Is the “middle class” on the ropes? That’s what the mainstream media tell us. Wages have stagnated. People cannot afford the cost of living. The middle class is shrinking as people slip into poverty. Fewer middle class people can reach the American dream. The 1% has it all.

Do a web search using the phrase, “middle class dying.” Your reading portfolio will suddenly become very full.

But the idea that the middle class is dying is simply not true. Our economy has a remarkable future. That is, as long we don’t panic and talk ourselves into some variety of a socialist/fascist “paradise.”

Middle Incomes Rising

According to federal data, more than half of all American adults live in middle-income homes. The great majority of our fellow citizens are doing better than ever. Here are some facts about income, compensation, and “life in the middle.”

Real median household income in the U.S. was $61,372 in 2017, according to the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. In 1984, it was $50,511 (adjusted for inflation).

That’s not a huge jump, but it’s not stagnation, either. And it doesn’t account for the fact we have so many more goods, of higher quality, and at affordable prices.

For example, many prices have, in real terms, fallen. Don’t like the price of gas? Well, don’t look back too far. Adjusted for inflation, gas in 1980 was close to $4.00 per gallon. I’ll take $2.50 today, thanks. And according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food as a percentage of our take-home incomes has dropped from about 17 percent in 1960 to about 10 percent today.

But dollars don’t tell the whole story. Think about that car in your driveway. How often does it need a tune-up? Does it have a Bluetooth feature? Satellite radio? You have radial tires, steel-belted, right?

And how about the fuel it burns? Did you know that “new passenger vehicles are 98-99% cleaner for most tailpipe pollutants” as opposed to cars in the 1960s? Or that over the past 50 years, “lead has been eliminated, and sulfur levels are more than 90% lower than they were prior to regulation”?

Dissatisfaction in an Age of Plenty

But we still complain. So, take a stroll in your neighborhood supermarket. Fruits and vegetables from all over the world. Fresh, to boot. Ethnic foods galore. Dozens of shampoos. Scores of cheeses. So many types of snack foods, soups and sodas you’d need a notebook to catalog all of them. This amazing array is affordable as well as safe to eat.

Want to take a vacation? Good thing it’s not 1941. Then, “the average flight from L.A. to Boston was worth $4,539.24 per person in today’s money, and it would have taken 15 hours and 15 minutes with 12 stops.” What did a nonstop flight cost in 2015? $480.89. And it took only six hours.

Wages now rise almost three percent annually, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inflation rate is just over two percent. But other forms of compensation (retirement investment plans, health insurance, paid vacations, etc.) add to the way we get paid, too.

Dissatisfied? With some things, sure. But the American cup is more than half full. Don’t let naysayers and professional carpers drag you down with their stories of impending disaster for ordinary Americans.

Bernie Sanders and America’s “Democratic Socialists” have never had it so good. Neither have most of the rest of us.