kane

Here is why the middle class is so important.

Say you are a very poor person. For whatever reason, you are barely getting by. Now, assuming you are not disabled, you can pull yourself out of this. By learning some job skills/getting an education and working hard (or maybe just working hard), you can pull yourself into the middle class where you can have a decent house, car, and life complete with a little extra money you can use to take a vacation or buy a home theater etc. You aren't rich, but you are doing fine. You also now have purchasing power. You will go out and buy things which helps create and maintain jobs.

Now, if the middle class continues to shirk and the wealth gap widens you end up in a situation many shitty third world countries face which is to have a small number of very rich and powerful people and a huge number of very poor people. It will be a hell of a lot harder to pull yourself out of poverty if there is no middle class and the only options are to be poor or rich.

Think of it like a ladder. Poverty is the bottom rung, wealth is the top run, and the middle class is all the middle rungs. It will be damn near impossible to get to the top rung if the only rungs left on the ladder are the top and bottom.