This is consistent with the upper middle class growing at the expense of the rest of the middle class: https://www.brookings.edu/research/squeezing-the-middle-clas.... This is partly the result of the shift to knowledge work, and partly the result of Reagan-era tax cuts to the upper middle class that have never been challenged by either party.

I’m convinced that the most significant and tangible aspect of income inequality in practice is not between the middle class and super rich, but between the middle class and the ordinary rich (I.e. Biden’s protected class of people making up to $400,000).

I live near Annapolis, which has always had plenty of old money yacht club types. But you could still buy a 3BR family home for under $300,000 even in 2015. Historically it’s been a place where military officers and GS-scale workers, farmers, and established tradespeople could own a nice house, a used boat, etc. It was only in the last few years, as more and more knowledge workers started moving outward from the DC area, that housing has increasingly become unaffordable. Similarly in Eugene Oregon where my wife grew up, housing prices have skyrocketed. Non-college educated but stably established folks in her family are having trouble finding affordable housing. The only billionaire there, Phil Knight, has been there forever. It’s all the yuppies from California that are the cause of the problem.

I think that’s the real story behind the growing frustration over “income inequality.” America has always had rich people. But Americans don’t really care what people do in the Hampton or in Beverly Hills do or buy. But the premiumization of the economy hits people at home.