Charting The Slow, 30-Year Death Of The US Middle Class In A Global Context

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/20/2015 20:45 -0400

When it comes to the favorable aspects of capitalism, one thing is clear: with the largest concentration of millionaires and billionaires from around the globe, the US is second to none when it comes to letting the entrepreneurial spirit flourish and rewarding it (and letting the rich get even richer).

Unfortunately, when it comes to the malignant, "crony" aspects of capitalism, the US is also the world's undisputed leader.

Because while we have shown previously that over the past 30 years median incomes in the US have barely grown (indicative of a middle class whose income has been largely stagnant for some 35 years), we have never before shown just what how this middle class "stasis" looks like in comparison to other developed nations. Now, thanks to Max Roser and "Our world in Data", we know. Sadly, in this particular sample of median income growth since 1980, the US is dead last, behind such countries as the UK, Canada and even Spain and France!

Of course, the chart above does not mean that the entire US population have seen their wealth stuck at virtually the same level in the past 35 years. Only 90% of it. As for the remaining, top 1%, the past 35 years is precisely when the sky became the limit...

... and perhaps also why, as we wondered previously, there is nothing more hated by the very same 1% who have benefitted the most from the unbridled proliferation of credit money since the advent of the Greenspan regime, than the gold standard.