Reason Writers Around Town: Samuel Staley on America's Newly Defined Middle Class
Writing as part of the NPR series "Living In The Middle," Reason Foundation Director of Urban and Land Use Policy Samuel Staley argues that fluidity and mobility are among the key factors in the debate over economic policy. As Staley writes:
The so-called middle class has been a target of politicians ever since it became a recognizable voting block. Unfortunately, the term is less and less meaningful for understanding the nation's political dynamics, particularly in a nation whose core values are grounded in an organic concept of economic opportunity rather than a static concept of security. As U.S. citizens go to the voting booths in November, the core political fight might not be over protecting the middle class but over which candidates are most likely to provide better opportunities for a newly defined middle class.