Is the Middle Class Worse Off Than It Used to Be?
Open accessAbstract
We analyze how median real incomes in the United States have changed since 1980 under a definition of the middle class that adjusts for changes in demographics. We find that failing to adjust for demographic shifts in the population relating to age, race, and education can indicate a more positive outlook than is truly the case. We also find that the real median incomes of today’s middle class are somewhat higher than they used to be, particularly for households headed by two adults. We find, as in prior research, that prices for housing, healthcare, and education have risen more than middle-class incomes, while prices for transportation, food, and recreation have risen less than middle-class incomes.
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Federal Reserve Bank economists Emily Dohrman and Bruce Fallick estimate that over the last four decades, the prices of healthcare and education rose by around 200 and 600%, respectively, relative to U.S. household incomes.
“Federal Reserve Bank economists Emily Dohrman and Bruce Fallick estimate that over the last four decades, the prices of healthcare and education rose by around 200 and 600%, respectively, relative to U.S. household incomes”
From Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs (2024) · cites this paper as Dohrman and Fallick, 2020
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Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 · Cited by 28,810 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…more than positive ones, as seen in research on “negativity bias” (Rozin and Royzman, 2001), and loss aversion, in which people tend to pay more attention to losses than to gains and prefer avoiding negative outcomes to acquiring positive outcomes of the same magnitude (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974).”
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Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs
Autor, D. (2024) · doi:10.3386/w32140 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
- Authors
- Dohrman, E., & Fallick, B. C.
- Affiliations
- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (US)
- Venue
- Economic Commentary (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)
- Publisher
- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
- Published
- 2020-02-12
- Pages
- 1-6
- ISSN
- 0428-1276 (ISSN-L)
- 2163-3738
- OpenAlex
- W3006489398
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Economic Commentary (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economic Theory and Policy
- Keywords
- middle class, demographic adjustment, housing prices, health care costs, education costs, cost of living, income inequality
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