[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Table 5

The biggest problem facing the US is the slow erosion of the middle class.

Studies have been showing for years that this country's middle class is shrinking.

Now, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center has added another dimension to the story: Its examination of government data shows the problem is not confined to the Rust Belt or Appalachia.

In fact, the middle is shrinking from coast to coast.

Middle-class families are "losing ground in the vast majority of metropolitan areas in the country," with 203 out of 229 U.S. metropolitan areas seeing a decline in middle-income households from 2000 to 2014, the Pew study said. About 3 out of 4 Americans live in those 229 metro areas.

Here's an important point: The change is not just a consequence of people getting poorer.

Rather, the study found that while some Americans are falling from the middle to the lower class, others are rising from the middle into the upper-income households.

So while 160 metropolitan areas saw an increase in the share of households with lower incomes, 172 metropolitan areas had an increase in the share considered upper income.

With so many people either moving up — or down — the middle has been getting whittled away. In general, economists say the trends reflect the loss of well-paying factory jobs and the growth of high-paying positions for college graduates.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...-slipping-away