One of the bogus contentions of the new “NatCon” big government conservatives and the far-left Bernie Sanders socialists (yes, they are now in alliance) is the line that since the 1980s the middle class has lost income – so free markets don’t work.

That’s not even close to being true. Beginning with the era of Reaganomics – with lower tax rates, less regulation, and more laissez-faire economics – the average middle-class family has seen about a 40 to 50% increase in their real family take-home pay.

(Only in the last few years, under Biden, has the middle class gotten slightly poorer. See below.)

The NatCons and the socialists like to point to a Pew finding that “the middle class, once the economic stratum of a clear majority of American adults, has steadily contracted in the past five decades. The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.”

But why is that? Because more in the middle class have moved UP the economic ladder to the category of upper income and even rich. You can see this from the data.

Pew also says that the share of income going to the rich has increased and this has increased inequality. But how is this a bad thing that we have more rich people? Don’t we want everyone to be rich?