---
title: "Obama returns focus to America’s struggling middle class"
description: "As President Obama prepares to make a \"major\" speech on the economy today, our past reports describe the challenges the middle class has faced in the past decades."
date: "2013-07-24"
authors:
  - name: "Drew DeSilver"
    job_title: "Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/drew-desilver/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/07/24/a-look-at-americas-stressed-out-middle-class/"
categories:
  - "Barack Obama"
  - "Economic Conditions"
  - "Economic Policy"
  - "Middle Class"
  - "Personal Finances"
  - "Political Issues"
  - "Recessions & Recoveries"
---

# Obama returns focus to America’s struggling middle class

In the economic-policy speech he's scheduled to deliver Wednesday at Illinois' Knox College, President Obama is expected to re-emphasize his ["middle-out" view of the U.S. economy](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/us/politics/president-adopts-catchphrase-to-describe-proposed-recipe-for-economic-revival.html) -- that growth and prosperity derive from a strong middle class. Unfortunately, it's been awhile since the American middle class felt strong.

[![](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2012/08/sdt-2012-08-22-Middle-Class-01-01.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/#fn-14586-1)

[and]

And though some top-line economic indicators -- unemployment, housing prices, the stock market -- have improved since that time, Americans in general [aren't feeling much better about the economy](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2013/07/23/many-say-economic-recovery-is-still-a-long-way-off/).

[![FT_What_Class](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2013/07/FT_What_Class.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/#fn-14586-1)

For starters,[ fewer Americans described themselves as "middle class"](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/09/10/a-third-of-americans-now-say-they-are-in-the-lower-classes/#fnref-14978-2) in 2012 than four years earlier: 49%, compared with 53% in 2008. And the share describing themselves as "lower" or "lower-middle" class rose over that time, from 25% to 32%.

Within self-described members of the middle class, the overwhelming sense that maintaining a middle-class lifestyle is harder today than a decade ago [cuts across age, gender, partisan, educational and racial/ethnic divides](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/3/#chapter-3-middle-class-economics). (Though whites and people ages 50 to 64 were even more pessimistic than other subgroups, last year's Pew Research report found.)

However, the middle-class respondents were somewhat more sanguine about their personal situations. About equal percentages said they were more financially secure now than 10 year earlier (44%) as said they were less secure (42%); blacks and younger adults were most likely to say they had made progress over the past decade.

Similarly, middle-class blacks, Hispanics and under-50 adults were most likely to say they were better off financially than before the recession. But only 28% of whites said they were better off, versus 45% who said they were worse off. Among people 65 and older, just 13% said they were better off, compared with 46% who said they were worse off.

The middle-class survey showed an interesting partisan divide in self-assessment, with Republicans and independents saying they were recovering more slowly than Democrats. About half (51%) of all middle-class Republicans and 46% of independents said they had yet to fully make up their recession-era losses, compared with only about a third (35%) of Democrats.

And who's responsible for the difficulties of the middle class? While Congress gets the most votes, with 62% assigning it "a lot" of the blame, the Pew Research report found plenty of blame to go around. The one exception: Middle-class people themselves, with just 8% assigning their own socioeconomic group "a lot" of blame, and 47% saying they weren't to blame at all.

[![FT_Econ_Blame](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2013/07/FT_Econ_Blame.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/#fn-14586-1)