How the American middle class has changed in the past five decades
The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new analysis.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new analysis.
About half of U.S. adults lived in middle-income households in 2018, according to our new analysis of government data.
While the size of the U.S. middle class remained relatively stable between 2002 and 2016, financial gains for middle-income Americans were modest compared with those of higher-income households.
As part of a new study, Pew Research Center designed income calculators to help you determine where you fit on the income ladder in Western Europe.
Although most Americans back a higher minimum wage, wide disparities in local living costs make finding an appropriate rate difficult.
The fortunes of the middle classes across Western Europe are moving in different directions. Some nations are experiencing both growing incomes and expanding middle classes, while other nations are witness to stagnant or declining incomes and shrinking middle classes, a new Pew Research Center analysis of 11 Western European countries has found. But in a few other countries studied, the middle-class shares are decreasing even as incomes overall are rising.
Taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 or more paid well over half (58.8%) of federal income taxes, though they accounted for only 4.5% of all returns filed (6.8% of all taxable returns). By contrast, taxpayers with incomes below $30,000 filed nearly 44% of all returns but paid just 1.4% of all federal income tax.
In the U.S., the racial and ethnic wealth gap has evolved differently for families at different income levels since the Great Recession.
in terms of income status, the past four decades have been very good to people working in financial and natural-resources industries or as executives and managers, but not so good for sales workers or people in blue-collar manufacturing jobs.
Most of the biggest inflation-adjusted wage gains have occurred in metro areas that have directly benefited from the boom in U.S. oil and gas production
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