By Stephanie Horan | SmartAsset
The middle class is feeling the squeeze, as financial gains for this cohort have not kept pace with those of upper-income households. The median income of upper-income households in 1970 was 2.2 times the income of middle-income households, but by 2016, that ratio had increased to 2.4, according to Pew Research Center. Middle class families, who typically dream of taking out a mortgage to buy a home and elevating their station in life, are the backbone of America. With this in mind, SmartAsset decided to look at some of the states in America where the middle class is the strongest.
The middle class is generally defined as households with incomes between two-thirds to double that of the national median household income. As a result of data availability, we defined middle class as households earning between $35,000 and $100,000 for the purposes of this study. For details on our data sources and how we put the information together to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section below.
