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VIDEOMiddle Class On the Move
American workers relocate abroad.
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Likewise, I'm watching something very similar occurring among increasing numbers of the middle class. They travel outside their home nation more than ever (a critical factor), the Internet is just part of their lives, they invest in everything from stock funds to real estate in countries they would never have considered not that many years ago. Some are investing their lives by moving. It's astonishing to see so many North Americans and Europeans living in nations they couldn't have been convinced to even visit a decade or two ago. It's one more aspect of the growth of globalization.
I visit the U.S. frequently, but I live in Panama. My organization works with Canadians, Americans, and Europeans interested in moving here. There numbers have been growing for several years, but, somewhat counter-intuitively perhaps, the recent problems in the financial community and the depressed real estate markets in the U.S. and elsewhere have not dampened their interest. The number of inquiries has more than doubled from the same period a year ago and the pace is accelerating. There are many other signs of change. I note the U.S. government preparing to facilitate absentee voting for an estimated six million Americans overseas, and not all overseas Americans vote.
Over these past four decades, I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of Americans on the subject of working and living in "poor" nations. Until this decade, the overwhelming majority were not even vaguely interested in doing this themselves. That was then. Although I still meet plenty of people in the U.S. who are bemused, surprised, even shocked that I live outside the U.S., there is a second group of Americans who don't bat an eyelash, but start asking questions on their own behalf. The two groups are so different in their outlook that I sometimes feel I'm talking to two different nationalities.
I'm left with questions. Is the Great American Middle Class breaking up? Are some of its members joining a global middle class? Are the others slipping back into a global working class? I think so. How are the latter going to deal emotionally with being working class again?
Like all great transitions, the upside for some of us will be the downside for others. We'll just have to wait for hindsight to know who is who.
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