Pew Research Center recently published two documents that I found notable.
The first is dated January 27, 2014 and is titled “Despite recovery, fewer Americans identify as middle class.” A couple of excerpts include:
Despite a slowly recovering economy, the proportion of Americans who identify themselves as middle class has dropped sharply in recent years. Today, about as many Americans identify themselves as lower or lower-middle class (40%) as say they are in the middle class (44%), according to a recent Pew Research Center/USA TODAY survey.
also:
At the same time, the share of the public who says they are in the lower or lower-middle classes rose by 15 percentage points, from 25% in 2008 to 40% today.
Here is an accompanying chart:
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Another Pew Research document that I found notable is that dated January 23, 2014, and is titled “Most See Inequality Growing, but Partisans Differ over Solutions.” (pdf) In this document, a variety of issues with regard to various facets of (economic) inequality are discussed. Among the topics and poll findings discussed are:
- the level of inequality
- how best to reduce poverty
- whether the minimum wage should be raised
- “why are some people poor and others rich?”
- “does hard work lead to success?”
- the government’s role in reducing poverty and inequality
- fairness of the economic system
Additional information and graphical trends can be seen in the two Pew Research documents mentioned above.
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 1820.44 as this post is written