US Upper-Middle Class doubled since 1970

[Recursion]

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/21/not-just-the-1-the-upper-middle-class-is-larger-and-richer-than-ever/

But a growing body of evidence suggests the economic expansion since the 2007-09 financial crisis has enriched a much larger swath of the upper middle class, and that a deeper income divide is developing between that top quarter or so of the population and everyone else.

The latest piece of evidence comes from economist Stephen Rose of the Urban Institute, who finds in new research that the upper middle class in the U.S. is larger and richer than it’s ever been. He finds the upper middle class has expanded from about 12% of the population in 1979 to a new record of nearly 30% as of 2014.

"Any discussion of inequality that is limited to the 1% misses a lot of the picture because it ignores the large inequality between the growing upper middle class and the middle and lower middle classes," said Mr. Rose. The Urban Institute is a nonpartisan policy research group.

...

Using Census Bureau data available through 2014, he defines the upper middle class as any household earning $100,000 to $350,000 for a family of three: at least double the U.S. median household income and about five times the poverty level. At the same time, they are quite distinct from the richest households. Instead of inheritors of dynastic wealth or the chief executives of large companies, they are likely middle-managers or professionals in business, law or medicine with bachelors and especially advanced degrees.

[Peaches999]

1. This is indicative of income inequality, and not equality

[rug]

6. "any household earning $100,000 to $350,000 for a family of three"

Agreed.

[roamer65]

2. What is forming is similar to Orwell's class system from 1984.

Last edited Sun Oct 23, 2016, 03:17 PM - Edit history (1)

There was an elite "Inner Party", then the next class of "Outer Party", followed by the poor "Proles".

1984 was not meant to be an instruction manual, but it seems to have been used for such a purpose.

Next stop is perpetual war...if we are not already there.

[Igel]

3. This was obvious a decade ago.

When the NYT ran a nice article pointing out how the middle class was weakening it focused on middle-classers becoming working-classers.

The nice chart that was there to buttress the argument trashed it. The graph indicated that over the previous decade or so more left the middle class by increasing their income than left the middle class by falling down and out of it.

A few people pointed this out. But it wasn't doom-and-gloom enough or focused on the right people to count as information or fact. At the time, we needed to be focused on how horrible Bush II was doing, with those unsustainably humongous deficits, the pitiful unemployment picture--the minimum # of new jobs we needed per month was 300,000, anything less was signs of failure--and the untenable position of the middle class.

Income inequality isn't good, but it's been the trend for the last 30 years. It's been consistent, it's been growing, and it's just recently become a large enough problem for people to focus on it. And even then, the trend itself is viewed as unimportant because issues from 40 and 50 years ago are so much easier to understand and have such large emotional buy-ins and vested interests in defending the existence of those issues.

[Brickbat]

4. "They are likely middle-managers or professionals in business, law or medicine with bachelors and es

especially advanced degrees."

Ah well, automation will come for us all, in the end.

[applegrove]

5. GOP wants to cleave the rich from the poor. Their model is Mexico it seems.