Politicians love to tout their support for “the middle class” but what do they mean by that term? What does “middle class” mean and who decides? If we define the middle class as families between the 25th and 75th percentiles just how different are families at the 24th than those at the 25th or the 76th from those at the 75th percentiles? Are those at the 25th 75th more like more like each other? Those who study the middle class as defined by rankings of income or wealth believe these quantities are objective and relatively easy to measure. Sociologists, on the other hand, are more likely to define members of the middle class by evaluating demographic dimensions like race, education, occupation and status.
The first major problem in defining the middle class with an income or wealth ranking is its ambiguity. A family may rank in the middle class in an income-based definition but not in wealth. Whice class are they in? Does this family belong to the middle class? If a family ranked in the middle 50 percent on both income and wealth in 2013, but not in 2010 or some earlier or later year, it has moved to a different class under this definition, but has it’s life style, attitudes, beliefs, activities, changed fundamentally? Just what do politicians mean by “middle class”?
via The Middle Class May Be Under More Pressure Than You Think.