(Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class by Nan Mooney

Author:Nan Mooney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: College Graduates, Human Resources & Personnel Management, Education, Social Science, Middle Class - United States - Economic Conditions, Professional Employees, 21st Century, General, United States, Economic Conditions, College Graduates - United States - Economic Conditions - 21st Century, Middle Class, Professional Employees - United States, Social Classes, Business & Economics, Higher
ISBN: 9780807011386
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2008-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

The souring state of health care has always been an issue for immigrants and the working poor, but increasingly it's becoming a middle-class issue too. More than a third of those uninsured have household incomes over $40,000. Thirty-five percent of households with incomes between $5o,ooo and $75,000 report having trouble paying medical bills and health insurance. And more than a third of those who carry both insurance and medical debt have either college or graduate degrees.'

It's not hard to figure out why health care has become such a precious commodity. The costs of both insurance and medical care are skyrocketing. Family premiums have increased 87 percent since zooo, compared to an 118 percent rise in inflation and a zo percent rise in wages. As of zoo6, only 61 percent of the population had employer-provided insurance, down from 69 percent in zooo, meaning that more and more people are expected to figure out how to cover these rising costs on their own.'

And things only seem to be getting worse. Even the largest companies with the healthiest profits are expecting workers to assume more coverage costs. They're increasingly opting for plans with high deductibles, reduced services, and no prescription-drug coverage, requesting that employees pay up to a third of the costs themselves, and refusing to subsidize premiums for spouses and children. Though relatively few companies are going so far as to cease coverage altogether, what they offer is becoming harder for their employees to afford.7 Meanwhile, fewer small businesses are willing or able to provide health benefits at all, with just 6o percent of companies employing fewer than one hundred people offering any sort of insurance plan." Increasingly, those working for nonprofits or small companies are expected to cover much or all of the health-plan costs on their own, whether or not they can afford it given the salaries they're paid.

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