There was a frighteningly sobering editorial in the November 23, 2011 New York Times.

The Poor, The Near Poor and You.

As my friend Scott Manning eloquently points out:

“In the good old days, no one would give a second look at folks making $50,000/year with two cars…and, if something happened, they would fall through the cracks, and that would be that, and no one would notice. The reality is that today there are a whole lot more folks standing over the crack about to fall in and, finally, we are all starting to notice.”