Middle Class Families
America is at its best when we have a strong middle class – a middle class where everyone has an opportunity to make it big, a middle class where our kids have better opportunities than we did.
America’s middle class is under great pressure. Rising expenses in housing, health care, day care, college tuition, and transportation have increased costs, while wages have flattened when adjusted for inflation and many people have experienced layoffs or cutback in hours worked. A deregulated credit industry squeezed families harder, hawking dangerous mortgages, credit cards loaded with tricks and traps, and student loans that carried unexpected risks.
For young people entering the job market, for families living in poverty, and for everyone working two jobs to try to get by, a strong middle class creates opportunity—a chance that growth will generate new jobs and new paths to prosperity. But a middle class that is squeezed until its very survival is threatened cannot produce those same opportunities.
There was a time when Washington watched out for America’s working families. There was a time when we invested in our future by improving education, by expanding roads, bridges, mass transit and rail, by building an energy grid, and by investing in research. The role of government was to help create the right conditions for each succeeding generation to have a chance to get ahead. Today, Washington is far more focused on those who have already made it, on giving tax breaks to powerful companies and those who run them. Washington is wired for those who have already made it big—not for those who are getting started or who are still working on their futures.
What’s at stake in this election is nothing less than the future of America. We need to be a country that invests in the future – in creating opportunity, having a level playing field, and building a strong middle class. I think we must be a country that focuses on the future – and that means focusing on rebuilding the middle class.
We are in the midst of one of the greatest economic crises in our country’s history – a crisis that began one lousy mortgage at a time. But in spite of the almost quarter of a million families here in the Commonwealth who are underwater in their mortgages and the over 40,000 families who have lost their homes through foreclosures, we still haven’t seen swift and serious action to get the housing market working again.
We can’t restart our economy unless we do more to address our housing challenges. As people see foreclosure on the horizon or find themselves underwater, they are less likely to spend – and that is bad for businesses and for the economy as a whole. People can’t move, whether it is to get to a new job or to trade up or trade down for a house that fits their changing circumstances. We need a housing policy that fires on all cylinders: principal write downs, refinancing options for homes that are underwater, cash for keys, short sales. We have to take serious and hard steps to get this housing market to level out so that we can start rebuilding our economy. That’s true here in Massachusetts and around the country.
As I travel all across the Commonwealth, I meet young people who have done everything right: they played by the rules, they worked hard, they finished college, and yet they’re finding themselves unemployed, drowning in debt, and in many cases, moving back home with mom and dad. These young people did all we asked of them – and they’re getting slammed.
I grew up in an America that made education a real priority. The generation before me had the GI Bill, which drew thousands into colleges and universities, and thousands more into advanced technical training. The GI Bill helped power the economy for a generation in higher productivity. And when America found itself lagging the Soviets in space exploration, we passed the National Defense Education Act to support getting more kids into college. As a post-Sputnik kid, I graduated from a public university with a lot of help from NDEA. And when I went into teaching special needs students, the government was willing to forgive 15% of my loans each year.
It has become more and more essential for young people to get some kind of post-high school education – whether college or advanced technical training. We have a choice: are we going to tell our young people that they are on their own, or are we going to invest in them – and in our own future? I believe we must invest in our future, and that means investing more in our public colleges and universities, it means supporting advanced technical training programs, and it means getting serious about strengthening grant programs and forgiving loans for those that serve their communities.
But it is not enough to address the costs of college. Across this Commonwealth, we also have to do more to help our kids before they get to college. My very first job after college was as a special needs teacher in a public elementary school. I saw first-hand how important it is for a child to have great teachers and get a first-rate education. It’s why my first love is teaching, and it is why I am appalled at the frequent attacks on public school teachers around this country. A great teacher can make a huge difference in a child’s life, and we need to invest in getting great teachers in classrooms everywhere.
We need to go back to seeing education as an investment in our future. We need to support early childhood education, to give kids a fair shot at success from their earliest days. We need to continue support for school lunch programs so that no child needs to worry more about a growling stomach than about an education. We need to experiment with new ways to close the achievement gap. Here in Massachusetts, schools and nonprofits have taken leadership in expanding the school day and supporting after school and summer programs. We need to work collaboratively with teachers – not against them – to improve the performance of students, teachers, and schools.
Good public schools, good community colleges, good public universities, and good technical training can give us a workforce better than any in the world. Well-trained workers are cost effective, and they can give us a powerful competitive advantage in world markets. Investments in our people pay the highest dividends and must become one of our highest priorities.
We have an obligation to improve our schools and prepare our children for all of the challenges—and opportunities—that lie ahead, to support, encourage and reward our educators, and to provide every child with an education that is second to none.
When I was in junior high, my father had a heart attack. The medical bills piled up, and my mom went to work at Sears answering phones so we could make the mortgage payments. Many families across Massachusetts and around the country have stories like mine. For some, health care problems led to financial problems that pushed them to the brink of the economic cliff and beyond.
Massachusetts has been a leader in health care, but there is still more to do. Today, there are two pressing challenges: too many want to repeal health reforms that will make a big difference in people’s lives and the cost of health care remains too high.
We cannot let those who want repeal to succeed. Consider what health care reforms have accomplished:
- Ending the practice of insurance companies denying people with preexisting conditions
- Allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26
- Providing tax breaks for small businesses who provide health care
- Preventing insurance discrimination against women
We should not roll back these gains – they are too important for families.
We also must take action to reduce the cost of health care. About half of all families in bankruptcy are there in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, and millions more are under enormous financial pressure when a loved one is ill. Massachusetts has been a leader in developing innovative ways to improve quality while reducing costs, and we are a leader in medical research that can lead to breakthroughs that save both lives and costs. We must do more to lead the way to a more affordable and higher quality system.
