Tag Archives: Middle class

A growing middle class in Asia can mean more people lifted out of poverty and leading comfortable and productive lives. It can also mean more social inequality, more pollution, more congestion, and more loss of natural capital and public goods.

Since 1989, Federal Reserve figures show, the median net worth of families in America’s statistical middle class has dropped from $75,300 to $61,700, after taking inflation into account. This year, for the first time ever, Forbes has assigned a “self-made score” to every one of America’s richest 400. More than two-thirds of this year’s 400, Forbes claims, rate as “self-made.”

A few years ago, the emerging markets and middle-income developing countries were considered to have a rosy future — the rising middle class was going to usher in an era of stability, democracy and mass consumer markets that would lead the world economy.   The global middle class is growing, but the hoped-for smooth democratic transitions have not occurred. Instead, …