Middle Income America: "Hanging By a Thread"

Published: November 29, 2007, 1:25 pm

An important and fascinating new study by the New York-based think tank Demos details the precarious situation of middle income Americans. Authors Jennifer Wheary, Thomas M. Shapiro, and Tamara Draut define "middle class" in terms of "having financial security, raising a family with a reasonable standard of living, building a solid future for the next generation, receiving quality healthcare, and retiring in comfort." They identify four factors critical to satisfying that definition (assets, education, income, and health care), and develop a "Middle Class Security Index" for measuring those factors. Applying this metric, the authors come up with some very sobering observations, including these: * Only 31% of middle-income families match their profile for being securely middle class (i.e., the rest lack one or more of the four factors that ensure middle-class security). * 21% of white families are at high risk for slipping out of the middle class, as compared to 33% of African-American

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