Data Point: Middle Class is disappearing - by becoming richer! - Granite Grok

Data Point: Middle Class is disappearing – by becoming richer!

Distribution of US families by Income Level

“2. The share of lower-income families fell over time by 4.2%, from 22% of all US families in 1967 to only 17.8% of all US families in 2009, while the share of middle-income families decreased by 18.6% during that period, from 61.8% in 1969 to 43.2% in 2009. So where did those 22.8% of families go that disappeared from the lower-income and middle-income categories in the 42-year period between 1967 and 2009? They “disappeared” into the upper-income category of incomes above $75,000, which increased by 22.8%, from a 16.3% share of American families in 1967 to a 39.1% share in 2009. Whereas “middle-class” families were so numerous that they outnumbered “upper-class” families by a ratio of almost 4:1 in 1967, so many American “middle-class” families have moved by the 2000s to the “upper-class” by income, that those two groups have been almost equally represented for their shares of the total number of US families over the last decade (see the convergence of the blue and red lines in the chart above).”

It used to be the common aspiration to become richer, and if not us, our children.  Yet, yet, we have allowed the rotting emotion of  envy displayed  Socialists and Occupiers (who can’t seem to want to work – only demand the results of hard work) – by denigrating “the 1% – those that have done the hard work to actually EARN those riches.

(H/T: AEIdeas)

>