Being middle class in the United States is largely a state of mind.
Sure, there are definitions used by sociologists and economists. Investopedia writes: “The middle class is the economic stratum between working class and the wealthy. In the United States, the middle class occupies about half of the population, mainly consisting of people who work in white-collar professions, small businesses, or skilled trades.”
But that does not explain how it impacts our lives. In a 2023 poll from The Washington Post, a majority of respondents identified several traits that define the middle class: Owning a home; having a secure job; being able to save money; having the time and money to take vacations; having health insurance; being able to afford a $1,000 emergency; being able to pay bills on time; having a job that offers paid sick leave; and being able to retire in comfort.
For many Americans, such relative comforts are increasingly out of reach. The Great Recession that started in 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic that arrived in 2020 combined with decades of federal policies to reduce the economic security of workers with midlevel incomes. As Richard Fry of the Pew Research Center says about the past 50 years in American society: “Everybody’s better off, but it’s particularly the well-off who are better off.”
In one example, the highest individual federal income tax rate in 1974 was 70 percent; today it is 37 percent. In another example, it is increasingly difficult for first-time buyers to afford a home — one of the traditional definitions of middle class. As Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told The Washington Post: “The housing market is an incredibly unaffordable place right now. People who are succeeding are coming in with a lot of cash and large down payments — and often, family support.”
In 2020, the Brookings Institution wrote: “Stagnant incomes and falling wages have meant that fewer Americans are growing up to be better off than their parents. Upward absolute intergenerational mobility was once the almost-universal experience among America’s youth. No longer.”
All of this is more instructive than a recent report from GOBankingRates.com. The study defined middle class in each state based on the median household income — ranging from two-thirds of that income to twice the median. Washington’s “middle class” income increased 52 percent from 2012 to 2022 because the median income increased 52 percent.
Americans and their elected officials should focus on strengthening and growing the cohort that is the backbone of the American economy.
Among the strategies is to recognize that trickle-down economics is a fraud. Tax cuts for the wealthy do not pay for themselves through increased economic activity, nor do they benefit the middle class. As the International Monetary Fund writes: “For instance, it can lead to under-investment in education as poor children end up in lower-quality schools and are less able to go on to college. As a result, labor productivity could be lower than it would have been in a more equitable world.”
Other strategies should include public investment in infrastructure and child care, which make it easier for the working class to be gainfully employed; renewable energy, which is a moral imperative and provides good-paying jobs; and education in the skilled trades.
With this being an election year, politicians are spending much time talking about the middle class. We hope that rhetoric translates into policies that actually help workers.
