To do with success

Almost seven years ago, Pierini Fitness asked the rhetorical question of who needs a middle-class big brother. 

This question was asked while sharing how President Obama had recently created a White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, described as one of his major initiatives.  Under the chair of Vice President Joe Biden, top-level administration policy makers were going to raise the living standards of middle-class working families in America.

Here’s the Pierini Fitness blogflection where this was discussed:

Who needs a middle-class big brother?

Fast forward to today so Pierini Fitness can now ask another rhetorical question of how good a job has this task force done the past seven years.  Let’s look at some recent facts which indicate they’ve done a terrible job and they should all be fired immediately!

A recent news article last month had the headline of middle-class families no longer make up the majority in the United States.  This was based on a recent report of a well-known research organization.

Researchers explained how the rapid growth of upper-income households accompanied by an increase in less-educated lower earners resulted in the American middle-class population falling below 50 percent. Compare this to 1971 when middle-class American families accounted for 61 percent of the population.

So we are a nation where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the All-American "Ozzie and Harriet" families are shrinking in numbers.

Researchers defined middle class as households earning between two-thirds and twice the overall median income after adjusting for household size.  Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Labor and the Federal Reserve, middle class households had total annual income ranging from a low of $42,000 to a high of $126,000. 

Another news article appearing about the same time reported how the majority of American renters are now age 40 and older. 

The recent research done in this regard is that nearly 51 percent of American renters have celebrated their 40th birthday.  Ten years earlier, only 47 percent were renters and twenty years earlier 43 percent were renters.

Guess what?

Now President Obama, in his final State of the Union address two evenings ago, wants to again put Vice President Joe Biden to work on tackling one of his chief ambitions – curing cancer. 

Apparently, Vice President Biden declared a while back when announcing he would not be a candidate for the 2016 presidential race, how he wanted to focus his attention on curing cancer.  He shared “I believe we need a moon shot in this country to cure cancer.”

What the heck is a “moon shot”?

Two evenings ago, President Obama announced a new national effort to help Vice President Biden get his moon shot.  The President shared how he’s putting the Vice President in charge of mission control of this national effort.  He shared how the Vice President has “gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years.”

Oh really!  Like the job he has done raising the living standards of middle-class working families in America?

Pierini Fitness believes we should all write President Obama and Vice President Biden and tell both of them thanks but no thanks.

The Vice President is undoubtedly a nice guy and handsome senior citizen but we shouldn’t give him a another major task that is beyond his proven abilities.

Vice President Biden’s final days of public service can best be devoted to him cleaning out his office and saying goodbye to his cronies, something he might be able to do with success.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum