Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America

by Alissa Quart,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 17, 2018

These days, millions of hardworking people are concluding that the American Dream is unattainable.  After the Great Recession of 2008, for the first time since pollsters asked the question, fewer than half of respondents (44 percent) said they were members of the middle class.  With household incomes eight percent lower in 2014 (adjusted for inflation) than they were in 1999, many Americans no longer expected they would be better off than their parents.  Instead, they are desperately trying to preserve their standing in the middle classes.