What makes America great isn't that we have the richest of the rich in this country, and certainly isn't because we have a seemingly permanent underclass, but that the country evolved into having a vibrant and robust middle class, so that, for many Americans, that is, the majority of Americans, the dream of owning one's own house, and having enough assets to see them through their entire lives, and to thereupon to leave an inheritance to their children was part and parcel of being an American, or so we thought.
However, despite the fact that America is by far the richest nation in the world, that money no longer gravitates to its great middle class, but instead is being siphoned off from the middle class by the upper class which has never been richer and never been more exclusive than it is today. The rich are truly richer, whereas the poor are pretty much as poor as they have been, but it is the mainstream middle class that is being hollowed out and is in the process of being eviscerated within this nation.
The thing that is vital to remember is that having a middle class of the breadth and scope of America hasn't really been the norm in previous civilizations, it is more been the exception than the rule, in fact, it's fair to say, before America existed, the middle class was relatively small and limited to professions such as lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and local shopkeepers, with the upper class consisting of those that were large moneyed property owners, well-placed merchants, the ruling class, and factory managers. The middle class came about, more by happenstance than by design, so when America became more prosperous by its trade, built more things, became more complicated and coalesced into major cities, with the needed infrastructure of roads, shops, transportation, education, and the endless desire to pursue the better things in life, this produced over a period of time, a middle class that encapsulated that in its entirety, so that, it could be said that this enormous rising tide did indeed lift all boats.
But, alas, that was then and this is now, and the times they are a changing, in which, the most obvious changes are right straight in front of us, for despite the fact that there are more two-income families than ever before seen in America, many of those two-income families are struggling just to maintain their status as middle class, for globalization while offering many positive things from a purchasing standpoint, is indeed a dual-edge sword, for the very things that can be built here, created here, and reproduced here, can all be done abroad, at a lower price point with foreign labor and then imported back to America, which is of enormous benefit for those that own the production of such, and an enormous problem for those that seek employment domestically, for their jobs are not only outsourced, but have been replaced too with robotics, leaving just the crumbs, of reduced pay, of reduced benefits, and reduced standards for those that labor.
The Pew report defines the middle class as: "earning between two-thirds and double the median household income," so that: "In 2015, just under 50 percent of American adults lived in middle-income households. That’s down from 54 percent in 2001 and 61 percent in 1971." Yet, during that same period of time, America in aggregate has gotten richer and richer. Rather sadly, during this period of time those representing the lowest household income have grown from 16% in 1971 to 20% in 2015, indicating that America is clearly a country that is dividing itself more and more into the very rich and the very poor, in which the percentage of both are on the increase, reducing significantly those that are classified as middle class.
It is well to remember that trends that are in motion have a tendency to remain in that same motion, so that those that believe that the middle class will soon mount a comeback aren't reading the tea leaves correctly, for the way that businesses are presently constructed, in a country in which profit is so often the driving motive, is that cheaper labor means bigger profit, and in a world that has gotten appreciably smaller, the labor outside America undercuts the American middle class.