10/11/2023 0 Comments Black upper middle class![]() Conversely, while 18% of Asian adults and 15% of White adults moved up from the middle- to the upper-income tier in an average year, only 10% of Black adults and 8% of Hispanic adults experienced such progress.Īt the lower end of the economic scale, Black and Hispanic adults are almost twice as likely as White and Asian adults to be in the lower-income tier. That compared with an average of 14% each of middle-income White and Asian adults who took a step down the income ladder. Over the 2000-2021 period, an average of about one-in-five Black and Hispanic adults who were in the middle-income tier one year moved down to the lower-income tier by the next year (21% in both groups). The transitions from the middle-income tier that transpired in the first year of the pandemic were similar to those seen since 2000. At the same time, only 8% of Hispanic adults and 12% of Black adults moved up from the middle- to the upper-income tier, compared with 18% of White adults and 25% of Asian adults. While these shares were largely unchanged from 2020, there was considerable movement of adults into and out of the middle class, with substantial variation among racial and ethnic groups.įrom 2020 to 2021, around a fifth of Black (22%) and Hispanic (20%) adults experienced a setback from the middle-income tier to the lower-income tier, compared with 15% of White adults and 12% of Asian adults. The share of adults who are in the middle class varies modestly across racial and ethnic groups, ranging from 47% of both Black and Asian adults to 49% of Hispanic adults and 52% of White adults in 2021. ![]() Largely similar rates of transition have prevailed during the entirety of the 2000-2021 timespan. In the same period, 74% of middle-income adults experienced no change in their economic status. From 2000 to 2001, some 12% of middle-income adults moved up to the upper-income tier and 14% moved down to the lower-income tier. The movement of adults from the middle-income tier to other income tiers during the pandemic was consistent with recent trends. Some 68% of adults who were in the middle-income tier in 2020 were still in that tier in 2021, during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. These adults were equally likely to have moved up to the upper-income tier or down to the lower-income tier – 16% each in each direction – from 2020 to 2021. ![]() But about a third (32%) of those who were in the middle-income tier in 2020 were no longer in that tier in 2021. In 2021, half of American adults overall lived in middle-income households. Methodological and other revisions to the CPS, such as the introduction of a redesigned set of income questions in 2015, may also have an impact on estimated trends. This report makes use of updated weights released by the Census Bureau to correct for nonresponse in 2019, 20. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection. government in its surveys, limiting in-person data collection and affecting the response rate. The COVID-19 outbreak has affected data collection efforts by the U.S. The analysis exploits this feature to study the transitions of adults across income tiers from one year to the next over the period from 2000-2021. The CPS data has the characteristic that, in principle, about half the people interviewed in one year are also interviewed in the next year. The terms “middle income” and “middle class” are used interchangeably for the sake of exposition. The boundaries of the income tiers also vary across years with changes in the national median income. The income it takes to be middle income varies by household size, with smaller households requiring less to support the same lifestyle as larger households. “Lower-income” adults have household incomes less than $52,000 and “upper-income” adults have household incomes greater than $156,000. In this analysis, “middle-income” adults in 2021 are those with an annual household income that was two-thirds to double the national median income in 2020 (after incomes have been adjusted for household size), or about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three. The ASEC, conducted in March each year, is the official source for the government’s estimates of income and poverty. This report analyzes data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplements (ASEC) of the Current Population Survey (CPS) to study the yearly movement of demographic groups across income tiers from 2000 to 2021.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |