Interesting facts from the Fed's recent Survey of Consumer Finances. And a few opinions.
http://http://www.theburningplatform.com/

First post and all.

Thomas Sowell disagrees. I'm going to side with him.

What do you expect when you are trying to destroy both the upper and middle class?

After the upper and middle classes are destroyed, he will go after the wealthy peasants.

Thomas Sowell disagreed with the Federal Reserve's data? Please enlighten us. I like Sowell.

Link?

I wonder if "the economy" will ever "recover."

I think this is the new normal, the lowering of the American standard of living.

Not much you can do about it if you still shop at WalMart.





Bill

Walmart has done tons for my standard of living

The problem is that while everyone uses the same trusted data from the government, you can interpret it many ways to arrive at different conclusions. One of Sowell's main arguments against the idea that middle class income is shrinking is that people who say that use data on household incomes. Let's say that, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the average household had $50k of income in 1960, and $40k of income in 2010, then yes the average household income would have dropped. The problem is that what you're not told is that the average household got smaller during the same time period. In 1960 (hypothetically, I don't remember the exact numbers) the average household had 6 people, and in 2010 it had 3.5. So when you do it on a per-person basis, the income has increased, even in inflation-adjusted dollars. I didn't read all of the page you linked, but I can see that the graphs are based on FAMILY net worth, and not individual. Families, like households, have gotten smaller.

The second point of contention that he has with this argument is that people choose an income point and a distance to each side of it on the bell curve of American income distribution, and let that area represent the middle class. Then at a later date they look at the same point, and the same distance around it (again, inflation adjusted), and say that the middle-class represented by that area has shrunk. What's really happened is that the whole curve has shifted to the right, towards greater real wealth, so there are fewer people left in the old definition of middle class.

The third point he argues is that during these same time periods that people say that real incomes have dropped, actual CONSUMPTION has gone up nearly 80%. Yet no one tries to reconcile that.

I'm currently reading his book, Economic Facts and Fallacies, and just finished the chapter on this very subject a few days ago.

Sowell didn't disagree, per the facts in your post.
First - Sowell was comparing 1960 and 2010. The article I posted compared 2007 and 2010 - family sizes didn't drop in those three years.
Second - The article I posted doesn't define a Bell curve for a middle class.
Third - Consumption didn't increase between 2007 and 2010.

So, the plan is working?

How does consumption rise when income drops? One word: debt. Can you spell u n s u s t a i n a b l e?

That's the "Change" he promised.

We've already been told by the progressives that this is EXACTLY the goal.

More of the "hope and change" for you.

but these days you have multiple cars, TVs, washer, dryer, computer, etc

We gotta pay for more stuff than a family of the 60s.

Another way to look at this: the USA's middle class has simply relocated to China, where they pay no US taxes.

Interesting, the middle classes net worth is shrinking at the same rate as the government is growing.

...and the cost of living is going up up up!

Working longer days to get that extra stuff and placing other large items on credit. We also need to add in the fact that parents are no longer supporting large families.

Bush's fault...

In a Nutshell.

You can "bank" on his legacy enduring in his absence.

It's Bush's fault

By the very definition of the words, middle class cannot be destroyed. If you ranked everyone's net worth from highest to lowest the middle class would be the middle third. Unless the world is reduced to just two people their will always be someone in the middle. Until someone assigns actual constent and widely accepted values to "middle class" there will never be an effective measure. No politician is ever going to define a class as we have seem estimates of upper class starting as low as $100k up to $1m.

Using the middle third definition, if I recall, the middle class would be in the $33k to $60k range. I'll bet a lot of people would be surprised they are upper class