the country must do to get the economy working for everyone. david milleraaron talks about his book "the end of greatness host: good morning. this is a live view of the u.s. capital. this is the christmas holiday week. among the headlines, the u.s. is asking for help from china with korean hacking. thousands protest inside mall of america. this is because the aftermath of the shootings of eric garner and michael brown. nypdhooting deaths of two brooklyn isers in being called a revenge killing.

this the first official day of winter. we want to begin with your comments on 2014. are you better off, or soft, or about the same? that is how we are dividing our phone calls. good sunday morning to you. you can join us on facebook or send us a tweet. front page of "the new york times" has the shooting deaths of those two police officers that were ambushed and killed in brooklyn. from the washington post, there is a serious about james c. tankersley and the american middle class. that is coming up in about five minutes.

a.re is among economists that the biggest problem with the american economy is a lot of americans don't have the calendar -- talent to compete in the global marketplace. that there he misses a damaging development over the past several decades. the economy has suffered at the hands of some of its most skilled and talented workers who saw escalating pay under wall street. this is a story from "the washington post here co it's available online. prices, andt gas i'll boom has -- oil boom has pushed gas below two dollars per gallon. pockets of low prices have two

dollars popping up across the country. the average cost is tracking at $2.43 a gallon. the president needs to support the keystone pipeline it. newsissue came up in the conference with the president. he said he doesn't see a need for it benefiting the u.s. economy. this is the republican response. the president said he would bankrupt the coal industry. presidencyt his doing that. two power plants in my district of closed over the past two years. -- set toore are shut shut down. tohas put so many roadblocks american energy that all of our production is coming from state and private lands. even the president's own party stopped him from imposing the

said ittrade tax, he was just one way of skinning the cap. he assigned the epa to do his bidding for him. the president should let us use our resources and talents to help americans get back to work. frankly, the country needs to be an energy superpower. there is so much more we could do to encourage the development of all forms of american energy. these just aren't republican solutions, these are american ideas that have come from both parties. approvehave a vote to the keystone pipeline. the president also talked about where we're going and

where we and in his weekly address. they are in hawaii. here was this from one of our twitter followers. that is the question. are you that are off, or soft, or about the same. james is in seattle washington. caller: good morning. going at it than it was under george bush. freefall, losing 900,000 jobs a month. my kids have jobs now. the reason i feel we are better african-americans, we are standing up for our rights that are due us. oppressed, slaves are treated like dogs. -- if you weret white and come to the united

states, you are better off than black people because of the color of your skin. you are automatically given special privileges when you go to get jobs. the young generation is standing up and they will be better off. host: thank you very much for the tall -- call. welcome to the program. it's not a question if i am better off or if my children and grandchildren are better off. , theve such corruption seeds of tyranny and chaos and ignorance decadence and corruption, that has been sold by the liberal establishment to know and. we had two police officers killed. mightould i courage grandson to go into law enforcement? why should i encourage him to go into the military? we are

releasing these terrorists so they can kill our troops. we have no accountability. president is using the irs and a gpa -- epa to be their own gestapo. we had four agents murdered and no accountability. we had people killed in benghazi. our children are worse off. we have an $18 trillion debt. he greeted more debt than any other president in history. host: thank you very much for the call. talking about the shooting deaths of two new york city police officers. some are calling it an execution. the police chief is calling it an assassination.

police officers were shot dead yesterday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a brooklyn police corner -- streetcorner. there was no warning. were working overtime as part of an anti-terrorism drill in brooklyn. they were shot point-blank in the head by a lone gunman. he was 28 years old. after he killed them, he was dead after having turned his gun on himself. john conyers, has a piece about the healing power of congress.

points out that one of the issues that needs to be addressed is polarization and gridlock. we have 2 million people in prisons. there needs to be a better system for incarceration, especially a young -- among young black males. next is connie in kansas city. yes.r: i am better off. were the interest rates higher so i could draw more interest on my savings, other than that i think i am doing ok. i think the country is much better. i know we have issues, but i think those are being addressed more seriously because of social media. you see that happening all over the world. i think the main problem that we have right now is our press.

divisionuraging the among us. msnbc, or foxcnn, and listen to what you want to hear. i wish they would be more responsible to the american people and realize the effect they have. i wish week wouldn't keep on harping about these small problems when there are good things going on. i wish the networks would show that a little bit. i think you would see the morale come up. some of the news networks could be more responsible. host: thanks very much for the call. china is asked to help in the korean hacking story. the film is not being released. administrationma

has sought china's help in blocking north korea's ability to launch cyberattacks. chris from chicago, you say you are about the same. we will go to jim from alabama. we will try one more time. michael in georgia. caller: good morning.

i would like to say that i am a lot better off. act has putle care money in our pockets. we were paying $1260 a month. now our policy is so much better. we have a $1000 deductible. i have a lot of health problems. my medication and my doctor visits are so much more affordable. thank you to the politicians that voted for the affordable care act. it has helped my family and we are better off. to wish everybody a merry christmas and happy holidays. thank you for taking my call this morning. host: thank you. we will go to cj in illinois.

caller: certainly. if you look at the unemployment levels, teachers were being laid off. that's not the case. if you look at the car industry, the unemployment in many states, we are better off. there is a lot of work we have to do. we are going to have to muddle through a lot of issues. collectively, you see a lot of indicators that the country is going the right way. i wanted to speak briefly about the issue with the police. i don't know that kind of behavior. mandate. to be a

that discussion can't be lost in all of this. if we have better relationships in the community, thanks for taking my call. host: this is the front page of the washington post. two police officer killed. the police commissioner is calling it an assassination. they were parked outside a brooklyn neighborhood in an antiterrorist operation. it was a drill. they were working overtime. they were both shot in the head. you're better off than you were? caller: i don't understand why people are complaining. every time a new phone comes out or a tennis shoe comes out, people are lined up to get these things. people are spending money. back.1(k)s came the stock market is up. it is so much better.

i just understand why people are complaining. host: thanks very much for the call. this is from the star tribune. thousands protest inside the mall of america. these demonstrators around the mall, part of a national day of protest. this was one of the busiest shopping days of the year. was chanting. dozen police officers were wearing riot helmets. the crowd was between 2000 and 3000 people. loaded -- related story, police officers in many of the malls are making sure that things were operating easily.

you are better off than you were? caller: yes. i am better off. my sister got a job. the stock market has improved. i want to touch on the officers that got killed. officer'swo police got killed and one civilian. they are not making a big deal about that. they are making a big deal about this on fox news. they are so one-sided. my condolences go out to their families. host: thanks for the call. for afghans released from guantanamo bay as part of the new afghan president. they are transferred to cuba. they were transferred late friday. they are not likely to be subjected to anything in afghanistan.

the president is in hawaii. he went golfing. he reiterated some of the things he talked about in his news conference on friday. here is more with the president. >> there is no doubt that we enter into the new year with new confidence that america is making significant strides. the steps we took early on to rescue the economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 14 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990's. month streak, businesses have created 11 million new jobs. almost all of the growth that we have seen has been in full-time positions. much of the recent pickup has

been in higher-paying industries. wages are on the rise again. american manufacturing has helped fuel this stretch, the best since the 1990's. we are the number one producer of oil and natural gas. we are saving drivers $.70 a gallon since last christmas. our rescue of the auto industry is officially over. they have repaid every dime and more of what we committed and the auto industry is on for the strongest year since 2005. we have created after million new jobs in the auto industry alone. the president talked about where the country is and where we are going. we are asking you the same

question. are you better off or worse off or about the same in 2014? the president is in hawaii for the next two weeks area. he is with his family. the rentalnt left where his family is staying and headed straight to the golf course. the motorcade did pass demonstrators on the street. that is from the star advertiser. this is on our twitter page. our lines are open.

you can join the conversation on facebook. at the head of yahoo! and how marissa mayer thought she could remake yahoo!. her struggle on how hard it is to make money online. from alabama, michael is on the phone. caller: hello. when i think, after 9/11, i never voted.

i'm 76. all republicans do is start wars and keep their kids at home. host: this is from another viewer saying all america is worse off. bob is joining us from kentucky. caller: i am a lot better off. my wife and i are both retired. i am 70 years old. $1000 arance went from month. we are on medicare advantage. it's now $144 a month. that is for both of us.

the 401(k)s are doing so much better. retirement did not go up, but are social security when up this year about $100 between the two of us. everything is a lot better off. -- thank obama for the way things are. to 6800 and now it's almost 18,000. know where their thoughts are at? with him being black, i think everybody is against him because of his color. host: our lines are open.

a lot of you are weighing in on facebook. you can join the conversation on facebook. this is from george. james c. tankersley is going to be joining us in about half an hour. your calls and comments on the

middle class will become an. 2014?u better off in let's go to gary in georgia. you say you are about the same? caller: yes. about the same. it's anything that this administration has done or not done. i think some of your other country is say the , it justn by a thread seems like every step people take. you can see it in the papers and the news and on tv. i don't know what this president could do to make it any worse. people can't say no any louder about some of these issues, whether it be cuba or price

increases or guantanamo. you can pick the topic. it seems like he goes in the opposite way of the majority of folks. he makes it so tough to try and defend the guy. seems top he takes, it be on the neck a little bit harder. i am praying that it gets better. standard, the weekly obama's reset on a cuban relations. the cyber attack on sony is attributed to north korea illustrates how difficult it is to deter terror state. , the cold war is over. david is in chicago. good morning. caller: i am worse off because i

work in high-tech. wages protect workers. we know that wages have been flat since 1974. planning agency came out with a report. -- computer and math stem jobs, there was a .2% decrease in occupation growth. the only bright spot is in health care and post secondary education. know that i ami worse off. .here is a variety of stats overall, we have brought in 6.5 we are immigrants.

trying to create jobs for americans in our own countries. these are macro statistics. if you look at illinois, the second-highest unemployment. one of the five lowest states for job growth given that the president is from illinois. senator durbin has been the second-highest rating senator. i leave it to the voters to figure out how we are going to create jobs. how are we going to get wages up when we bring in 2 million foreign workers. storyvladimir putin is a inside the "washington post." year.n's tumult to us

he makes this point, russes the client is not necessarily good news for the united states. are you better or worse off or about the same? good morning. caller: good morning. i want to tell you that i feel i am much better off because of my i have an insurance program that covers me. i do have to pay a fortune out of my pocket. i am taken care of. a lot of these older people did not check into programs that were made for them. if they had just gotten off s and checks -- duff these programs out. nine out of 10 people were not taught how to get a job and take

a job and build themselves up from there. they were expected to be put into a situation because they were educated people. on educated people had jobs and work and raise their kids. i have seven. i am for obama all the way. he has worked himself gray and to the bone. people are ungrateful and will call him mr. obama when we elected him as president. thank you very much for taking my opinion. host: thank you. good luck with those seven children. any grandchildren? caller: i have 16 grandchildren and eight great. host: oh my gosh p are you will have a household this holiday season. caller: thank you for being so kind. host: thank you for the call.

time magazine has a cover story about nasa. he will spend one year in space. his twin will say on earth and they will study them both. you can read the story online at time.com. michael is in new york city. i think we are worse off. say that you are the -- idressed and you make have always thought about this. you make a great presentation. you look like you are secretary of state. host: i have to give credit to my wife. caller: when you get a koppelman, take it. want to bring out one thing.

i teach in the mba program in manhattan. i decided i would take a cab ride. i was talking to the cab driver. this was a poor cab driver. he did not have a tv. it was very interesting. i was asking how things were going. he brought a point. i am in the mba school. there are rich people from all that canrural -- world afford their kids -- it's in their kids to the mba school. interesting really thing that never happens. i thought about it when i got out of the cab. he said i have four children.

getkey is to try to education. he said that he can't afford to send any of my children to college. i really thought about it. my university is very expensive. that if they are in ordinary working person? $20,000 ory spend $25,000? then you see a soldier in afghanistan, it's $1.2 million for a year. leaves, he's got 20% unemployment. one of the questions i am going to ask james c. tankersley there is a person in the same

situation as the taxi driver. he is working two jobs to make ends meet. caller: you get out of college with a degree, you are bankrupt. in economic slavery. how do you buy a home? i do and how you do it. one other thing i want to bring out about the president, this nation had president reagan make a deal with gorbachev. the last person in an anti-communist made a deal with gorbachev. the pope became canonized as a saint because he brought russia to a point of peace. gluten obama is matted in for taking in snowden.

when i talk to russian students in the mba program, you can say to russia i am going to crash your economy and destroy your currency. this is a country with 5000 h-bombs. if the military takes control of this and wants to destroy our economy, they can do it within an eight hour. just by pushing 100 buttons. host: thank you for your call. section,book review some of the book you may be reading. number one is "humans of new york." is booked on his father is number three. numberhler's book is four. the innovators is number 10.

you can follow nonfiction books on our companion network, c-span caller2. bernie is in new york. caller: i am worse off because of the culture. younger, youch could watch television without being insulted. women wouldn't be insulted. women are displayed in some these reality shows. it's ugly. it's not just women. it's just about the way people are treated by each other. interest in the arts. it's all about materialism. it's just ugly out there. host: thanks for the call.

he concludes with these from mississippi, freddie is on the phone. i work for myself. i'm in the construction business. it's about the same.

a lot of people around me are doing worse because they are cutting off programs like head start and education for underprivileged kids. everything they can to save a big -- few bucks for the corporations. that pipeline they are building is going to have a total of 30 jobs, permanent jobs after the get done with building it. afterwards, there only to be a few people needed to monitor it. >> thanks for the call. people are meaner. the rise of aggressive venture capitalism is predatory. more speculation about elizabeth moran. this is a piece from jonathan martin.

obama was a candidate, as the foreign says she is not a candidate. christie has piled up some youtube hits. he spoke to an individual who him.eckling a look at how to get under his skin. joe is joining us from puerto rico. i wanted to run something by you. i worked for ups.

i am hearing rumors about this and that, it going bankrupt. i am worried about it. perhaps you could give me some input and i would appreciate it. i worked there for 29 years. host: you live in puerto rico question mark caller: i worked in florida. i sold my home to move here. i just now started collecting social security, which is a great help. 41 -- 401. i do know anything about the pensions. safe.s it supposed to be

host: i don't have any information, but it's something we can look into. when did you start noticing this? it said something over here. prohibit plans. if they want to see changes made, if action is not taken soon, they could be left with nothing in taxpayers could be left on the hook. we will look into that. i don't want to give you any misinformation. later, anled --

interesting new book on the american presidency. his fear he is why america can't have and doesn't want another great president. this is an interesting insight. we will have a full hour with him. you say you are about the same this year. caller: when you start looking at the government pumping money into our economy every month, i think the good news we hear is a house of cards. i keep my expenses low. you have to look at the middle class, it's getting squeezed out of existence. host: we will go to row who says he is better off. he is joining us from knoxville tennessee. caller: good morning. i am fixing to go to the service

station and buy some gas. it seems to me like i save about a dollar a gallon from what it was last year. host: how is it in knoxville? caller: there is a service station about a block away from a house and you can get it for $2.23. this time last year it was around $3.25. i don't understand the american people. that's instant money. it goes into your pocket you can spend this christmas. most people just knock obama. the unemployment rate is below 6%. the stock market is booming. what is good to people? i think there are a lot of prejudiced people. they just don't like the color of his skin, no matter what he does or how he does it. it's his fault.

he gets all the credit for all the bad things, but it's not something good happens. you have a merry christmas. , i expected tof be worse off when congress. speaker ofn that the the house is invited the president to deliver the state of the union address on january 20. we will have live coverage of that session as the president outlined his agenda. it will include tax reform. jeff says he is worse off. caller: yes. i live in milwaukee, which puts me in wisconsin. under the dictatorship of scott walker, by his not accepting was getting -- i

i'm 60 years old. i am disabled and getting social security. i was getting extra help from medicare. that one away january 1. i am in the food share program. am putting out $4000 a month more than i ever had to spend before in this situation. i'm not doing as well as i was last year or before that. i am happy to hear people giving koppelman's to the president. it must be christmas in the air. that's my situation. is taking our cost of living increase away. my advantage program is charging me a $25 premium. my cost of living increase is

$26 a month. increasest of living is one dollar. merry christmas. host: thank you. says ther viewers present culture permeates every facet of the black community. there is an editorial this .orning from john conyers he is a democrat from the detroit area. he talks about prison and why congress needs to deal with it. you can also read it online. andrew is in new york. you say you are worse off. caller: yes. the gmo's that they put in our food and now they are talking

potatoes and that helps our health care. this yetlike they know they still give us the gmo's. the health of the country is one of the most important things. host: andrew is in new york. upstate new york is one of the hardest hit areas when you look at the map. james c. tankersley writes about the declining middle class. it is even more stoked -- more so in upstate new york. we traveled to lafayette indiana. let's take a look at the life and culture in that community. has a collection on purdue university.

>> emilio was on the faculty of her do university from 1935 until the year she disappeared. she would stay on campus only a few weeks or months out of the year. she would come during each semester and be on campus for a month or two. after she had been here for a year or so, the trustees and the president of the university asked her what they could do for her. had always she dreamed of a plane the world. she wanted a plane that was faster, had more endurance and could fly longer ranges. the purdue research foundation agreed that they would provide a fund for her aeronautical

research. the catch was she could use the plane for an around the world flight. it would be intended for research purposes. what happened was she decided she wanted to make the flight a little earlier than originally planned. she began planning for that around 1936. she worked with an expert on navigation who trotted out the route for her. host: we hope you tune in on a tvpan 2 and american history as we travel to indiana. ofwill be on the campus purdue university. at can check it out c-span.org. writes fornkersley

the "washington post go we want to look in your series on the middle class. i want to start with the story of edgar green. the findingsne of that you came across in your research. who is he and what you focus on him? guest: he is an amazing man. have a guy who used to good middle-class job. he drove a bus in new york city. he made enough comfortably to feed his family and have a house . then his mother got sick. he moved to be near her. carolina toin north be a will to find that same sort of job. that was a time when the bottom was falling out in north carolina and for the country. what he found was a string of

lower paying jobs. ed green is not a guy who complains. he doesn't look for anybody to give him a hand out. when he had kids is started going to college, he took a second job. then he took another job. work 110 hours of work between him and his wife. the average family works to more full-time's day -- full-time days per week than they did in the 70's. they are making less per hour than they did then. host: the american economy has stopped delivering. guest: absolutely. we've stopped seeing the steady flow that we saw in the decades after world war ii. the economy grew, good middle-class jobs hopped up. people can work their way up from the bottom. what we see now is growth still

happening. we have grown 83% in the last 25 years. has had no family change in their income. the problem with the economy is still growing, but stopped delivering for those people in the middle. host: this is really an interesting map. you go county by county. areas look at the darker in central california in upstate , evenrk in eastern ohio in parts of texas were the economy is not dealt with the recovery. eight out of 10 counties peaked 15 years ago. that's not what most americans think. we see some real geographic

variations. the counties that have done best 10 to be on natural gas and oil resources that a been accessed through fracking. los angeles peaked 25 years ago. then you have parts of the rust ,elt and the great plains that's a long time to go without any improvement whatsoever in your average family situation. host: but talk about downey, california. heart of thise series. we started and ended there. land that isot of a perfect metaphor for what america has been waiting for. it's an old rocket plant. it's where they made the apollo rockets. where 25,000 people

had good paying jobs. earlyappened was in the 90's, there were a bunch of defense cuts. the aerospace industry stagnated. the plant dwindled and was eventually shut down by the end of the 90's. the town founder said we aren't going to let anything be built on that plot of land. where going to hold out for a place that pays well enough that people can buy houses. they are still waiting. they tried a bunch of other things. they thought they had a deal with tesla. they have bulldoze the factory and they are building a shopping center. host: we are dividing our phone lines. yearu earn under $25,000 a call

let me go back to some of your findings. the median income today is lower than it was 15 years ago. middle skill jobs accounted for 57% of the jobs in the u.s. economy. that share is down to 46%. >> it's a polarization. we have more high skill jobs at the top. need more education. if you are trying to get off the , if you want to get ahead , you used to work hard and work your way up and gain skills on the job. you can work your way up to a factory line. that's not the case as much anymore. you need to go to college or committee college. to get those higher skilled jobs, it's getting harder to do that.

it's hard for people at the bottom to get the education they need to vault over that void in the middle where those jobs used to be. that you talkdset about in downey, is that prevalent, holding out for better jobs? i think it's an american mindset that we keep waiting. there is a recovered it feels like what we were used to. that would bring a bunch of middle-class jobs and left everyone. weakest that was the decade for job growth in american history. that was before the recession. we've been waiting a long time. 25 or 30n waiting years for those new jobs. we make some arguments as to why they haven't appeared. that the economy does best when certain jobs go

away because they are obsolete. new things spring up to replace them. it's that new thing that hasn't,. it's that replacement that hasn't happened for it host: one solution is tax reform. the president talked about it in his news conference on friday. some of thet priorities for the republicans. our guest is tom price. he basically said that some of the policies by the president are hurting the american middle class. there is a portion. would suggest that many of the programs out of this administration harm economic growth. whether it's the affordable care act that is punishing businesses, you've got small businesses that are trying to grow and expand. if they get more than 50 employees, then they come under different rules.

people who are moving from full-time employment to part-time employment because that's what the administration has dictated to them if they don't want to come under the rules and regulations of the federal government. week'ss once a 40 hour 30 hours. that doesn't make any sense. we would suggest they have resulted in an economy that is not as vibrant and hot growing as rapidly as it should. to beot creating jobs able to climb out of the economic difficulty. is our guest on newsmakers. he will be the chair of the budget committee. what can washington do? suggest that the first thing they do is start by the tide in zoom on today.

like all wants to act of our economic problems are fixable or caused by things that are very recent. if you want to blame the bad growth or the lower employment gains postrecession on the last two, the recessions before that were also similarly weak in the way that they rebounded. what's different now? i would suggest that the congress and the president need to say what of the forces that been going on over the last 25 years that are affecting the middle class? the argument i make in the series is we should change our thinking and focus on talent. americans are very skilled workers. they are very hard workers and have a lot of talent that can be successful and give us an advantage in the global economy. level, we have policies that encourage or block people from doing the right thing.

at the bottom, you need to get an education to move ahead. to be a working parent who gets all the way through college. in the middle, where are those jobs? there are not enough of them. too many workers are competing for too few jobs. too many very smart people that are doing things that i would call not viable to the overall economy. we are too big and fine a and we are too big and lobbying. those things have contributed to a decline in that middle-class job creation. host: when i travel home to , you seek sites like this all the time. they can buildings, warehouses that are vacant. manufacturing plants that no longer produce anything. how did communities deal with that?

there really is a blight. i spent a lot of time in detroit this summer. they are dealing with it more aggressively than other places. communities are trying to deal with it on a case-by-case basis. they are fighting each other for the jobs that are still there. downey lost out to free mount to get this tesla that is great for fremont, but there should have been, theoretically, something that would have added more value than just another shopping -- this is something all communities are struggling with to,r to get a strategy again, in particular, free of people to do better things and create better jobs. close our guest covers economic issues from the washington post. he began his career at the rocky mountain news and the oregonian. minds deciding our phone

based on your own income. over $100,000 a year. >> i do not have a question but i want to tell you what we did as a middle-class. i'm at it middle-class. we downsized. not have a mortgage. we are trying to be zero debt. as a business owner and plus i work two jobs, for the state of pennsylvania, which i retired at the age of reception, and again attention, and i benefits the rest of my life. i still have, my father started a janitorial business in 1962 and we still do that business up in pennsylvania. and a lot of companies, we are not getting paid on time. a lot of companies downsize because of the obama administration health care.

i hope people realize things are tight out there. you see the stock market going up all the time, but in the i see a lot of places, every state is almost the same way, where we need to try to work together. politicians usually do not tell the truth. >> one thing the caller brings up that is important to bring out is how his father started business and kept it going. this is another problem we identified in the series, which is the rapid decline in american entrepreneurship. it is statistically a lot harder to start a business and haven't succeed -- have it succeed. true even in high-tech places and not just service

sectors. it is a big worry because that is the way a lot of people work in the middle-class. they start their business and have their own ticket to moving ahead. this is a much longer trend. it is a trend that expands administrations. we have not seen any sustained effort. >> you can check out this interest -- interactive map and find out where your community is. out in parts of pennsylvania and new york and ohio and michigan, it was 45 counties, and210 also a number of western counties as well. in 570 two counties, 30 five years ago, back in 1979. it peaked 16 years ago in over

1600 counties. just last year, 380 counties peaked in 2013. you pointed out that is really where the energy boom is taking place. >> absolutely. if you're fortunate enough to sit in a state with those national resources and is currently developing them, you are in better shape now than you have been in a long time. the other interesting thing about the map is it just shows why when you travel the country talking to folks, so many people have a fond memory of bill clinton. it is because so many places peaked in 19 99. in rural counties, places that did not like his politics or him personally, they do give him credit for the 90's. there is a mythology there a lot of americans are feeling. to gary in reno, nevada. you're making under $29,000 a year?

what do you do for a living? caller: it is day by day. youquestion i had was don't think the destruction of the american middle classes due to globalization and uncontrolled immigration? guest: there is no question that expanded trade, particularly with china, has on that killed american jobs. a couple of million. it is surprising to me that does not come up more often. the reason is because there are also benefits.

but we have traded away a lot of american jobs. supposed toay it is work his those jobs go away but we specialize in something else and that puts our workers to use more efficiently. that is not happening. of completion is the thing that is most challenging. host: j2ee -- a tweet the fed has tried hard to and it hashe economy resulted in a higher stock break. i also think the growth and -- startsally start

in the 1980's. there is some natural optimal level of finance , it is that the size of the financial sector we have now is too big for the value it delivers. what has basically happened is finances have doubled in shared economy, but it has not gotten better at getting any money for people who have it and doing productive things that create jobs and people who will actually use the money to do the stinks -- those things. people in finance are siphoning money away and making themselves rich at the expense of the broader economy. andy, oregon, bringing over $100,000 a year. caller: i am an investor.

i've made a fortune. the term occur -- i cannot concur more. what to spend my money on. a system allows me to have a great deal of money. it is basically not filtering down to anyone else. i buy what i want when i want it and i make more and more money. it just keeps counting. i am not superrich but beyond the threshold of midi more money. with everybody of -- of needing more money. guest: my first job in portland she ist across the way

would -- but -- the way. i would add we reinvest money to entrepreneurs and people who will grow and expand and do with that things capital. they would ideally solve more problems and create jobs along the way. ais frustration space to larger point, which is that we are just not seeing as much investment now from the corporate sector and all sorts of places as we would like to to really get americans back to ofk and to make the best use the incredibly talented workforce we have here at >> in care -- have here. the middle-class is different in gary, indiana. how do you define it? guest: what we deal a lot with in the story aren't -- our national medians.

mean is different. to be a middle-class in new york requires a lot more money than ohio where i used to work. what we have seen at all levels, and i have been hearing a lot from people across the country, is that even people in high-cost laces, considered middle-class and rich, feel squeezed. if you are a middle-class person , you are having a hard time buying a house or even renting because there is so much pressure upward from all the money pouring in there. people feel squeezed in different ways across the country, but they feel squeezed in the middle basically everywhere. go to veronica, earning between 26000 and

$56,000 a year. what do you do for a living? >> i am in education. it is incredibly difficult. and left a job making considerably more than i am making now. a health emergency, and i needed more time off than was allowed. it took over a year to find a job that was comparable. and it still is considerably less than i was making. say i wouldnitely never cap -- never complain about obamacare were the health care changes, because that is essentially keeping me from being bankrupt and keeping my son alive. health care is an interesting part of the story. we did not get to explore it as in-depth as i would like in this series.

but it is true the health-care law has all kinds of effects for people. there are definitely stories of employers scaling back, we do noty, although see as much of that in the mac pro stats yet -- the macro stats people doing the amount of work and the type of work they want because of the law. as it goes on longer, we will get a better picture. i want to add one thing about what you're saying about workforce flexibility. as part of the series online, a bunch of serious economists write a piece of what is and is not wrong with the middle-class. and economists in washington wrote in a piece for us saying, we have got a bunch of 1930's era policies that will not work.

the weight which we treat families and particularly women workers is just outdated and we need more flexibility. whether or not you agree, you have to concede a lot of individual -- a lot of them are very old. it is worth identifying that idea and a question of, would it be better for the economy if we had more flexibly for workers, particularly women, who increasingly are the ones with higher skills. host: upstate new york, from ithaca. what do you do for a living? caller: good morning. if i have one moment, in the 25th year of my ministry, developing one world for the economy -- for the common good of humanity, you can go on and look at it. one other point,

because i am from staten island, and the same police who strangled eric gardner -- garner put a gun to my head. the police are only a flagpole on top of a structure and a made tohat was never treat everyone equally. we have to change our system so that there is equality under the law and there is liberty and justice. i am living on, social security disability insurance. i get less than $10,500 a year. six dollars and $.50 a day, the maximum in food stamps. if we live by what we have lived by since 2007, 2 big to fail, then that carries with it too small to serve.

for the call.u we appreciate your comments. talk about the broader system is really interesting. it is fine. obviously, the years were varied from ultra is in america. one of the real success stories in america after world war ii was the way in which we broke down social barriers to be more inclusive. it is an underpinning point of my argument, which is that there is great research from the university of chicago which is somewhere between 20% of growth came because we brought down the barriers for women and minorities. people who were previously lower payingto jobs, were willing to become engineers feared afghan american men could much more easily become doctors. we obviously have not perfected

but that progress on its own was a huge contributing factor to american success and i would argue this reverse of that upward flow of talent is what is happening now, that we have had not just in social areas, but workers blocked at every level, whatever their color and gender, and that has absolutely stop the upward flow and talent. week's series, why america passes middle-class is lost, i want to read one excerpt. you said, a common it -- a common theory among policymakers is a big problem with the american economy is that a lot of americans do not have the talent to compete in the day's marketplace. it is true it -- it is true the country would be better off if they had more training, but that theory misses a crucial damaging development of the past several

decades. what is that? let's the flow of really smart -- >> the flow of really smart people from value jobs to trendsetting jobs. the focus on k street will bit because we have focused on wall street already. if you are a really smart person and you work for a really big company and your entire job is to figure out ways for the company to influence the government to get favors or breaks or even to have a growing regulatory system written in a way that advantage is you over your competitors, it is great for your company. the research shows that is great for you if you are an exact it is. the companies that lobbied most, the executives make more. the problem is it is not great for the overall economy. if you are just drawing money out of the government system, you are not investing the money you are spending lobbying into

much more productive value creating a. this is a that cycle. -- a bad cycle. it is terrible that too many of our brightest minds have been at work, figuring out ways to do better in all these ways. host: you talk about bill clinton in time magazine. a look at hillary clinton presidential bid. they frame it in terms of the new >> -- class. the optimism about wages, a vast majority of americans have yet to feel so much as a gentle breeze of the economic recovery. the median american income this year was about 6% lower than it was in 2000 if adjusted for inflation, and two thirds of americans are now living paycheck to paycheck, 1530% smaller than they were. >> this will absolutely be the backdrop, not just for hillary clinton, but the entire field in

the presidential campaign. there will be an interesting debate with the republicans about their policies. for hillary clinton, the question i have is, will she run on a new agenda or will she be preaching like bill clinton did in his famous speech of the 2012 democratic convention, a return to clinton era economics? i think it will be a fascinating discussion. these are big problems that probably can i get fixed in one presidential cycle. >> mike from massachusetts, earning over $100,000 a year. what do you do for a living? -- mywn my do business own business. i am trying to think of where to start and what it is i would like to say. it seems the biggest thing to talk about is that the government, the way of people becoming successful in the united states now. i started business of out 12 years ago and before that, i did

not get a good formal education like a lot of people did. i have got dyslexia. i had to take a little bit of a different road. i ended up going to night school and getting jobs working for big companies. i did end up getting a college degree. i did not get a fantastic degree, so i ended up hitting a ceiling of how much money i could make working for a big corporation. i took the money i saved and started my own business and it was very difficult. host: what is your business? caller: a leasing business, where i buy things and lease them out. . also buy and sell things i have a trucking business. there are so many ways to make money if you're willing to work. it seems like in the united is justthe government

spoiling a lot of people. perfect example, what you said about the piece of land where they have been waiting for a big opportunity, coca-cola, it did not start out as a giant corporation. i will stop you there. "government, get out of the way." from: i hear this a lot people when i was traveling. i want to pick on one little thing you said there and tease it out. the idea thatut some people have been made to comfortable by the government. the third piece in this series, i profile a woman from texas who is an incredible woman who overcame a lot of hardship, a childhood of poverty, and is trying to work her way up through education. me about this feeling of people around her growing up, that we're ok having this life of working part time and minimum wage and there is a little complacency there.

when you talk to people in fort worth, where she is, they worry a little bit about that loss of hope that people have had. it's this where i think it is dangerous if we let this phenomenon go on for another 10, 20, 30 years. if people in america start concluding there is no reasonable hope that things will get better, that they cannot work hard to get ahead like mike did, there is a real danger a lot of people will make the same sorts of decisions that chelsea talks about people around her making. that would be very concerning, absolutely. host: moonlighting to keep up. we talked about ed green. a look at the washington post series wrapping up today. bill, who earns $25,000 a year. what do you do for a living? >> i am retired at the moment. i was an aerospace engineer. website, a travel

website. but my comment is seniors are being totally left behind especially us on social security. secondly, no one is coming up with solutions. i have a solution that could work and put millions of people to work on both sides of the mexican-american border. that is to build an interstate highway that goes from california to the gulf, with a pipeline that could carry our electric, seawater for salts and way,s and farms along the solar systems along the entire highway, and a high-speed railroad. >> thank you for your call. the president also talked about infrastructure in the past week. >> there is talk in this general idea if we had more spending, that would help. absolutely, what we saw in the war era, was a big

infrastructure that did absolutely help put a lot of people to work. certainly a thing that come in the past, has been bipartisan. we now have a political system struggling to pass a funding bill for nine months. it is hard to imagine infrastructure being approved. speaks to the small focus of washington, that everyone just wants to have the next political fight, and that, you know, there is not a big discussion going on about, what are 10 different ways that you could really shift the way the economy works? is infrastructure spending, maybe tax reforms, maybe it is bigger and more radical things and maybe it is stuff mike is talking about, getting the government off people's backs. though, ato be, compromise position out there. it is just hard to see one when you're in washington every day.

make this point, it is time to get americans -- to doing the most exceptional things they can. >> yes. the easy way i like to think about it is, in the broad economy, we want you doing what you are best at. -- we forre best at too long have taken people like ed green, who used to be able to make, you know, $20 an hour, and we push them down to $10 our jobs, those people are devalued. the people at the bottom, there are a lot of people who have the real capability to go to school and become a much higher skilled worker. being poor is an impediment to going to school. the easiest way to think about it is that we would rather have more engineering solutions to human problems than engineering ways to make themselves more money. if we could get way more people in america back over those humps

i talked about, we would be more of an economy where everyone does what they're best at and we all benefit. dick joining us, earning 26,000 a year. >> i have worked for one of the biggest grocery retailers and i work another job. one of your -- one of the guys asked me, i told him, i wanted because i wanted to switch my hours. i'm a department manager. but i work another job here he said he is so far up the company, he did not realize i work another job. point is your guest made a mistake. i blame congress. if you look at germany's economy, and i'm not saying unions are great, that is one of the most unionized countries in the world and their economy is thriving. the reason why it is not a

global market. what has happened is corporate america has moved to china and different companies and they are this stuff act, and we the market. if you notice, if you would go to foreign countries and visit they do not allow them in there and if they do, you could not buy one if you work there and what that does is promote their own workforce. in america, we have been lied to and we were scammed by our own government. it is a glover -- global labor market and all it is is is corporate america selling to us in a lot in congress is part and parcel. >> there is a lot in that and we will spend more time in the coming year looking at different story ismiddle-class playing out in the world, and germany is an interesting example, they are a heavily

traded company, although the unionization model is different from the collaborative model, but there is a lot to be learned from a lot of countries around and this is actually a global phenomenon. we have seen struggles for the middle-class and in rich countries across the world and seeing billions of people now starting to have the opportunity to move into the middle-class, as countries like china and india start to develop. it is compensated and congress right now is expecting to deal with the president on trade in the next year. us being ableof to come to an agreement, the president, sort of a european trading deal, and the issues you are raising our absolutely questions -- are absolutely questions politicians will have to answer. listenerselcome our

on c-span radio. jim,onversation with looking at america passes middle-class, joining us from new jersey. what do you do for a living, and how much do you make? >> i am a teacher. i have fallen 51 to 100,000. retirementg at shortly, myself, but, the thing i see, and it is probably in this series online, most of my since the 1970's on, has seen a decline in the middle working-class. deal regulated, a lot of mergers and acquisitions, which were not in the best interests and theverage american,

same time, he did throw people out of unionized employment into nonunionized labor, where they their own wages and now,it packages, we are going to look more like a banana republic than any first-rate nation. >> thank you for the call. >> the union story is interesting and longer than the time with that in this series, union rates in the country peaked in the 60's and have been declining ever since. competingve jobs natchez with nonunionized workers in america, but workers who havee world dramatically less. eight -- a bit of a catch-22 for the labor movements t