{"id":15574,"date":"2013-07-24T07:30:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/a-look-at-americas-stressed-out-middle-class\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:30:09","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:30:09","slug":"a-look-at-americas-stressed-out-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/07\/24\/a-look-at-americas-stressed-out-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama returns focus to America\u2019s struggling middle class"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the economic-policy speech he’s scheduled to deliver Wednesday at Illinois’ Knox College, President Obama is expected to re-emphasize his “middle-out” view of the U.S. economy<\/a> — that growth and prosperity derive from a strong middle class. Unfortunately, it’s been awhile since the American middle class felt strong.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

[and]<\/p>\n\n\n

And though some top-line economic indicators — unemployment, housing prices, the stock market — have improved since that time, Americans in general aren’t feeling much better about the economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\"FT_What_Class\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

For starters, fewer Americans described themselves as “middle class”<\/a> in 2012 than four years earlier: 49%, compared with 53% in 2008. And the share describing themselves as “lower” or “lower-middle” class rose over that time, from 25% to 32%.<\/p>\n\n

Within self-described members of the middle class, the overwhelming sense that maintaining a middle-class lifestyle is harder today than a decade ago cuts across age, gender, partisan, educational and racial\/ethnic divides<\/a>.\u00a0(Though whites and people ages 50 to 64 were even more pessimistic than other subgroups, last year’s Pew Research report found.)<\/p>\n\n

However, the middle-class respondents were somewhat more sanguine about their personal situations. About equal percentages said they were more financially secure now than 10 year earlier (44%) as said they were less secure (42%); blacks and younger adults were most likely to say they had made progress over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n

Similarly, middle-class blacks, Hispanics and under-50 adults were most likely to say they were better off financially than before the recession. But only 28% of whites said they were better off, versus 45% who said they were worse off. Among people 65 and older, just 13% said they were better off, compared with 46% who said they were worse off.<\/p>\n\n

The middle-class survey showed an interesting partisan divide in self-assessment, with Republicans and independents saying they were recovering more slowly than Democrats. About half (51%) of all middle-class Republicans and 46% of independents said they had yet to fully make up their recession-era losses, compared with only about a third (35%) of Democrats.<\/p>\n\n

And who’s responsible for the difficulties of the middle class? While Congress gets the most votes, with 62% assigning it “a lot” of the blame, the Pew Research report found plenty of blame to go around. The one exception: Middle-class people themselves, with just 8% assigning their own socioeconomic group “a lot” of blame, and 47% saying they weren’t to blame at all.<\/p>\n\n

\"FT_Econ_Blame\"<\/a><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As President Obama prepares to make a “major” speech on the economy today, our past reports describe the challenges the middle class has faced in the past decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[75,232,235,243,237,38,440],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-15574","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-economic-conditions","category-economic-policy","category-middle-class","category-personal-finances","category-political-issues","category-recessions-recoveries","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short 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