Interesting data point — its not just the top 1% who are thriving, nor just the top 0.1%, who are really killing it — but the Upper Middle Class is doing well also.
According to an Urban Institute paper, The Growing Size and Incomes of the Upper Middle Class using absolute income thresholds [adjusted for inflation and family size] shows:
“The size of the upper middle class grew from 12.9 percent of the population in 1979 to 29.4 percent in 2014. In terms of shares of total income, the middle class controlled a bit more than 46 percent of all incomes in 1979, while the upper middle class and rich controlled 30 percent. By 2014, the rich and upper middle class controlled 63 percent of all incomes, while the middle class share had shrunk to 26 percent.”
I am not sure what this means for the middle class and inequality, but it does suggest that it is not only the 1% who have been profiting.
Now we just need to figure out how to get those even further down the socio-economic scale to participate in economic gains. . . .
Larger and Richer Than Ever – Growth of the Upper Middle Class
Source: Real Time Economics
