A new study shows a bleak future for America’s continually shrinking middle class.
The Pew Research Center uncovered these abysmal statistics:
— Income for the typical household fell in 190 of the 229 metro areas studied, further evidence of the decline in U.S. living standards since 1999. Median incomes fell even in wealthier cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Denver.
— Income inequality is lifting some Americans closer to the top even as people in the middle fall further. Median incomes fell 8 percent nationwide from 1999 to 2014. Yet the share of adults in upper-income homes rose to 20 percent from 17 percent. Middle-income households declined to 51 percent from 55 percent.
— The hollowing out of the middle class has occurred even as the income needed to meet Pew’s definition of the middle has declined. A three-person household had to earn $45,115 in 1999 to qualify as middle-class. Now, that figure is just $41,641.
Almost 25 percent of major metropolitan areas no longer have middle class families as the majority of residents in the area. The number of metropolitan areas with 20 percent of adults or more living in upper-income households increased from 37 in 2000 to 79 today. The number of metropolitan areas with 29 percent of adults or more living in lower-income households increased from 92 in 2000 to 103 today.
Cities like Wausau, WI and Youngstown-Warren, OH, which have high percentages of middle-class families, saw a decline of median incomes of 8.5 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively.
It is true that part of the reason for the middle class’s decline is because there are some that are moving up on the economic ladder rather than down, but the significant amount of Americans who have fallen down the economic ladder cannot be ignored, especially when taken with these statistics:
- During the Obama years, the number of Americans below the poverty line is up 3.5 percent.
- Real median household income: down 2.3 percent. Americans on Food Stamps — 33 million then, 46 million now: up 39.5 percent.
- Americans who own homes: down 5.6 percent.
This economic calamity is what happens when the federal government spits out over 80,000 pages of regulations a year that smother small businesses – which includes the regulation emanating from the behemoths of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank – as well as the side effects of mass illegal immigration.
As National Review‘s Victor Davis Hanson explains, “Who does not benefit from mass illegal immigration? Mostly the poor, minorities, and the lower-middle class. They are not employers, but rather compete with undocumented immigrants for low-wage jobs. They usually clean their own houses and do their own yardwork. They cannot afford to send their children to a different school when theirs becomes overcrowded. They cannot afford the increased taxes needed for social support of millions of new arrivals.”
As government expands, the middle-class contracts.
