Middle-class areas shrink as America divides into 'two-tiered society' of rich and poor

Study: 44 percent of families lived in middle-income neighborhoods in 2007, down from 65 percent in 1970.

WASHINGTON — The portion of American families living in middle-income neighborhoods has declined significantly since 1970, according to a new study, as rising income inequality left a growing share of families in neighborhoods that are mostly low-income or mostly affluent.

The study, conducted by Stanford University and scheduled for release on Wednesday by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University, uses census data to examine family income at the neighborhood level in the country’s 117 biggest metropolitan areas.

Well that's not surprising. We've all known that wealth inequality in North America has increase exponentially over the last 30 years, this is just more concrete proof.

In 2007, the last year captured by the data, 44 percent of families lived in neighborhoods the study defined as middle-income, down from 65 percent of families in 1970. At the same time, a third of American families lived in areas of either affluence or poverty, up from just 15 percent of families in 1970.

So, over thel ast 40 years, our poverty rate has doubled. You can read the rest of the article here.

It's really shocking to see some hard data on how bad things have become for the middle class.

Not only has inflation raised the prices of things, workers are being paid less, with less benefits, less vacation, less quality of work equipment and training. The middle class in North America is being squeezed to the very farthest possible.

IMO it won't last too much longer. The OWS protest is showing just some of the frustration of the middle class, hijacked or not it says a lot about the state of Americans and how they feel.

Welcome to your Oligarchy, we'll tell you what to do, say and think shortly. Meanwhile, please shut up and pay no mind to those who exploit you.

Thoughts?

Force them into the ghettos, then off to the FEMA camps to await The Final Solution

Here's a video from 1986 that pretty much sums up what is going to happen.

In America there are a lot of childhood kidnappings. In my country most people wouldn't dare dream of taking another child because...they can't afford cars for that. I'd probably settle in the US once it becomes a lot poorer than it is now.

there might be another aspect at play in this.
in the 70's, the poor were mostly settled in localized areas of a city. but then the welfare programs were ramped up, hud began helping pay for rent, and well, the poor had more options as to where they wanted to live outside of the section 8 housing units. in the area I lived in texas, there were dirt poor living blocks away from multi-million dollar mansions.
it could be possible that we kind of imported the poor into the middle class neighborhoods..

the op mentions about the workers having to settle for less, I have to pipe in on this.
I am noticing that we are having to less quality materials at work. felt isn't as good as it was, flock is often a not up to par, ink is really rather a hit or miss...
the result?? well, got a feeling that our product might be a little less quality, although we do our best, since our product is marketed based on it's quality...
I'm noticing this in alot of products of late, not as good of a quality. kind of like, the workers are disenchanted and well....don't really care much, maybe...companies are cutting corners, trying to shave a little off their expenses, and well, buying less quality materials. it's not just the workers that are having to settle for less...
got a feeling we all are going to have to settle for less in the long run. we can't afford qualitiy any more .

^For that you can blame Nixon for getting you off the gold standard. Inflation comes with a currency backed by nothing.

The best part is that we'll drag ourselves down.

The last "middle class" families will be torn apart by a growing desperate lower class because they wont be able to afford to protect or isolate themselves as the wealthy will.

And no one will ever target the real cause. They'll just keep eating each other.

I think we are mis-remembering the past as some sort of halcyon days that didn't exist like we think they did.

My kids go to a public magnet school, and we live in an area recently listed as one of the top 10 poorest counties in America. The kids they go to school with represent a cross-section of the county. So my kids have friends from all levels of society and all socioeconomic groups. When you see these kids all together, you can't always tell how much money their family has. I've been surprised by some of the really "bad" neighborhoods these kids are from...but as I said, you can't tell from looking at these kids.

Even when those friends come from what might be considered "lower" middle class (or downright poor) homes, they have cell phones and computers in their homes. Perhaps they aren't as new or as nice as they could be, but they all have those things. They all have video game systems and more than one TV.

I think there are PLENTY of middle class people still remaining. If my county is supposed to be one of the poorest in the nation, then I am certain of it.

Here is the article that listed my county: www.dailyfinance.com... I won't tell you which it is, but it's right in there. It actually surprised me to see it listed.