I think the first thing that conversations like this need are data. I ran into this [1] when actually searching information on the chiseling out of the middle c

I think the first thing that conversations like this need are data. I ran into this [1] when actually searching information on the chiseling out of the middle class. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. There's even been a chiseling out of the middle class as a whole declining from 38.8% of society to 32% of society. All of that is very clearly stated in this article. But the eye opener is this, and something that is often left out. This is the change in the size of each economic group between 1979 and 2014 as a percent of the total population: - Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8% - Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4% - Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32% - Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1% - Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8% Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging'. If one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. Though the paper itself is very transparent in their methodology and extremely readable. I found it all eye opening to the point that it actually changed my worldview. Now the most interesting thing here is that the paper I'm referencing and this Pew article are using the same methodology, and thus Pew is also basing their report off the same data. It's just interesting to see the contrast between how things are presented, and how people would respond to the raw data itself. Just to point out one more little oddity. Pew seems to focus specifically on 1999 to 2014, yet their own chart [3] indicates everybody saw declines in income from 1999 to 2014. Nonetheless their discussion seems to imply this is a uniquely middle class phenomena. E.g. the heading of the first section being: "The American middle class loses ground nationally". Yet it would be much more accurate to state that "Americans of all classes lose ground nationally." [1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-incomes-upper-middle-class https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan... [3] - http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-a-close-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/st_2016-05-12_middle-class-geo-06/ http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking...