A recent report issued by the research policy group and an academic institute Demos, estimates that only about one-third of middle income families in the country are financially secure enough to remain in the middle class in the long term.

Middle class families were defined as including families that have a household income of at least two times, but no greater than six times, the federal poverty guideline for family size (a middle-class family of four earns between $40,000 to $120,000).

A new Economic Policy Institute report examines how globalization threatens the wages of American workers. Globalization and American Wages: Today and Tomorrow, by EPI economist Josh Bivens, finds that globalization causes an increase in wage inequality and wage losses that may only get worse with time.

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The Economic Policy Institute is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan research institute — or "think tank" — based in Washington, D.C. EPI researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States and around the world.

by Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel

Research assistance from James Lin

As of Labor Day 2007, the economic recovery that began in 2001 is six years old, and the economy has consistently expanded over this period. Productivity growth, though slower of late, has been particularly strong, and after a long, slow start, employment has been consistently growing, albeit slower than past recoveries.

But most American workers have not shared in the growth and prosperity they have been helping to create. Surely, one measure of the success of an economic growth period is how much of that growth finds its way into workers’ paychecks. In a period of sharply rising inequality, however, this is no “slam dunk.” In fact, as much of the data in this brief reveal, many workers’ wages have been stagnant for a number of years, after adjusting for inflation, … more