Chapter 1: Overview As the 2012 presidential candidates prepare their closing arguments to America’s middle class, they are courting a group that has endured a lost decade for economic well-being. Since 2000, the middle class has shrunk in size, fallen backward in income and wealth, and shed some—but by no means all—of its characteristic faith […]
As Republicans gather for their national convention in Tampa to nominate a presidential candidate known, in part, as a wealthy businessman, a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey finds that many Americans believe the rich are different than other people. They are viewed as more intelligent and more hardworking but also greedier and less honest. […]
A new Pew Research Center report shows that the share of upper-income households living in neighborhoods that are mainly upper income has risen from 1980 to 2010, as has the share of lower-income households living in neighborhoods where most other households are lower income. Income segregation also has grown in most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.
The median income of American households decreased by as much in the two years after the official end of the Great Recession as it did during the recession itself. The latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the median income for U.S. households in 2011 was $50,054.[1. DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica […]
Residential segregation by income has increased during the past three decades across the United States and in 27 of the nation’s 30 largest major metropolitan areas[1. For this report, the 30 largest metropolitan areas were measured based on the metro areas with the largest number of households, not based on total population.] , according to […]
The eight-year period from 1999 through 2007 is the longest in modern U.S. economic history in which inflation-adjusted median household income failed to surpass an earlier peak.
Just as in offline politics, the well-off and well-educated are especially likely to participate in online activities that mirror offline forms of engagement. But there are hints that social media may alter this pattern.
Americans feel stuck in their tracks. A majority of survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven’t moved forward in life or have fallen backward.
Foreign-born Latinos, especially the newly arrived, were much less likely to be low-wage earners in 2005 than in 1995.
Over the past two decades, the number of Americans who see the country as divided along economic lines has increased sharply, and twice as many people now see themselves among the society’s “have-nots.”
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