2026年4月6日 / 美国东部时间下午4:30 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻（CBS News）
作者：艾米·皮奇（Aimee Picchi）
艾米·皮奇是CBS财经频道（CBS MoneyWatch）副常务编辑，负责商业和个人财经报道。她此前曾在彭博新闻社工作，并为《今日美国》《消费者报告》等全国性新闻媒体撰稿。
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艾米·皮奇
根据无党派智库美国企业研究所（AEI）的研究，美国中产阶级正在萎缩，但原因并非更多美国人陷入贫困。相反，近几十年来的收入增长让更多家庭跻身中上层阶级行列。
研究显示，约31%的美国家庭收入足以被归入中上层阶级，这一比例自1979年以来增长了约两倍，使其成为美国最大的经济群体。与此同时，美国“核心”和“低层”中产阶级群体的占比在此期间有所下降，美国企业研究所发现，这主要是因为这些收入阶层中的更多家庭实现了经济跃升。
这一研究结果凸显了美国经济的更广泛转变：随着更多家庭收入向上流动，消费者需求正转向高端商品和服务。所谓的“K型经济”——即高收入消费者支出增加，而低收入家庭缩减开支——已成为后新冠疫情时期经济的标志性特征。
该报告的合著者、美国企业研究所高级研究员斯科特·温希普在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时表示：“从穷人到富人，全体美国人的生活状况都在不断改善。如果说处于我们认为的固定中产阶级收入区间的人口减少了，那只是因为所有人都变得更富裕了。”
这项基于美国人口普查数据的分析，对1979年至2024年的家庭收入进行了研究，其中2024年为研究可获取的最新数据年份。
这一转变意味着，美国企业研究所定义的中上层阶级（即四口之家年收入在153864美元至461592美元之间的家庭）现已成为美国最大的收入群体。该智库发现，富裕家庭的占比目前约为美国家庭总数的3.7%，是1979年的12倍左右。
女性收入提升
温希普表示，双职工家庭数量增加，加上女性在职场取得进步，推动了过去几十年的收入增长，让更多美国人得以从中产阶级跃升至更高收入阶层。
根据美国劳工统计局的数据，1970年约有11%的女性拥有大学学位。如今，约40%的美国女性拥有学士学位，这与更高的终身收入息息相关。
温希普说：“女性获得的更多机会是这一现象的重要原因。人们选择更多地工作、购买更多商品，而不是选择多生孩子或维持传统的单一养家模式——但那样的话，他们可用于购物的钱就会更少。”
仍感拮据
尽管有上述研究结果，但许多美国人称自己经济拮据，这似乎与研究结论相悖。在最近的哥伦比亚广播公司新闻民调中，大多数受访者表示，如今买房、找到好工作或养家糊口比前几代人更难。
温希普对这一看似矛盾的现象解释称，当被问及自身财务状况时，美国人往往会更积极正面，而不是泛泛地谈论美国经济。
“当你询问人们自己的家庭、个人财务状况时，会有非常多的人表示自己的日子过得相当不错，”他说。
尽管如此，住房、教育和医疗保健等关键必需品的成本涨幅远超通货膨胀，导致数百万家庭难以负担购房或支付子女大学学费。
温希普说：“人们往往会关注那三四件价格大幅上涨的大件商品，却没有意识到这只是人们消费支出的一部分，而很多其他商品的价格其实都在下降。”
换句话说，美国人的收入或许更高了，但这并不总能让他们感觉生活更宽裕，尤其是当他们认为一些传统的重要财务里程碑越来越难实现时。
编辑：阿兰·谢特（Alain Sherter）
The upper middle class is now the largest income group in the U.S., study finds
April 6, 2026 / 4:30 PM EDT / CBS News
By Aimee Picchi
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
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Aimee Picchi
The U.S. middle class is shrinking, but not because more Americans are poorer. Instead, more households are climbing into the echelons of the upper middle class due to income gains in recent decades, according to research from the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute.
About 31% of U.S. households earn enough to be considered upper middle class, a roughly threefold increase since 1979, making it the nation’s largest economic group, the research found. Meanwhile, the share of Americans in the “core” and “low” middle class segments has declined over that time, primarily because more households in those income groups have jumped ahead economically, AEI found.
The findings underscore a broader shift in the U.S. economy: As more households move up the income ladder, consumer demand is tilting toward higher-end goods and services. The so-called”K-shaped” economy— in which higher-income consumers are spending more while lower-income households pull back — has become a hallmark of the post-COVID economy.
“The whole distribution of Americans, from poor to rich, has done better over time. And to the extent that fewer people are within a fixed income range that we might think of as middle class, that’s just because everybody’s gotten richer over time,” Scott Winship, a co-author of the report and a senior fellow at AEI, told CBS News.
The analysis, based on U.S. Census data, analyzed family incomes between 1979 and 2024, with the last year in the study representing the most recent available data.
The shift means that the upper middle class — which AEI defines as households earning between $153,864 and $461,592 for a family of four — now constitutes the largest income group in the U.S. The share of rich households now makes up 3.7% of the nation’s households, or about 12 times higher than in 1979, the think tank found.
Higher women’s earnings
An increase in dual-earner families, combined with professional gains for women, has fueled the income gains of the past several decades, allowing more Americans to jump from the middle class into higher-earning income brackets, Winship said.
In 1970, about 11% of women had college degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Today, about 40% of American women have bachelor’s degrees, which is linked to higher lifetime earnings.
“The additional opportunities that women have are a big part of the story,” Winship said. “People have chosen to work more and afford more things, rather than, say, have more children or have a sort of traditional sole breadwinner, but then have less money to buy things.”
Feeling pinched
The research may seem puzzling given that many Americans say they’re stretched financially. In a recent CBS News poll, the majority of respondents said it’s harder today to buy a house, get a good job or raise a family than it was for previous generations.
Winship’s explanation for that seeming discrepancy is that Americans tend to be more positive when you ask about their own financial circumstances, rather than the U.S. economy at large.
“When you ask people about their own families, their own personal financial situation, you get much, much larger shares of people who say that they’re doing fairly well,” he said.
Still, the costs of some key essentials, such as housing, education and health care, have far outpaced inflation, leaving millions of households struggling to afford a home or fund a child’s college education.
“There’s a tendency to focus on the sort of three or four big-ticket items that have gotten a lot more expensive without realizing that that’s only part of what people spend their money on, and a lot of things have gotten cheaper over time,” Winship said.
In other words, Americans may be earning more, but that doesn’t always mean they feel better off, especially if they believe some key traditional financial milestones are getting harder to achieve.
Edited by Alain Sherter
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