Word: medians
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They are right. Median family income in the U.S. has held steady over the past 20 years only because so many spouses have taken jobs and gone to work. Even with those extra incomes, the size of the middle class has been shrinking. Before the onset of the recession in 1990, according to a survey by Timothy Smeeding of Syracuse University and Greg Duncan of the University of Michigan, "the middle class has decreased from about three-quarters of the population to about two-thirds." Some of the shrinkage resulted from upward mobility -- people earned their way into upper brackets...
...income-distribution curve. If a middle-class life-style is defined by home ownership, vacations in Orlando and college for the kids, then a middle-size income was shrinking to the level of an inadequate pittance. While the price of housing and tuition went shooting through the roof, the median household income remained stuck where it has been ever since the late '70s, at about $30,000 a year. The curious result being that if you want to be middle class in the old-fashioned suburban sense, you need to be pretty near rich...
...conditions that led to today's transition economy go back even further than the Roaring '80s. Americans have suffered a long-term stagnation of their earnings. The median income of U.S. families has virtually stood still since 1973, rising from $24,345 in inflation-adjusted dollars to $25,830 last year. That marks an annual gain of just 0.3% a year. From 1959 to 1973, by contrast, incomes grew a robust 2.7% a year...
Berkeley is a highly selective school that attracts many more qualified applicants than it is able to accept. In addition to academic record, cultural background is considered by the admissions committee, Duster says. The median grade point average (GPA) for white and Asian admittees is 4.0. The median GPA for Black and Hispanic admitees...
Nothing provides a better testament to the past decade's growth binge than the headlong rise and subsequent stalling of home prices in Santa Clara County. From March 1985 to March 1990, the median price of homes zoomed from $125,000 to $235,000. Real estate appreciation ran at 3% a month, and most listings attracted multiple offers within 72 hours. Today 8,700 homes (median price: $226,500) languish on the market. "In Santa Clara County, it's a sacred thing: property values go up," says San Jose Realtor John Pinto, a Brooklyn native who came to the Valley...