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Sex and Race Matter in Middle Class Identity

The majority of American adults continues to identify as middle class, but sex and race are among the factors that shape that identity and what it means.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% of American Adults consider themselves to be in the middle class, basically unchanged from April of last year. But the number who describe themselves as upper middle class has risen from 16% to 21% in that same period. Only two percent (2%) say they are wealthy, while 16% feel they are poor, down from 20% in the previous survey. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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This survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on December 10-11, 2017 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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