The death of Sears, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney

[Jolly]

Was reading a piece last night about the shrinking of the middle class in America. Y'all can look up the actual amount, but half of all workers now make $35,000 or less. The author's point was that the stores people were shopping at, correlated with economic prosperity, which is stabilized by a large middle class.

He was looking at wages in the late 1950's through about 1970. There was a large middle class which shopped at stores such as those in the thread topic. They were looking for clothes or items which were a cut above cheap goods, yet not the quality of the higher end department stores. The Sears and Penney's of those days were quite successful.

Today, those type stores are struggling. Retailers such as Walmart, are doing well, because those with less money are buying goods just good enough to get by.

Does the author have a point?

[89th]

Yeah I think that is part of the reason. Other reasons include their inability to pivot with the internet e-commerce age, as well as dealing with a large brick and mortar footprint and the overhead costs. Lots of reasons... but I think the point about the middle class makes sense. To me it seems there is almost a leap when you go from living paycheck to paycheck (or government check, even) to having disposable income and savings. That leap seems to be getting bigger, and therefore leaping over a modest middle class seen a few decades ago.

[Jolly]

I think about one of our neighbors, when I was a lad...Jay worked for an auto parts store in town. He had a couple of kids and his wife was a homemaker.

They only had one car, but his job allowed him to build a small home on a couple of acres of family land. They had a big vegetable garden, the kids played summer ball and they bought most of their clothes at Sears or Penney's.

Today, with that same job, you could barely afford a junker car and a one room apartment. You certainly couldn't support a family.

[89th]

@jolly True... I'm sure there are fancy charts out there, but the costs of cars, houses, and college have all significantly outpaced the living wage increase over time.

[Aqua Letifer]

This doesn't bode well for boomers' desires to call Millennials a bunch of pansy-ass whiners.

[Jolly]

@aqua-letifer said in The death of Sears, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney:

This doesn't bode well for boomers' desires to call Millennials a bunch of pansy-ass whiners.

Millenials aren't all pansy-ass whiners. Only the ones that post on internet forums are...

[LuFins Dad]

Quite frankly (and this will be an unpopular opinion) I think it goes to large scale introduction of wives in the workplace.

In the early 70’s, dads worked and mothers stayed at home. The occasional mom with older kids might take a part time job as some extra income… Help with vacation, By the time we hit the 90’s it was expected for households to be 2 income. When you have an influx of 70-80% more workers into the labor force, wages are going to shrink…

[Aqua Letifer]

@jolly said in The death of Sears, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney:

@aqua-letifer said in The death of Sears, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney:

This doesn't bode well for boomers' desires to call Millennials a bunch of pansy-ass whiners.

Millenials aren't all pansy-ass whiners. Only the ones that post on internet forums are...

So only the IT professionals?