Search results for: “middle class”

“Middle class” is a term that is universally familiar but devilishly difficult to pin down. It is both a social and economic construct, and because these domains don’t always align, its borders are fuzzy. Is a $30,000-a-year resident in brain surgery lower class? Is a $100,000-a-year plumber upper-middle class? One way to sidestep riddles of […]

One of the important changes in the economic life of the middle class over the past quarter century has been the extent to which it has engaged in higher levels of consumption and taken on a higher burden of debt. At least until the current recession, housing was the key driver of both trends. From […]

Even before the current recession settled in, the American middle class felt stuck in its tracks. The Pew Research survey was conducted in January and February of 2008, during the early days of what was then a still-not-yet officially declared recession. Even so, a majority of self-identified middle class survey respondents said then that in […]

One of the most robust findings of our report is how closely people’s perceptions of their economic progress over time square with economic trends from the Census and other key government data sources. When people in the middle class say they haven’t moved forward in life in recent years, the economic data say they’re right. […]