Many in U.S. slip from middle class, study finds

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

Nearly one in three Americans who grew up middle-class has slipped down the income ladder as an adult, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Downward mobility is most common among middle-class people who are divorced or separated from their spouses, did not attend college, scored poorly on standardized tests, or used hard drugs, the report says.

“A middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status over the course of a lifetime,” the report says.

The study focused on people who were middle-class teenagers in 1979 and who were between 39 and 44 years old in 2004 and 2006. It defines people as middle-class if they fall between the 30th and 70th percentiles in income distribution, which for a family of four is between $32,900 and $64,000 a year in 2010 dollars.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/many-in-us-slip-from-middle-class-study-finds/2011/09/06/gIQA76ut7J_story.html?wprss=

[Skittles]

1. because NO ONE in the US government HAS OUR BACKS

[OhioChick]

20. No they don't. They have the backs of the corporations n/t

[Javaman]

30. nor our fronts or our sides...

they don't give a damn about us. They are so far removed from reality is appalling.

They fight the battle of the beltway while the rest of us fight the battle of life.

[Duer 157099]

2. Wait. A family of four, making 33K is middle class?

I thought that was firmly working class, living paycheck to paycheck?

[Terry_M]

3. Yeah that's scary.

I guess it's National averages and whatnot (so 33k in some places would be barely ok, while 64k in certain places wouldn't get you through with 4 people).

[Demit]

7. It's a polite fiction. Kind of how a woman's dress "size 8" is actually a size 12.

Btw, they don't even mention the term working class in that article. The 'middle class' people who are 'downwardly mobile' slip straight into poverty. Which just demonstrates that that designation by income is a joke.

[DesertDiamond]

10. Well put.

[DesertDiamond]

9. ?? When I was making $42,000/year, with no family, and no car pmt, and I was barely getting by.

[caseymoz]

11. Well, when some people are making billions . . .

Even $100,000 shouldn't be considered middle class. That's not near the middle of anything.

[DrunkenBoat]

13. The middle class *is* working class.

[w0nderer]

24. a family of four making 33k is close to if not is working poor

30-35k for a single person is living wage last i read (getting medical, dental, vision, possibility to actually retire some day)

nothing against working poor
but it sure ain't middle class

[Nikia]

40. The truth that seems to be constantly downplayed

is that most Americans are poor in that they are barely making it financially. It isn't just bad spending habits. It is the fact that most people have low incomes that do not really enable them to buy more than the necessities of life. Consumer spending will not increase much until this happens because many people cannot really afford to buy anything extra and they really have no hope of making more money.
The media, in general, seems to portray the average American as really the upper third. The lifestyle of having money left over after taking care of necessities is unattainable for many Americans, even the ones that grew up "middle class" and did "the right things". If you have any health problems or didn't do all "the right things" you have almost no chance of being anything except poor.

[BiggJawn]

42. 22 kilobucks for 4 people is poverty.

An extra 10 grand makes you middle class? In who's fantasy world?

[jannyk]

4. WTF is someone making $65k and over?

[pa28]

6. Upper middle class I guess?

When I was a kid upper middle class meant living in a really nice neighborhood, taking two weeks vacation to Hawaii every year and maybe driving a BMW.

In 2011 "upper middle class" means being ineligible for food stamps.

Seriously though, when we think of "middle class" we think of a lifestyle standard. To maintain a standard of living in keeping with our old ideas about the middle class you have to make much more than the middle earners referred to in the OP. It's a breaking of the old social contracts and IMO it explains a great deal of the public anger and alienation we currently see.

[jkappy]

28. You're a riot! n/t

[DrunkenBoat]

14. Not in the middle of the income distribution. They define "middle-class" as between

the 30th-70th deciles of the distribution.

So below 30 = "lower-class" and above = "upper-class".

It's a transparent division based on income only.

[caraher]

15. Right

And it's kind of a lame definition, as there is the same fraction of the population in the "middle class" under this definition under any set of economic circumstances. All this study looks at is a limited aspect of mobility, not how the top has left the middle in the dust.

[DrunkenBoat]

16. It's the only definition of "middle class" that makes it possible to make rigourous

comparisons across time. The "middle class = the 40% of the population in the middle of the income distribution. I don't see what would be a better definition.

Yes, the same percent of the population is always in the middle. That's why it's called "middle-class".

So if being in the middle no longer provides families with a modicum of economic security, or the ability to send kids to college, or two cars, or whatever the "middle" used to be able to afford, that tells you something.

Which shifting the so-called "middle" upward on the income distribution to follow the lifestyle that used to be attainable by the middle, doesn't. If you're talking about folks the upper third and calling it the "middle class," that's orwell-speak.

Similarly, in this case: if 1/3 now fall into the "lower class" and that wasn't the case a generation ago, that tells you something. We already understand that there's a greater distance between the middle & great wealth than there used to be by the income distribution itself. No need to jerry-rig the definition of "middle".

[Capitalocracy]

17. I think it's Orwell-speak to continue to define what is now practically poverty

as the middle class simply because the same number of people are in that income category. Maybe continuing to call them the middle class makes less sense, but it is a very fair statement to say that what we once defined as the middle class is shrinking and in danger of extinction.

That's actually the very heart of the problem, that we have to change the way we view the middle class, because the average now is below par, or we have to admit that it's gone.

[DrunkenBoat]

29. 35-65K ain't poverty.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Capitalocracy]

33. I will admit that I would consider myself lucky if I could earn that amount

but that doesn't change the precarious situation of the middle class, and how many people are one missed paycheck or one illness or injury away from poverty. And when you really analyze the purchasing power and financial stability of middle class people over time, and what people need to maintain a common standard of living for a family, that 35k region is just getting into the living wage area. So it's essentially where wages should start, not the apex of what people should be able to achieve.

[DrunkenBoat]

35. The article defined "middle class" as the middle 40% of the income distribution.

$35K is the *bottom* of that definition, not the apex.

Would you prefer that "middle class" be defined as the top 30% or something?

I don't understand people's issues with defining "middle class" as the *middle*.

[Capitalocracy]

36. The different ways to define the term shape the debate.

Both are valid definitions, but the difference is what data you're looking for. If you look at the middle class as a group of people with a certain level of purchasing power or financial stability (and maybe middle class would be a more vernacular term for this, a more accurate term being something along the lines of the stable class or the living wage class), then you can view the size of that group as an economic metric. A determining factor in my assessment of the health of the economy would be that that group be larger rather than smaller.

But if you define the middle class as those who fall within 30 and 70% in terms of income distribution, then the number of people within that group never changes. That defines people as middle class whether being in the middle is awesome or sucks at any given time. You can still get a useful metric of economic health by seeing how much money that group is making and the purchasing power of that income, but it ignores the vernacular definition of middle class that I think most people have in mind when they talk about whether a given policy helps the middle class, whether the middle class is doing well or struggling, etc. One of the biggest problems we have today is that the number of people who are within what might more accurately be called the stable or living wage class is shrinking.

[sarcasmo]

45. A family of four making 35,000 is lower class not middle class.

[newspeak]

21. and where's that graph that someone posted

showing wages only increasing by .1%, not even keeping up with the cost of living and corporations' profits increasing by 88%?

California had the right idea-if a corporation harms the people or doesn't invest in community, what good are they? If a corporation harmed the people, they were killed off-not today though. Look what happened in NOLA and the livelihoods of the fishermen and the health of the people. How many people did Enron harm? Just like the rocket fuel plant in Henderson NV that blew. They just change their names and their locations and it's business as usual.

[plumbob]

43. Who defines middle class in this way? Certainly not the professors I

studied under for my economics degree.

Middle class is defined by common attitudes and property ownership, which include: value of education, belief in upward mobility generationally, savings, vacation time and opportunity, access to health care at all levels.

Working class does not own property, has less education (but still believe in the value), has no savings, no vacation time or opportunity and has some access to health care.

There are many definitions and many classes, none of which are strictly arithmetical - that would be a complete dead end and no change could be measured - it would be a static society with no progress, ever.

And as far as economics being rigorous? Please. I've taught it for three decades, and for most of that time, it's a tool to beat down ambitious folk in the lower classes by "proving" they belong there. In my own rather subversive case, I teach my students how to avoid the land mines of banking and stock exchanges, credit, and other tricks designed to take what you have.

But my grandfather was an organizer for the IWW and my dad for the APWU, so I'm practically a communist, anyway.

[TacticalPeek]

5. Maybe somebody should, you know, DO something?

/atrios

[Sherman A1]

12. They did

do something... They screwed the working people.

[w0nderer]

25. they did do something

unfortunately future generations forgot WHY they did it, let their politicians and bankers trick them into
giving it up and gosh...here we are again

[Dover]

8. Wasn't that the plan?

Now the corporations can get cheap labor without cumbersome retirement and healthcare packages.
And no threats from the law (tort), no need to pay taxes, etc. Now that they run the country, no need for democracy. It's not a good business model, not efficient.
Who needs third world labor when you can get it right here?

[Capitalocracy]

18. Like the unemployment rate and stagnant wages, it's not a bug, it's a feature. nt

[Demit]

19. Don't forget, the poor aren't really poor, b/c they have refrigerators & microwaves!

It won't be long till the Post pushes that meme as well. We had Barbara Bush telling us how the Astrodome was 'working out very well' for Katrina evacuees because they were underprivileged anyway, and the Wall Street Journal calling people too poor to pay federal income tax 'Luckie Duckies'...all of this stuff is going mainstream.

[NickB79]

26. "Those food chillin' motherfuckers"

In the words of John Stewart :-)

[Supersedeas]

22. the Shock Doctrine, right here in our own back yard

[Capitalocracy]

32. In our backyard? It's in our house. nt

[w0nderer]

23. k&r for reading later n/t

[NAGAUEL]

27. No Middle class? Then they will pay 100% income tax!

If Republicans get rid of the middle class they will just screw themselves and pay 100% of the taxes.

[sarcasmo]

34. Billionaires and corporations want a working class slave no middle class needed.

Ask the Koch brothers.

[tawadi]

37. All many parents want is for their children to grow up with a better life

This is not the country I knew as a child. Nor will it ever be again.

[No Elephants]

38. When it comes to disparity between the rich and everyone else, we're below third world countries in

inequality.

"No country like the United States," is not quite true, however. A few countries have even more inequality than we do. Very few.

[sarcasmo]

39. All part of the Koch brothers plan.

[BiggJawn]

41. I don't have it as good as my Old Man.

Never owned a Cadillac, only owned ONE new car in my life, and I couldn't afford to trade it in after 2 years for new like he does (actually, he now leases his rides, both the F-150 and the Jag), lost the only house I ever bought, Never owned a camping trailer, never owned property that I held for 25 years then made a killing selling it, If I'm lucky, I'll still have a Pension when I'm too sick to work any more, but it won't be as much as what he has. Won't be able to retire early like he did...

But it's my own damn fault because I didn't complete 4 years of college or stayed married. Dad didn't have a college degree either.

And my daughter is going to have it even rougher than I am. If she manages to finish her education, she's gonna be SO fucking far in debt she'll never be middle-class, either.

[sarcasmo]

44. A family of four making 32,900 is in poverty not middle class.

Saying someone is middle class does not make it so.

[Rex]

46. Yet the fed govt wants to let the years just tick on by

so someone else can fix the mess GWB, Poppy, and Raygun created! The time for 'passing the buck' is long over! We are all going to end up as working slaves.

[KamaAina]

47. Did they slip? Or were they pushed?

:grr: :banghead: