The Drowning Middle Class

The past five years haven�t been good for members of America�s middle class, who are struggling to keep their heads above water. [AP]

A Pew Research Center survey shows the worst assessment of personal progress (whether they feel they�re getting ahead) in �nearly half a century.�

The reasons? Take a guess: higher prices for health care, college, groceries, and gas, stagnating wages, and crippling debt.

Here are the numbers:

� 25 percent of Americans say their economic situation has not improved in the last five years, and 31 percent say they have fallen backwards.

� �Those numbers together are the highest since the survey question was first asked in 1964.�

Among the 53 percent of adults who call themselves middle class (making between $40,000 and $100,000):

� 53 percent said �they had to cut spending because money was tight.�

� 18 percent said �they had trouble getting or paying for medical care.�

� 10 percent said �they had been laid off or otherwise lost their jobs.�

� 25 percent �expressed worries that they would be laid off, that their job would be outsourced or that their employer would relocate in the coming year.�

� 26 percent �were concerned that they would see cuts in salary or health benefits.�

Paul Taylor, director of Pew�s Social & Demographic Trends project, states the obvious: �It�s been a lousy run for the American economy and people feel it.�

The richest of the rich? Oh, they�re doing just fine.

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