In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Barack Obama is expected to propose throwing a lifeline to America’s middle class. It could really use one.
His ideas — including tax increases for the wealthy and tax cuts for the middle class — might or might not be the right ones. The Republicans that run Congress likely won’t be amenable to many of them. But there should be little doubt that the middle class is in serious trouble. Here are six charts that prove it.
1. and 2. Middle-Class Wages Are Stagnant
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But to help bolster the case, here’s a shorter-term chart, from a June 2014 study by Fabian Pfeffer, Sheldon Danziger and Robert Schoeni of the Russell Sage Foundation, with income groups sliced more narrowly, to help make the case:
Median wealth — a proxy for the wealth of the middle class — has fallen 20 percent since 1984.
