In a recent comment by Mark J. Perry, professor of economics at Michigan, the argument has been made that the decline in the middle class is the result of a positive trend: many middle-class families of the 1960s have risen into the upper class.
Over the same time period, however, the share of families with $25’000 and less has decreased only from 22 to about 18 percent.
Yes, the middle class has been disappearing
America’s “middle class” did start largely disappearing in the 1970s, but it was because they were moving up to a higher-income category, not down into a lower-income category.