In This Economy, High School Grads Are Falling Out of The Middle Class

Last week, Pew Research released a 74-page report, “ The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground ,” which examined economic data from 1971 to 2015. The study discovered that “after more than four decades of serving as the nation’s economic majority, the American middle class is now matched in number by those in the economic tiers above and below it.” In other words, our economy has been hollowed out from the middle. We have become a nation of “haves” and “have-nots.” Predictably, this evaporation of the middle class has affected some demographic groups more than others. Hispanics and millennials were hit hard, but no one lost more ground economically than adults who had no more than a high school diploma. Look at this graphic from the report: As you can see, those with high school degrees lost even more income share (-21.9 percent) than those with less than a high school degree (-18.1 percent). But did those with college degrees do much better? The answer is an unequivocal yes. During the period researched by Pew, “only one educational attainment group did not lose income status: college graduates.” Marinate on that for a second. Now look here: These numbers are startling. Americans with college degrees are “eight times as likely as adults who did not graduate from high school to live in upper-income households, and they are more than twice as likely as high school graduates or adults with some college education to be in the upper-income tier.” Pew Research adds: As the U.S. economy increasingly rewards those with job skills, college-educated Americans have an economic edge over other adults, even when the costs of going to college are factored in. They have a growing earnings advantage over those with no more than a high school diploma. Their study seems to be pointing to a clear solution: in order to create a more robust middle class, we must ensure
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