The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground by Pew Research Center

No longer the majority and falling behind financially








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Who is middle income?





Middle income or middle class?


This report uses household income to group people. For that reason, the term “middle income” is used more often than not. However, “middle class” is also used at times for the sake of exposition.

The middle class shrinks





The middle class falls further behind upper-income households financially

Growth in income for middle-income households is less than the growth for upper-income households since 1970The gaps in income and wealth between middle- and upper-income households widened substantially in the past three to four decades. As noted, one result is that the share of U.S. aggregate household income held by upper-income households climbed sharply, from 29% in 1970 to 49% in 2014.10 More recently, upper-income families, which had three times as much wealth as middle-income families in 1983, more than doubled the wealth gap; by 2013, they had seven times as much wealth as middle-income families.

Trends in income




Trends in wealth





Demographic winners and losers

Older people, married couples and black adults improved their income status more than other groups from 1971 to 2015As the middle has hollowed, some demographic groups have been more likely to advance up the income tiers (winners) while others were more likely to retreat down the economic ladder (losers).

Nationally, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2015, a gain of 7 percentage points. Meanwhile, the share of adults in the lower-income tier also rose, from 25% to 29%, an increase of 4 percentage points. The difference – 3 percentage points – is the net gain for American adults. By the same measure, the net gain in economic status varied across demographic groups.12

The biggest winners since 1971 are people 65 and older.This age group was the only one that had a smaller share in the lower-income tier in 2015 than in 1971. Not coincidentally, the poverty rate among people 65 and older fell from 24.6% in 1970 to 10% in 2014.13 Evidence shows that rising Social Security benefits have played a key role in improving the economic status of older adults.14 The youngest adults, ages 18 to 29, are among the notable losers with a significant rise in their share in the lower-income tiers.

The economic status of adults with a bachelor’s degree changed little from 1971 to 2015, meaning that similar shares of these adults were lower-, middle- or upper-income in those two years. Those without a bachelor’s degree tumbled down the income tiers, however. Among the various demographic groups examined, adults with no more than a high school diploma lost the most ground economically.

Winners also include married adults, especially couples where both work. On the flip side, being unmarried is associated with an economic loss. This coincides with a period in which marriage overall is on the decline but is increasingly linked to higher educational attainment.

Gains for women edged out gains for men, a reflection of their streaming into the labor force in greater numbers in the past four decades, their educational attainment rising faster than among men, and the narrowing of the gender wage gap.15

Among racial and ethnic groups, blacks and whites came out winners, but Hispanics slipped down the ladder. Although blacks advanced in income status, they are still more likely to be lower income and less likely to be upper income than whites or adults overall. For Hispanics, the overall loss in income status reflects the rising share of lower-earning immigrants in the adult population, from 29% in 1970 to 49% in 2015. Considered separately, both U.S.-born and foreign-born Hispanics edged up the economic tiers.

Road map to the report

This report divides households into three income tiers – lower income, middle income and upper income – depending on how their income compares with overall median household income. The analysis focuses on changes in the size and demographic composition of the three income tiers and on trends in their economic wellbeing. Unless otherwise noted, incomes are adjusted for household size and scaled to reflect a household size of three.

Households that are in the lower-, middle- or upper-income tier in one year are compared with households that are in one of those tiers in another year. The analysis does not follow the same households over time, and some households that were middle income in one year, say, may have moved to a different tier in a later year. The demographic composition of each income tier may also have changed from one year to the next.

The next section of the report describes the size of the U.S. adult population in each income tier and analyzes how it changed from 1971 to 2015. The lower- and upper-income tiers are also subdivided into two tiers each for a closer examination of the dispersion of the adult population: lowest income, lower-middle income, upper-middle income and highest income.

The report then turns to a demographic analysis of the three main income tiers. First, the report examines how changes in the size of lower-, middle- and upper-income tiers have played out differently across demographic groups. The key demographic breaks include age, marital status, gender, race and ethnicity, nativity, education, occupation and industry. Next, the report briefly examines the demographic composition of the middle-income population and how it compares with the population of adults overall and adults in lower- and upper-income tiers.

The final two sections of the report focus on the economic wellbeing of middle-income households, including how it has changed over time and how it compares with the wellbeing of lower- and upper-income households. The first of these two sections examines trends in household income and the second focuses on family wealth, assets and debts.

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