While economists debate whether the United States may be in a recession, a majority of Americans have already decided that economic hard times are here. Nearly three out of five said their incomes were falling behind the rising cost of living in a respected national survey taken in recent weeks. The Pew Research Center poll found several factors driving this economic pessimism: concerns about rising prices of energy and health care, the availability of jobs and problems in the housing market.

Just since September, the number of people surveyed who describe themselves as working class and said their incomes were falling behind the cost of living rose from 45 percent to 62 percent.

Underlying all of this disturbing news is a larger fear. In an increasingly competitive global economy, Americans are feeling a growing insecurity - worried that their families might be forced into a potentially devastating economic crisis by the loss of a job or serious illness. No matter how well educated or hard working, we know that disaster could strike at any time.

There's a creeping sense of dread because health insurance, income security and retirement pensions aren't what they were for our parents. While millions of Americans have no health insurance, millions of others are paying more for employer-provided insurance that falls short of the costs of paying for major illnesses. Companies are limiting pensions, offering shared contributions to investment funds in place of a promised monthly check at retirement. And the "social contract" under which companies once offered employment security in return for loyal service has vanished.

Passionate advocates of the new "ownership society" say employees are being freed from corporate shackles to choose the jobs they want. They say education and retraining will allow workers to jump from industries dying in the face of fierce international competition to better jobs in a new high-tech, knowledge-based economy. But everyone has friends or relatives who aren't jumping but falling - into jobs that pay far less with few benefits.

In many families, both adults work long hours in an effort to support a middle-class lifestyle that they have little time to enjoy. And many other middle-class Americans are borrowing heavily to pay the mounting costs of that lifestyle.

Baby boomers nearing retirement worry about a continuing public debate over proposals to limit Social Security payments and cuts in Medicare benefits. Many of the young worry about how they will pay for college or whether they will ever own a home.

There is no easy way to subdue these fears. But it's clear that we need to think beyond stimulus packages and other recession cures to find ways to prevent many more from falling out of the middle class and to repair the social and economic safety nets for those among us least able to care for themselves.

Solving the health care crisis, shifting more of the federal tax burden to wealthier Americans and funding urgently needed repairs on the nation's infrastructure could be a start.

Joseph Schumpeter, the economic theorist, noted the extraordinary power of capitalism to create wealth through creative destruction. The challenge is finding ways to protect our values in the face of its crushing force.