9 charts that reveal how the American middle class has declined since 1970
For context, here's the household income required to be considered middle class and upper class, adjusted for household size:
In 1971, the middle class represented the majority of American earners. In 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, less than the 121.3 million who were in lower- and upper-income households combined.
As the upper class has grown in size, America's aggregate income has shifted away from the middle class. In 1970, the middle class held 62% of America's aggregate household income and the upper class held 29% — in 2014, the middle class held 43%, while the upper class held 49%.
The percentage of middle class Americans has fallen from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage living in the upper-income tier rose from 14% to 21% over the same period.
Here's a similar chart allowing you to see how the middle class is being squeezed over time by the increasing percentage of those in the lower and upper class:
The middle class is falling further behind financially. You can see that the income of middle-class Americans hasn't grown nearly as much as the income of those in the upper class since 1970.
Here's another way of visualizing it. The upper class median household income has increased by $56,008 since 1970, while the middle class median household income has increased by $18,710 in the same period.
Household income rose for all classes in each decade from 1970 to 2000, but declined from 2000 to 2010, thanks to the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. Only the upper-income families have started to recover.
Upper-income families, which had three times as much wealth as middle-income families in 1983, had seven times as much in 2013. The wealth gap is only widening.
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