Middle Class

“A thriving middle class fuels the engine of growth in a market economy and is the surest guarantee of opportunity, stability, and freedom.”

Ongoing Nonpartisan Studies of the Middle Class

• Pew Research Center: Studies of the Middle Class
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes
• NPR: Stories About the Middle Class
• Census Bureau: Search “Median Household Income”

Studies, Reports, Articles on the American Middle Class

• NYTimes: Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges (April 2018)
• USA Today: Economic Disparity – 10 States Where the Middle Class is Being Left Behind (March 2018)
• CBO: The Distribution of Household Income, 2014 (March 2018)
• CBPP:  Income Gains Widely Shared in Early Postwar Decades — But Not Since Then (Feb 2018)
• Brookings:  The Middle Class is Becoming Race-Plural, Just Like the Rest of America (Feb 2018)
• Pew: Majorities Say Government Does Too Little for Older People, the Poor and the Middle Class (Jan 2018)
• CBO: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income (Nov 2017)
• PIIE:  The Middle-Class Tax Cut That’s Really a Hike (Nov 2017)
• Harvard Business Review:  Why Wages Aren’t Growing in America (Oct 2017)
• Morduch & Schneider:  The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty (April 2017)
• CBPP: Middle-Class Americans’ Big Stake in Social Security (April 2017)
• PBS Frontline:  Frontline: How the Deck is Stacked – The Realities of Getting Ahead in the New American Economy (2016)
• NPR:  A Portrait of America’s Middle Class, By the Numbers (July 2016)
• PIIE: The New Middling of the US Labor Market (July 2016)
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2013 (June 2016)
• Pew: America’s Shrinking Middle Class: A Close Look at Changes Within Metropolitan Areas (May 2016)
• Atlantic:  The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans (May 2016)
• Pew: Are you in the American Middle Class (May 2016)
• Pew:  The American Middle Class is Losing Ground (Dec 2015)
• Joseph Stiglitz:  Why the U.S. Could Soon Be the World’s First Former Middle Class Society (Dec 2015)
• Brookings:  Are Middle Class Income Shrinking?  (Sept 2015)
• Pew: Are Americans Ready for Obama’s Middle Class Populism (Feb 2015)
• NYTimes:  Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up (Jan 2015)
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2011 (Nov 2014)
• Census Bureau:  Examining the Middle Class in the United States (Sept 2014)
• NYTimes:  The American Middle Class is No Longer the World’s Richest (April 2014)
• CRS:  The Distribution of Household Income and the Middle Class (March 2014)
• CRS:  The U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility:  Trends and International Comparisons (Nov 2012)
• NBER: The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class (Nov 2012)
• CRS:  An Analysis of the Distribution of Wealth Across Households 1989-2010 (July 2012)
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009 (July 2012)
• CBPP: Strengthening the Middle Class (Feb 2012)
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2011 (Nov 2014)
• CBO:  The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2010 (Dec 2013)
• CAP:  5 Charts that Show How Increasing Income Inequality Leads to Less Opportunity (Dec 2012)
• CBO:  Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 (Aug 2012)
• CAP:  The Middle Class and Economic Growth (Aug 2012)
• CAP:  Making our Middle Class Stronger (Aug 2012)
• CAP: The American Middle Class, Income Inequality, and the Strength of Our Economy (May 2012)
• CBO:  Data on the Distribution of Federal Taxes and Household Income (April 2009)
• CBO: Data on the Distribution of Federal Taxes and Household Income (Dec 2007)
• PIIE: How the U.S. Middle Class Became 10 Percent Poorer (Aug 2007)
• Janet Yellen:  Economic Inequality in the United States (Nov 2006)
• Harvard Magazine:  The Middle Class on the Precipice – Rising Financial Risks for American Families (Jan 2006)

Comparing the U.S. Middle Class to other Advanced and Emerging Economies

• OECD Centre for Opportunity and Equality
• Economist:  India’s Missing Middle Class (Jan 2018)
• PIIE: Share of Middle Income Jobs Fell Faster in Major Economies Outside US (June 2017)
• Pew: Through an American Lens, Western Europe’s Middle Classes Appear Smaller (June 2017)
• Pew Fact-Tank:  Are you Middle Class in Western Europe?  Try Our County-by-Country Income Calculators (April 2017)
• Pew Fact-Tank:  7 Key Findings on the State of the Middle Class in Western Europe (April 2017)
• OECD / World Bank:  The Squeezed Middle Class in OECD and Emerging Countries: Myth and Reality (Dec 2016)
• OECD: How middle class are middle-income households in Latin America? (Jan 2016)
• Pew: 6 key takeaways about the world’s emerging middle class; the emergence of a truly global middle class is still more promise than reality (July 2015)
• OECD:  Middle class in Latin America economically vulnerable (2010)
• Brookings: The Emerging Middle Class in Developing Countries (2010)