![]() It’s a vibe.Īnd when you’re technically “upper class” by the standards of econ nerds firing off hot charts but you can’t afford a starter home, it’s hard not to feel like a geek with an Excel spreadsheet is gaslighting your checking account. The optimistic take is that it’s not a “middle class meltdown,” but rather a “middle class triumph.” But simply cresting the $90,131 income threshold is not enough to be “middle class”-because the number itself is less important than what that money can actually buy youīecause sure, while these numbers were presumably adjusted for inflation (by either the consumer price index, CPI, or personal consumer expenditures price index, PCE it’s not always clear), the rate of inflation doesn’t adequately reflect the change in the big three: housing, healthcare, and education.Īs such, statistics obfuscate the true degradation of the “middle class” experience.īecause “being middle class” isn’t defined by income. The primary arguments made by the American Economic Institute (AEI)-a center-right think tank- reinforce this story that America’s middle class is smaller because so many families are richer than they were before.Īfter all, it does appear true that more people find themselves in the “upper income” brackets than they used to, and all three strata have experienced real income gains over the 50-year period. This realization complicated my understanding of class dynamics in the US, so I did what any good internet user would do: I immediately hunted down the nearest libertarian economic outlet, because I knew they’d be all over it. The middle group didn’t fare much better, with an annual income growth rate of about 0.8% per year, though the size of this group shrank over the last 50 years.įinally, the upper income group fared best, with an annual income growth rate of 1% per year, and a 50% increase in the number of people earning these incomes. And as we saw earlier, the number of people in this group (29% of Americans) grew over the last 50 years. In plain English, the median real income for someone who’s considered “low income” has increased by 45% over 50 years, representing an annual growth rate of about 0.7% (which is, in this reporter’s opinion, accurately characterized as “stagnant”-my sincerest apologies to the fine folks at Cato). ![]() The “upper income” bar grew, too.Ģ5% of households were considered low income in 1971, and today, 29% are-an increase of four percentage points in “low income” households.īut those considered “upper income” rose from 14% to 21%.Īccording to Pew, the median annual incomes in each of these class strata (all numbers adjusted to 2020 dollars and scaled to reflect a three-person household) are: Between 19, it’s clear that the yellow middle section-representing “the middle class”- did shrink, but the “lower income” section wasn’t the only group that grew.
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