Justice
Where the Middle-Class Metros Are Now
A new analysis by the Pew Research Center pinpoints the areas with the largest shares of middle-income adults in the U.S.
The American middle class has contracted so much since the 1970s that it’s now smaller than the upper and lower classes put together. That historic shift has largely been driven by economic conditions within U.S. metros, a new Pew Research Center report finds.
Out of the 229 metros Pew examined, 203 saw their shares of adults in middle-income households (defined here as those with two-thirds to twice the national median household income) decline between 2000 and 2014. In many of these metros, that decline was much higher than the 4 percentage point drop nationwide. (in 53, it was 6 percent or higher.)