Middle-class Advocate Gifts

The Recovery

After thirty years of hard work, Tom was beginning to get a little upset with the ball and chain forced upon him.

Yesh Atid

I was thinking about the implications of your brave effort last week to unionize. I didn't really. I was role-playing. Whatever. Do you realize the demise of unions has coincided with a massive decline in the middle class? What? I'm helping chickens cross a road on my iPhone. I'm taking about the income gap! Talkin' 'Bout the Income Gap is sponsored by: The makers of signs, placards, and other protest equipment.

Back in my day, we were drawn with ink on paper, not on some fancy digital pad, but at least we knew we existed.

"These 'ordinary working class' types, I think my scout at Oxford must have been one."

'It's a silent protest.'

A Balanced budget.

"The key to happiness is privacy. Hear what I'm sayin'?"

'I think it's nice for kids to have wooden toys.'

"Our marriage has been renewed for another season."

'Watch out or they'll shove higher wages and better life down your throat!'

'Okay, you can see him now. But you must promise not to wake him.'

'Our clientele is middle class; you know, your average Joe-750ml.'

The most sought after profession in 2010 is stressed out, middle class, soccer mom on medical marijuana.

"We're going to be late for the awkwardly standing around."

The Thought Really Doesn't Count

"This is not the sort of America I envisioned, Tom-an America in which the middle class has to use public transportation."

'Makes you look slimmer.'

'Don't you 'shh' me.'

30 years of trickle down economics...

"Give us this day our daily gluten-free sliced white ciabatta."

Save the Whales

'My retirement plan is, I hope someone steals my identity and builds me a decent social security account.'

'Not everybody is adjusting well to the idea of a paperless office!'

"Being a principal of an inner city school is a demanding job. My single most important priority is to lower the drop out rate for students as well as for teachers."

Shut Up

"I'm pulling down nearly six figures these days. Five, to be exact."

A middle-aged mid-level executive, middle class, with a mid-size car makes a daring choice...

"Can't you tell? I'm a depressed and angry white working-class male."

'Wow, and I thought my mum and dad piled on the middle-class pressure.'

The bottom 99% of wage earners lost 0.4% of income from 2009 to 2011. The top 1% gained 11.2%. So the 1%ers grabbed 121% of the income gains from the 'recovery'.

Bernie Sanders

"They've discovered the gene for poverty.''

"When somebody tells me I can't do something that's when I become convinced I really can't."