Social scientists use 3 common methods to define class—by occupation, income, or education—and there is really no consensus about the “right” way to do it. Michael Zweig, a leading scholar in ...

Clive Crook is afraid of the proles. Acknowledging arguments that extreme income inequality is socially and economically unsalutary (reviewed in National Journal by Jonathan Rauch), Crook cautions ...

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Sherry Linkon, co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University, about the difficulty of defining what "middle class" is today. We asked ...

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama placed heavy emphasis on the middle class and middle class economics. Consequently, in this month’s political report, AEI polling expert ...

The middle class is often thought of as the backbone of the American economy -- and decades ago it was. Today, however, the American middle class has become a shadow of what it once was. A number of ...

BOSTON (CBS) - How do you define middle class based on income? It's the kind of question that most politicians fear - and I'm guessing that's why Jon Keller chose to ask it during last night's debate.

Who makes up the middle class? Surveys suggest that half to 90 percent of Americans consider themselves members of the economic middle class. These respondents may have annual gross earnings of ...