The Myth of the Declining Middle Class

While there is controversy about the whether “man-made” global warming is a myth or not, perhaps the largest real myth being perpetuated by the liberal left and their MSM cohorts is the decline of the middle class. In other words, the Obamas of the world want you to believe that the rich got richer, and the middle class got poorer: in other words, the same old class struggle argument.

In this article, Economist Dr. Stephen Rose notes that “the middle class is shrinking, … because more people are well off.”

His article notes that although the share of Americans living in households with annual income between $30,000 and $100,000 in current dollars has declined since 1979, the proportion in households with incomes of $100,000 or more per year has doubled, to 24 percent from 12 percent, he said, based on Federal Reserve Board figures.

Meanwhile, the proportion of people living in low-income families held steady during the period, leading Rose to conclude that the so-called decline of the middle class actually was the result of “people moving up the income ladder.”

Rather than working harder and harder just to maintain their standard of living, two-earner married couples “are working more to make more,” he said. The inflation-adjusted median income of two-earner married couples has increased by 25 percent since 1979, he said, citing Census Bureau figures.

Dr. Rose notes that studies finding that most of the economic gains over the past 25 years have gone to the upper 10 percent of the income distribution scale is pure bunk because they fail to account for today’s smaller household sizes, other demographic changes, and growth in the value of employer-paid health care and other noncash benefits, Rose said.

An interesting read. Check it out here.