It's becoming clear that our Middle Class -- the midsection of U.S. earners and consumers -- has shrunk alarmingly. Whereas it has been such middle class values of probity, honesty and science, first satirized in Moliere's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, (The Middle Class Gentleman), that has been the stabilizing influence in American politics since WWII. The main difference between poverty and middle class and between middle class and wealthy, noted one researcher, "is belief in, and planning for, moving up as a working assumption." This graph shows the shrinkage of those defined as middle class from 1979 to 2014 -- from 38.8 percent (gray line) to 32.09 percent (blue line), according to a Pew research study. So lt us hope a majority of our politicians realize, as a majority of Americans still do, that our prosperity and stability rest on a middle class that hasn't given up hope for a better life.

Source: Huffington Post January 16, 2017 20:46 UTC