AMERICA’S SHRINKING MIDDLE CLASS
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
As previously noted, the characteristics of the middle class vary by region. The Hispanic middle class is greatly concentrated in California, where the combined native-born and foreign-born middle-income group is approaching a million households. In 2000, middle class Hispanic households in California totaled over a half million, with foreign-born households exceeding native-born households. States like Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico had similar figures, but with native-born households dominating the middle-income and middle class groups. In New York and New Jersey, the numbers were smaller (Clark 2001).
The Census Bureau reported that between the American Community Surveys of 2010 and 2011, median household income decreased by 1.3 percent from $51,144 to $50,502 and ranged from a high of $70,004 in Maryland to a low of $36,919 in Mississippi (U.S. Census Bureau 2012). The real median household income in 2011 was $50,054, which was a decrease of 1.5 percent from 2010 and 8.1 percent from 2007. Median family household income declined by 1.7 percent in real terms between 2010 and 2011 to $62,273 (U.S. Census Bureau 2012).
Between 2010 and 2011, the change in real median household income for Hispanics was not statistically significant. As a result, the group has not yet regained its pre-2001 peak income level, which was $43,319 in 2000. Between 1972 and 2011, the Hispanic to non-Hispanic white income ratio declined from 0.74 to 0.70. The annual changes in the incomes of foreign-born households between 2009 and 2011 were not significant. In 2011, the incomes of households maintained by naturalized citizens declined by 4.9 percent, while the change in the incomes of noncitizen households was not statistically significant. In 2011, the median income of households maintained by a naturalized citizen or a native-born person was $51,926, while for noncitizens it was $37,894 (U.S. Census Bureau 2012).
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
What does a middle class nation do without a middle class? An abundance of evidence suggests that we here in the United States are about to find out.
America’s Shrinking Middle Class documents trends that have been building not just since the Great Recession, but for over four decades. In 1970, the share of U.S. income that went to the middle class was 62 percent. By 2010 that figure had fallen to 45 percent. In that same year, the median income for middle class Americans had gone from $72,956 to $69,487 a decline of nearly 5 percent in just one year.
A shrinking middle class would mean a shrinking economy and an America dominated by a growing lower class. Life would be less comfortable, less prosperous, and less secure. With less money coming in to government and businesses alike, tax burdens would become onerous. One example: Obamacare. It could cost the average taxpayer nearly $6,000 in extra taxes and create a total of 20 new taxes or tax hikes. For a weakened and shrinking middle class, it could be a fatal blow.