Only 10% of U.S. Population Now 'Middle-Class'

Having made a point of closely monitoring mainstream economic propaganda, a number of obvious tactics are used again and again. One of the most popular of these tools of deception is to lie by “redefining” terms.

In this case, the propagandists at Reuters are endeavouring to hide the annihilation of the U.S. middle-class through their very clumsy effort at redefining the word “affluent”. The context of the article was an attempt by Reuters to continue to portray the U.S. as the world's “most affluent” nation. However, any realistic examination of their data must lead to a nearly opposite conclusion.

How does Reuters choose to define “affluent”? It considers any household with a net worth (or “wealth”) of merely $100,000 to be “affluent”. In order to avoid being guilty of the same offense as Reuters, let me be more careful in my own efforts at definition.

To begin with, note that Reuters uses the term “household” rather than “family” or “individual”. On the one hand, this means that the “net worth” figure they quoted is not a per capita statistic. On the other hand, it also does not apply to the stereotypical family of four. With some “households” being single individuals, some being childless couples, and some being actual families; a “household” would normally be thought of as (approximately) a two-person unit.

This requires a brief caveat. Since the onslaught of the U.S.'s Greater Depression, families (and households) have become “extended” – as millions of Americans impoverished by job-losses are forced by economic necessity to move-in with other family members. Thus considering a household to be a two-person unit is a very conservative figure, and becoming more so by the day.

So when Reuters is talking about “U.S. affluence”, it is basing that label on a paltry, per capita net-worth of only approximately $50,000. Personally, when I consider the “affluent” people whom I know, I would estimate that the vast majority of these individuals have $50,000 worth of “stuff” alone – i.e. their basic personal possessions (including cars), but not including home-equity, retirement savings, and other savings/investments. All the “affluent” people whom I know would have a net worth of several (many) multiples of that $50,000 figure.

Put another way, living in an era of high inflation and declining wages (for most of the population), I'm unaware of a single North American deluded enough to believe that a net worth of a mere $50,000 represents “affluence” in 2011. Conversely, I would suggest that very few people who do have a net worth of $50,000 would argue with being labeled “middle-class”. Indeed, were it not for the need to be rigorous in my own definitions, I could have simply asserted the self-evident proposition that a modest net-worth of $50,000 represents middle-class status.

Clearly, what Reuters has done here is to take the category of middle-class Americans, remove that label – and then attempt to get these people to believe that they are “affluent”. The question then becomes: what is the purpose of this (clumsy) deception? The answer: to hide the annihilation of the U.S. middle-class.

After providing readers with its definition of affluence, Reuters supplies data on the total number of “affluent households” in the United States: 31 million. Converting that to a total number of people (using our prior definition), Reuters is telling us that only a little over 60 million Americans, or approximately 20% of the U.S. population have a standard of living of “middle-class” or better.

Readers must keep in mind that while the “genocide” of the U.S. middle class nears its completion, that for those at the top, times have never been better. Out of that top 20%, a full half of that, or 10% of the U.S. population are genuinely affluent – with most of this small minority being very rich, and the top-1% sitting on hoards of wealth beyond imagination.