As the cost of services has risen, the financial position of the affluent has weakened — and that makes the overall economy more fragile.
It’s curious: Even as America’s economic trends are improving, Americans’ economic anxieties are worsening — including those of many who have no apparent reason to be worried. Not only are there are polls and statistics that illustrate the point, but there are also anecdotes, lots of anecdotes.
Of course stories about the struggles of the well-off, often set in New York City, are a hardy perennial, as is the online pile-on that inevitably follows. But there is something different about this moment. The plight of the high-income, low-wealth American is getting worse — and while it can be hard to sympathize with someone who earns six figures a year and has a condo in Hawaii, affluent but financially poor households are a growing demographic that is making the US economy more vulnerable.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (paywall)
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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