The truth is, many things our elders took for granted are becoming harder for the middle class to comfortably afford, and are gradually seen more as luxuries than staples.
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Things That Are Becoming Harder to Afford
Rather, it is shrinking because more people are “moving on up,” ascending into a higher income bracket — and living the American dream. Since 2016, the United States has had more wealthy households than middle‐class households and the share of low‐income households has reached a historic low.
The literature on the shrinking middle class
And for the most part, research is in agreement that the middle class is shrinking because more people are moving up the economic ladder. ... Fewer than 30 percent of households earned between $50,000 and $100,000 (i.e., the middle class).
The gains in the upper middle class have come from the middle class, which has shrunk from 50% in 1980 to 36% by 2016. The lower middle class was cut in half from 1967 to 2016 while the poorest class basically stayed the same. And the richest class, although the smallest, also saw substantial growth.
Pew Research defines middle-income Americans as those whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median (adjusted for local cost of living and household size). For a family of three, that ranges from $40,100 to $120,400 for 2018 incomes in a recent Pew study.
The growth in income in recent decades has tilted to upper-income households. At the same time, the U.S. middle class, which once comprised the clear majority of Americans, is shrinking. ... The share of American adults who live in middle-income households has decreased from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019.
Pew defines the upper class as adults whose annual household income is more than double the national median. That's after incomes have been adjusted for household size, since smaller households require less money to support the same lifestyle as larger ones. ... For lower-income households, it was $25,624.
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