More than in any other Western country, the gulf between rich and poor is widening in the United States. However, the lives and expectations of people in the middle class have undergone the most pronounced change. Gone are the days of career-long devotion to one employer, with a gold watch and a happy retirement the reward of a worker's continued service. The economic insecurity so many now feel is all the more troubling because it runs directly counter to traditional ways of thinking about the country's promise of opportunity. Anyone listening to America today hears a persistent grumbling.
People are anxious about tomorrow because it seems so different from yesterday.
Problems fester without being resolved. The simple rhythms of life snag on unforeseen complications. There's a feeling of betrayal from the past, with its national spirit of optimism. Internal turmoil breeds everything from fear about safety at a shopping mall to paranoia that malevolent forces are just waiting to attack. Curiously, in surveys measuring public opinion, a striking difference between how people assess what's happening in the country and how they view their own situations exists.