Census: Half of Americans Poor or Low Income; Confirms Notion US Middle Class Is Disappearing

The Slate website reports today (December 15, 2011) that new census data gives confirmation to the notion of a disappearing middle class in the United States: Nearly one in two Americans are now officially either low income or impoverished, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

The AP explains that 97.3 million Americans are "low income," which means earning at or just over the poverty line.

Added to the 49.1 million Americans living in poverty, that's 146.4 million, or about 48 percent of the U.S. population.

The "low income" cutoff for a family of four is $45,000, a number more and more middle-class Americans are dipping to -- and staying -- below.