Citing old data, Wisconsin lawmaker says the state's middle class is 'most diminished' in U.S.

The drumbeat has been steady for months: State Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) and other Democrats in the Legislature have repeatedly said that Wisconsin has the "most diminished middle class" in the United States.

As recently as Jan. 10, Barca recited the claim in a news release and said it three times in less than a minute while talking with reporters.

"We have the most diminished middle class in the entire country," Barca said at a Capitol news conference in response to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s 2017 "state of the state" speech. "Let me say that again: We have the most diminished middle class in the entire country."

Barca later added: "We believe we should be focused on the most diminished middle class in the country."

Other Assembly members have echoed the line. State Rep. David Bowen (D-Milwaukee) said in a December radio address that Wisconsin "is still home to the most diminished middle class in the country." The same month, state Rep. Leon Young (D-Milwaukee) wrote that Wisconsin "has the dubious distinction of having the most diminished middle class in the country."

That repeated assertion piqued our interest. So we investigated: Does Wisconsin really have the "most diminished middle class" in the United States?

New data, different outcome

We asked Barca for evidence to support his claim that Wisconsin has the "most diminished middle class" in the country. A spokeswoman pointed to a 2015 analysis by the Pew Research Center — a nonpartisan research organization — that showed middle class households in Wisconsin shrank the most of any state between 2000 and 2013.

The analysis found that in 2000, an estimated 54.6 percent of households in Wisconsin were considered middle class. By 2013, that figure fell to 48.9 percent, a 5.7 percentage point drop and the largest decline of any state, according to Pew.

To conduct that analysis, Pew used data from the American Community Survey, a national survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau as well as IPUMS-USA data compiled by the University of Minnesota. Pew defined "middle class" as those households earning between 67 percent and 200 percent of the state’s median income.

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Inflation-adjusted weekly wages “are lower today than they were 50 years ago.”

But here’s the problem: Pew’s analysis only went through 2013, and more recent numbers are available. So we performed the same analysis as Pew but included data for the latest year available, 2015.

We found that in 2015, an estimated 50.1 percent of households in Wisconsin were considered middle class by Pew’s standards. That’s 4.5 percentage points smaller compared to 2000, when an estimated 54.6 percent of households in the state were considered middle class.

It was the 10th steepest decline in percentage of middle class households between 2000 and 2015 of any state, with Nevada’s drop the most significant at 5.6 percentage points.

So, by the latest numbers, Barca is not correct.

What’s behind the numbers?

Wisconsin was one of 18 states where the share of middle-class households grew slightly from 2010 to 2015. In that time period, the percentage of households in Wisconsin considered middle class increased to 50.1 percent — a 0.7 point gain. Overall in 2015, Wisconsin ranked fifth in the nation in percentage of households that were middle class.

Thus, while Wisconsin had the biggest decline of middle class households between 2000 and 2013, its performance in recent years shifts the outcome.

Our rating

Barca said Wisconsin has "the most diminished middle class" in the United States.

An analysis by a respected, nonpartisan research organization found the percentage of middle class households in Wisconsin declined the most of any state between 2000 and 2013. But in the latest version of that analysis — comparing the years 2000 and 2015 — middle class households in Wisconsin did not shrink the most of any state.

We rate the claim False.

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Wisconsin’s middle class is the "most diminished" in the United States.

Peter Barca

Wisconsin Assembly minority leader, D-Kenosha

In a news conference

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

-01/-10/2017

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