4 ms·

The middle class is disappearing, but a larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off. The upper middle class and t

The middle class is disappearing, but a larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off. The upper middle class and the working poor are both increasing in size at the expense of the middle class, but the upper middle class is growing more. The broadcast components of our culture which must appeal to the largest cross-section of society do indeed cater more to the lower end compared to years past, because that is where the largest number of people still are. Without the middle class glue holding the top and bottom together, the center of gravity of popular culture gradually gets lower. This tends to drown out the first trend I mentioned, the growth of the upper middle class, if you stick to broadcast media like movies, TV, and radio. But when you look at other forms of media which target cultural niches, you'll find the upper end is alive and well.

pojzon 5y ago
> larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off I would hardly disagree with that statement. Larger portion of the middle class gets downgraded not upgraded. Some parts of their life get better due to advancements we make in science, but all other aspects are worse and worse. An example can be “property ownership” - the amount of ppl that own property and are part of the middle class is decreasing year over year in developed countries. We are slowly getting to the point where we can consider our grandparents or parents as millionairs in current standards. Global inflation slowly kills middle class and no - ppl are not having it better in aspects that actually matter in long term. We are at crisis now.
- sershe 5y ago
  There are actually numbers for this (that I'm sadly to lazy to look up on my phone), taking fixed inflation adjusted income thresholds, more people are moving into higher than lower brackets out of the shrinking middle, especially if you consider the starting sizes of these groups.
  - pojzon 5y ago
    That might be true for developing countries like China but for sure its not the case in Europe and US. China by itself can skew global average by a huge margin due to sheer amount of ppl living there. But even in China market observes middle class crisis - slowing down or ppl getting back to lower class.
    - sershe 5y ago
      I wasn't even thinking about the global level, that's on another level of middle class becoming larger and richer :) Some US data: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-american-middle-class-is-stable-in-size-but-losing-ground-financially-to-upper-income-families/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-america... (long term, not the headline) https://www.cato.org/blog/middle-class-shrinking-households-become-richer https://www.cato.org/blog/middle-class-shrinking-households-...
      - pojzon 5y ago
        The data you show is for up to 2016. More recent market info shows that middle-class property ownership which was once required to be considered as part of middle-class (definition was changed) is rapidly decreasing making it almost impossible to get from lower-class to middle-class and overall removing pretty big percent of people that are currently (by income) put into middle-class (but would not be if we used old definition). https://www.rismedia.com/2019/09/03/is-middle-class-homeownership-becoming-unsustainable-and-inaccessible/ https://www.rismedia.com/2019/09/03/is-middle-class-homeowne... It doesnt matter how much money you make, if that money cannot buy you a shelter. You might disagree but next years are only going to make that crisis worse and worse. And more and more families will be not able to sustain the level of life our parents had - even whwn working 5 times as hard.
        sershe 5y ago
        The 2nd link has later data. Housing is an arbitrary metric (home ownership is only one aspect of class; it's very us specific - renting is far more normalized in other places; there may be unrelated shifts towards renting, e.g. for millennials supposedly leaving suburbs for the cities), and even with that the article doesn't even quantity a problem - it just points at some expensive cities, and some potential issues, while showing median income is still easily enough to buy a median house, etc. There's no metric according to which middle class is becoming poorer over any reasonable term in it. And any very recent change was probably caused by pandemic and reaction to it, not a part of some trend.. to revert it, we should stop doing what we were doing for the past year or two :) Btw iirc price to income ratio in the us is also one of the lowest in developed countries, or on par. Long term, I think the thinning middle class narrative is closer to being merely humanities grads complaining that they cannot afford to live in NYC and SF, than to any real issue ;)

pojzon 5y ago

> larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off I would hardly disagree with that statement. Larger portion of the middle class gets downgraded not upgraded. Some parts of their life get better due to advancements we make in science, but all other aspects are worse and worse. An example can be “property ownership” - the amount of ppl that own property and are part of the middle class is decreasing year over year in developed countries. We are slowly getting to the point where we can consider our grandparents or parents as millionairs in current standards. Global inflation slowly kills middle class and no - ppl are not having it better in aspects that actually matter in long term. We are at crisis now.

sershe 5y ago
There are actually numbers for this (that I'm sadly to lazy to look up on my phone), taking fixed inflation adjusted income thresholds, more people are moving into higher than lower brackets out of the shrinking middle, especially if you consider the starting sizes of these groups.
- pojzon 5y ago
  That might be true for developing countries like China but for sure its not the case in Europe and US. China by itself can skew global average by a huge margin due to sheer amount of ppl living there. But even in China market observes middle class crisis - slowing down or ppl getting back to lower class.
  - sershe 5y ago
    I wasn't even thinking about the global level, that's on another level of middle class becoming larger and richer :) Some US data: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-american-middle-class-is-stable-in-size-but-losing-ground-financially-to-upper-income-families/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-america... (long term, not the headline) https://www.cato.org/blog/middle-class-shrinking-households-become-richer https://www.cato.org/blog/middle-class-shrinking-households-...
    - pojzon 5y ago
      The data you show is for up to 2016. More recent market info shows that middle-class property ownership which was once required to be considered as part of middle-class (definition was changed) is rapidly decreasing making it almost impossible to get from lower-class to middle-class and overall removing pretty big percent of people that are currently (by income) put into middle-class (but would not be if we used old definition). https://www.rismedia.com/2019/09/03/is-middle-class-homeownership-becoming-unsustainable-and-inaccessible/ https://www.rismedia.com/2019/09/03/is-middle-class-homeowne... It doesnt matter how much money you make, if that money cannot buy you a shelter. You might disagree but next years are only going to make that crisis worse and worse. And more and more families will be not able to sustain the level of life our parents had - even whwn working 5 times as hard.
      - sershe 5y ago
        The 2nd link has later data. Housing is an arbitrary metric (home ownership is only one aspect of class; it's very us specific - renting is far more normalized in other places; there may be unrelated shifts towards renting, e.g. for millennials supposedly leaving suburbs for the cities), and even with that the article doesn't even quantity a problem - it just points at some expensive cities, and some potential issues, while showing median income is still easily enough to buy a median house, etc. There's no metric according to which middle class is becoming poorer over any reasonable term in it. And any very recent change was probably caused by pandemic and reaction to it, not a part of some trend.. to revert it, we should stop doing what we were doing for the past year or two :) Btw iirc price to income ratio in the us is also one of the lowest in developed countries, or on par. Long term, I think the thinning middle class narrative is closer to being merely humanities grads complaining that they cannot afford to live in NYC and SF, than to any real issue ;)