James Pierson writes: The Bureau  of Labor Statistic’s Consumer Expenditure Survey, a detailed study of the spending patterns of 35,000 randomly selected households, paints a grim portrait of middle class families trying to maintain their standard of living in the face of stagnant or falling incomes and rising costs for necessities like rent, transportation, and health insurance. Middle class families – defined as those falling in the middle quintile of the income distribution with incomes between roughly $35,000 and $60,000 in 2013 – reported incomes that were essentially flat between 2009 and 2013 and expenditures that increased by slightly less than 3 percent. Households in the income quintiles just below and above the middle reported similar patterns of flat incomes and slightly increased expenditures. During these years of “economic recovery” – 2009 to 2013 – consumer inflation increased by nearly 9 percent, leaving real incomes for the middle class that were much lower at the end of the period than at the beginning.

Americans have never favored radical schemes to redistribute income because of their faith in social mobility and the belief that they can get ahead on their own. A stagnant America, lacking growth and broad opportunities for advancement and achievement, would represent something new and dangerous for a nation whose ideals and institutions have been built upon a foundation of abundance.

The United States, in short, needs a new focus on economic growth and especially a new “growth agenda” out of Washington to replace the emphasis upon redistribution, regulation, and gender and race controversies that have defined the Obama years. The party or candidate that can deliver such an agenda will win the support of grateful middle class voters – and along the way they may just succeed in saving their country from tearing itself apart in fruitless battles over dwindling shares of a stagnating economy.  Is Growth Necessary