# 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:** 3
**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, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/41 "2016-05-13T19:41:08Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > 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”? Maybe so. Looking at the chart on changes in Gini coefficient over time including a dozen or so countries, Mexico’s Gino index dropped substantially over the latter period of the chart. And the UK’s rose steadily while Canada remained somewhat stable. ---
**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, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/42 "2016-05-13T19:52:32Z")
As far as Gini scores go, maybe [this Pew bit](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/19/global-inequality-how-the-u-s-compares/) can help. Short version: we have horrible income inequality and our current tax and income transfers system does not help us in comparison with our peers. We need to address this. Addressing it is no panacea for all else that ails us but it must be addressed. ---
**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, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/43 "2016-05-13T19:52:58Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > 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 question was a response to the political philosophy of the last 30 years. That is affecting us today, and at some point before now. But numbers from the 80s are heavily influenced by the political philosophy of the decades before the 80s. You do seem to recognize the problem with simply saying we are all better off though. Nobody is happy being told their meal consists of more table scraps than they used to get while others eating the meat. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/44 "2016-05-13T20:08:15Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > 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] A huge chunk of what you described in your spoiler (including one in your top 20) is due to rich people being in charge and doing what is best for them without regard to anyone else. And the idea that you should ignore a lesser problem because there is a greater contribution is completely irrational. A small bit is better than doing nothing. And you are going to have to do better than that to merely assert that feminism is causing income inequality. The first level implication is that it raises wages for half the population, which would spread the wealth out more, not less. Especially since you put it in your top 20–meaning it’s a significant factor. I also don’t think there’s much point in listening to conservatives, for the simple reason that conservatives laregly don’t think that income inequality is a problem. It’s not wrong to say that they see poor people as largely responsible for their own fates. Nor to notice that they favor tax systems that have been shown to make income inequality worse. Lumping conservatives and centrist Democrats only makes the latter look bad. Finally, the thing about taxing the rich to give to the poor is that the reason don’t really matter. It may not be the best solution, but it is the most direct one, that doesn’t care about what the cause is. And the first step to that is to weaken the power of the rich so that this can happen. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/45 "2016-05-13T20:10:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. The Canadian figure does not go past 1993, and no number is any later than 2008, so maybe that’s not the best source there. In fact if one looks at more recent numbers, the USA’s GINI number has dropped a few points in the last decade. ---
**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, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/46 "2016-05-13T20:24:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > A huge chunk of what you described in your spoiler (including one in your top 20) is due to rich people being in charge and doing what is best for them without regard to anyone else. Nonsense. The two biggest factors by far–technological change and globalizing–have nothing to do with policy. And even if they did, we would want them! They’ve been very good for the world as a whole. > [@BigT](#): > > And the idea that you should ignore a lesser problem because there is a greater contribution is completely irrational. Yes, it is. Let’s burn those straw people who think that. > [@BigT](#): > > And you are going to have to do better than that to merely assert that feminism is causing income inequality. No, I’m not. There’s enough there for a whole 'nother thread. But it is the more or less the consensus opinion on the subject, so I think the burden is on you to show that it’s wrong. Please note: it is an unqualified good thing that, for example, women who do child care work are, more and more often, getting paid a market rate for it instead of doing it below market as household labor. But that change has consequences. > [@BigT](#): > > I also don’t think there’s much point in listening to conservatives… The rest of that paragraph makes clear why you’re wrong to think so. You don’t understand conservatives, so you cannot productively engage with their ideas. > [@BigT](#): > > Finally, the thing about taxing the rich to give to the poor is that the reason don’t really matter. It may not be the best solution, but it is the most direct one, that doesn’t care about what the cause is. And the first step to that is to weaken the power of the rich so that this can happen. This is a double misdiagnosis. It assumes that the vast gap in inequality which has resulted from non-policy sources can be rectified by marginal changes in tax and welfare policy (it can’t). And it assumes that the reason our policy isn’t more like France is that rich people have too much power (it isn’t). ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/47 "2016-05-13T23:11:07Z")
[QUOTE=Pew] Income is defined as money income received (exclusive of certain money receipts, such as capital gains) before payments for such things as personal income taxes, Social Security, union dues and Medicare deductions. Non-cash transfers, such as food stamps, health benefits, subsidized housing and energy assistance, are not included. [/QUOTE] By their definition, my parents and my remaining grandparents are all in the “lower” category, which is hilarious and misleading. I wonder how many other retirees this applies to. There are a lot of aging boomers out there. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/48 "2016-05-13T23:24:56Z")
Possibly relevant to this report, some ridiculous number of people think we were better off in the 60s than we are today. WSJ article here: [Economists Disagree With Voters Who See U.S. Worse Off Today Than in 1960s - WSJ](http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-disagree-with-voters-who-see-u-s-worse-off-today-than-in-1960s-1463061602) ---
**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, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/49 "2016-05-13T23:31:31Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Is Mexico more socialist than the US? The PRI is socialist technically . . . unless they’ve renounced all that at some point like New Labour in the UK did, I don’t know . . . but, the Mexican government is simply dysfunctional, for the most part, no matter who’s running it. ---
**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, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/50 "2016-05-13T23:39:33Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Possibly relevant to this report, some ridiculous number of people think we were better off in the 60s than we are today. WSJ article here: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-disagree-with-voters-who-see-u-s-worse-off-today-than-in-1960s-1463061602](http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-disagree-with-voters-who-see-u-s-worse-off-today-than-in-1960s-1463061602) Can’t read that without subscribing. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/51 "2016-05-14T00:03:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Can’t read that without subscribing. Punch it into google and you can. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/52 "2016-05-14T00:10:48Z")
> [@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. > [@furt](#): > > 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. The study does account household size. So the middle class range is different for different households. Otherwise things get weird, especially given the 19% drop drop in size 1970 to 2015. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/53 "2016-05-14T00:50:13Z")
> [@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?\* Not sure about Finland, but I’d imagine the problem for Sweden is made much worse with rampant open door immigration policies that are flooding the nation with lower skilled muslim immigrants. Some are up in arms over it: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/3KSJY0c8QWw/hqdefault.jpg "Welcome to Sweden") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KSJY0c8QWw) ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/54 "2016-05-14T01:06:18Z")
I think Richard Parker is closer to the truth than either Bernie/Hillary, or a thousand republicans. The advent of machines and globalization have put downward pressure on lower skilled and some greater skilled labor. What else could this possibly do other than to lessen the value and earnings power of people with lower skills? Did man magically change over the past several decades? 50 years ago far fewer people went to college. Is the populace radically smarter today compared to decades ago? Surely not, we are just scraping deeper into the barrel for pools of college applicants. Well half the population is still below average intelligence. Read that last sentence again. And this reality is combined with a world that places greater and greater value on higher skills over lower skill, where the acquisition of higher skills is DIRECTLY linked to higher aptitudes… See a problem? If we had industries where people could earn a decent living without needing higher skills we’d be in better shape. For a time while oil prices were high, places like the Dakotas were boom towns, and Canada was booming as well with all the high wage labor extracting oil from the tar sands. Now that that relatively low skilled labor is in less demand? This is a long term problem that I have heard NO ONE, not a SINGLE ONE of any politicians OR any of you give a proper answer to. I don’t have the answer either, but I think I am closer to seeing the problem that is causing issues than many of you. I may be peering through a darkened glass through a straw, but I’m closer to being pointed in the right direction. I have hope, but they are short term bandaids and long term moonshots. Short term, I think we have to seriously consider a way to have the boons of technological progress and ingenuity distributed more evenly to shore people on the lower end up, some kind of negative income tax or universal benefit to augment the incomes of people that comes out of everyones taxes where the poorer gain more than is lost. Long term? MASSIVE cataloging of human aptitudes and abilities and how it is made manifest with physical differences in the brain, what alleles contribute to such things? We already have the tools capable of germline manipulation with CRISPR and it’s more powerful variants (and getting more powerful and varied by the month), we simply need to chart the vast frontier of human potential. END the tyranny of the genetic lottery and raise the baseline intelligence of humanity. I want the dumbest kids born to be sharp enough to be decent programmers. That reality does not exist now, and assortative mating makes it so that the high stats males are gobbled up by high status females, while so much of the rest of the world is left with PEASANT stock! ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/55 "2016-05-14T01:40:30Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Did man magically change over the past several decades? > > 50 years ago far fewer people went to college. Is the populace radically smarter today compared to decades ago? Surely not, we are just scraping deeper into the barrel for pools of college applicants. Well half the population is still below average intelligence. > **[Flynn effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)** > > The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century, named after researcher James Flynn (1934–2020). When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again s Tes... Not that I put much stock in IQ tests. ---
**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 14, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/56 "2016-05-14T02:47:12Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > This is a double misdiagnosis. It assumes that the vast gap in inequality which has resulted from non-policy sources can be rectified by marginal changes in tax and welfare policy (it can’t). And it assumes that the reason our policy isn’t more like France is that rich people have too much power (it isn’t). You, too, are guilty of assumptions. Changes in tax and welfare policies can indeed – and ultimately will – correct inequality. Not in and of themselves, but they are an equalizing force. And the uber wealthy do have too much power. In the future, the public will demand that they pay more in taxes. The one thing you and I might agree on is that, in and of itself, creating a social state doesn’t necessarily guarantee that we solve our problems of inequality. It’s how the public investments are spent that matters, and ultimately, we need to create a culture of virtues. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/57 "2016-05-14T02:58:43Z")
While the current candidates will have to address this issue, this is less of an Elections topic than a Great Debate. Moving to GD. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/58 "2016-05-15T11:47:07Z")
Richard Parker’s spoilered, partial list is a clear and helpful tool for discussing problems and solutions, unlike the Pew survey which is mainly just fiddling with statistical semantics. As for Salvor, wow…I like your posting style and how you admit to not having answers, but a massive – nay, universal – eugenics\* effort to produce…better _software developers_? As if there weren’t beauty and utility in a hundred other skill sets… Maybe I’m naive, but if the panoply of purpose for human life has shifted to merely that, then the robot overlords have already won, years before their actual invention. (I know, “I, for one,…”). \*I use “eugenics” here in the broad sense of the term – no Nazi or other fascist leanings are implied ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/59 "2016-05-15T12:58:33Z")
This can not be. i have it on good authority from many of the SDMB posters in other threads that things are all just fine and peachy and that we ALL are doing better. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645/60 "2016-05-15T13:02:13Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > By their definition, my parents and my remaining grandparents are all in the “lower” category, which is hilarious and misleading. I wonder how many other retirees this applies to. There are a lot of aging boomers out there. Picking at this a little more with some spreadsheet jiggerypokery, 2000 to 2014, the population of people receiving social security increased 30% and the unauthorized immigrant population increased by 43%, but the US population (and the age 15-64 population) only increased 13%. Combined, these groups accounted for 19% of the population in 2000 and 22% in 2014. Now, not everyone receiving SS doesn’t work, and not all unauthorized immigrants fit into the “lower” part of the Pew study. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-pew-poll-shows-middle-class-disappearing/754645.md?page=4)