How Greece's middle class is skidding backwards
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"I'm a nouveau poor." Middle-income earners who once formed a solid base for democratic stability are growing increasingly radicalized, as seen in rising popularity for the extreme ends of the political spectrum. The radical leftist Syriza party ranks first in public-opinion surveys these days, while the ultranationalist and anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party is No. 3.
ARISTOMENIS, Greece—For decades, Panagiotis Triantafyllopoulos worked in Athens as a printer and graphic designer, most recently making slick packaging for multinational drug companies.
Now the 54-year-old spends his days gathering firewood, tending chickens and preparing for the olive harvest in this hillside village in southwestern Greece.
Unable to find a job more than two years after he was laid off, Mr. Triantafyllopoulos felt he had little choice but to return to his birthplace here this past summer and try to survive on what he can glean from his family's small plot of land.
"I'm a nouveau poor," said Mr. Triantafyllopoulos, ...
After nearly five years of grinding recession, which has sent unemployment above 25%, Greece's development engine is running in reverse. Families that had clawed their way into the middle class in the decades after World War II are slipping painfully backward.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732443980457810718118136037...
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