Who is In the Middle Class?

In his blog, Mano Singham asks this very question. Dr Singham observes that political candidates in the US often claim to be on the side of the "middle class", but every administration manages to help only the very wealthy, and appease what most of us think of as the middle class by giving them a few crumbs. How is this done? By making people who earn around $30,000 a year feel a kinship with those who earn more than $250,000 a year. Of course it's all relative; Bill Gates probably thinks that anyone earning $250,000 a year ought to get Social Security (I'm just kidding; he's probably a very hip guy), but each person considers him or herself as a person of very modest means.