"The middle class is shrinking" might be the assertion of the decade. Progressives and populists alike use it to justify nearly all government interventions, from tariffs to minimum-wage hikes to ...

There is something quietly devastating about looking successful while actually struggling. Millions of middle-class ...

This article appears in the December 2025 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. We are living in a new Gilded Age. The first, from roughly 1870 to 1890, was marked by dramatic ...

ChatGPT started with the basics. In 1971, about 61% of American adults lived in middle-income households. By 2021, that number had dropped to 50%. That’s a massive shift in just 50 years. But the ...

“The middle class is shrinking” might be the assertion of the decade. Progressives and populists alike use it to justify nearly all government interventions, from tariffs to minimum-wage hikes to ...

The middle class feels like it’s disappearing, so I asked ChatGPT to explain what’s actually happening. The AI came back with data, reasons and context that made the situation clearer and more ...