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by SamReidHughes 1687 days ago
But the middle class isn’t destroyed.
3 comments

The middle class cumulative share of the national income and wealth has declined quite significantly over past 50 years.

Income: 62% => 43%

Wealth: 32% => 17%

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...

yes, they value has left and belongs to upper classes, and middle class has slowly turned into a unified lower class.

You’re only a couple paychecks away from losing your house and car, no matter how nice it all is.

Nope. The middle class is losing more and more people to the upper class, who are getting wealthier.
For what it's worth, the first Google result for "class statistics US" [0] contradicts this.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-america...

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.

They are just working two jobs.