Middle Class Needs To Make Stand Together

Bill Gates owes each of us about $10,000.

That is one way to look at the just-released household income figures for the state of Washington.

The Census Bureau says household incomes in Washington state have risen again. The household created at the statistical middle of all household incomes in the state brought in $46,339, according to the most most recent data available. That means workers in half of all households earn more than $46,339, and half earn less.

There is a flaw in these numbers.

Bill Gates was in that pool. His household only counted as one but his checking account really isn’t the same as the rest of ours.

In the last two years the Gates family household has seen its net worth rise from $35 billion to near $95 billion today.

His household account is up about $60 billion.

The rest of us?

We’re up about $5,000.

So, let’s give the Gates family the $5,000.

That leaves $60 billion on the table.

Divide $60 billion by the 6 million residents of Washington, and it works out to roughly $10,000 a person.

Will the checks be in the mail?

No, nor should they be.

Bill Gates made his money, we made ours and that’s the way it works in a capitalistic economy.

To his credit, Gates and his family have given away more than $15 billion to charitable groups and causes. Just days ago Gates put $1 billion to the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which will help 20,000 high-achieving minority students go to college.

He’s giving it away almost as fast as he’s making it..

It’s not fair to say Bill Gates, per se, is responsible for the growing gap between the very rich and the rest of us.

But there is a growing gap.

The households at the top of the pyramid are making money faster than the rest of us.

And perhaps more important, the faster they make money the poorer the rest of us feel, even in these best of times.

And that is what these are.

Child poverty is down.

Crime is down.

Water is cleaner.

Air is more pure.

Phone calls cost less.

Cars last longer.

Never have the grocery stories been so filled with choices of fruits, vegetables and bottled water.

Yet many, many well-off Americans worry that they aren’t rich enough.

The pressure to be more rich has so taken hold in our minds that it often seems difficult to recall the core purpose of any business or life other than to enhance the bottom line.

Your doctor must worry about the minutes he spends with you, not your health, because managed care supervisors say it is so.

Your children must think about their earning potential, not their human potential, or their non-monetary passions.

Your wife simply has to work. Without her income you wouldn’t keep up.

This focus on being ever more wealthy clearly affects politics, civic life and our values.

If we weren’t all chasing Bill Gates, would Washington’s Initiative 695 be so popular?

I-695 would reduce all motor vehicle registrations to $30. This would put $100 to $300 in most middle class pockets.

At the same time, the cuts in the car tax would pull a billion dollars a year out of the funds used for new roads, small-town police and dozens of other public project.

And note this: the rich, if they drive fancier cars, will make out much better under I-695 than the middle class because their car taxes will come down the most.

No matter.

Each of us gets a few dollars richer and that is what rules the day.

This mindset makes it more difficult to appeal to a common good or a shared purpose that costs everybody a little and crosses economic lines.

If it’s a jungle out there and everybody is trying desperately to get ahead, why consider doing something for somebody who is either richer, or poorer than yourself?

Here is why.

Most of the other households really aren’t getting really rich. Most are getting by and could use some common courtesy and shared public expense.

Only 110,762 Americans who filed income tax returns last year reported annual income above $1 million.

Only 6 million American households, in fact, filed tax returns over $100,000 in gross adjusted income. They represent only 5 percent of all taxpayers.

America, and the Inland Northwest in particular, are still places in the middle.

In our part of the world, most households earn closer to $35,000 a year, carry $2,500 of credit card debt and save less than 5 percent for retirement.

These are the folks, the doing-OK majority, who need Social Security, need good schools, need help from the state to build highways and fund police.

The people in the middle need to stick together and not play every man, or household, for himself.