Well, longtime readers probably can see what\u2019s coming.\u00a0 I got curious, so I decided to look for some definitive numbers.\u00a0 And, \u201cLo and behold!\u201d \u2013 I found them.<\/p>\n
It was easy, actually.\u00a0 They were in the same place I found some of the numbers for the previous article in this series.<\/p>\n
You see, it seems the US Census Bureau also collects data on US household income each year.\u00a0 They also publish that data, adjusted for inflation using CPI-U-RS<\/span>, annually \u2013 going back to 1967.\u00a0 Further, the published data is conveniently \u201cbinned\u201d into nine different household income categories, ranging from poverty (<$15,000 annual household income in real terms) to quite well off (>$200,000 annual real household income).<\/p>\n So, yeah \u2013 I decided to look at that data and see if it agreed with the Left\u2019s claims.\u00a0 I mean, really \u2013 the data\u2019s all there. \u00a0All you have to do is download it and analyze it for yourself.<\/p>\n The results were interesting.\u00a0 But first, a small sidebar.<\/p>\n Just What Is the US \u201cMiddle Class\u201d?<\/u><\/p>\n Perhaps not surprisingly, there are actually multiple definitions for the US \u201cmiddle class\u201d.\u00a0 The one we\u2019re concerned with here is a definition based on household income \u2013 and such a definition indeed exists.\u00a0 Pew Research \u2013 who usually has their organic fertilizer well consolidated and neatly stowed when it comes to economic research and analysis \u2013 defines the middle class as having a household income ranging from \u201ctwo-thirds to two times the national median income for your household size\u201d.\u00a0 For 2014, that equated to a household income between $46,960 and $140,900<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Frankly, IMO there are some problems with that definition other than the fact that it appears kinda arbitrary.\u00a0 First:\u00a0 that definition excludes the bulk of a number of occupations that have traditionally been considered \u201cupper middle class\u201d \u2013 doctors<\/em><\/a>, dentists<\/em><\/a>, and nurse-anesthetists<\/em> <\/a>\u00a0being examples.\u00a0 All three of those professional occupations (and possibly some others) have median incomes above the upper end of that range.\u00a0 So I’m going to modify the definition for middle class I use here a bit.<\/p>\n The second problem is more practical:\u00a0 the income breakout by categories provided by the Census Bureau data doesn\u2019t line up with those Pew Research income limits for the Middle Class.\u00a0 So as a first cut, for income classes I\u2019m going to use the following definitions:<\/p>\n Yes, the quotes around the class \u201cWealthy\u201d are intentional.\u00a0 With a lower limit of $150,000, this \u201cWealthy\u201d category IMO includes a large portion of some occupations traditionally considered \u201cupper middle class\u201d.<\/p>\n My definition here – like Pew Research’s – is a bit arbitrary.\u00a0 Here’s my rationale for the above categories.\u00a0 First, I want to capture at more of those traditional \u201cupper middle class\u201d occupations that would be excluded using Pew Research’s upper limit.\u00a0 Second, I have no way of knowing the distribution within the Census Bureau’s $35k-$50k or $100k-$150k income\u00a0\u201cbins\u201d – so I’m not going to attempt to split them.\u00a0 And, finally, $50k real household income hardly seems to qualify as \u201clow income\u201d anyway.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll revisit these definitions later in the article.\u00a0 But they\u2019re as good a starting point as is practical, given the data to which I have access.<\/p>\n The Data<\/u>.<\/p>\n The data, as noted above, was obtained from the US Census Bureau.\u00a0 The specific source is noted at the end of the article.<\/p>\n The data shows the percentage of US households having real incomes in each of 9 categories for the period 1967-2015.\u00a0 As was the case with the previous article in this series, the data has been adjusted for inflation<\/span>, with 2015 as the base year, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI-U-RS<\/em><\/a> from 1977 on and the Census Bureau’s derived CPI-U-RS<\/em><\/a> for the period 1967-1976.\u00a0 For completeness, here\u2019s a graph showing all 9 income categories.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry if you can\u2019t make heads or tails out of it \u2013 it\u2019s far too busy to interpret easily.\u00a0 I\u2019m providing this chart for illustrative purposes and completeness only.<\/p>\n First-Cut Analysis<\/u><\/p>\n OK, after \u201cbinning\u201d the data into the three classes defined above, I prepared a second chart.\u00a0 This chart is simpler \u2013 it shows the percentage of US households that, according to real annual household income, fit into each of those three class \u201cbins\u201d (Low Income, Middle Class, and \u201cWealthy\u201d).\u00a0 I\u2019ve added trend lines to each of these data series to visually indicate the trend of change over time.<\/p>\n Hmm.\u00a0 In 1967, 58.9% of US households were \u201cmiddle class\u201d.\u00a0 And in 2015, the fraction of US households that were middle class was slightly smaller \u2013 but only slightly.\u00a0 In 2015, the middle class comprised 55.6% of US households.\u00a0 That is 3.3% less than in 1967.<\/p>\n Looking at that, I\u2019ll be damned if I can see a \u201cdisappearing\u201d middle class.\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah, proportionally it\u2019s slightly smaller.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not a helluva lot smaller.\u00a0 And that\u2019s over a period spanning nearly 50 freaking years<\/u>.\u00a0 At that rate, it will take something like another 800 years or so<\/em> for the US middle class to vanish.\u00a0 Doesn’t seem to be exactly the \u201cmajor crisis\u201d the Left keeps yapping about.<\/p>\n So, where did those 3.3% of US households go?\u00a0 If the Left is right, those \u201cevil Reagan tax cuts\u201d drove them to the Low Income category.\u00a0 Is the Left correct?<\/p>\n In a word: \u00a0no.\u00a0 Or as we might have put it where I grew up:\u00a0 \u201cOh HELL no!\u201d<\/p>\n In 1967, in terms of real household income 38.7% of US households were \u201cLow Income\u201d \u2013 e.g., real household incomes of $35,000 or less.\u00a0 But in 2015, only 32.1% of US households were in that same Low Income category in real terms.\u00a0 That\u2019s 6.6% fewer<\/em> US households than in 1967.<\/p>\n Don’t forget, the middle class shrank half that much between 1967 and 2015 also.\u00a0 That means almost 10% fewer US households today are Low Income and Middle Class today than in 1967.<\/p>\n So, what the hell?\u00a0 Where did nearly 10% of US households go?<\/p>\n The answer is simple.\u00a0 They became \u201cWealthy\u201d.<\/p>\n In 1967, the fraction of US households with a real income of >$150,000 (and which thus were \u201cWealthy\u201d) was indeed tiny.\u00a0 In 1967, only 2.4% of US households \u2013 or roughly 1 household out of 42<\/em> \u2013 had a real household income of $150,000 or more.<\/p>\n Today?\u00a0 Well, the percentage of US households that \u201cWealthy\u201d by that criteria is 12.3%<\/em><\/strong> – or roughly 1 US household in 8<\/u>.\u00a0 THAT is where the \u201cmissing\u201d poor and middle class went.\u00a0 They freaking got wealthy.<\/p>\n Second Pass:\u00a0 Reworking the Categories<\/u>.<\/p>\n OK, maybe those categories were \u201cbad\u201d.\u00a0 So let\u2019s try a more detailed look.\u00a0 Let\u2019s \u201cre-bin\u201d everyone, using the following categories.\u00a0 Maybe that will help us see what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n As before, the quotes around \u201cWealthy\u201d are intentional – for the same reason previously stated.<\/p>\n So, what does that look like in graphical form?\u00a0 Here you go \u2013 again, with trend lines.<\/p>\n Yep \u2013 pretty much the same as before.\u00a0 Here, we see that every income category below the upper middle class has gotten proportionally smaller.\u00a0 In contrast, the Upper Middle Class and the \u201cWealthy\u201d have each grown \u2013 hugely.<\/p>\n Conclusions<\/u>.<\/p>\n The Left\u2019s contention that the US \u201cmiddle class is shrinking\u201d has a tiny grain of truth \u2013 but that grain of truth is wrapped with so much Leftist propaganda and bullsh!t that it obscures reality.\u00a0 The \u201cmiddle class\u201d is indeed shrinking \u2013 EXTREMELY slowly.\u00a0 Statistically speaking, 3.3% of the US population has moved out of the middle class in the last 50 years.\u00a0 At that rate, as noted above it would take the US middle class over 800 years to disappear entirely.<\/p>\n What the left WON\u2019T tell you is the reason why those households have moved out of the middle class.\u00a0 No, those leaving the middle class haven\u2019t become impoverished by those \u201cevil\u201d conservative policies, statistically speaking.\u00a0 Rather, they’ve become enriched instead.\u00a0 Statistically speaking, they left the middle class because they became wealthy<\/em>.<\/p>\n Why do I say that?\u00a0 I say that because the Low Income category is also shrinking<\/em>.<\/p>\n In fact, the fraction of Low Income US households is shrinking twice as fast annually, percentage-wise<\/span>, as the middle class.\u00a0 Where did they go?\u00a0 Again:\u00a0 since the Middle Class is also shrinking, there\u2019s only one place they could have gone.\u00a0 Statistically speaking, they also got wealthy<\/span> – or at least, wealthier.\u00a0 Today, 6.6% fewer US households are “Low Income” in real terms<\/span> than was the case in 1967.<\/p>\n The bottom line:\u00a0 in 1967, in real terms 2.4% of US households were \u201cwealthy\u201d in terms of real household income.\u00a0 In 2015, that fraction was 12.3%.\u00a0 Over that roughly 50 year period, nearly 10% of American households left the ranks of the \u201cpoor\u201d and \u201cmiddle class\u201d \u2013 and became \u201cwealthy\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n The same is generally true if one looks at the more detailed classes defined in the second \u201cbinning\u201d above.\u00a0 There, collectively a net 18.4%<\/em><\/strong> – or nearly 1 out every 5.4 American households<\/span> – moved out of the classes of Poverty, Working Poor, Lower Middle Class, and Middle Class.\u00a0 They moved from there to either the \u201cUpper Middle Class\u201d (real household income between $100,000 and $150,000 annually) or the \u201cWealthy\u201d (>$200,000) \u2013 with the net influx split almost evenly between the latter two categories.<\/p>\n Last time I checked, having a larger household income in real terms was indeed a \u201cgood thing\u201d.\u00a0 And becoming \u201cWealthy\u201d was called \u201cThe American Dream\u201d.<\/p>\n In summary:\u00a0 yeah, the US \u201cmiddle class\u201d is shrinking \u2013 at the rate of around 0.067% per year.\u00a0 But the US Low Income \u201cclass\u201d is also shrinking \u2013 and it\u2019s shrinking at twice the rate.\u00a0 And those two groups are shrinking because members of each are becoming wealthy.<\/p>\n Yes, it’s true that a handful of Americans are filthy rich.\u00a0 There are probably more of those today than in the past.<\/p>\n And that’s also absolutely, positively freaking irrelevant<\/span>.<\/p>\n Those getting filthy rich are not<\/span> getting filthy rich because the poor and middle class are \u201cgetting screwed\u201d.\u00a0 Rather, while some are becoming filthy rich, many of the poor and middle class are also becoming wealthy right alongside them<\/span>.\u00a0 In 50 years, nearly 10% of American households have moved from the \u201clow income\u201d and \u201cmiddle class\u201d categories to the \u201cwealthy\u201d category in real terms<\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n In short, the Left is misleading or outright lying to us yet again. Is anyone surprised?<\/p>\n Here, for the Left the actual, hard, documented economic data that’s freely available truly is an \u201cinconvenient truth\u201d.<\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n Data used in this article was obtained from<\/p>\n\n
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<\/center>A larger version of the same image may be viewed here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Chart_5a.png\")
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<\/center>A larger version of the same image may be viewed here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n