A new study by the Pew Research Center states that the middle class in America is shrinking to 50% from 62% in 1970. The study dated December 9, 2015 indicates that 120.8 million US households are middle class out of 242 million total households. At first glance one would consider this drop a huge tragedy -meaning that 12% of Americans had fallen to the lower class; but the presentation of the report was misleading. Actually, more households have risen to upper income rather than have fallen to lower income households. The upper income households now comprise 21% of all income households up from 14% in 1971, a 7% rise. The lower income households also increased from 25% to 29%, a much smaller increase but a definite increase. So, although the middle income households are shrinking, it actually means that more households have reached the lower levels of the upper echelon than have sunk to the lower levels. Middle income households are represented by income from a low of $42,000 to $126,000 per year. The news is not as negative as presented and could be interpreted as quite positive. Despite the Great Recession, an additional one out of fourteen middle income families earn enough to be considered upper income households than existed in 1970. This is likely related to the technology innovations that exist today. The down side is that an additional one in twenty Middle Income people fell into the lower income households. This decrease is probably linked to the same disruptive forces.
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