According to the report which was issued this week, Ireland's middle class is not as "squeezed" as most others in the 36 countries it tracks. Here, the middle class has at least managed to grow in size in the years between the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s. In most of the developed world the middle class is shrinking as a share of population as people sink back into relative poverty. Many people here would perhaps struggle to reconcile the bottom end of the range as middle class. Why does the middle class matter to both economists and to politicians like the Taoiseach?

Source: Irish Independent April 13, 2019 01:30 UTC