There is lots of fuss being made about how the top 1% in this country - that is, someone else - are unfairly outpacing the rest of the country in wealth and power. But Richard Reeves has a new book out, The Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust that argues, with good evidence, that it isn't "them" - the 1% - that is a problem, but "us" - the upper middle class top 20%, mostly the very people who read and write blogs like this one - that is really the problem.Upper middle class for Reeves are roughly families with incomes above $112,000 per year, professional-managerial, college educated (often with advanced degrees as well), often two-income. He shows that there is very little movement, over time or over generations, into or out of this class, because this class protects its position. As he points out, the liberal politicians and media and activists all talk a lot about promoting more social mobility, but when push comes to shove they - who are almost all members of this class - aren't about to let any of their own children be displaced by social mobility.
Reeves suggests solutions to this problem, but as he points out, for anyone to move into the top 20% class, someone has to move out. For anyone from a "lower class"to get a coveted admission spot in an elite college, someone else has to lose that spot. For anyone from a "lower class" to get that coveted internship, someone else has to lose it. And the upper middle class - with the wealth and political power and connections - isn't about to let their own kids be the ones to lose out.
An interesting book, probably not terrible comfortable for most of its readers.
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