Once upon a time in America, the leading retailer provided its employees with cost of living increases, profit-sharing, pensions and affordable family health care. A big-ticket commission salesperson could afford college for his kids.

Today, Sears is a mere shadow of its former self, when the early ’90s marked the beginning of gradual decline of this once great employee-friendly retail giant. The invasion of the discounter began to gather a large share of the retail pie. Corporate America started outsourcing manufacturing jobs offshore. Lost jobs sapped America’s buying power. The current retail king, Walmart, spends lavishly to buy back its own stock, while paying its employees a few bucks above minimum wage.

Today, Sears is closing hundreds of its stores. More lost jobs. Corporate America thrives over seas.

Wealth is concentrated. America’s top 1 percent owns half the country’s total wealth, while hundreds of millions of Americans are deprived of the American dream for three decades now. Middle-class wages have remained stagnant while those at the top prosper.

Health care is a mess. When we buy something, we generally know the cost up front. But, not with health care. for example, one may not submit to a steroid shot knowing beforehand, the Medicare recipient’s outpatient share is $1,300. One attempting to rationalize the exorbitant cost of health care is left dumbfounded. It is a wild predator that drastically diminishes America’s buying power.

Auto insurance is unreasonably costly. Two vehicles insured, each is driven less than 9,000 miles annually, no accidents. Recent billing statement shows an exact 10 percent premium increase since six months prior with same coverages. The reason: “Increase in overall accidents and spiraling medical payoffs.” Duplicating the current premium next April will reflect a 20 percent increase over a 12 month period. It’s time to look around

Food prices are soaring, whether it’s the chicken or the egg it lays, the sweets you buy, or that two-dollar coffee with your bacon and eggs, Yet, a Republican Congress believes minimum wage should remain at $7.25 per hour. Wages no longer drive inflation; nor oil prices, now at $44 per barrel, down from its peak of $147 in 2008.

For most college students, student loans are now an unbearable burden. In the good old days, tuition for one semester at Slippery Rock State Teachers College cost $56.

It’s laughable that today, Republican presidential candidates blame America’s woes on the president. It is their party of “no” that hastens America’s demise. The Republican Congress has been AWOL since 2011.

Meanwhile, a scandal-seeking media inundates our senses with ongoing stories of gay marriage, Benghazi, ObamaCare, Iran, abortion, Hillary’s e-mails and The Donald — and ignores the desperate plight of a once proud middle-class.