The Elusive Middle in America – What Has Happened to Middle-Class Income?
This paper by AARP Public Policy Institutes Gary Koenig reports that the middle class today is smaller as well as older, more educated, more racially and ethnically diverse, and more likely to be single than middle-class households in the past. It notes that most Americans identify themselves as middle class and that middle class is not synonymous with middle income. However, due to the broad availability of data on Americans income, researchers typically use income as an indicator of membership in the middle class....