Yahoo Finance has a story that contains 22 statistics to “prove” the American middle class is “radically shrinking.” Interestingly, some of these statistics don’t prove much of anything about the middle class even if  they do indicate something about America as a whole. The post does show that the wealthy have gotten wealthier but without more context (statistics to compare to from the past, rates from other nations, etc.), there are better statistics to use to make this argument. Some of the statistics are linked to the latest economic downturn such as a rising number of bankruptcies and a rising time for finding a job.

Some examples of weaker statistics:

-“36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.” How does this compare to previous rates? Perhaps the Americans of today don’t save like people in the past?

-“More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.” Service jobs are often low paying – but we don’t know much more from this statistic.

-“For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.” Sounds bad – but since we now have more people in the country, a percentage would be a much better measure.

-“Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.” This is a shot at Wall Street more than an explanation about the middle class.

Other statistics do back up his point (even though they would all benefit from more explanation):

-“66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.”

-“Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.”

-“The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.”

On the whole, this seems more an alarmist piece. There is evidence to back up his argument – but the evidence here is not presented well and needs a lot more context.