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Re:The U.S. economy is killing off the middle class by jusmus88 on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:30AM (#8976306)
How does that graph read differently and the captions are from what sources exactly?
Re:The U.S. economy is killing off the middle class by zaroth on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:44AM (#8976326)
I ignored the captions. The data show the bottom 80% experiencing significant wage deflation the last decade in real dollar terms. Hence, falling out of the middle class.
Re:The U.S. economy is killing off the middle class by ChrisLomont on Saturday January 31, 2015 @08:04AM (#8976622)
The title accurately of your link was "Census data on income distribution reveal evidence of rising income levels for a rising share of American households", not the opposite.

We just had the biggest recession since the Great Depression. Taking such a short window will of course show wage deflation. You cannot remove the effects from bubble income and expect to keep bubble income.

The overall trend for most slightly bigger windows is wage increase. If a certain wage level meant middle class in the 1960s, or 1970s, or 1980s, or 1990s, then we have a larger ratio of people in that class, not less.

Of course if you define middle class as also increasing in income, then you can play all sorts of tricks. But the fact remain more people than perhaps any but the last decade are richer than ever. All your graphs point to exactly this.

Remember - bubble popped. It takes a while for those effects to smooth out.