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Study after study finds that the populists of left and right are wrong in their predictions of doom.
Capitalism is rigged. China is eating our lunch. The middle class is shrinking. This is the constant refrain from doom-and-gloom populists on the left and right, but is it true?
Earlier this year, the Journal editorial page told you about a study from the American Enterprise Institute’s Stephen Rose and Scott Winship that pushes back on that glum narrative. This week the Journal’s news department followed up with a front-page story highlighting that research, which demonstrates upward mobility in the U.S. is alive and kicking.
Messrs. Rose and Winship divided households into five categories—poor or near poor, lower middle class, core middle class, upper middle class and rich. Technically, the middle class has been getting smaller, but that’s only because more families have ascended the income ladder.
“We find that the ‘core’ middle class has shrunk—but so too has the share of Americans with income too low to reach the middle class,” the authors conclude. “The shrinking core middle class is due to a booming upper-middle class. Only the relatively worse-off parts of the middle class have shrunk—and by less than the upper-middle class has grown.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.