> In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020, a

> In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020, after incomes have been adjusted for household size, or about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three. “Lower-income” adults have household incomes less than $52,000 and “upper-income” adults have household incomes greater than $156,000. The definition used in this paper has no ties to actual quality of life criteria or ownership of traditional “middle class” assets (house, car, etc). This is effectively a percentage based definition based around the median income of the country and is more a measure of changes to income inequality than it is a definition of a “middle class.”