The middle class is shrinking just about everywhere in America - The Washington Post - 0 views
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a clear majority of American adults no longer live in the middle class, a demographic reality shaped by decades of widening inequality, declining industry and the erosion of financial stability and family-wage jobs
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hile much of the attention has focused on communities hardest hit by economic declines, the new Pew data, based on metro-level income data since 2000, show that middle-class stagnation is a far broader phenomenon.
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The decline of the American middle class is "a pervasive local phenomenon," according to Pew, which analyzed census and American Community Survey data in 229 metros across the country, encompassing about three-quarters of the U.S. population. In 203 of those metros, the share of adults in middle-income households fell from 2000 to 2014.
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Pew defines middle-income households here as those making between two-thirds and twice the national median household income. For a three-person household in 2014, that means an income between about $42,000 and $125,000.
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The fact that median incomes have declined over this same time frame also means that the bar to get into the middle class is actually lower now than it was in 2000. Pew's metro-level data are also adjusted for household size and local cost of living.
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as the middle class has been shrinking, median incomes have fallen, too. In 190 of these 229 metros, the median income dropped over this same time.
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in other places, the shrinking middle class is actually a sign of economic gains, as more people who were once middle class have joined the ranks at the top. This has been the case in booming energy hubs like Midland, Texas.
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In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the share of adults living in lower-income households has actually held steady over this time. The households disappearing from the middle-class, rather, are reflected in the growing numbers at the top
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In total, 172 of these 229 metros saw a growing share of households in the upper-income tier. About as many — 160 — saw a growing share at the bottom. And 108 experienced both: The middle class shrank as the ranks of both the poor and the rich grew.