Middle Class, but Feeling Economically Insecure

More coverage of the fragile self-awareness of the 'Middle Class.'  PB
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From the New York Times online:

It’s not only what you have, but how you feel.

When it comes to membership in the middle class, earnings and assets are just part of the definition.

Nearly nine out of 10 people consider themselves middle class, as a recent survey by the Pew Research Center found, regardless of whether their incomes languish near the poverty line or skim the top stratum of earners...

That’s because the middle-class label is as much about aspirations among Americans as it is about economics.

But a perspective that was once characterized by comfort and optimism has increasingly been overlaid with stress and anxiety.

Part of the reason has to do with lost jobs and stagnating incomes.

At the same time, the psychological frame — how Americans feel about their security and prospects — and the sociological — how they stack up in relation to their parents, friends, neighbors and colleagues — are just as important as purely economic criteria.

And on both these counts, middle-class Americans say they are feeling increasingly vulnerable...

Middle-class anxiety has been driven by several factors: increasing instability in incomes, a sense among many Americans that they are failing to keep up with the gains of previous generations, and an increasing gap between themselves and the very rich.

A recent report from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis concluded that “families that are neither rich nor poor may be under more downward economic and financial pressure than common but simplistic rank-based measures of income or wealth would suggest...”

That feeling of security has been eroded by several factors.

Median per capita income has basically been flat since 2000, adjusted for inflation.

The typical American family makes slightly less than a typical family did 15 years ago.

And while many goods have become cheaper or better, the price of three of the biggest middle-class expenditures — housing, college and health care — have gone up much faster than the rate of inflation...
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Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/business/economy/middle-class-but-feeling-economically-insecure.html?