Between 1979 and 2024, productivity in the U.S. soared by 80.9%, while hourly pay grew by just 29.4%, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute. This trend has often been referred to as ...

In 1980 middle-class families lived in a world of Atari consoles, rotary phones and station wagons with wood paneling. The median U.S. household income was $21,020, enough to buy a modest home, a ...

The middle class feels like it’s disappearing, so I asked ChatGPT to explain what’s actually happening. The AI came back with data, reasons and context that made the situation clearer and more ...

ChatGPT started with the basics. In 1971, about 61% of American adults lived in middle-income households. By 2021, that number had dropped to 50%. That’s a massive shift in just 50 years. But the ...

The good news is that Americans have never been richer. The bad news is that most of them don’t feel like it. There has been tremendous growth in income and wealth in the U.S. in the last half century ...

While the average middle-class income has increased slightly over the past decade, a great deal of their expenses, from healthcare to groceries, rent, and transportation, have become more expensive ...

America’s middle class has faced decades of decline. A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that only 51 percent of Americans are middle income today, down from 61 percent in 1971. Meanwhile, ...