Has The Next Recession Already Begun For Americas Middle Class?Michael Snyder During the first quarter of 2014, earnings by major U.S. retailers missed estimates by the biggest margin in 13 years. The retail apocalypse continues to escalate, and the biggest reason for this is the fact that middle class consumers in the U.S. are tapped out. And this is not just happening to a few retailers this is something that is happening across the board. The following is a summary of how major U.S. retailers performed in the first quarter of 2014 that was put together by Jim Quinn That is quite a startling list. As Richter noted, sales of upper end homes are still doing fine in many areas. But how long will that be able to continue if things continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class? Traditionally, the U.S. economy has greatly depended upon consumer spending by the middle class. If that continues to dry up, how long can we avoid falling into a recession? For even more numbers that seem to indicate economic trouble for the middle class, please see my previous article entitled 27 Huge Red Flags For The U.S. Economy. Other analysts are expressing similar concerns. For example, check out what John Williams of shadowstats.com had to say during one recent interview The key to the health of the middle class is having plenty of good jobs. But the U.S. economy continues to lose more good paying jobs. For example, Hewlett-Packard has just announced that it plans to eliminate 16,000 more jobs in addition to the 34,000 job cuts that have already been announced. Today, there are 27 million more working age Americans that do not have a job than there were in 2000, and the quality of our jobs continues to decline. This is absolutely destroying the middle class. Unless the employment situation in this country starts to turn around, there does not seem to be much hope that the middle class will recover any time soon. Meanwhile, there are emerging signs of trouble for the wealthy as well. For instance, just like we witnessed back in 2007, things are starting to look a bit shaky at the too big to fail banks. The following is an excerpt from a recent CNBC report Remember, very few people expected a recession the last time around either. In fact, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeatedly promised us that we would not have a recession and then we went on to experience the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It will be the same this time as well. Just like in 2007, we will continue to get an endless supply of hopetimism from our politicians and the mainstream media, and they will continue to fill our heads with visions of rainbows, unicorns and economic prosperity for as far as the eyes can see. But then the next recession will strike and most Americans will be completely blindsided by it. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 