How America’s Middle Class Is Shrinking [Infographic]

America’s middle class has been shrinking for the past 50 years. While middle class Americans remain the biggest income group by number of people, the same can’t be said of the aggregate income earned by them.

Between 1970 and 2021, the share of U.S. aggregate income earned by the middle class shrunk from formerly 62% to just 42%. At the same time, aggregate earnings by those considered high income increased from 29% to 50%. This is despite the fact that the growing high income class is still less than half as big as the middle class in America.

A report by Pew Research Center includes these numbers and also shows that unmarried women and those in single-earner households are less likely to belong to the middle class. The report considers anyone whose household earns between two thirds and double of the U.S. median income to belong to the middle class.

As for the group considered low income, its size has also been increasing, albeit at a lower rate than the high income class. As a result, the middle class is being squeezed from both sides, most recently only making up 50% of Americans. One especially alarming trend—only pertaining to the low income class—is that while it has been increasing in size, it has been decreasing in its share of aggregated income. Between 1970 and 2021, earnings of the low income class decreased from an already meager 10% to just 8%.

Income gains for Black and Latino Americans

Black and Latino Americans are still much more likely to belong to the low income class—at around 40% percent of each group in this category compared to 24% of white people. However, the report attests one of the biggest upwards movements for Black Americans and moderate gains for Latinos. Yet, the Black middle class is still barely expanding as some gains seem to have gone straight to the Black high income class, which more than doubled in size in the past 50 years.

Over the past half century, the white low income class has been expanding, but it remains much smaller than Black and Latino low income classes in relative terms. Looking at people who have experienced a big amount of downwards mobility in America independent of race, it has been those with less educational attainment. This includes people with only a high school diploma as well as those who didn’t finish college.

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Charted by Statista