While a majority of Americans consider themselves middle class, he says far fewer actually are. Those numbers are disastrous for the American middle class. When most noneconomists talk about the middle class, we don't mean the strict middle third of American household wealth. A 2015 Pew report found that while 89% of all Americans self-identify as members of the middle class, just 50% of Americans actually met the broadest economic definition of middle class. Throughout the 20th century, a secure and growing middle class was the source of America's prosperity.

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