5 takeaways about the American middle class
The middle class has long been the country’s economic majority, but our new analysis finds that’s no longer true.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The middle class has long been the country’s economic majority, but our new analysis finds that’s no longer true.
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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.
As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class.
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.
During the first decade of this century, the world experienced a dramatic drop in the number of people living in poverty and a significant rise in the number who could be considered middle income, but the majority of the global population remains low income.
Trends in public opinion are in line with Obama’s agenda: The priority given to deficit reduction has slipped somewhat, while public support for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure has increased.
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 gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record. In 2013, the median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500).
Proposed new overtime rules would make nearly 5 million white-collar workers eligible for time-and-a-half – mostly retail and food service managers, office administrators, low-level financial workers and other modestly paid managers and office professionals.
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