Trust in America: How do Americans view economic inequality?
Amid rising inequality, many Americans feel that the U.S. economic system is unfair and generally favors powerful special interests.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Amid rising inequality, many Americans feel that the U.S. economic system is unfair and generally favors powerful special interests.
Fewer than half of Black adults say they have a three-month emergency fund, and some have taken multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Across 34 countries, a median of 65% said in 2019 they felt pessimistic about reducing the gap between the rich and poor in their country.
Despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage in the U.S. has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And most of what wage gains there have been have flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.
When Americans peer 30 years into the future, they see a country in decline economically, politically and on the world stage.
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.
From 1991 to 2010, the middle class expands in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, but, as in the United States, shrinks in Germany, Italy and Spain
In the U.S., the racial and ethnic wealth gap has evolved differently for families at different income levels since the Great Recession.
The American middle class is smaller than middle classes across Western Europe, but its income is higher.
Pew Research Center President Michael Dimock examines the changes – some profound, some subtle – that the U.S. experienced during Barack Obama’s presidency.
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