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Speaker 1: It's a new poll that came out that so many

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Speaker 1: Americans feel economic opportunity is shrinking from the middle class.

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Speaker 1: Majorities say things like buying a home, finding a good job,

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Speaker 1: or raising a family are harder now than from previous generations.

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Speaker 2: I think that's an accurate assertion, considering we were just

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Speaker 2: talking about a story that indicated one hundred thousand people

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Speaker 2: have been laid off at the beginning of January, which

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Speaker 2: is double what it was last year. So, yeah, that

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Speaker 2: would appear to be true, not just an unfounded feeling.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more than a feeling. There's actually data that

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Speaker 1: backs this up. People believe the wealthy have more opportunities,

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Speaker 1: and a larger share think that chances are increasing for

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Speaker 1: wealthy Americans while decreasing for the middle class. Didn't the

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Speaker 1: fall of the middle class began six years ago, didn't it.

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Speaker 2: I think it began longer, longer ago than that, longer

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Speaker 2: ago than that. Part of the reason is because of

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Speaker 2: the rise of lobbyists and the special interests that are

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Speaker 2: primarily being served by our lawmakers. Anytime you have these

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Speaker 2: big headlining bills, even when it comes to the Trump accounts,

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Speaker 2: who's ultimately benefiting from that yes, there is a small

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Speaker 2: sliver of the American population that will see a dividend

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Speaker 2: from that investment, but the primary beneficiaries are the mega

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Speaker 2: corporations to whom those monies will be invested with. And

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Speaker 2: time and again, it seems like the people whose missions

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Speaker 2: are prioritized, whose voices are heard, are not middle class Americans,

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Speaker 2: are not the people who vote and elect these representatives,

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Speaker 2: but the influential lobbyists who buy their way into power

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Speaker 2: and influence.

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Speaker 1: According to the survey, only one in five think the

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Speaker 1: economy will grow or boom in the next year, and

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Speaker 1: many people believe that economic conditions are going to worsen,

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Speaker 1: and this applies especially with costs related to housing and

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Speaker 1: everyday essentials. They also believe that job quality isn't keeping

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Speaker 1: pace with living standards, not just pay, but the quality

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Speaker 1: of the job as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah well, I mean again, you can have these corporations

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Speaker 2: who are are financially incentivized to export labor overseas and

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Speaker 2: they have the ability to do so. That is a

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Speaker 2: byproduct of favoring the power and the influence of multinational

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Speaker 2: corporations versus small mom and pop businesses who have more

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Speaker 2: of an investment and a tie into the community. When

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Speaker 2: you favor the large structure of these corporations, they can

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Speaker 2: get away with abusing their workers. And I think that's

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Speaker 2: just that's being proven to be true.

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Speaker 1: And how does this play into it? From another article,

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Speaker 1: older Americans age fifty plus are increasingly returning to work

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Speaker 1: after retirement. About seven percent of retirees are unretiring in

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Speaker 1: the past six months, and that's up roughly six percent.

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Speaker 1: So you've got this group of people who are going

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Speaker 1: back into the workforce, taking the low level jobs away

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Speaker 1: from people who are desperately wanting just anything, even a

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Speaker 1: low level job.

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Speaker 2: Well, and then we've also been live to by the

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Speaker 2: powers that be that you need to have these hot

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Speaker 2: you know, degrees in order to participate in the labor economy.

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Speaker 2: And and you've you've saddled a lot of people with

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Speaker 2: a lifetime of student debt that you know, of course

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Speaker 2: they're not going to be able to start investing when

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Speaker 2: they have to pay off these enormous student loans. The

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Speaker 2: overvaluation of college education, and the fact that we have

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Speaker 2: incentivized many Americans to move away from practical trades like

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Speaker 2: auto auto repair or plumbing or electrical work. I mean,

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Speaker 2: think about think about the value just in this building

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Speaker 2: that we've seen for electricians to wire up all of

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Speaker 2: these uh you know systems. Uh, the plumbers. Remember when

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Speaker 2: we moved in, I tried to use one of the

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Speaker 2: facilities in the toilet exploded. It just started started started

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Speaker 2: spraying water everywhere. Fortunately it was anything, it wasn't anything

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Speaker 2: other than just water, but you know, it could have

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Speaker 2: been a disaster. And the only way that going to

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Speaker 2: be fixed with that is with a plumber. And you know,

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Speaker 2: we have misled an entire generation of individuals trying to

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Speaker 2: get them to these expensive college degrees that have minimal

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Speaker 2: value or application for actually getting them a job.