Who Exactly Counts as Middle Class?

“Middle class is a value term, not an economic term. There’s no objective measure,” said Curtis Dubay, senior tax analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank.

The Pew poll showed that 53 percent of Americans called themselves middle class and another 19 percent identified themselves as lower-middle class. About 40 percent of people earning less than $20,000 still called themselves middle class, as did a third of people making more than $150,000.