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.
Access to mobile phones and social media is common across emerging economies. People around the world see certain benefits from these technologies, yet there are also concerns about their impact on children.
The improvement in the public’s economic mood has been dramatic in some nations, but pessimism about the future lingers, as does a sense that economic conditions were better pre-crisis.
The gap in the standard of living between Asians near the top and the bottom of the income ladder nearly doubled from 1970 to
2016. Amid rising inequality overall, Asians displaced blacks as the most economically divided major U.S. racial or ethnic group.
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.