Do you think of yourself as middle-class? If so, your slice of the pie has probably gotten smaller in recent years. According to figures released by the Census Bureau yesterday, median household income for the middle class declined by $777 last year, to $50,054. That's a decline in real household income - adjusted for inflation - of 1.5 percent.
The middle 60 percent of American households now take in 46.6 percent of American income, down from 50 percent in 1990. But the people on either side of the middle class are doing all right. The bottom 20 percent saw its income say stable over the past year, while the top 20 percent saw its income rise by 1.6 percent.
The best news was for those at the top of the ladder, the top 10 percent, which includes households making $162,000 or more. Their share of the nation's income rose by 5 percent in 2011.
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