Letters to the Editor

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Cheaper goods contribute to loss of dream

 

The seeds of the death of the American dream were sown some 30-odd years ago. Entire industries were dismantled and their jobs sent to low-wage countries. What was left were mostly minimum-wage service jobs.

The jobs that were eliminated provided a living wage with benefits. Discretionary spending generated by those jobs supported a multitude of locally-owned businesses such as restaurants, hardware stores, specialty shops and professionals.

Today, even with two incomes that pay only minimum wage, families can barely survive. Homeownership or even the ability to purchase a new automobile has been denied to the working poor. As a society, we need to ask ourselves whether the ability to purchase a toaster or a pair of shoes for $2 less is worth the death of the American Dream.

Richard H. McCormick, Miami

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