According to new research done by The Pew Research Center, it has found that the middle class in the United States is quickly disappearing and becoming something that may just become irrelevant. Not only is it disappearing in many regions of the country but it has become almost non-existent in the major cities of America.
The middle class, according to the study, has retreated into near non-existence in nine of the ten major metropolitan areas of the country since the beginning of the century. It continues to fuel the proverbial fire that soon there will only be the rich and the poor in this country and without that middle class buffer, it could create conditions for violent protest and unrest if previous history is any indication.
Despite the incoherent ramblings of the politicians, the research has found that an American middle class really, in its essence, may no longer exist. Much of the contributing factors is the elimination of family wage jobs and a lack of industrial manufacturing in the country. America no longer really makes anything anymore. The financial stability associated with a societal middle class has eroded to the state of almost non-being.
The Pew Research study looked at 229 metro areas from around the country which encompasses about 75% of the nation’s population and everywhere they saw a shrinking middle class. In fact, in 203 of those areas, the middle class households dropped significantly in the last dozen years or so. For the study, the middle class was defined as a family of three earning between $42,000-$125,000 per year in total revenue. However, because the middle class has decline to such a great extent, the barrier in income to get into it may be lower now and in the future.
The research even suggests that this decline has fueled the fire of such phenomenons as the rise of Donald Trump in political power and who just may actually have a chance to be the nation’s next president. In turn, the shrinking of the middle class has meant that the lower and upper classes have ballooned all out of proportion. In most of the regions, it is the bottom end of the spectrum that seems to be expanding the most as many who were in the middle class have now dropped into the lower and poor classes.
PHOTO CREDIT: Froy Hamstad (Unsplash.com)