The Middle Class Is 20 Percent Poorer Than It Was In 1984

Posted by | July 29, 2014 12:50 | Filed under: Economy Politics Top Stories


Median wealth is 20% lower today than in 1984, adjusting for inflation.

It’s all about stocks and houses. The middle class doesn’t have much of the former, but it does have a lot of the latter. And that’s bad news, because, even though the crash decimated both, real estate hasn’t come back nearly as much as equities have. So the top 1 percent, who hold more of their wealth in stocks, have made up more of the ground they lost. But, as the Russell Sage Foundation points out, the slow housing recovery means that, in 2013, median households were still 36 percent poorer than they were a decade earlier.

 

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Copyright 2014 Liberaland
By: Cheston Catalano

Cheston Catalano is a Kentucky-based journalist whose work has been featured in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle. He is a long-time contributor to Liberaland.

4 responses to The Middle Class Is 20 Percent Poorer Than It Was In 1984

  1. Ron Luce July 29th, 2014 at 15:29

    >> The Middle Class Is 20 Percent Poorer Than It Was In 1984

    Thank you Ronald Reagan!

    OK — trickle down” may have seemed reasonable in 1980.

    But how stupid does a working person have to be, to support it now?

    • peacedreamer July 30th, 2014 at 00:52

      It wasn’t reasonable in the 80s either. We had horrible inflation and wage cuts then as now. The inflation of the 20th century up to now goes like this. If you had 4 cents in your pocket in 1904, one dollar today will buy what that 4 cents did. Can’t win no matter how hard people work & save at that rate. Rigged game. Get old & it’s game over for most people.

  2. Ron Luce July 29th, 2014 at 15:29

    >> The Middle Class Is 20 Percent Poorer Than It Was In 1984

    Thank you Ronald Reagan!

    OK — trickle down” may have seemed reasonable in 1980.

    But how stupid does a working person have to be, to support it now?

    • peacedreamer July 30th, 2014 at 00:52

      It wasn’t reasonable in the 80s either. We had horrible inflation and wage cuts then as now. The inflation of the 20th century up to now goes like this. If you had 4 cents in your pocket in 1904, one dollar today will buy what that 4 cents did. Can’t win no matter how hard people work & save at that rate. Rigged game. Get old & it’s game over for most people.

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