America’s disappearing “middle class”?

Nick Gillespie, the editor-in-chief of Reason, points out that the debate on American inequality often takes the form of discussing the middle class as an endangered species. Since most people identify themselves as middle class and inequality is seen to be widening it follows that the middle class must be disappearing. Gillespie gives Lou Dobbs, Senator James Webb and even George W Bush as examples of people who have made statements consistent with this view. Dobbs, a CNN host, has written a whole book on the subject while George W has simply fretted about income inequality and attacked corporate fat cats. Gillespie’s rejoinder is that absolute living standards are rising for all while social mobility remains high.