Feeling left behind
About eight out of 10 Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center and Gallup say that it's harder for middle-class folks to maintain their standard of living than it was five years ago, according to a poll released today.
I mention that here due to this aside by Pew:
A new single family house is about 50% larger and nearly twice as expensive now as it was in the mid-1980s. ... As expenses have risen, middle-income Americans have taken on more debt, often borrowing against homes that, at least until recently, had been rising rapidly in value. The median debt-to-income ratio for middle-income adults increased from 0.45 in 1983 to 1.19 in 2004. Ratios have also increased for upper- and lower-income adults, but not by as much.
More than half the people surveyed said they had remained stagnant financially or had fallen back in the past five years. Pew called it "most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in nearly half a century of polling."
Still, that doesn't mean the prevailing opinion is completely depressed. Pew said most of the middle-class people surveyed "are confident that their quality of life in five years will be better than it is now."
Sign up for the At Home newsletter 
