Middle class suffers downward mobility

Before the Great Recession, about one-third of all middle-class Americans who were raised in the middle class have now moved down the economic ladder now that they are adults.   Pew’s Economic Mobility Project looked at children born in the early-to-mid sixties and evaluates their economic standards in the 2000’s.   Due to inflation, the amount of income needed to fit in the middle class jumped from $33,000-$64,000 in 1979 to $54,000-$111,000 in the mid-2000’s, in other words 30% to 70% of the income bracket.