Who Killed the Middle Class?

It’s the economic whodunit of the century.

The American middle class, once the envy of the world, the golden promise of the post-war era, is shrinking. Politicians eulogize it in every election cycle and economists write papers about it.

But everyone agrees something went wrong. Nobody agrees on who pulled the trigger.

The short answer is: it wasn’t one killer. It was a committee. A committee of murderers.

The Victim

First, let’s establish that there is, in fact, a body.

When examining this body, Pew Research Center found the following: 61% of American adults lived in middle-class households in 1971. By 2023, that share had fallen to 51%.

A ten-percentage-point drop over fifty years doesn’t sound dramatic until you realize it represents tens of millions of people reshuffled to the economic margins. Or occasionally promoted to the next tax bracket entirely.

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