I think this article should be understood in the context of the 2020 US presidential campaign. At the time, Pete Buttigieg was a candidate showing promise. This article attempts to portray candidate Buttigieg as a member of the 1% elite, at a time when the progressive wing of the Democratic party was gaining ground on the traditional Democratic party establishment. The Atlantic tends to be read by educated urbanites and surburbanites, a key constituency of the Democratic party.
Of course the unstated reality appears to be that it works. That is, the middle management was not necessary. Elite students really do make better executives than former burger flippers and rivet drivers.
I know some corporations still maintain a culture of promote from the bottom, but they are the exception. It's nice to think that hands-on experience would give companies an advantage, but let's not conflate our desire for how the world ought to work with how it does.
I see this as yet another way in which capitalism's brutal efficiency finds more and more things to trim.
That defines “middle-income” as 2/3 - 2 times median income, which is such a fake definition, and the groups all got wealthier since the 70’s. And even with that, the article is agreeing with me, not contradicting me:
“The recent stability in the share of adults living in middle-income households marks a shift from a decades-long downward trend. From 1971 to 2011, the share of adults in the middle class fell by 10 percentage points. But that shift was not all down the economic ladder. Indeed, the increase in the share of adults who are upper income was greater than the increase in the share who are lower income over that period, a sign of economic progress overall.”
It looks like they’re also cherry-picking a year 2000 baseline in some of their charts.