Middle Class

WITH THE Bruins appearing in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1990, ticket prices have skyrocketed, with some seats at the Garden commanding more than $1,000 from online resellers like StubHub. Spiraling prices on the secondary market reflect the laws of economics at work, and there’s not much the team can do about that. But the Bruins haven’t made it much easier for fans. The limited number of tickets released to the public — about 1,000 per game — started at $325.

Targeting middle-class voters, President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled a sweeping $25 million, nine-state ad campaign whose centerpiece is a commercial portraying him as the steward of an economic comeback and confronting Republican criticism that recovery has sputtered on his watch. "We're not there yet," the ad says. "It's still too hard, for too many. But we're coming back. Because America's greatness comes from a strong middle class. Because you don't quit, and neither does he. " Countering from hard-hit Ohio, Republican Mitt Romney argued that Obama's policies are...

After This By Alice McDermott Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 279 pp., $24 It takes a certain confidence to assume the whole world in a drop of water; it takes a mastery to capture it. From its opening sentence -- a woman leaving a church in midtown Manhattan, in post- World War II America -- Alice McDermott's exquisite sixth novel unfolds in unhurried splendor, its pace so exacting you can feel the sting of sand in a high city wind....

WASHINGTON -- The Obama campaign released a new television ad Monday aimed at middle-class voters in nine swing states that strategists have identified as critical to the president's re-election. In a conference call with reporters this morning, Obama's campaign manager and senior strategist said the campaign will spend $25 million rolling out the ads over the course of the month in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida and Colorado.

WASHINGTON - Growing numbers of middle-class Americans say they aren't better off than they were five years ago, reflecting economic pressures amid growing debt, a study released yesterday shows. Their short-term assessment of personal progress, according to the study, is the worst it has been in nearly half a century. The survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based research organization, paints a mixed picture for the 53 percent of adults in the country who define themselves as "middle class," with household incomes ranging from below $40,000 to more than...

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday called Republican rival John McCain out of touch with middle-class Americans, telling supporters that the GOP senator never once uttered the words "middle class" during their first debate. "Through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he didn't have anything to say about you," Obama told a cheering crowd at the J. Douglas Galyon Depot in downtown Greensboro. "He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' He didn't even say the words 'working people.' " Obama...

WASHINGTON - As vice president, Joe Biden will oversee an Obama administration effort to find ways of building up the ranks of the middle class, that ambiguously defined segment of society most Americans identify with. The task force will include four Cabinet members as well as other presidential advisers, the Obama transition team announced yesterday. The goal is to recommend proposals to ensure the middle class is "no longer being left behind," Biden said. The proposals could include executive orders and legislative plans.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged yesterday the federal government had to take some “deeply offensive’’ steps to help the country get past the financial crisis a year ago. But he also said in a nationally broadcast interview that things are “dramatically different’’ now, although it’s too early to say the economy is in recovery. “A year ago we really were on the verge of a full-scale run’’ on banks, along the lines of the 1930s Depression, Geithner said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “Good Morning...

WASHINGTON - Green jobs, where are they and how to get them, will be the focus when President Obama's task force on middle-class working families formally begins its work tomorrow in Philadelphia. The panel, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden, will hear from experts on the potential to create and fill these jobs. The $787 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed last week includes billions to help create such jobs as installing solar panels and building wind turbines, which also is part of his goal to nudge the country away from dependence...

RE "KERRY says entitlements must be addressed" (Political Intelligence, Metro, Sept. 11): With the proportion of taxes received from corporations and the wealthy at a 30-year low and the middle class under brutal attack by those same interests, Senator John Kerry insists that the so-called deficit problem has something to do with Social Security and Medicare. The fact that these programs are largely self-funded is apparently not germane. This thinking is typical of corporate Democrats such as Kerry.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - President Obama sought to rekindle the passion of his 2008 victory with a pair of huge rallies Saturday that signaled a new, politically aggressive phase in the debate over the country's direction and the official start of his personal confrontation with Mitt Romney. After an introduction from his wife, Michelle, in front of thousands of supporters at Ohio State University, Obama said the country's continuing economic challenges should not be allowed to overshadow a record of accomplishment that deserves more time to work.

He's a smug, Harvard-trained elitist who doesn't get how regular Americans are struggling these days. More extreme than he lets on, he's keeping his true agenda hidden until after Election Day. He's clueless about fixing the economy, over his head on foreign policy. Who is he? Your answer will help decide the next president. Is it Barack Obama, as seen by Mitt Romney? Or Romney, the way Obama depicts him? For all their liberal versus conservative differences, when the two presidential contenders describe each other, they sound like they're...

Mining magnate Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest business people, said Monday he hoped to run for Parliament for the conservative opposition, which opinion polls suggest will win government next year. Palmer said he would seek the Liberal National Party's candidacy for the electoral district held by Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan since 1998. BRW magazine reported Palmer was Australia's fifth richest person last year with an estimated fortune of more than 5 billion Australian dollars ($5.2 billion)

I find it disturbing that President Obama and Mitt Romney both seem to be pitching their campaign messages to the middle class, ignoring the poor. Has America become so selfish and materialistic that people only vote in their own self-interests? I grew up in the 1960s, and maybe the civil rights struggle sensitized us to the importance of fairness and opportunity for all. Maybe there were more poor, and they were not stigmatized like they are today. And maybe we are stupid enough today to believe that we will never have the bad luck to lose our...

An attempt by Senate Democrats to pass a higher tax on millionaires failed Monday night, but the legislative defeat may prove to be a political gift to Democrats eager to counter Scott Brown's image as a bipartisan everyman. Brown voted against the tax on millionaires, arguing that the government should not be imposing new taxes until it cuts wasteful spending. President Obama has been leading the charge for the so-called Buffett Rule, arguing that the wealthiest generally pay lower effective tax rates than the middle class and that the situation needs to change.

By now, memories of the devastation visited on poor communities by Hurricane Katrina may be starting to fade. But "Ameriville," at the Paramount Center Mainstage through Sunday, delivers a fierce and scorching reminder of the lives that were shattered, the governmental incompetence or indifference - take your pick - that allowed it to happen, and the spotlight the disaster trained on uncomfortable questions of race. Created and dynamically performed by the four playwright-actors of Universes, a Bronx-based ensemble, "Ameriville" generates quick-sketch portraits of the poor...

LINDSTROM, Minn. - Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side, and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region's long-serving Democratic congressman.

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Mitt Romney, in a wide-ranging proposal that goes to the heart of his presidential campaign, yesterday called for a reduction in corporate taxes, new sanctions on China over its currency practices, and the elimination of some taxes on the investments made by middle-class Americans. In what was billed as a major policy address at a truck dealership here, the former Massachusetts governor offered his most detailed prescription for the economy as he seeks to fend off Governor Rick Perry of Texas and cast...

SATURDAY MARKED the second time in four years that Mayor Tom Menino has stood in the middle of Dudley Square, broken ground on an ambitious municipal office project, and proclaimed a new day in the heart of Roxbury. This time around, the mayor arrived in Dudley with money and political will, both of which were lacking the last time the city staged a groundbreaking ceremony at the abandoned Ferdinand building. At this point, Menino needs to show the neighborhood that it can benefit from City Hall's attentions, which in the past have either waned too soon or made the once-thriving area's troubles even worse.

Some of Mitt Romney's controversial statements made during the Republican presidential campaign: June 16, 2011: ‘‘I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed," to job-seekers in Florida. Aug. 11: ‘‘Corporations are people, my friend," to hecklers at the Iowa State Fair yelling at him about profits. Dec. 10: ‘‘Rick, I'll tell you what, 10,000 bucks, $10,000 bet?" to candidate Rick Perry during a debate argument over the content of Romney's book. Jan. 8, 2012: ‘‘I know what it's like to worry whether you're going to get fired," to a crowd in New...