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Are You In The Middle Class? Find Out With This Interactive Income Calculator

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If there's one thing the presidential candidates agree on it's the need to support and grow America's dwindling middle class.

How to do that, though, is where the agreement ends.

In a recent economic analysis, Pew Research found that the middle class has declined considerably since the 1970s, when good-paying manufacturing jobs were still relatively abundant. For the first time in four decades, middle-income earners no longer make up the nation's economic majority group; more American households now fall into the upper and lower classes, indicating a widening gap between the nation's rich and poor.

ST_2016.05.12_middle-class-geo-03According to the report: "In early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households combined, a demographic shift that could signal a tipping point."

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Using data from U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the report defines “middle-income” Americans as "adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median, about $42,000 to $126,000 annually in 2014 dollars for a household of three."

[If the income calculator does not show up in your browser, you can view it here]

[Methodology explained here]

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