12-11-2011, 10:57 PM
(12-11-2011, 10:52 PM)Lissa Wrote: How can you say we're not worse off? The middle class is shrinking, the lower class is growing, the upper class is only slightly increasing. That doesn't sound at all like we're better off.
If classes are expressed in relative, not absolute terms, then there is no contradiction there. Inequality can be up, but everyone can also be richer.
And, in absolute terms, everyone is richer, with a downward bump around 2008 that puts us back to the mid-2000s in terms of wealth, but still far above the 1950s...
-Jester