The result here is pretty interesting, but the characterization ol of being about the middle class is wrong. Median income doesn't define middle class, middle class is generally defined as elite workers (professionals and executives) that are still primarily workers rather than capitalists. Median income workers are generally working-class, not middle class.
Yeah, but the days where that was arguably even approximately true -- when a majority or something reasonably close to it of Americans were in middle class (as well as professionals and executives, yeoman farmers -- a formerly very common thing in the US, but now vanishingly rare -- are part of the middle class -- as are others whose primary support is independent business that they own but which is still dependent on their labor [if it wasn't, they'd be straight-up upper class capitalists]) -- are past. Now, most of the Americans who identify as middle class are working class whose identification reflects aspiration rather than reality.
For me to agree with you, I would have to agree with the premise that we know better about class labels than Americans at large. I would not presume so much.
If 100% of Americans consider themselves "middle-class", it doesn't bother me. At the end of the day it's all semantics and disagreeing about what "middle-class" means is not interesting.
You clearly have some opinions about shortcomings of the American labor market. Perhaps there's a better way to phrase your concerns that would further the discussion in a more substantive direction.
> You clearly have some opinions about shortcomings of the American labor market.
Not that are relevant to this discussion -- I just have a belief that there is a difference between being middle class (the class between the working class and the capitalist class, at least, in the usual definition applicable in post-feudal economies) and identifying as middle class.
Historically, the working class being larger than the other two combined is the norm and America's brief period with a very large middle class was something of an aberration resulting from the rapid application of agriculture by a small population to a large land area before that agriculture was effectively consolidated by large commercial entities.
