The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

MIN READSep 1, 2014 | 11:51 GMT

Typical American middle class houses in a suburban neighborhood in the 1950s.

(GEORGE MARKS/Retrofile/Getty Images))

To mark Labor Day, we are republishing Stratfor founder George Friedman's essay on how the American middle class -- one of the country's core values -- is steadily losing ground. This analysis was originally published in January 2013, when unemployment in the United States was hovering around 8 percent and recovery from the 2008-09 financial crisis was still tenuous....