The Shrinking Middle Class

One of the biggest challenges tracking the prosperity of the middle class is nailing down the definition of the term itself. There is no standard definition, and being part of the middle class means very different things to different people. Is the middle class defined solely by economic prosperity? Or do factors such as educational attainment, culture, occupation, and socioeconomic status also play a role? One of the consequences of this muddled definition is that the narratives surrounding the middle class can be drastically different depending on the metrics used. The following analysis is based entirely on quantifiable trends in household income with full acknowledgement that the middle class cannot be easily defined by a single metric.