What’s Behind the Ballooning Upper Middle Class? Education
‘There’s a divide between people who get the four-year degree and people who don’t,’ says study’s author.
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The upper middle class is surging, according to a recent study. One big reason: Its members are passing on more than money.
The upper middle class, defined using incomes adjusted for inflation and family size, expanded from 12.9 percent of the U.S. population in 1979 to 29.4 percent in 2014, an Urban Institute report released in June found. Together, the upper middle class and the rich had 30 percent of income in 1979 and 63 percent in 2014. In the same period, the middle class’s share of income declined from 46 percent to 26 percent.