The American middle class has been declining for decades. But even in its diminished state, presidential candidates still play to it, promising to protect middle-class families, defend middle-class values and cut middle-class taxes. So what is this decaying economic group, and who's part of it? The AJC polled residents in 10 metro counties to find out. Click here for more information about the poll and why the AJC conducted it.
Middle class is dying? Nobody got the memo
The takeaway: Despite the well-documented decline in the number of households whose incomes fall near the middle of the income distribution, most of us continue to think of ourselves as middle class.
AJC poll nuggets: Nearly six in 10 metro Atlanta residents consider themselves middle class. If you include those who self-identify as "upper middle" and "lower middle," it jumps to nine in 10.
We’re even more likely than other Americans to call ourselves middle class. In a Pew Research Center poll earlier this year, 47 percent of respondents identified as middle class; in the AJC poll, it was 58 percent.
Blacks were slightly more likely than whites to identify as middle class, and Hispanics were much more likely than non-Hispanics to do so.
Many surveys use a different set of income categories: upper class, middle class, working class and lower class. In those polls, working class is often the leading choice, closely followed by middle class.
However, asked an open-ended question, such as, “What class are you?” very few people volunteer the term working class. For that and other reasons, the AJC poll did not use that term.
The data: There is no single, official definition of who is middle class, but there are several widely used formulas. They produce vastly different results, but looking at several of them together, a reasonable ballpark range for Georgia would be households making between $30,000 and $80,000.
In the AJC poll, about 35 percent of respondents fell into that income range. In any case, it’s clear that what economists and social scientists consider middle class is narrower than the definition used by people themselves.
As for income distribution, Georgia’s is heavily skewed to the top earners and getting more so.
If you divide the state’s households into five equal groups, those in the richest quintile make almost 52 percent of aggregate income – more than the other four combined. The Census Bureau doesn’t publish data for years before 2007, but the top quintile’s share has risen steadily each year since then.
In DeKalb and Fulton counties, the richest group fares even better, taking in 53 percent and 58 percent, respectively, of aggregate income. In each of 11 other metro counties analyzed by the AJC, the income of households in the top quintile amounted to at least 44 percent of the total.
About the poll
This survey that forms the basis of this report was conducted for the AJC by the A.L. Burruss Institute of Public Service & Research at Kennesaw State University. It was conducted by telephone June 17-24 with 625 adult residents of 10 metro Atlanta counties*. The survey included both landline telephones and cellphones. Prior to analysis, the results were weighted by mode (landline vs. cell), gender, age, education, race, ethnic origin (Latino vs. non-Latino), household size and county of residence to reflect the distribution of these characteristics in the adult population in the Atlanta area. The margin of error for the sample as a whole is ± 4%.
* Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Rockdale
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