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.
Where does the middle class begin?
The takeaway: Asked to define the "floor" of middle class income, people have a strong tendency to say it's within their own income bracket – regardless of how much they make.
AJC poll nuggets: The pollster read each respondent a list of annual incomes, starting with $20,000 and ending with $250,000-plus. The respondent was asked to stop the pollster when he or she reached the figure where "middle class income starts."
A respondent could reject all the suggested figures and volunteer that the floor was below $20,000. Some did – all of them living in households with incomes below $15,000.
Overall, the most common choice was $50,000; one-quarter of respondents picked that figure. Two groups of people were especially prone to go for that choice: those whose household incomes fell in the brackets $35,000-to-$50,000 or $50,000-to-$75,000.
Asked to pick the level at which “upper class income starts,” respondents tended to choose a number one or two notches above their own income bracket. The most common answer was $250,000 (the choices went up to “$1 million or more”); that pick was especially popular among respondents with household incomes over $75,000.
The data: Middle class income ranges are moving targets, and they've just moved again. Pew Research Center reported last week that, for the first time in decades, people in the upper and lower income ranges combined outnumber people in the middle. The difference is slight, Pew said: 121.3 million adults are in the upper- and lower-income households combined, vs. 120.8 million in middle-income households.
Georgia's median household income is about $48,000, according to the census. A mashup of various accepted formulas for calculating who's middle class suggests that a reasonable definition for the state would include households making between $30,000 and $80,000. Most AJC poll respondents set the range a bit higher.
But median income varies dramatically from place to place. Just within the metro area, it ranges from a low of about $40,000 in Clayton County to more than $85,000 in Forsyth. And that raises an interesting problem to think about:
To whom are you comparing yourself when you gauge your place in the class structure? Your friends, co-workers and neighbors? All residents of your county? The metro area? The state? The nation?
If you live in Forsyth County in a household that makes $85,000, you’re middle class compared to other county residents but, arguably, above the middle class for Georgia. What’s the proper frame of reference? And how much do you really even know about the way people live three counties over – much less in, say, East L.A.?
Or, let’s say your income is in the $1 million range. You’re undeniably upper class compared to the vast majority of Americans, but you’re earning chump change when it comes to a Warren Buffett or a Mark Zuckerberg. That may be why just 1 percent of AJC poll respondents (and no more than 3 percent of respondents to most national polls on the topic) identify themselves as upper class.
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
About the Author
