The American Middle Class Is Doing Much Worse Than the NYT Says

The NYT had a very interesting piece in its Upshot section that showed the trends in after-tax per capita income at each decile cutoff in the United States, alongside the trends in several other wealthy countries. It showed that the United States was at or near the top at every decile cutoff in 1980. However, it had fallen back sharply in the bottom five deciles. It ranked first in per capita income for the top five deciles with the gap between the United States and other countries growing fu...