We all know religion and politics are forbidden party topics. In the U.S., add social class to the list.

The party line when most Americans think about the issue is “We’re middle class folks.” Americans have been lowering the wages that define the middle class since the 1980’s and here’s some very elegant data to back up the observation. A very nice data set packaged in a report is available at the politically left biased Center on Budgets and Policy Priorities.

The actual data without the political bias is at the Economist’s site Emmanual Saez

I’m going to alienate the political left by declaring this basic data will probably end up in a bunch of misguided political policies and programs. I will be disregarded by the political right when I declare that this should be a central issue for the Right. As this article Truthdigvery clearly lays out, the left is as fractured as the right these days.

I’ve given neither the right or left or ‘independents’ anything to feel good about. Which is quite accurate. The vast majority of both the right and left have been usurped by the interests of the wealthiest members of each party. This is not new or different. History is full of examples of this. What’s changed is the contrast between the top 5% and the middle 50% is even clearer.

The whole reason for this crackpot rambling is the research is very clear on the fact that countries with a large middle class are politically, economically and socially more stable. Instead we’ve got interested groups from both sides of the American political spectrum striping away the generally disinterested middle to serve their own needs without a care for broader community and national considerations.