Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Back to Boston with the Celtics under pressure
Cavaliers fail to finish what they started
Winslow might be sending message
Nutritionist lists worst restaurant food to eat
Hungry for more? New area restaurants can help
Tribe's Sabathia keeps shutout streak going
Cavaliers are seeking right recipe for road win
Blogs:
Akrocentric:
Raw Umber event; Charles Taormina discusses our culture's fledgling publishing renaissance
Akron Aeros:
More rest than needed
Akron Zips:
Taylor advances on ‘Dancing with the Stars’
All Da King's Men:
Irrational On Oil
Balanced Ledger:
Spring football
Blog of Mass Destruction:
"Solidarity"
BokBluster:
Dann Down
Browns Bulletin:
LeCharles Bentley to participate in practices?
Cleveland Browns:
Wright faces second marijuana charge
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Reality starting to bite
Kent State Sports:
Men's golf competes in NCAA regional
Ohio Politics:
Edwards Endorses
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Is the Lincoln Highway the same as the National Road?
Olympic Dreams - Running:
Oregon Twilight
Patrick McManamon:
Game 5 goes to Boston, and the cheerleaders check in …
Sound Check:
Black Keys play "secret" Myspace Show at Beachland
Tia's Trends:
ICSC Convention - Adventures in Retail!!!
The Heldenfiles:
Fox Schedule for Fall 2008/Winter 2009
The Sports Blitz:
Cleveland Browns - They Love Them! They Really, Really Love Them!
Varsity Letters:
North, Firestone win Auten track and field titles
YEAR BY YEAR, DECADE BY DECADE, regardless of the prosperity of our time, the once-envied promise of America’s middle class is gradually but unmistakably slipping away. Wages have declined and factory jobs have vanished, while rising costs have put the hallmarks of middle-class success – college, homeownership, health care and a secure retirement – beyond the reach of more Americans. Meanwhile, nothing offered in the past 50 years of political leadership has stopped it. Although experts debate the fate of the middle class, a Beacon Journal study of a half-century of Census Bureau records and interviews with scores of families struggling to cope show that the essence of the American Dream – the belief that children will do better than their parents – is in jeopardy.
I. Shrinking paycheck, September 30, 2007
Meet the family: Census data form American portrait
Story behind the story: five decades of data
Median annual pay in the U.S. over the decades (pdf)
Compare your salary with other generations
II. American Dream – hanging by a thread, March 16, 2008
Middle class hanging by thread as rich get richer, poor get poorer
The very things that define the middle class slipping out of reach for many Ohioans
Today's story about a middle-class family is unusual for us
Speaking of... Voices from The American Dream series
Median annual pay in Ohio over the decades (pdf)
III. American Dream – banking on a degree, April 13, 2008
Focus group participants discuss the strain of higher education
Degree can't always open door to middle class
Video: University of Akron students: Financing college
Video: Kent State University students: Financing college
On the Web
Compare your salary with other generations
On WCPN: Listen to the podcast of writer David Knox talking about the project. Oct. 2, 2007
On WKSU: Listen to David Giffels and David Knox discuss the advent of the American Dream – hanging by a thread. March 21, 2008
On WCPN: Beacon Journal reporter David Knox and focus-group facilitator Alice Rodgers discuss the angst of the middle class. March 25, 2008.
The reporters talk with WKSU’s M.L. Schultze about the financial drain of higher education
