America’s middle class is shrinking in every state in America.
A new analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Stateline blog, shows that the percentage of middle-class households -- defined as those earning between 67 and 200 percent of a state’s median income -- dropped in every U.S. state between 2000 and 2013. Median income also fell in most states during that period.
Wisconsin, Ohio, North Dakota, Nevada, and New Mexico had some of the largest declines in middle-class households over the 13-year span, while Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii suffered the least.
The decline of the American middle class is unsurprising by now. The middle class has seen its wages change little since the turn of the millennium, while high-earning individuals keep making more and more each year. And middle-class wages are a long way from catching up to the rising costs of child care, tuition, and hospital visits.
And nearly a decade after the peak of a devastating bubble, housing is once again growing increasingly unaffordable for many. Stateline's analysis showed that a greater percentage of households in many states are paying at least 30 percent of total income on housing, a widely used standard for housing affordability.