Al Franken and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz came to the Wagon Wheel cafe looking for what Walz described as the lost middle class.

They found several, who said their conditions, which would have once brought a comfortable middle-class life, now bring stress, extra jobs and economic instability.

Kristin Wilson, a single mother with a teaching degree, does substitute teaching and cares for disabled people for about $10 an hour. She said she can’t afford to go full time with her job at the Harry Meyering Center because her health-insurance costs would be higher than what she qualifies for under MinnesotaCare.

Katie Martens is a graduate student who hopes to be a school counselor. She will have about $35,000 in student debt. Between school, a grad assistantship and a job, she is away from home and family 58 hours a week.

Marcia Olauson, recently retired at the top of the scale from East High School teaching, thought she’d be set. Instead, health insurance and deductible costs eat some 65 percent of her pension. The sinking stock market ravished savings. She will be getting a job.

Walz said he is hearing the same from working-class people struggling to make ends meet.

“My father worked as an educator and my mother stayed home, and we were dead center middle class — vacations to the Reptile Gardens at the Black Hills, the whole thing,” the 1st District Democratic congressman said.

Walz said history’s largest shift of wealth to the richest Americans has been caused largely by tax policies that favor the wealthy and trade agreements that made it favorable for multinational corporations to move factories to other countries.

Franken said the problems have worsened for Americans as costs have escalated for health care, child care and education, while at the same time Minnesota’s unemployment rate is at a 22-year high.

Walz’s proposal for middle-class relief includes an average benefit of $750 for 61 million Americans by doubling the standard deduction. He would allow people to deduct property taxes on their income-tax returns and expand the child tax credit.

He said the program could be paid for by cuts to oil company subsidies, reducing offshore tax shelters and closing an investment manager tax loophole.

Franken, a Democrat hoping to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, is proposing a set of tax credits on families care for children or the elderly family members, a new family leave policy and a 401(U), a new type of account that would provide retirement accounts for more workers.

In an e-mailed response, Coleman’s press secretary, Luke Friedrich, said Franken opposed recent tax rebates and advocated higher gas taxes, both of which harm the middle class.

“Norm Coleman, on the other hand, has been working for the middle class for three decades — fighting for lower taxes, improving rural health care, strengthening infrastructure like improvements on Highway 14, and pushing real solutions to address energy costs through more drilling, nuclear and

renewables.”