Zim: This article has many graphs illustrating the
points it is trying to get across.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/06/15/4-shocking-examples-of-the-decline-of-the-middle-.aspx
There's your American dream, folks. Two decades of prosperity when real GDP grew from $7.8 trillion to $13 trillion, and the net worth of middle-class American families went... down by 7%. Pundits these days ask in worry if we're facing a lost decade. Most Americans have already been through two (and counting).
Not surprisingly, the housing bust is responsible for most of the decline in net worths. Many of those wounds came about through greed and temptation -- households borrowing more than they could ever afford, buying a second home to flip, zero-interest mortgages... you know the story. The takeaway from that is that the housing-driven net-worth gains from 2001 to 2007 were fictitious, meaning the 2010 figures in this chart are probably the most realistic of the last decade. The temporary rise, not the sudden decline, is the outlier here.
And how are families doing rebuilding their net worths? Awful. This chart shows the percentage of middle-income families who reported they could save anything in the previous year:
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Note: Clo had asked 'Are You Better or Worse off' . . . .
This motley fool article says we are worse off.
Zim.
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