Lost in the middle class

Washington Post asks people what it means to be middle class in the U.S. (link; paywall)

The following graphic illustrates one type of definition, purely based on income ranges.

For me, this chart is more taxing to read than it appears.

It can be read column by column. Each column represents a hypotheticial annual income for a family of four. People are asked whether they consider that family lower/working class, middle class or upper class. Be careful as the increments from column to column are not uniform.

Now, what's the question again? We're primarily interested in what incomes constitute middle class.

So, we should be looking at the deep green blocks that hang in the middle of each column. It's not easy to read the proportion of middle blocks in a stacked column chart.

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I tried separating out the three perceived income classes, using a small-multiples design.

One can more directly see what income ranges are most popularly perceived as being in each income class.

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The article also goes into alternative definitions of middle class, using more qualitative metrics, such as "able to pay all bills on time without worry". That's a whole other post.