Mark Perry produced this chart based on Census data showing that, if America’s middle class is “disappearing,” it is because it’s moving up into higher-income groups. He writes: “The share of US households making $100K+ (real $$$) has increased ~3X since 1967.”
A few things to note. This is in real dollars. Also, this is household income. Could it simply be reflecting the the two-income family in the 1970s? Jeremy Horpendahl of the University of Central Arkansas College of Business looked into the question and found that:
To account for the growth of dual incomes, I recreated these charts using single-earners only. I also used families instead of households (goes back further for the earner data) Growth since 1967 is less, but still a robust 43%. And notice almost *all* of that comes after 1997.
Here are some of Horpendahl’s charts:
Going back to 1947, the chart looks like this:
We should always aspire to make everyone’s life better. But let’s not take the improvements we have already achieved for granted.