01/09/2008
George Will claims that the economic picture is not as black as it’s painted:
Edwards and Huckabee lament a shrinking middle class. Well.
Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 — because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder." Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.[George F. Will — Iowa’s Histrionic Hucksters, Washington Post, January 6, 2008;]
How did it happen that the percentage of people earning under $30,000 remained unchanged, while all these hardworking people were moving up? Well, it turns out that millions and millions of poor people have been imported in that period.
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