People say, 'Things aren't that tough.' Well, no, not for you, if you're looking at it from a middle-class point of view, from your Hampstead or your Hamptons.
While Koons asserted that he was not ashamed of his middle class roots to the point of never breaking character, Waters was our collective id, equal parts repulsed by the tchotchkes of American life but indulgent in the power of their ugliness.
"The further downward pressure on the middle class, to the point of disappearance, will radicalise it," he said.
On housing, one point divides working and middle class; six points divides old and young.
While the government does not have an official definition of "middle class," one commonly used point of reference is the median household income, which was $46,326 in 2005.
Thus, a 22 percentage-point decline in the share of the absolutely poor between 1988 and 2011 translates into a 12 percentage point increase in the vulnerable population, 6 percentage point increase in the lower middle class, 2 percentage point increase in the core middle class and 2 percentage point increase among the upper middle class and the rich.
We can all understand why the candidates chose to focus on the middle class in some of their points, because that's where most of America finds itself.
Mr. Kerry has made "middle class squeeze" a focal point of his campaign for more than a month.
The entire course of the Western World, from the late medieval period to the 1960s, when men walked on the moon and the U.S. middle class reached its high point of prosperity, took place with a gold standard system.
On his measurement, an increase of one standard deviation in the middle class's share of national income is associated with one extra percentage point of growth per person.Why should the middle class encourage growth?
"The middle class of this country has for the last 40 years been disappearing," Sanders said — his favorite talking point.
