Pew Research: Bay Area Economics: Poor Get Poorer; Middle Class Shrinks
Median incomes have fallen for everyone, but they’ve fallen most for the lowest income households. New research finds that income inequality suppresses economic growth.
By Sharon Simonson
The middle-class is shrinking in hundreds of U.S. cities including the San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose-Sunnyvale metro areas, according to new Pew Research Center analysis encompassing three-quarters of the American population.
In the Bay Area metros, not only is the middle class shrinking but fewer than half of adults now live in middle-class households, a change in conditions from five years ago.
In addition, while more Bay Area adults joined the upper-income ranks, helping reduce the size of the middle class, median household incomes fell. The decline was greatest for lower-income house...