The Hollowing Out of the Middle Class

One-line definition: The erosion of the stable middle — the “floor” (e.g. manufacturing jobs) that once held up less-educated workers — leaving widening inequality at the extremes.

How sources describe it

• In the Great Softening research: “The floor that held that group up (e.g. manufacturing) has given out. Fewer low education jobs that provide great financial stability.” Kyle pairs this with the observation that the US “used to have a higher floor,” and that the felt decline is less about everyone being worse off than about income inequality being exacerbated (a Noah Smith argument).
• A counterweight in the same notes: “we have the baseline of ‘things’ — we all drink the same Diet Coke and have the same iPhones.”

Where it shows up

• The Hardening Of The Great Softening - Research
• The Hardening Of The Great Softening — income-inequality framing of generational decline.

Related concepts

• The American Dream — Stop Calling it Capitalism — the essay reframing the felt decline of the middle as a critique of capitalism vs. the American dream.
• Capitalism — the system whose distribution of gains is implicated in the eroding “floor.”
• Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires — the self-image that persists even as the stable middle thins out.
• Noah Smith — source of the argument that the decline is less about everyone being worse off than about exacerbated income inequality.