page_title: Middle-class squeeze
section_title: Causes
hierarchical_section_title: Middle-class squeeze / Causes
caption_attribution_description: English: Real median household income in the United States. CPI-U-RS adjusted dollars, not seasonally adjusted. Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions. Created by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
context_page_description: The middle-class squeeze refers to negative trends in the standard of living and other conditions of the middle class section of the population. Increases in wages fail to keep up with inflation for middle-income earners leading to a relative decline in real wages, while at the same time, the phenomenon fails to have a similar effect on the top wage earners. People belonging to the middle class find that inflation in consumer goods and the housing market prevent them from maintaining a middle-class lifestyle, undermining aspirations of upward mobility. In the United States, middle-class income is declining while many goods and services are increasing in price, such as education, housing, child care, and healthcare.
  Since 2015, middle class Americans comprise less than half, or 49.9%, of the country's population, down from 61% in 1971.
context_section_description: Causes include factors related to income as well as costs. For the U.S., on the income side, middle class wages have stagnated (in "real" terms, meaning adjusted for inflation) along with worsening income inequality, which has shifted more income to the top of the income distribution and away from the middle class. For example, real median household income did not regain record 1999 levels again until 2016. However, the costs of important goods and services such as healthcare, college tuition, child care, and housing (utilities, rent or mortgages) have increased considerably faster than the rate of inflation. Recasting the 2012 income using the 1979 income distribution, the bottom 99% of families would have averaged about $7,100 more income.
caption: 2016 was the first year U.S. real median household income surpassed 1999 levels.
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