You can be pretty much sure that any article that discusses the 'middle-class' is politcally motivated. It's ill-defined and redefined for any purpose. The term 'middle-class' is practically meaningless, except as a mechanism to cause the reader to identify with the the group supposedly being victimized. It's purely an appeal to ethos and pathos.

That top 5%? Thats us. Never forget it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... A couple who lives together making 75K each are in the top 5% of household income in the US. That's not even an incredibly high programmer salary. So as to where did your middle class customers go? Hacker News.

As to why the top 5% have so much wealth, well it's by starting early.

A year after I got out of high school I had a techsupport job for 36K / year I was making on par with my parents who had 25-30 years experience each, 3 years later and I was no longer a renter. Starting early and building a nice egg early on allows you to take advantage of compounding interest. I had a house at the time that most people were getting out of school with a pile of debt.

People in North America have a tonne of disposable income, look at McDonalads, Starbucks, etc. They do very good business trading on disposable income (consumer surplus). You don't need either of those companies, you can make a coffee/burger yourself and save a pile. In fact you can make yourself a fairly decent retirement for a latte a day.