Read on Twitter
"The rise of the upper middle class" https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rise-of-the-upper-middle-class/2020/08/16/3aa1aea4-de60-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html
For my fellow liberal arts majors & lawyers out there, here's your '67-'16 change by group:
Poor/near-poor: -3
Lower middle: -15
Middle: -11
Upper middle: +27(!)
Rich: +2
Poor/near-poor: -3
Lower middle: -15
Middle: -11
Upper middle: +27(!)
Rich: +2
And before you ask https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1295537907235725312?s=19
Here's the basic methodology:
Full study is here: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Squeezing-the-middle-class_Report.pdf
(The WaPo writeup on methodology is actually a bit simplistic.)
(The WaPo writeup on methodology is actually a bit simplistic.)
P.S. I'm getting a lot of "BUT THIS DOESN'T ACCOUNT FOR TODAY'S HIGH COST OF LIVING." Correct! And costs ARE important!
BUT
1) A BIG narrative right now is that the US middle class is shrinking bc *incomes* have stagnated or regressed. This addresses that simplistic view....
BUT
1) A BIG narrative right now is that the US middle class is shrinking bc *incomes* have stagnated or regressed. This addresses that simplistic view....
2) Costs are important (very!), but they're also a VERY different (often local) issue requiring VERY different (often local) policy solutions. Some suggestions here from @MrRBourne: https://www.cato.org/blog/raising-wages-policy-hard-or-destructive-its-time-focus-living-costs
(I'd also suggest maybe not obsessing over the highest-cost US cities when a) most Americans don't live in those places (and don't want/need to); b) there are plenty of great US cities that lack these insane cost issues; & c) COVID may diminish superstar cities' attractiveness)
3) "But we can address higher costs with even higher incomes!" Well, leaving aside the "narrative" (and that raising incomes is actually quite difficult/messy), this "solution" is akin to buying new pants every time you gain 20 lbs
(i.e., it's not much of a solution at all and might even encourage *more* weight-gain)
p.p.s. I should have said "high cost of living *in certain places*" in the tweet above. As @jmhorp helpfully noted, the inflation adjustment DOES account for higher costs generally
p.p.p.s. More on the middle class & wage inequality https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/1153729697114726400?s=19
