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“I was surprised to realize along the way I was no longer middle class,” said Teresa Moore, who has spent 30 years investigating complaints of abused or neglected children, veterans and seniors in Oklahoma.

She raised two daughters in Alex, a rural dot southwest of the capital, on her salary. But when she applied for a mortgage nine years ago, the loan officer casually described her as “low income.”
***

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...ublic-employees.html

Prosecutors, like teachers and social workers, do these jobs because they want to serve society. They do it knowing they will never "get rich." Depending on where they live, they may never even be able to afford to own a home. But things have become so bad in this day of tax and budget cutting that otherwise good people are going to be forced to make a decision whether to stay or to leave their professions of choice in order to take jobs that offer better pay so they can support their families. It is matter of priorities that society as a whole needs to consider.

Yes, as is everyone else in the middle class. Principally this results from the devaluation of the dollar (a function of the almost 4% per annum increase in the money supply and the fact that nothing limits or supports the increase).

Update: the current rate of growth in the money supply is in excess of 1% per month. Seems unlikely that commissioners' courts will try to keep up with that. Electeds got no raise from the legislature. The squeeze is ever tighter.