Sunday, January 21, 2007

Disappearing Middle Class Graphically?

Do a Google searh of the exact phrase "disappearing middle class" and you'll get 16,500 hits.

Think about what it would mean statistically or graphically if the middle class of Americans really did disappear. Assume that income is distributed somewhat normally like Distribution 1 above (technically it would actually be skewed to the right to account for the Oprahs, Tigers and Bills, as in Gates). If middle income households really did "disappear" wouldn't we then have a) nobody left in the middle and b) two new distributions, one of low income households and one of high income households like the distributions above labelled "Low Income" and "High Income?"

Does anybody really seriously think that could ever happen in the U.S.?

2 Comments:

At 1/21/2007 2:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It has happened, think feudalism.

 
At 1/22/2007 10:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Results 1 - 10 of about 16,600 for "disappearing middle class". (0.10 seconds)

yes I do,... and the most descriptive way I can explain how I feel is that I am like an outlier dot on a scattergram close to the growing low incomes, I stand with my fellow outliers, (that may have been called middle class in the past), looking up the scale at the high incomes.

 

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