In Columbus, Ohio, Marla Caslin, 62, said she blamed the economic collapse on Republican policies that fostered Wall Street excesses. She was fired from her $44,000-a-year job in the accounts-payable department of a gas company five years ago, and wound up on public assistance until she landed a job at the YWCA last year.
She said Obama has done the best he can with a crisis he inherited, while Romney's wealth distances him from the plight of typical Americans.
"He can't relate to us," Caslin said as she waited for Obama to appear at a campaign rally.
Declining Wealth
The past decade was a drain on middle-income earners, the Pew study shows. Median household income, adjusted for inflation and household size, dropped 6.6 percent to $59,127 in 2010 from $63,277 in 2000, according to the Washington-based center.
The median wealth of all U.S. families, adjusted for inflation, dropped 39 percent from 2007 to 2010, when it stood at $79,431, just 7 percent higher than it was in 1983, according to the Pew report.
For middle-income families, which have almost half their wealth tied up in their homes, their median wealth increased 2 percent in 2010 from 1983. By comparison, the wealth of upper- income families jumped by 87 percent, the study shows.
Retirement Savings
It's not just nongovernment workers who are feeling the pinch. In Atlanta, Rick Lagotta, 48, who has worked for the fire department for the past eight years and is a member of its union, said he has had to forgo raises, or use them to pay for higher health-care costs, as the economic rout hit the city's tax collections.
He now earns about $38,000 a year, less than half of what some firefighters make because they started at a time when raises were common. With one child in college and another in high school, Lagotta has drawn on retirement savings from his prior job at a car dealership to avoid taking on a second job.