This is a piece written by Rep. Bernie Sanders of the Progressive Caucus:

As gas and oil prices soared and as the nation slipped into recession, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked Vermonters to tell him what was going on in their lives economically.

He expected a few dozen replies.  In fact, hundreds of e-mail letters poured in.

Sanders has gone to the Senate floor to read aloud from scores of the letters. Now he has assembled the most poignant stories in a booklet; The Collapse of the Middle Class, Letters from Vermont and America.

A Vermont mother wrote, “We have at times had to choose between baby food and heating fuel.”  A 55-year-old man from rural Pennsylvania said, “I am just tired, the harder that I work the harder it gets.” A retired couple in Vermont asked, “Does anybody in Washington care?”

“It is one thing to read dry economic statistics which describe the collapse of the American middle class,” Sanders said.  “It is another thing to understand, in flesh and blood terms, what that means in the lives of ordinary Americans.

“The responses that I received describe the decline of the American middle class from the perspective of those people who are living that decline,” he added.  “They speak about families who, not long ago, thought they were economically secure, but now find themselves sinking into desperation and hopelessness.

“It is imperative,” Sanders said, “that Congress and the corporate media understand the painful reality facing the middle class today so that we can develop the appropriate public policy to address this crisis.”

An electronic version of the booklet also is available on Sanders’ Web page at http://www.sanders.senate.gov/qa/meetingqs.cfm