



Think America’s economy is unfair? The US upper middle class is to blame, not its billionaires
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Most voters across party lines think the gap between the rich and poor is a big problem and that the rich have too much power. To be fair, this economy does seem to be making a lot of people anxious and unhappy, but it’s not Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg’s fault. If anyone is to blame, it is the upper middle class.
In other words, if you are reading this — or, come to think of it, writing it—you. Us. We are the problem.
An unsung story of the last few decades is the rise of the upper middle class. In the 1960s and 70s, the US had a robust middle class, and the national income distribution looked like a bell curve. The middle class has since been hollowed out, not because people got poorer, but because many families joined the ranks of the affluent.
The shape of the distribution of income changed as more households out-earned the median income: The curve flattened because there were more higher earners. That translates into earnings between $150,000 and $300,000, or even $400,000 if you live in an expensive city. There is also a small cohort of Americans who became very very rich.
The top 1%—and especially the 0.01%—moved even further apart from everyone else. This is all mostly a positive development. Some Americans got super rich, many more became more prosperous and fewer overall are poor.
Read on livemint.com