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Very few people in America are willing to identify as upper class, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.About 94% of people in that income bracket (over $100,000) identified as middle class, upper middle class, or lower middle class while only 6% called themselves upper class.Here are the results of the survey:Pew Research Center While a family of three with an income of up to $122,000 is still considered "middle income," the over-$100,000 range also includes families with much higher salaries than that.Pew Research Center And although only 6% of survey respondents identified as upper class, Pew's data shows...

ISIS militant ‘Jihadi John’ unmasked as middle-class Brit By Yaron Steinbuch February 26, 2015 | 7:16am The infamous masked ISIS madman seen in gruesome videos beheading Western hostages was identified by media outlets Thursday as Mohammed Emwazi — a middle-class Briton with a degree in computer programming. The BBC reported that the Kuwaiti-born Emwazi is in his mid-20s and from West London. British authorities chose not to identify him earlier for operational reasons. “I have no doubt that Mohammed is Jihadi John,” one of Emwazi’s close friends told the Washington Post. “He was like a brother to me. . . . I...

Who said: "I've always believed the decline of the middle class could be tied to the decline of unions. And when you have 7%, 8% of the work force in unions, when you have CEO pay going up to record heights, you're going to have a hollowing out of the middle class." Was it a. Elizabeth Warren; b. Robert Reich; or c. Ed Schultz? Correct answer: d. None of the above. It was Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough prefaced his lament over the decline of unions by saying "It's been well-documented on Twitter: I'm a right-wing Republican stooge."...

The law has been written by liberals for liberals, to benefit their Democrat voting constituents to the detriment of everyone else It is becoming increasingly difficult for Virginians to find doctors and secure appointments in a timely manner thanks to Obamacare. After a fierce battle, the bills meant to create state exchanges and to expand Medicaid have died in the House and in the Senate. However, Democrat Governor McAuliffe added Medicaid expansion to his budget amendment. The House removed that language from the budget. As millions of Americans, who previously had insurance and doctors they were satisfied with and wanted...

Just weeks after President Obama proclaimed that America had turned the corner and his "middle class economics" was working, the public is more pessimistic than they've been in months, and few think Obama's policies have significantly helped the middle class, the latest IBD/TIPP poll finds.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is to deliver what aides call an “optimistic, conservative vision for the future” in his first unpaid speech since declaring his interest in a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. […] Wednesday’s speech is the first in a series of stops his aides call his “Right to Rise” tour, borrowing from his economic mantra and the name of the political action committee he formed in December. Bush’s speech, aides said, is aimed at underscoring his desire to reinvigorate the middle class, which he argues has languished despite the ongoing economic recovery. Conservative economic policies,...

President Barack Obama calls his tax and spending plan ´middle-class economics,´ but most middle-income families would see little change in their tax bills. Obama is proposing a total of $1.5 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, mostly on corporations and high-income households. He would use much of that money--nearly $280 billion--to pay for targeted tax breaks for low- and middle-income families. Obama´s proposed tax cuts would benefit households with two wage earners, families with young children in child care and those with older children in college. One proposal would automatically enroll workers in individual retirement accounts, unless they

When Democrats talk about middle class Americans, they almost inevitably use them as a cudgel to attack the rich. On the other hand, bizarrely, Republicans seem to spend much more time defending the rich from attacks by the Left than talking about what they’re going to do to help the middle class. That’s unfortunate because middle class Americans are the backbone of the country; yet their interests always seem to take a backseat to those of the wealthy, the poor and the naked self-interest of BOTH political parties. There’s nothing wrong with giving the poor a hand-up or making sure...

It took far too long, but finally many state politicians are taking seriously Census Bureau reports that California is ground zero for American poverty. Once the high cost of living is factored in, the Golden State moves from the middle of the pack nationally to a clear number one, with nearly one-quarter of residents in a constant struggle to make ends meet. But with this harsh fact finally internalized, when will state leaders come to the parallel realization that having among the nation’s highest energy and real estate costs is also bad for the economy — and for job-seekers without...

.....it is clear that millions are struggling to hang on to accouterments that most experts consider essential to a middle-class life..... Lisa Land, 49, is one of those who have dropped through the hatch. She gets by on her father’s $1,300 monthly Social Security checks and by having her adult daughter pitch in for groceries. Her circumstances are a stark change from just a few years ago, when she considered herself firmly in the middle class. Despite a relatively modest salary, her pay and other resources went a long way in tiny Eden, N.C., where she worked for 13 years...

The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the...

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, Barack Obama is going to promise to make life better for middle class families. Of course he has also promised to do this during all of his other State of the Union addresses, but apparently he still believes that there are people out there that are buying what he is selling. Each January, he gets up there and tells us how the economy is “turning around” and to believe that much brighter days are right around the corner. And yet things just continue to get even worse for the middle...

As the old saying goes, there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes. Tomorrow night during his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Obama will announce that people paying taxes their entire lives just isn't good enough. The President wants the current 40 percent death tax rate increased to 60 percent. Americans for Tax Reform breaks down the details: 2. Stealth increase in the death tax rate from 40% to nearly 60%. Under current law, when you inherit an asset your basis in the asset is the higher of the fair market value at the...

Barack Obama enters the final two years of his presidency with a blemish on his legacy that looks impossible to erase: the decline of the middle class he has promised to rescue. The revival of middle-class jobs has been one of Obama's mantras since he took office in 2009 fighting the worst economic crisis in generations. It was a major theme of his last State of the Union address and is expected to feature in the one scheduled for Tuesday. Administration officials said on Saturday the president would propose higher capital gains taxes, new fees on large financial firms,...

In his State of The Union address this week, President Obama will propose congress lower taxes on the middle class and close loopholes that the rich often use. A press release from the White House says Obama has a strategy that will “simplify our complex tax code, make it fairer by eliminating some of the biggest loopholes, and use the savings to responsibly pay for the investments we need to help middle class families get ahead and grow the economy.”According to a release from the White House Press Secretary, the changes President Obama will propose include: Closing One of the...

President Barack Obama is turning to his biggest television audience of the year to pitch tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and put the new Republican Congress in the position of defending top income earners over the middle class. As Obama continues to signal what he will propose during Tuesday's State of the Union address, senior administration officials said during the weekend that he will call for raising the capital gains rate on top income earners and eliminating a tax break on inheritances. The revenue generated by those changes would fund new tax credits and other cost-saving measures for middle-class...

Ideological splits among Republicans have been part of the fun of the American political fair for more than 50 years now, but what of potential divisions on the Left? When Barack Obama departs the White House in 2016, the question already being asked is whether Democrats will now suffer the same kind of upheaval that the Tea Party inflicted on Republicans after George W. Bush left office in 2008. Last week in Washington DC it was possible to hear the opening shots of what some left-wing Democrats hope will become a similarly fierce fight for the ideological soul of their...

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class. Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy – minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation – protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism. Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition – something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6. Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class – especially white, lower-middle-class voters? There are several obvious reasons. For...

Is the economy rigged against the middle class? The Democratic left's dream candidate -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- thinks so. "I see evidence everywhere of the pounding working people are taking," Warren said on Wednesday at an AFL-CIO summit on raising wages. "These families are working harder than ever, but they can't get ahead. Many feel that the game is rigged against them, and they are right. The game is rigged against them." Her argument, of course, is that the government must intervene to level the playing field. But Warren must not be looking very hard if she can't see...

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class. Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy -- minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers' compensation -- protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism. Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition -- something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6. Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class -- especially white, lower-middle-class voters? There are several obvious reasons.