For the first time since WWII, inflation-adjusted median family income will be lower at the top of a cyclical expansion than it was at the top of the previous cycle.  The New York Times has the full story and a graph here.  That means that more than half of American families were worse off at the end of the economic recovery that ended in 2007 than they were in 2000. 

As I pointed out in an earlier post, the decline of the American Middle Class started in 1973.  It is now plain that in families with $60,000 of annual income the children should expect their lives to be no better and probably worse income-wise than their parents'.  Can we use the phrases "great nation" and "declining middle class" in a sentence that doesn't make us blush?