# New Pew Poll Shows Middle Class Disappearing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645 "2016-05-12T22:44:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/21 "2016-05-13T15:31:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Do you think you know what the cause is? I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts on the matter. Ok. [Spoilering it so that \*\*Evil Captor \*\*has a chance to formulate what he thinks is in the minds of his opponents.] [spoiler]The causes are many. A partial list, from most important to least important, would look something like this: 1. Technological change–including the displacement and wage premiums caused by the internet and robotics, among other things–and the necessarily accompanying degradation of the bargaining power of labor. 2. Globalization–as a global phenomenon, as distinct from particular US trade agreements–and the necessarily accompanying degradation of the bargaining power of labor. … 3. Vastly unequal education funding between rich and poor school districts. … 4. Feminism (which like globalization and technological change is both awesome and disruptive economically because of a whole range of side effects like assortative mating, the influx of women workers, rising number of single-parent households, movement of household labor to market prices, etc.) … 5. The reduction of after-tax transfers to the poor. … 6. Increasing cost of medical and child care as a proportion of family budgets, partly as a consequence of policy but mostly a consequence of things not within the control of policymakers. … 7. Shift of economic resources to the financial sector (mostly as a consequence of other trends, but not entirely). … 8. Trade agreements that have failed to ensure that the benefits of open trade are focused on the people most harmed by it. … 9. The mass incarceration of black men. … 10. Tax policy that favors the rich. … 11. Campaign finance rules which permit greater corporate influence on policy than in similar developed nations. You could completely transform items 50-100, or even items 20-100, and probably not see much difference in overall inequality because of items 1-20. It is lunacy to argue that item #100 is responsible for #1 and #2. [/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/22 "2016-05-13T15:32:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Given the massive increase in single-mother households over the last 40 years, I’m surprised we’ve held up that well, since that is the likeliest demographic to be in poverty. It’s not a US phenomenon; so that’s too parochial unless you think there are factors specific to the USA. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/23 "2016-05-13T15:34:30Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Same with democratic socialism. The time has come. … with amazing speed. 5 years ago at those packed town hall meeting about Obamacare it was like the apocalypse. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/24 "2016-05-13T15:41:16Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Really? because I looked at the charts, and what I saw on most of them was middle class percentages going up, lower class percentages going up, and upper class going up … but the slant of the upper class percentage was a lot shallower than the slant of the other two. Yeah, you may want to look a bit more at the full data and not make your conclusions from a casual sense about the line slant of a newspaper graphic. Anyway, having established that for the middle class those peak times were at the end of the WJ Clinton years, with mild decline during GW Bush with him leaving the median income in freefall mode that took a few years halt and then to begin recovering from, let’s share some data specific to that recovery from the recession. Jobs are coming back. [What sort of jobs are they?](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/05/11/just-how-good-or-bad-are-all-the-jobs-added-to-the-economy-since-the-recession/) Fact is it’s a mixed bag but indeed fewer that would previously have been called “middle class” by Pew. A bigger share under and a bigger share over. > [@](#): > > The food and drinking services industry, which includes most bars and restaurants, has grown by 17% — while average weekly pay in this industry is only $339 a week. Home-health care services — mostly home-health aides — has grown by an astonishing 48%, but the average weekly pay is only $548. … > > … many of the shrinking industries have been middle wage. Specialty trade contractors — which includes many construction workers — has seen employment fall by more than 10%. Those jobs paid more than $1,000 a week. Other middle-wage jobs losing employment include many manufacturing industries. … > > … higher-wage industries have been adding jobs at a brisk clip: computer systems design and related services (an industry that includes many software developers and pays $1,731 a week on average), other information services (which includes many internet companies and pays $1,357 a week), management and technical consulting ($1,434 a week) and hospitals ($1,133 a week). … > > … The number of minimum wage and part time workers has declined over the past five years. There are currently about 2.6 million workers earning the minimum wage. That’s up from 1.7 million in 2007, but down substantially from 4.4 million in 2010. There are currently about six million people who work part time but want full-time hours. That’s up from about four million in 2007, but down substantially from nine million in 2009 and 2010. > > So were all the jobs we created since the recession bad? Well, yes and no. It’s true that many low-wage industries have been growing, many middle-wage industries have shrunk, and more people work part time or for minimum wage than did a decade ago. But it’s also true many middle- and high-wage industries are growing too, and the number of minimum wage and part-time workers has gradually been declining over the past five years. … So for the sake of discussion let us accept that voters don’t particularly care that they are in fact better off than they were before there was any NAFTA, better off than they were under GH Bush or Reagan or Carter … they care about how they have not increased since the peak days at the end of WJ Clinton’s time, how they dropped during the recession, and how they personally are not back up to where they were. And that is true. Those middle class industries, construction and manufacturing, are not having the same boom times they once had. Growth is in service industries, some lower paying and some higher paying and less in the very middle. Again, dramatic and rapidly increasing wealth inequality between the very very few and everyone else is in and of itself a bad thing for society (even if objectively even the lower quintiles are doing fine by any reasonable historic perspective) and needs to be addressed. But the contraction of those middle class industries is _not_ a direct result of “the One Percent eating up all of America’s wealth.” I want the extremity of wealth inequality addressed but we are doing a disservice to the issue of building more jobs in the current middle _and higher_ when we simplistically place _all_ blame on “the One Percent” in a way that leads us to ignoring working on figuring out how to create more middle class (_and higher_, even if more clmbing up leaves fewer in the middle) jobs in this country in today’s increasingly automated (with more intelligent automation) global economy. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/25 "2016-05-13T15:58:31Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I am curious to know whether you have any idea what your opponents actually think and believe. > > What do you imagine that people who disagree with Bernie Sanders’s proposed solutions think causes income inequality? Do you think they’re just twirling their mustaches and counting their gold coins and don’t care, or that they think greedy rich people steal from the poor, or what? Among Republicans it’s a belief that the poor are stupid, worthless, lazy and black. Or brown. Whereas the wealthy work hard, live virtuously and are very smart and very white. Most will not ADMIT to that, but it’s clearly the belief. It creates the sort of indifference you describe. Among Dem centrists, the belief seems to be that the wealthy have had many advantages that the poor have not, and that we need to give poor people the opportunity to succeed as well, which consists mostly of good elementary schools and free lunch for kids. They recognize that right now things are unfair, but they look forward to welcoming a carefully selected portion of the unwashed into their ranks in the future … a very distant future. What kind of prize do I get? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/26 "2016-05-13T16:00:51Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > What kind of prize do I get? I suggest you spend more time reading the thoughts of conservatives and Dem centrists. Of course, you might reject what they actually say and prefer to believe they have nefarious hidden agendas. There’s nothing I can do about that. But I think the first step is being able to accurately summarize at least their superficial positions on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/27 "2016-05-13T16:29:20Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I suggest you spend more time reading the thoughts of conservatives and Dem centrists. What on Earth would be the point of that? They’ve had their way for at least 30 years now and we know where it’s gotten us. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/28 "2016-05-13T16:55:22Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I suggest you spend more time reading the thoughts of conservatives and Dem centrists. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What on Earth would be the point of that? They’ve had their way for at least 30 years now and we know where it’s gotten us. You could also develop some serious eyestrain from trying to read the really small print in those thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/29 "2016-05-13T17:33:36Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > It’s not a US phenomenon; so that’s too parochial unless you think there are factors specific to the USA. Increasing income inequality is not a uniquely US phenomenon, either. It’s happening across the industrialized world. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/30 "2016-05-13T17:33:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What on Earth would be the point of that? They’ve had their way for at least 30 years now and we know where it’s gotten us. I don’t think it’s really necessary to explain why it is important to understand the actual views of people who disagree with you instead of holding straw man versions of them. I don’t believe you actually believe otherwise. So I’ll just address your rhetorical point that the right and center-left are the one’s responsible for rising income inequality. That belief is exactly what progressives like Bernie Sanders get wrong about the basic facts of income inequality post-1973. The governments of Sweden and Finland have put economic equality pretty high on their list of priorities. Both have seen their Gini coefficients rise faster than the US over the past three decades. Are their rich people just more rapacious than American rich people? Is that your theory?\* ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/31 "2016-05-13T17:40:55Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t think it’s really necessary to explain why it is important to understand the actual views of people who disagree with you instead of holding straw man versions of them. I don’t believe you actually believe otherwise. Since almost all I see from him in this forum is sweeping statements followed by a Salon or alternet article link, I am not sure that’s a safe assumption. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/32 "2016-05-13T17:52:15Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > A new poll by Pew shows that[the middle class is declining faster and farther than previously thought](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/11/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-just-about-everywhere-in-america/) … The middle class is dying on the vine and it’s due to the One Percent eating up all of America’s wealth. [QUOTE=chefguy] It’s not so much the 1%, but the .01%: the multi-billionaires who shovel hundreds of millions of dollars into making sure that what you hear, read and see profits them and not you. [/QUOTE] The uber-rich are doing fine, but so is (roughly speaking) the whole top 30-40%, which is why your cite shows the number of households making over twice the national median rising. What the data reflects is something more like what one sociologist calls [Coming Apart](http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/030745343X): all kinds of economic and societal macro-trends that are not easily undone – such as the ones **Richard Parker** identifies above – have had unequal benefits. Of course, demonizing billionaires and saying you want to confiscate their wealth is easy, fun, and popular, whereas telling a computer programmer married to a physical therapist and making a combined $150k that they are the kinds of people that have disproportionately benefitted from technology and globalization, and you want to raise their taxes 10% is difficult, unpleasant and unpopular … even if it’s the latter that would bring in more income. [QUOTE=Simplicio] Plus, the average Trump primary voter had an income of like 70k, way above the average American household. Its hardly the unwashed masses that made him the GOP nominee. [/QUOTE] Household income, by itself, doesn’t tell you a lot. Trump’s voters, compared to the national average, are also older, more likely to be married, more likely to have kids, etc. A “household” consisting of a couple in their 50s with kids with a $70k income is going to be a lot more like the unwashed masses than a “household” that consists of a 30 year old single woman making $50k. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/33 "2016-05-13T18:02:26Z")
So in some places the upper tier grew, in some places the lower tier grew and in some places both tiers grew. What is the preference, that the upper, middle and lower tiers just stay flat everywhere throughout time? The article didn’t do a great job convincing me that we’re in really bad shape. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/34 "2016-05-13T18:25:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What on Earth would be the point of that? They’ve had their way for at least 30 years now and we know where it’s gotten us. Yup. Median income and median after tax income (in 2014 dollars) having increased from about $47K in the early '80s to $53 to 54Kish in the last two years, still rebounding from a serious recession in the context of that increasingly automated and globally connected world economy. The real median individual income ratio between males and females decreasing from 2.7 to 1.6. The real median individual income ratio of Blacks having increased about 45%, not much less for Hispanics, while White median income has also raised to but by a lesser fraction of where they were in the early '80s. Murder rate halved. 32% fewer rapes. Violent crime overall down about 40%. Gay rights now mainstream. A Federal government willing to go to bat to protect the transgendered from discrimination at state levels. Major progress in having universal access to basic health care. The United States has become a major energy producer. A [63% decrease](https://www3.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html#comparison) in the amounts of the aggregate emissions of six common pollutants even as miles traveled and energy use has gone up. The rate of all 18 to 24 year olds attending college has increased by about 55%. Total percent of the US population that has [completed](http://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/) at least college has increased from 23% to 32% for males and from 15% to 32% for females. There are problems without question, lots of work to do, and much progress to be made. There are steps back as well as steps forward and disagreements all around. There are reasons to be anxious moving forward, no question. We need able leadership that can keep getting things done in a world full of new and evolving challenges and in the face of major portions of our own citizenry wanting to pull us backwards. Able to if they managed to get a GOP president and a GOP Congress at the same time. But what has 30 years of Democratic leadership fighting for us gotten us? A _helluva lot of progress_ and in a much better place than we were before. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/35 "2016-05-13T18:41:58Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t think it’s really necessary to explain why it is important to understand the actual views of people who disagree with you instead of holding straw man versions of them. I don’t believe you actually believe otherwise. > > So I’ll just address your rhetorical point that the right and center-left are the one’s responsible for rising income inequality. That belief is exactly what progressives like Bernie Sanders get wrong about the basic facts of income inequality post-1973. The governments of Sweden and Finland have put economic equality pretty high on their list of priorities. Both have seen their Gini coefficients rise faster than the US over the past three decades. > > Are their rich people just more rapacious than American rich people? Is that your theory?\* Looking [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient), I see the lowest Gini Indexes in the social democracies – even Canada and Britain, not notably socdem countries, fare better than the U.S. I also see the GI since WWII trending upwards in the U.S. and (mostly) downward in the social democracies. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/36 "2016-05-13T18:44:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Yup. Income comparisons to the early 80s are reflecting the changes made in previous decades. The question here is the direction we have been heading since then. And medians aren’t that useful in regard to this argument anyway, the problem with the disappearing middle class is the resulting two tier society, the upper class can keep doing better and increasing the size of the pie without the people at the bottom seeing a reasonable benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/37 "2016-05-13T18:50:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I also see the GI since WWII trending upwards in the U.S. and (mostly) downward in the social democracies. Are you relying on that Wikipedia page to claim that Sweden and Finland have not seen their Gini coefficients rise faster than the US over the past three decades? If not, then why are you presenting it as if it contradicts my point? Also, under your theory, why are the UK and Canada so divergent? Is Mexico more socialist than the US? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/38 "2016-05-13T19:03:37Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Income comparisons to the early 80s are reflecting the changes made in previous decades. The question here is the direction we have been heading since then. And medians aren’t that useful in regard to this argument anyway, the problem with the disappearing middle class is the resulting two tier society, the upper class can keep doing better and increasing the size of the pie without the people at the bottom seeing a reasonable benefit. Huh? The comment was how we have done over the past 30 years. The answer is to provide the actual data of how we have done over the past 30 years. The direction we have headed since then on income overall has been up, most of that gain during the WJ Clinton years. That is true _for all quintiles_. All quintiles, including the bottom, have seen a reasonable benefit. And progress has been made in many other areas as a result of Democratic leadership fighting for us as well. Democratic leadership overall has been very successful on many fronts. I personally believe that if they had been an uncompromising hard left party virtually none of that progress would have been accomplished. Again, without question there is also increased wealth inequality even as all have done better. Some have done much better than others and the wealth gap has increased. No debate from me that such in and of itself is bad for society overall even as all boats rise. A wealth gap is a power gap. It creates and amplifies the “some are more equal than others” circumstance. It needs to be addressed. And addressing it without creating an economy that results in more growth in industries that will create new middle class and higher jobs will do little good. Addressing it stupidly could even cause harms. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/39 "2016-05-13T19:14:59Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Also, under your theory, why are the UK and Canada so divergent? Is Mexico more socialist than the US? Is one of us reading it wrong? Canada and the U.K. don’t seem that divergent to me and Mexico has a higher Gini index than the U.S. by my interpretation. We’re looking at the map under “Countries by Gini Index”? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/40 "2016-05-13T19:35:43Z")
There’s a good book review article written by Paul Krugman a few years ago. The book is Capital in the 21st Century and the author is Thomas Pinketty. Krug’s review touches on the book, which addresses some of the points discussed here. > **[Why We’re in a New Gilded Age | Paul Krugman](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/05/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/)** > > Thomas Piketty isn’t a household name, although that may change with the English-language publication of his magnificent, sweeping meditation on inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. This is a book that will change both the way we think... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645.md?page=3)