that President Barack Obama is sincere in his goal to be “a fighter for the middle class.”

The only problem is that Sen. Warren is not the only one having difficulties defining what a middle class is.

It would be great if the FOX News affiliate in Boston could ask President Barack Obama the same question that it asked Sen. Warren. President Barack Obama, “What is the middle class supposed to be today so people can understand what you are fighting for. Can you define the middle class?”

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