The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class

Measuring &quot;class&quot; by income distribution measures like this kind of misses the point; more accurately this is &quot;Most Americans no longer fit a particular definition of &#x27;middle income&#x27;&quot;.<p><i>Class</i> distinctions are about significant qualitative distinctions, not points on a simple quantitative distribution. A reasonable upper&#x2F;middle&#x2F;lower class distinction could be made where the upper class has capital assets that they can and do live off the proceeds of while increasing the value and annual proceeds of the assets, the middle class has capital assets that they could (whether or not they <i>do</i> -- they may still work at wage labor) live for at least some months on by depleting, and the lower classes are entirely dependent on wage labor (and one could make further distinctions within these groups).<p>This would roughly correspond with the traditional ideas of &quot;class&quot;.<p>EDIT: Which is all not to discount the potential significance of an ongoing increase in income inequality -- which almost certainly has some real impact in terms of the kind of things that would reasonably define class.

This is a misleading take on the data. A much better analysis would look at the size of the population who was middle class or upper class. If there is an equal increase in upper class population for every loss of middle class population, that just means that our incomes as a population are increasing. All things equal, both the mean and median would increase in that circumstance.<p>And that&#x27;s what the data looks like to a large degree. The middle class has shrunk from 61% to 50%, but the upper class has increased by nearly the same amount, 14% to 21%. Yes, that is a decrease in the middle class-or-better bucket, but it&#x27;s nowhere near dire enough to be described as a tipping point. I agree that the shrinking middle class is something that needs to be discussed, but this article does the discussion a giant disservice.

This could also represent a compression of income-earning years. For instance, if more people spend their twenties earning little, but then their income jumps up a lot by the time they are 40, they may look middle-income for only a few years.<p>I&#x27;m not saying this is what&#x27;s happening, but based on the numbers and definitions, it&#x27;s possible.<p>In general, this kind of snapshot definition trying to capture the middle class is misleading. You should follow individuals over their life to see whether they are thriving or struggling.<p>This is not even a class mobility issue. It&#x27;s more of a life cycle issue.

Interesting that (since 1971) of the 10% that have &quot;left&quot; the middle class, 7% have moved upward while 3% have moved downward.

Where do the 42k and 126k numbers come from? Why do they define the middle class.<p>Maybe it varies from page view to page view, but my very first recommended link at the bottom of the story had a breakdown of middle class bounds in 30 different cities, and as one would expect, middle class incomes vary widely across those cities.<p>This article is a perfect example of the meaninglessness of averages in many cases.

538 breaks this out with more nuance and context here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;most-americans-arent-middle-class-anymore&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;most-americans-arent-mid...</a>

What I find interesting is the upper-income group is growing faster than the lower-income group.

I see people commenting in the technicalities of a middle class definition. They should be worried with the tendency. As a foreigner, my great admiration of the American society is that of the Self Made Man. That working hard you can have a decent life and even become rich. That everybody should have the same opportunities. Even if this is all a myth, just the belief and the desire to make it happen, is great.

Here&#x27;s a link to the Georgetown paper they reference as well: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cew.georgetown.edu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;Good-Jobs_Full_Final.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cew.georgetown.edu&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;Good-Jobs_Full...</a>

Half-full headline: &quot;American middle class shrinks, lower-income marginally increases, upper-income up 50%&quot;.

If everybody has a college degrees, then all jobs would indeed go to people with a college degree. But even then, it would still not say anything about the likelihood to get a job, even if you hold a college degree. &quot;If you get a college degree, you will get a job&quot; is and has always been a fallacy.

These studies need to take into account cost of living in different cities, which has more variance than it used to. $120k in SF or NY is barely going to get you in the middle class. If high earnering gains have been made in these cities, then the actual distribution would be much worse.

I wouldn&#x27;t call it a tipping point. If you look at the diagram hard enough you will see that for example since 2011 the lower class has shrunk and the upper class have become larger. This means that part of the middle class turned into upper class!

Lots of hocus-pocus in these comments looking for a qualitative measure of class. The only meaningful definition is quantitative. Do we still need to explain why? This fact is the fundamental subtext of all journalism and art since mid 19C.

Slightly misleading title, would have been more accurate to say &quot;Majority of Americans No Longer Are Middle Class&quot;. The current breakdown is basically 49.9% Middle Class, 50.1% not. That&#x27;s a long way from &quot;most&quot;.

Middle class is an elusive term. How much would someone living and working in New York City have to make to be considered middle class verse someone living in say Detroit?<p>Exemptions at the federal level seem to overlook this fact.

Wouldn&#x27;t it make more sense to use the ratio of income to housing costs in the analysis instead of raw income numbers? Houses can easily be 10-20x as expensive depending on where in the us you live.

126k for Silicon Valley upper class rofl rofl rofl

Fewer poor and middle class, more rich. This is good news.

Yet most Americans have no problem supporting either an asshole billionaire or someone who thinks it&#x27;s &quot;their turn to be president&quot; and is supported by Wall Street billionaires (the same people responsible for the 2008 economic crash).<p>Most people don&#x27;t seem to know what&#x27;s good for them.