Blacks are less likely to be part of the middle class than any other racial or ethnic group, the Pew report finds. Some 45 percent of black adults were in the middle-income tier, down 1 percentage point from 1971.
One positive note is that blacks are the only major racial group to see a decline over that time frame in their share of adults who are low-income, which is down to 43 percent from 48 percent. Still, that percentage is the highest of the ethnic groups, alongside Hispanics.
White Americans are the only racial group where a majority is in the middle class, though their share fell to 52 percent this year from 63 percent in 1971.Their piece of the pie is shrinking
The middle class holds 43 percent of U.S. aggregate income, the smallest share in Pew’s data back to 1970.
Almost half of aggregate earnings in the U.S. is now commanded by the wealthiest families, who are "are on the verge of holding more in total income than all other households combined," Kochhar and Fry wrote. "This shift is partly because upper-income households constitute a rising share of the population and partly because their incomes are increasing more rapidly than those of other tiers."