In addition to the precipitous 16-point "are you better off?" decline since the roaring 90s, the most striking thing about this Pew survey of middle-class Americans is that the middle class good life hasn't changed -- it's still home ownership in a safe neighborhood, gainful employment, saving for your children's education, etc. -- it just has become more unreachable for most people. And considering that 53 percent describe themselves as middle class (with a salary range of $20,000 - 150,000) a big part of the nation is hurting.
Does this mean we've all become materialists, hitching our happiness to the accumulation of possessions? Not quite. According to the survey, the highest priority for middle class respondents remains "having free time," followed closely by "having children," "successful career," "being married," "living a religious life," and "volunteer or charity work." Only twelve percent listed "being wealthy" as a high priority. People see being materially well-off as prerequisite to a good life, which is largely what being middle-class is all about, but being well-off is not the goal, per se.
Keeping this in mind, the graph shows that the middle class recognizes that the economic downturn could actually go beyond material concerns to affect the very way of life they're accustomed to or aspire to. That suggests that what has happened to the country over the last few years has been, to put it bluntly, anti-American and contrary to the very middle-class values at the foundations of the country.
--Mori Dinauer
