The American middle class is no longer the world's richest

The United States’ once-strong lead in middle-class incomes is shrinking, according to an in-depth report in the New York Times.

Compared to other advanced countries, the rate of wage increases for America’s low- and middle-income tiers have been outpaced by those in Canada and throughout Europe during the last three decades.

The report concluded after-tax middle-class incomes in Canada – substantially behind in 2000 – now appear to be higher than in the United States, and the poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

Here are the numbers in the Times’ analysis of data compiled by LIS, a group that maintains the Luxembourg Income Study Database: Median per capita income was $18,700 in the United States in 2010 (which translates to about $75,000 for a family of four after taxes), up 20 percent since 1980 but virtually unchanged since 2000, after adjusting for inflation. The same measure, by comparison, rose about 20 percent in Britain between 2000 and 2010 and 14 percent in the Netherlands. Median income also rose 20 percent in Canada between 2000 and 2010, to the equivalent of $18,700.

The numbers were analyzed by researchers at LIS and by The Upshot, a New York Times website covering policy and politics, and reviewed by outside academic economists.

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