WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY?:

Upwardly Mobile America? (Stephen Moore, September 22, 2008 , The American)

Q. Is there really a ‘war against the middle class’ in America as claimed by people such as CNN’s Lou Dobbs?

A. Well, if the middle class is fighting a war, they’ve been winning. Graph 2 shows the income range needed to be considered in the middle class in the United States (between the 40th and 60th percentiles in income for families). In 1967 the average middle-class pre-tax income was about $40,000; in 2005 it was about $60,000. And this does not include the increased generosity of non-wage and non-salary benefits such as healthcare, pensions, flexible workweeks, and more family leave, vacation, and holidays.

Most economists agree that when these income numbers are adjusted by a more accurate inflation measure—one that takes full account of the improved quality of the products we now have access to, such as cell phones, laptop computers, and new medical technologies, for example—the purchasing power of the American middle-class family is about one-third higher today than in the 1970s.

The Census Bureau family income data indicate that in 1967 one in 20 families had an income of $100,000 or more (in today’s dollars). In 2005 one in six families did. There are three times as many families earning more than $75,000 a year today than there were in 1967.

Got filthy stinkin' rich, son.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2008 5:51 PM