Through an American lens, Western Europe’s middle classes appear smaller
The American middle class is smaller than middle classes across Western Europe, but its income is higher.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The American middle class is smaller than middle classes across Western Europe, but its income is higher.
The urgency expressed by Pope Francis on global poverty and inequality is grounded in harsh reality. 4.4 billion people – 71% of the global population of 6.2 billion – lived on $10 or less per day in 2011, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recently available data.
China and India both succeeded in slashing poverty from 2001 to 2011. But while that contributed to a rapidly growing middle class in China, it did little to increase the number of Indians who could be considered middle income.
The share of Americans who live in middle-income households has held steady since 2010 – a flat trend that might actually be good news.
The median wealth of white households was 13 times the wealth of black households and 10 times that of Hispanic households in 2013, compared with eight and nine times, respectively, in 2010.
Today about as many Americans identify themselves as lower or lower-middle class (40%) as say they are in the middle class (44%).
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