The share of Americans living on more than $50-a-day dropped from 58% in 2001 to just 56% in Pew Research Center's latest report [6]. The dubious disctinction of this depressing reality is 'exceptional' America is the only developed nation to see its standard of living drop... a narrative not even Greece suffered (but Iran did!!)
[7]
[8]The retreat in the U.S.'s share puts the world's largest economy in the same league as Iran, the pariah state with whom it's trying to broker a nuclear deal, and a handful of other countries: Nicaragua, the Philippines, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Bulgaria and Serbia.
Even Greece saw its share more than double to 23 percent in 2011 (although this improvement will almost certainly be less impressive if the data stretched out to more recent years, given the continued contractions in Greece's economy).
So what happened?
The report says: "The lack of movement up the income ladder in the U.S. is the result of two recessions over the period of 2001 to 2011 —the first in 2001 and the second from 2007 to 2009. The median annual household income in the U.S. fell from $53,646 in 2001 to $50,054 in 2011."
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