Middle Class

Richard V. Reeves and Christopher Pulliam at Brookings:

Cumulative average income growth from 1979 to 2016 has been much faster for households in the top 1% of the distribution (which in 2016 meant an income of at least $669,700 for a family of three). This is true for incomes before and after taxes and transfers are taken into account:

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Incomes in the middle class (by our definition, the middle 60% of households) have lagged since 1979, growing just half as fast as those in the bottom 20% and the top 81-99%, once taxes and transfers (including health care) are taken into account.