<story><title>The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&amp;_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcv</author><text>According to the graphs, the US middle class is actually still doing pretty good. I was expecting it to do a lot worse than that of many European countries, but there&amp;#x27;s only a few countries that have overtaken the US middle class, and then just barely.&lt;p&gt;Puts all those articles about the weak US middle class in perspective.&lt;p&gt;The real travesty is at the bottom. The worst 10% are actually doing worse now than 30 years ago. The few groups above that didn&amp;#x27;t benefit at all from the enormous economic growth of the past decades. The extreme growth of the wealthiest 10% is simply outrageous by comparison. But the middle class isn&amp;#x27;t doing quite as badly as I expected.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>viggity</author><text>&amp;gt; The extreme growth of the wealthiest 10% is simply outrageous by comparison&lt;p&gt;Is the bottom decile worse off &lt;i&gt;because&lt;/i&gt; the top decile is better off? I don&amp;#x27;t think so, I think everyone is better off with Gates, Jobs, Page, Brin making tons of money. Wealth is not a zero sum game. Don&amp;#x27;t get me wrong, I want to see a world where everyone can support themselves and provide for their families. I just don&amp;#x27;t think having super rich people prevents that from happening, I think it is just the opposite. The Gates Foundation is a million times more effective than any gang of UN Bureaucrats.</text></comment>
<story><title>The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?smid=tw-upshotnyt&amp;_r=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mcv</author><text>According to the graphs, the US middle class is actually still doing pretty good. I was expecting it to do a lot worse than that of many European countries, but there&amp;#x27;s only a few countries that have overtaken the US middle class, and then just barely.&lt;p&gt;Puts all those articles about the weak US middle class in perspective.&lt;p&gt;The real travesty is at the bottom. The worst 10% are actually doing worse now than 30 years ago. The few groups above that didn&amp;#x27;t benefit at all from the enormous economic growth of the past decades. The extreme growth of the wealthiest 10% is simply outrageous by comparison. But the middle class isn&amp;#x27;t doing quite as badly as I expected.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>Simply tying some European countries isn&amp;#x27;t really that great a performance when the U.S. is so much more productive overall. For example, our PPP GDP per capita is 20-25% higher than Canada&amp;#x27;s. So if Canada edges us out in terms of median income, even just barely, that&amp;#x27;s not a great showing.</text></comment>