Economist Mark Perry analyzes why the disappearing  middle class is not necessarily a bad thing.  It is because they are entering the upper class , not because they are falling into the lower class.

From his post,Yes, the middle-class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower-class, they’ve risen into the upper-class:

Bottom Line: In other words, America’s “middle-class” did start largely disappearing in the 1970s, but it was because they were moving up to a higher-income category, not down into a lower-income category. And that movement was so significant that between 1967 and 2009, the share of American families earning incomes above $75,000 more than doubled, from 16.3% to 39.1%. On the previous CD post, Ken commented that although “Many prominent people like Paul Krugman claim that the middle class has been in decline since the 1970s, that assertion is incredibly and verifiably wrong.” And according to the percent distribution of family income data by income level (in constant dollars) in Table 696 from the Census Bureau, I think Ken is exactly right.

HKO

This still leaves those concerned about the spread between the power and the upper classes.  This may be of less concern as long as we have a net to sustain them to some acceptable level.  What we may be drifting towards is a sense of social stability coming from the mobility; the ability to rise into middle and upper classes, to a stability based on a growing safety net.

The rest of this story is how many people are moving from the lower classes to the middle and upper classes.

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