The New Economy: More Rich, More Poor, Less Middle Class

From the archive: first published September 12, 2011. This is a short editorial note from a time when the hollowing out of the American middle class was just starting to make headlines.

Back in 2011, even Procter & Gamble — a company whose entire growth story was built on household staples for the vast American middle class — was telling the Wall Street Journal that many of its former middle-market shoppers were trading down to cheaper goods.

That single sentence, buried in a Wall Street Journal report, captured a shift that would define the decade: the middle class wasn't just losing income, it was losing its role as the engine of consumer demand. Companies built on serving it had to rethink everything — premium products for the rich at one end, stripped-down value brands at the other, and a shrinking middle to sell to.

Fifteen years on, the debate has only sharpened. But this was the moment the pattern first became undeniable: more rich, more poor, and a lot less middle class in between.